Backward Glass Read online

  Someone had come through the mirror.

  The enormity of it stayed with me the rest of that day and all through the weekend.

  On Sunday, as soon as everyone left for church, I slipped out, dusted myself off, slung my backpack onto my shoulder, and started hunting for an unobtrusive place to spend the morning. After some deliberation, I settled on the space between two of Brian’s across-the-street neighbors, both of whom were on vacation. An azalea bush shielded me from the street, but enough light got in that I was able to sit back and read some genealogy books Mr. Weston had recommended. I wasn’t satisfied with the story so far regarding the death of Clive Beckett in his teens during the first World War, and these books contained lists and diagrams with details about marriages, births, and deaths. Could Beckett have had a kid brother? He would have had to be a lot younger, but maybe it was possible.

  Around eleven-thirty I started paying attention to who was coming and going on the street so as not to miss when Brian and his family returned home. I knew he planned on washing his beat-up old Chevy Fleetmaster that afternoon, and I wanted to be on the scene to give him a hand.

  I kept a low profile when I saw Boyd Fenton coming down the street. It wasn’t that I was afraid of him, but I didn’t want him to have anything over me. I tried to go back to the genealogy charts, but a moment later, I looked up and saw him in conversation with a woman in a floral summer dress, maybe in her mid-twenties. She wore a pillbox hat with enough of her hair tucked under it that I couldn’t tell the color.

  I couldn’t make out everything they were saying, and as he answered her questions, Boyd kept pointing to the Tarkington house.

  The woman thanked him and moved on. I tried to get a better look at her. There was something familiar, like the feeling I’d had the week before when I went with Brian, Chuck, and a couple of their girls to see The Curse of Frankenstein. The guy playing the mad scientist was the same one who would one day play the creepy admiral in Star Wars, and I was the only person on the planet who knew.

  Fifteen minutes later, when the Maxwell family returned from their weekly religious topping-up, the woman was still on the street. I saw her approach Brian and his mother and sister as they got out of the “sloppy jalopy” as he called his car. He took the photograph that I had seen her showing to several other people, but shook his head and turned away. A little too fast, I thought. Grandma and Aunt Judy also looked at the picture, but their head shakes seemed more genuine.

  For half an hour more, the woman stayed, asking questions of all the church-returners, car-washers, and hedge-trimmers on the street. When she finally wandered off, I hadn’t turned a single page in my book. I was sure that if I could see the soles of her shoes, I’d find a few grains of flour on them.

  When Brian came out to wash his car, I cased the street for a while, then put my baseball cap on, brim low, and casually walked across to him.

  He laughed as he saw me. “You’ll never make a spy, hobo boy,” he said, tossing me a sponge.

  “Did she say who she was?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Kind of funny. Where’d you say that orphanage was you lit out of?”

  “Downtown.”

  “What street?”

  “I was only there a couple of months.”

  Brian took a long look, but then he shrugged and gave me small squirt of the hose. “Whatever you say. Hey, she said your name’s Kenny.”

  “Jimmy’s what my mom called me. My middle name is James.”

  “Get washing, James. But maybe wash from here in the shade. We don’t want the neighbors getting a good look at you.”

  Brian put his friends on alert, and a couple said they’d seen the woman as well. This made me more interesting, and by the time we all met that night in the baseball diamond to hang out, all the better hangouts being closed on a Sunday, Chuck had invented several stories to explain my identity. I was a Russian spy, Marilyn Monroe’s secret love child, a criminal mastermind, the runaway kid of a war criminal. He amused us trying to fit together a story that made every single one of those true.

  I smiled, but couldn’t keep from wondering what he would have said if he’d known the much stranger truth, that I was the son of his best friend, that just three years from now he’d be best man at Brian’s wedding, and two years later, he’d become my godfather.

