––––––––
Piper surveyed the mirror up and down as she sat on her bed after school. Granted, at first glance it looked like any ordinary, regular mirror, albeit a bit older and a bit more detailed. These were the kinds of mirrors that cost a fortune, the kinds that artists crafted by hand, not the generic types you could order in bulk at any local store. But apart from those features, there was nothing threatening or creepy about the mirror. At least not when it was bathed in daylight.
After last night, Piper realized that the best option–her only option–was to get rid of the thing. Take it back to the attic where it belonged. Bury it underneath century-old cobwebs and dust like the previous owners did, and hope nobody ever brought it back down again. Better yet, she should go find a hammer and smash it into a thousand pieces. But Piper already knew that she would do neither of those things. Because there was still the slight possibility that the person trapped in that mirror, in that other world, was her father. She couldn’t just abandon him. Not again.
“In any case,” Alison said thoughtfully, “we have to find out more about the mirror’s origins. Why it was in the attic in the first place. Who put it there. That sort of stuff.”
Alison was sitting on Piper’s bed, glancing nervously at the mirror every once in a while. It was obvious that it frightened her, perhaps even more than it frightened Piper. For Piper, the mirror still represented the possibility of being reunited with her father. For Alison, it was only a source of terror and despair. But Alison was too good of a friend to just brush Piper’s suspicions off and force her to put the mirror back in its original hiding spot in the dusty attic.
“All right,” Piper agreed as she dropped down next to Alison on the bed. “How are we going to do this? Where do we start?”
“I’ll go get the laptop,” Alison replied, sighing. Between the two of them, Alison was definitely the tech-savvy one. Since Piper spent more time being obsessed with antiques, ancient Victorian mansions, and cursed mirrors, she didn’t exactly spend a lot of time browsing the Web. Whenever they had a school assignment that consisted of doing stuff online, Alison was always the one who took the lead. Piper didn’t mind in the slightest. When, on the other hand, their assignments involved spending afternoons in dusty museums, it was Piper who sacrificed her spare time.
While Alison was walking down the stairs to the kitchen, Piper remained silent as she glanced at the mirror. It was only reflecting her own image now, but even so, something seemed off about it. Distorted, somehow.
No, Piper corrected herself, that mirror was wicked, even in broad daylight. And the world behind the mirror, the world in which her dad was possibly trapped, was just as evil. But that didn’t mean her father was evil as well. Or did it?
***
“What exactly are we looking for?” Alison asked Piper as they sat down at the kitchen table with some brownies and a couple of glasses of milk and stared at the blank computer screen.
The kitchen was a nice, sunny place. It was a lot bigger than Piper’s last kitchen had been, and the colors were vivid and bright, a refreshing change from the rather heavy and dark colors in the living room. From what her mom had told her, the kitchen was an add-on, since the stones of the walls outside clearly didn’t match those of the rest of the house.
The decor itself dated from a later time-period than the other furniture as well and reminded Piper of one of those cozy, comfortable kitchenettes sometimes found in cottages. The main color in the room was forest green, but there were hints of light green as well. The kitchen cabinets were made out of light wood and looked significantly less dark than the other wooden furniture in the house. Andrea had added some lovely curtains and cute frames, which gave the kitchen a nice and homey feel. Of all the places in the house, the kitchen was the place where Piper felt safest. She couldn’t explain exactly why; that was just the way she felt.
I could live here, Piper thought, not for the first time. I could live here and be happy. We wouldn’t have to move every time.
However, she knew it was useless. As soon as the rest of the house was in a state comparable to the one in the kitchen, Andrea would feel the undeniable urge to move again. And Piper would get dragged along to yet another work in progress, another unfinished old house with drafts, unexplainable sounds in the middle of the night, and more secrets than the diary of a rock star.
“We’re looking for anything related to this house,” Piper answered, taking a bite off her brownie. “Who lived here, when they lived here, how long they lived here, and if anything ever happened to them that was out of the ordinary.”
