He lost that fight. He seemed to make a decision, striding toward me.
“Wasn’t me!” I called out. “The bird nudged the mirror!”
He slowed.
Sorry Lefty, selling you out.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said, raising my hands. “Look.”
He didn’t look like he could relax at all, but he stopped, holding his hook back like he’d use it to strike the mirror any second.
How had he found his way back to this world? How had he been cast out?
“I’m pretty sure I’d lose if we fought,” I said. “You look like the type that fought his way back.”
He didn’t move a muscle, but I could almost imagine he’d relaxed a fraction.
“I’ve been there,” I said. “Down there.”
And the tension increased, returning me to square one.
Familiarity wasn’t a good thing. Stupid of me. If he’d fought his way up, he’d probably carved through more than his share of weaker people who’d been in his way, to get stronger.
At my feet, Lefty hopped back through the mirror. I slowly bent down to pick him up.
“Alright,” I said. “I’m-”
He screamed. Rage, anger, the sort of roar that summoned up all the fear and prey instinct of one’s target and made them freeze, certain they were going to die. The sort of horror that made a guy standing a quarter-mile away pause in momentary terror.
But I wasn’t so caught up in those feelings. I’d discarded the worst parts of my fear instinct.
He wasn’t attacking, and that was indicative of something.
All the same, I scrambled back to get away from him, stepping deeper into the reflection, ironically moving myself closer to the spot he occupied in the real room.
When we’d moved into the house, Rose and I had catalogued the bookshelves, figuring out what was on each.
I knew where I was going.
Problem was, it was up on the second floor.
“Lefty,” I whispered, turning my body to hide what I was doing before reaching into my chest to grab the bird, “Nudge the mirror, tilt it up, just a bit toward the ceiling.”
I could already hear running footsteps and shouts.
I didn’t wait or watch to see if Lefty would obey.
I continued to back up, continuing to pretend to be afraid.
My back touched the ladder that led up to the second floor. I scrambled to climb it.
There. The book I needed. Rose hadn’t moved it, or she’d kept the same filing system as Grandmother.
I head the door open as I grabbed the book. I hurried to tuck it into the space between my rear end and the waist of my pants, then pulled my sweatshirt down over it.
“Shut up!” Rose ordered her minion.
“Can’t cross the circle,” the bogeyman said. “Wanted to warn you.”
“Fine, good. But next time? Anything he does with the mirror? Anything suspicious? Fling something at it.”
“Hmm.”
“Sounding a little more Conquesty there, Rose,” I commented.
“Not the time, Blake!” Rose shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“He just started screaming!” I said.
“You moved the mirror?” she asked.
“Trust me,” I said, improvising, “I did not want to move the mirror like that! I definitely didn’t want to offend Fish-hook there.”
“If I move it, will I destroy you?” she asked.
“No, but-”
She spun the mirror around, flipping the facing so it was back in the original direction.
I was jerked back into the light, mirror still in the circle.
Coins very nearly spilled from my sweatshirt pockets as I collapsed on the ground. I used my hands to stop them.
I didn’t move, afraid any further action would reveal the book or cause noise with the spare change.
Rose was doing something at the mirror. “You want to protect your friends?”
“Of course,” I said.
“This isn’t the way to do it. Do you have any clue what’s going on out there?”
“A small clue.”
“Very small, Blake. We’ve had two creatures try to get into the house in the last twelve hours. We can’t raise enough protections to block everything out, so we’ve resorted to novice-level alarm runes, sleeping in shifts, and being very worried. My dead man’s switch is one measure, but they can still take it away from me if I’m not careful.”
“Release me, I’ll help,” I said, my voice strained.
Which made me wonder – where was Lefty?
“Help by not distracting me from keeping those four alive, all right? You’re a big problem, more than you understand, but you’re not even in the top three issues we’ve got right now.”
I remained silent.
She was looking at me and the mirror.
“Fuck,” she said. “I really want to know how you did that. But the house is under siege, and given the pattern- why am I even talking about this with you? Stay put for one minute. I’ll put you in a different damn mirror and bring you with me.”
I glared at her as she strode from the room.
My focus shifted as my gaze fell on the twine that encircled the mirror, binding it upright, so it couldn’t flip around any further.
The book was one I’d glanced over before leaving the house, in my efforts to get a sense of the way this world worked. One of the first books I’d noticed on setting foot in the library.
Sympathetic Magics.
I found the chapter I needed.
Sympathy is a branch of the practice that deals with commonalities, heavily tied to enchantment. Expert sympaths can form a connection between a doll and a person, and inflict harm on the individual by harming the doll.
I sorted through the cards, laying them out in as complete an order as I could manage. Spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts. Ace, two through ten, jack, queen, king.
This would cost me, as escape routes went.
Lefty flew up to my hand. I deposited him on my left shoulder.
“Right shoulder is and will always be Evan’s spot,” I commented. “You’re sitting this one out.”
I reached into my chest, through thickets of branches and twigs, and gripped one bird that wasn’t fast enough in escaping my hand. Twigs broke as I pulled it free.
I pressed it into the deck.
It wasn’t a rune drawn on each card, but I didn’t have anything to write with.
It took me a minute to find the next bird. I was acutely aware of Rose’s promise to return shortly.
As an Other, I didn’t have the ability to practice. I held no sway over the spirit realm. There was no pact or compact between me and them, not anymore.
I had my own spirits though. It was worse than giving up my own blood, because I was pretty sure that power lost by giving up blood would be replenished in time.
I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t pay for this somehow.
But I was damned if I’d sit still, and let yet another person dictate how I should live my life.
I’d be damned thrice over if cool people like Ty, Tiff, Alexis and Evan would pay for the mistakes of others.
I fished out another bird, and pressed it into the deck.
I felt tight inside, a little less like I could fake being alive.
This wouldn’t be a trick I could repeat without regaining power somehow. I’d need to eat, or feed my bogeyman nature.
I draw connections through like, three times over,” I said, reading from the book. Then the part I had to improvise.