  When we got back to Brian’s house, he told me to give him a few minutes to get some noise going in the house so there was no chance anyone would hear me sliding down the chute. “But don’t hang around long,” he said, eyeing the street, “unless you wanna get pinched.”

  I didn’t want to get pinched, but nor did I want to go back to the coal cellar. What was I doing here, waiting until someone gave my dad a concussion the way my grandmother said it happened? The appearance of this woman and whoever she was with made things serious all over again.

  Three fence hops brought me to the Tarkington house. I entered as quietly as I could and stood before the mirror. I pushed my hand inside and felt the downtime chill. If I took out that doorstop, I could possibly never go back. But at the same time, didn’t I know I was going back? I was going to meet Rose, wasn’t I? Luka was going further back.

  I knelt and touched the spoon. If Luka and I got further back, that surely meant that Anthony helped us again. Either that or it meant that I wasn’t about to take the doorstop out.

  Which would mean Luka couldn’t get back here.

  I groaned aloud in frustration.

  “What was that?” came a voice from upstairs.

  “I don’t know,” said a quieter voice, a woman’s.

  “Hello,” said the first voice. “Is there anyone there?”

  I didn’t move.

  “Hello,” said the man’s voice again. Then a little lower, “I’ll go check it out. Probably just some local kids. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Kenny?” said the woman’s voice. “Is that you?”

  Three

  Think fast, I told myself. They had come through the mirror. They could only have come from the past. If I went through …

  “Honey,” said the woman’s voice, “maybe I should go down. We don’t want a repeat performance of last time.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right up here if you need me.”

  “That’s fine. Kenny? I’m coming down to talk to you. It’s me—”

  If I had stayed just a moment longer, I would have heard her name, but by the time her foot creaked on the top step, I was already pushing my way into the mirror. I’ve always wondered what would have been different if I had just heard her name.

  I took the doorstop with me as I went. As desperate as I was to get out of there and close the mirror before anyone followed me, I paused in the Silverlands to make sure I wouldn’t be stepping out into a long fall or a watery grave. I couldn’t see anything, but when I stuck my hand through, I felt only air, and, crouching, I could touch the familiar wooden floor of the carriage house. I wrapped the string around my hand, wished for luck, and pushed the rest of the way out into a humid 1947 night.

  Assuring myself that no one was in the carriage house, I felt my way down the darkened stairs, and made my way to the front door, just in time to see a flashlight emerge from the mirror. Either they were able to get into the mirror without me or they had pushed in before I left. I wanted to run straight to the trees at the edge of the creek, either lose myself in there or run along the path that led to the bluffs. Manse Valley was wide. While they were searching, I could work my way back to the mirror.

  But no. It was dark. That would keep me safe enough. In the meantime, I had to know what was going on. I willed myself to hold still outside the carriage house door, pressed against the wall.

  “Kenny?” said the woman’s voice again. She had come through the mirror. So they both had access? “This is all going to be a little shocking to you, I think. Are you th
ere? We think you know a lot about what happened in the past that we don’t. We can help each other.”

  Then the man’s voice. “He’s not coming. Probably gone by now.”

  “The place down by the creek?”

  “Who knows? You must know it better than anyone.”

  The woman shrugged. “Ancient history. To him, it’s just a while ago.”

  Where had I heard that voice before? It was just on the edge of my brain, but catching it was like grabbing a fistful of water.

  The man’s voice: “Should we stay? Look around?”

  “I don’t think there’s any point. We couldn’t find John Wald. There’s too many places to hide. I wish he’d just talk to us.”

  “Too afraid he’s going to get knocked over the head.”

  “Don’t joke about that. We have to find out what happened. That poor little girl.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t joking. Let’s get back, then. We don’t even know for sure he went into the mirror. This could be the wildest of goose chases, taking us away from what’s important. I want to know what he was doing up there in 1957.”

  “What should we do about the mirror?”

  “Let’s just leave it.”

  “Okay. We’re lucky, aren’t we? That it owes me a trip forward and you a trip back?”