Alison bit her lower lip, a habit of hers when she was nervous. “Imagine that we could be spending our free afternoon sipping milkshakes at Luke’s Ice Parlor,” she said jokingly. Luke’s Ice Parlor was the local place-to-be for teenagers who had nothing to do on a spare afternoon. Teens went either there or to the arcade. The parlor was the place where Alison and Joey had gone on their first date. Piper could see from her friend’s facial expression that she was thinking about that.
“Don’t,” she told Alison, putting a hand on her lower arm. “Don’t torture yourself. We have a mystery to solve. A secret to unravel.”
“We’re a bit like the Scooby Doo gang, aren’t we?” Alison suggested with a smile.
“You can be Velma,” Piper generously said. “I’ll be Daphne. Tall and beautiful, but forever stupid and clumsy.”
“My glasses are the size of a car wheel,” Alison complained. “Why would I like that? Velma never had a boyfriend. Anyway,” she continued, “pour me some hot chocolate while I Google some things.”
Piper did as she was told with a smile. It was best to leave Alison alone when she was in hyper-search mode. She made some hot chocolate, poured a mug for both her friend and herself, and then sat back down at the kitchen table.
“This is odd,” Alison commented, narrowing her eyes as she regarded an article on the Internet.
“What?” Piper asked, immediately interested.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Alison said, her expression a mixture of different emotions. “But somebody died here. Somebody...killed herself here.”
“What?” Piper exclaimed, quickly glancing at the computer screen from behind Alison. There was an article from the local newspaper: LOCAL TEEN COMMITS SUICIDE.
“What does it say?” Piper demanded. Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe this was the answer they were looking for. Maybe it wasn’t her father haunting the mirror, but the teen girl who had died here.
“On Monday night, local teen Abigail Spencer committed suicide in her own home at around eight o’clock in the evening. Her parents are in shock. Although the young woman suffered from a severe trauma after she witnessed the sudden death of her younger cousin, who drowned in the family’s pool two years prior, and regularly went to visit a psychologist, there was no indication that she had any suicidal thoughts whatsoever. ‘Abigail wouldn’t commit suicide,’ her mother said during an interview, ‘she loved life. She loved her friends and family. She would not do this to us, or to herself.’ Yet the police have ruled out all mention of foul play and classify the case as a suicide, much to the dismay of Abigail Spencer’s family members.”
Alison stopped reading aloud and turned to look at Piper. “Do you think it’s her?”
“Possibly,” Piper replied. “All I know from my fair share of horror movies is that usually spirits who haunt a house either committed suicide or were murdered or something. It would make sense. They’re stuck somewhere in between, probably their own home or something.”
“The fact that we know this and don’t have to look all this stuff up on the Internet or in some obscure bookstore means that we watch way too many horror movies,” Alison commented dryly.
“Tell me about it. Does it say anything more? Like, are her parents still alive?”
“I’m not sure. Wait, here’s another article on the suicide. According to her best friend, Abigail Spencer portrayed no sign of suicidal thoughts whatsoever. However, Greta Meyers, Spencer’s friend, told the interviewers that Spencer showed other odd behavior the weeks prior to her death.”
“Odd behavior? Like what?” Piper asked.
Somehow, the house had grown to be more terrifying over the last couple of minutes. Now that she realized it could possibly be the not-so-happy ghost of a local girl inhabiting the haunted mirror, it seemed even more threatening to Piper. Back when she thought the ghost was her father, she thought things would work out. She’d missed him terribly and hoped he was coming back.
But if the ghost was the specter of Abigail Spencer, Piper wasn’t certain if the presence was benign to begin with. It sounded like Abigail’s suicide was suspicious at best. If she had actually suffered an even more traumatizing death, the ghost might be out for revenge. She had seen it happen over and over again in movies—malicious spirit after malicious spirit infested people’s homes and threatened their very lives.
The kitchen seemed less friendly, and all of a sudden she wasn’t too fond of the large fireplace or the massive stairs anymore. What if Abigail’s ghost was not tied to the mirror at all? What if the ghost was tied to the house itself? What if...
“Stop scaring yourself,” Alison ordered, as if she could read Piper’s thoughts.
When Piper stared at her blankly, Alison shrugged. “Your thoughts are like an open book to me. You look terrified. Listen, it’s just a girl who committed suicide. In any case, if she’s haunting the mirror, we should be able to banish her.”
“That didn’t work in Poltergeist,” Piper commented stubbornly.
“Of course it didn’t. In Poltergeist, they had to wait an entire movie before they started the banishing. Stupid, if you ask me. Besides, that house was built upon an Indian graveyard or something. You only have one dead person haunting you, not a bazillion.”
“Not funny,” Piper remarked. “Anyway, what else?”
“Well, apparently Abigail complained about...” Alison paused and turned pale.
“What did she complain about?” Piper urged.
“A mirror,” Alison replied. “Abigail complained about a mirror. She said it was...haunted. She said it showed her things that weren’t there and made her hear voices when there was nobody else at home.”
Piper froze. She felt her body paralyzing until she was no longer able to move.
“She what?” Piper asked eventually, swallowing the tension that had been building up in her throat for the last five minutes.
Alison didn’t bother to answer her question. Instead, she said, “I think it’s time we go talk to someone who knew this Abigail person and find some answers.”
***
“Are you sure this is the place?” Piper asked Alison after the long walk to the nursing home. The sign read “Sunny Rest”, which was just about as sarcastic and cynical as possible. Piper never really understood why they would give nursing homes bright and cheerful names anyway, especially if the only purpose was to go there to eventually wither and die. On top of that, “Sunny Rest” seemed about as far off as possible.
The building in front of them was small for a nursing home and although it looked cozy enough, there wasn’t a ray of sunlight in sight. The home was built on the north side of the road, meaning that it wouldn’t get sunlight, ever. Not even on the brightest possible day. And certainly not when the weather was like today: foggy, restless, and just about as depressed as Piper felt inside.
“Yes,” Alison replied, rolling her eyes. “I told you like a dozen times. Diane Spencer, Sunny Rest, 12 Mercury Road. It’s here. Now, are we going to go in or what?”
“Fine then,” Piper answered, although she felt a lot less confident about this than her friend did, obviously.
After they had learned about Abigail Spencer’s premature death, they had done a bit more research, leading them straight to the only living family member of Abigail, Diane Spencer, Abigail’s sister. Although Diane was now in a nursing home, they hoped she could still fill them in about what exactly happened to her sister. Alison thought it was a great idea, but Piper, as usual, was skeptical. She didn’t have the tendency to be excited about something until she had clear results. Alison was the one who always got excited for no reason in particular. It had also been Alison who’d encouraged Piper not to wait another day with their little investigation and to go visit Diane Spencer right away.
Piper wasn’t certain if this was a good idea. For starters, she didn’t want to upset the old lady, who must now be in her seventies. Second, she wasn’t sure how much more terrifying news she could handle in one day.
But now they were standing in front of the nursing home, Alison was the one with cold feet. “I can’t go on,” she told Piper.
“Why the heck not?” Piper asked.
“I don’t feel too good. I’ll just stay outside, okay?”
“Are you all right?” Piper shot her a concerned look, and put a hand on her back.
“I don’t want to go in there, that’s all. This place reminds me of my grandpa.”
Piper nodded. Alison’s grandpa has been in a nursing home, and he’d died about six months ago. “All right, you stay outside then,” she told Alison. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
With a sigh of defeat, because she didn’t really want to do this on her own, Piper rang the bell.
Alison slumped down on a nearby bench, wrapping her arms around herself.