  “Lucky. Yeah, that’s what I’d call us.”

  And silence. It was tempting. I could call out to them before they left. Run if they tried to come after me. But had I heard they’d been hunting for Wald? That didn’t inspire confidence.

  I waited for a long time before going back into the carriage house. Eventually, boredom took over, and I wandered outside of the hedges that bounded the little property and took a look at the main house. Peggy had been missing for almost a month. Was her mother back home? Did her father even realize his daughter was gone?

  I shivered despite the humidity.

  It owes me a trip forward and you a trip back.

  So they were from two different times?

  It must have been after three in the morning when I went back into the carriage house and approached the mirror. Could they be waiting in the Silverlands? If they were, it was dark enough that they wouldn’t see my approach. Having left my backpack in the coal cellar in 1957, I didn’t have a flashlight to brandish as a club, so, feeling foolish, I took Anthony’s length of string and wrapped it around my hand, working it so the two spoons ended up on the outside, a makeshift and ridiculous set of brass knuckles.

  I edged around the side of the mirror. I’d stick my head in first, open my eyes as soon as I could, and try to see if anyone was in the Silverlands. If it was empty, I’d go right in and survey the abandoned house, but then I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Tumble out and hope that the element of surprise would get me past? Wait until they left? I was determined about one thing: I wasn’t letting myself get stuck one more mirror into the past. If they tried to grab me, I’d kick, bite, and scream, anything to get on my feet and running.

  I took a few deep breaths to get myself worked up, running through an internal pep talk all the while, then rounded on the mirror and stuck my face in.

  The mirror was cold.

  Cold, as in downtime, the past, heading to 1937. Not hot as it should have been if I was going up. That was wrong. I was out of my time. Whenever I went into the mirror, it should be uptime hot. I didn’t get to go further back. That was against the rules.

  Panicked, I pulled my face out and stumbled back. I tripped on a chair leg and fell onto the sofa where I had spent so many nights as Peggy’s secret guest the month before.

  I lay there in silence for a moment, thinking about this new development.

  The mirror was cold.

  This was impossible. Against the rules.

  I lay on the sofa and looked at the mirror for the longest time. It was supposed to take me home, or at least in that direction.

  I felt stupid wearing my improvised spoon knuckles, so I unwrapped the string and put Anthony’s doorstop on the floor beside me. It was all I had. I was reduced from my backpack full of boxes, flashlights, a map, and a dwindling supply of money, to two spoons and piece of string. If I went back to 1937, would I find that Lilly’s mirror also opened only backward for me? Would it open only backward for Peggy as well?

  I don’t know how long I lay there and looked at the stupid mirror, but I found no answers there. What was there to do in the end but go in? John Wald was missing in this time, maybe scared off by the interlopers or perhaps just steering clear while Peggy’s parents searched for her. I had no other friends in this time; my dad was seven.

  I got up and with a weary sigh pushed my hand into the mirror.

  Which was hot.

  I jerked back.

  What the hell was going on? For the first time all year, I was beginning to get angry at the mirror. How did it go all these months operating on the same rules, and then suddenly go back and forth. What had I done differently?

  Other than keep a doorstop in it for a month.

  Frowning, I bent down and picked up the string and spoons. For a month, these had kept a mirror open leading back from 1957 to 1947, Anthony’s passage. We had never done anything like that before, because it blocked access to the kids one jump further up and down. I held the doorstop up to the dim starlight leaking in the hayloft window, but it hadn’t changed in any way. Ordinary white household string, six feet of it, a tarnished spoon tied to each end.

  Holding the doorstop, I stretched out my hand to the mirror and pushed in.

  Cold.

  I put the doorstop down and tried again.

  Hot.

  Put it in my pocket.

  Hot. It had to be touching my skin to change the mirror to downtime. When I tried it again, I noticed something else. When I held it in my hand near the mirror, the whole thing, string and spoons alike, felt like it was vibrating, almost living. The feeling was subtle, not like the buzz of an object meeting itself from another time, more like the trembling of a pet mouse when you hold it in your hand. When I moved it away from the mirror, the feeling diminished. But it didn’t go away.

  “Oh, man,” I said aloud, and my voice startled me in the empty little house. I held the string and spoons in my hand. “I know what you are. You’re better than a doorstop. You’re a key.”

  Four

  Before I went through the mirror next, I stood and asked myself what Luka would do. I imagined it was her and not me who had run back to 1947 and discovered the rule of keys. I imagined she was the one chased by these mystery people from different times. Would she let herself be scared by them, stick around a couple of days watching the mirror, tell herself she was gathering information?

  No way.

  I broke off a chair leg, stuck the spoons and string into my pocket, and shoved my way into the mirror. The Silverlands were wider now, maybe as much as seven feet.

  On the 1957 end, I could see nothing but darkness. I stuck the tip of my finger out to make sure I wouldn’t emerge into water, then pushed the rest of the way through to an immediate shout and a grab from the side, but whoever was grabbing me got a vicious swipe from my chair leg. I tumbled out of the person’s grasp, kicked, and felt a satisfying jar as my foot made contact.

  There were shouts of “No, wait” and “Kenny, you don’t understand,” which I couldn’t argue with, but I wasn’t going to stop for people who chased me through time and grabbed before they talked.

  After all those hours, I must have had the element of surprise, because by the time one of them had the light on, I was already out of the living room and slamming the door. I threw a kitchen chair at them to confound pursuit and escaped to the backyard. At this point, I was good enough at fence-hopping and familiar enough with the neighborhood that getting out was as good as getting away. Just in case they followed, I took a long, roundabout
way back to Brian’s place.

  Back in the choking dark of the coal cellar, too tired to crack my brain against new mysteries and new rules, but pleased at my escape, I fell asleep.

  I went out late Monday and Tuesday, crouched down in a yard next to the Tarkington house, and held my string-and-spoons key, moving it closer and farther from the last place I had seen the mirror. The gentle half-alive buzz in my hands told me it was still there. As a bonus, I found myself growing more and more attuned to the vibrations of that key. By Wednesday morning, I could sit in the coal cellar, stretch my arm out, and use the thing to find the direction of the mirror.

  I felt more in control of events than I had all summer.

  Which I suppose should have been a warning.

  I hadn’t seen the mysterious couple again, though two of Brian’s friends reported talking to the woman. I knew that the house was enemy territory, but I needed answers. And just as they seemed to think that there were answers in this time because I was here, I figured my best source of information must be the past. Mr. Weston in the library had continued to be helpful, but he couldn’t find much. On the Beckett front, he found one family in the Manse Creek area in the nineteenth century, their only son was the Clive who died in the war. Since then, as the area grew, there were other births, deaths, and marriages of Becketts in the local churches, but not a single Clive.

  The other project I told him I was working on was the local legend of Prince Harming, and he managed to dig up a mention of the story in a small-press chapbook from just a couple of years before, but it didn’t tell me much I didn’t know. A Manse Valley bogeyman, probably made up in reaction to the stories of children disappearing or being knocked over the head. The author had been able to find people who remembered skipping to those rhymes as far back as 1908.

  As interesting as all this was, it wasn’t satisfying. Finding things out wasn’t the same as doing something.

  The mirror was in enemy territory. It was time to take it back.

  Five o’clock on Thursday morning, having packed for travel, I got up, skulked next door to the abandoned house, and climbed up to the roof of a shed, certain the strangers were upstairs. I wondered what could get adults out of their lives like this. Me, I was trapped. And I was a kid. What better things did I have to do than travel in time? But them? Didn’t they have jobs? What were they doing, out of their time, hiding in an abandoned house, hunting for answers from a kid who didn’t know any?