Within a couple of minutes, Piper heard footsteps down the hallway and the door opened, revealing a friendly-looking woman in her fifties. The woman had short brown hair that she kept in a bun, a kind and generous smile, and gentle brown eyes. Everything about this woman screamed homey, comfortable, and caring.
Piper couldn’t help but smile back at the older woman.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked, giving her a grandmotherly smile.
“Yes,” Piper replied. “I’m looking for Diane Spencer. I’d like to talk to her.”
The woman blinked her eyes a couple of times, and looked at Piper as if she had seen a ghost. Then she recovered quickly and shot the teenaged girl the same caring smile as before.
“Certainly,” she replied. “It’s just that Ms. Spencer doesn’t get a lot of visitors. I’m sure she’ll be glad to have someone visit her. Come on in.”
Piper entered the nursing home. Although Sunny Rest looked anything but sunny on the outside, it certainly looked sunny on the inside. The walls were painted in bright, cheerful yellows, blues, and greens. There were flowers practically everywhere, causing the room to smell like a garden. On the walls, there were beautiful paintings portraying gorgeous landscapes.
“This way,” the older woman indicated, and walked Piper down a large hallway to a room at the end.
The hallway was decorated in the same lovely colors as the entrance hall.
For a nursing home, this place wasn’t too bad, Piper thought.
The room the nurse led her to, was spotless, but dark. The blinds were shut, and even when the nurse turned on the light, the room was still barely lit.
“Ms. Spencer likes the darkness,” the nurse explained matter-of-factly. “Ms. Spencer?” she asked then, the question directed at the elderly lady sitting in the back of the room.
Piper’s first thought was that Ms. Spencer looked remarkably good for her age. She was reading a book by the light of a reading lamp. Her hair was grey and thin, her glasses small, giving her the look of a retired schoolteacher. She wore ordinary clothing, but there was something about her mannerisms that gave away that she had been raised in a wealthy family, which was no surprise seeing as she’d lived in a Victorian mansion.
“Yes?” the old lady asked, looking at the nurse. She then took off her reading glasses and revealed two piercingly blue eyes. Her smile was gentle, but guarded. “What is it, Gina?” Ms. Spencer asked the nurse.
“You have a visitor,” the nurse said. “I’ll leave you alone now,” she told Piper on a quieter tone, giving her another encouraging smile. Then the nurse left and closed the door softly.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Spencer,” Piper said, walking toward the old lady.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Ms. Spencer replied, scanning Piper’s face for any form of recognition. She moved closer toward Piper, and it was only then that she realized Ms. Spencer was sitting in a wheelchair.
“We haven’t,” Piper replied. “I’m Piper Campbell.” She took a deep breath, and continued. “I live in your old house. The Victorian.” . “Ah,” Ms. Spencer said.
There were many nuances to that ah. On one hand, Ms. Spencer seemed happy to meet Piper, a resident of her former home. On the other hand, she was guarded and it was obvious, even to Piper’s untrained detective’s eye, that Ms. Spencer was a woman who kept countless secrets. Although she appeared friendly enough, there were more layers to this woman than one noticed at first.
“I...my mom and I are very interested in old houses,” Piper said, looking for any excuse not to have to tell the true reason of her visit. “That’s why I...we...were hoping you could tell us a bit about your house.”
“Not much to say about it,” Ms. Spencer replied, but her eyes told an entirely different story. “We bought the house from its previous owners about seventy years ago, give or take, and I lived in it until three years ago when I finally put it on the market. It was my parents’ home initially, but after their deaths, -I kept living in the house on my own. I only sold the place because I had to go to a nursing home, you see. And that place was much too large for one person to live in anyway.” She then shot Piper a quizzical look. “But somehow I don’t think that’s what you came to ask, now is it?”
Piper gasped. “Um, Ms. Spencer, I don’t know...”
“Don’t lie to me,” the older woman replied. “I’m way too old, too smart, and too wise not to see through your lies. You found it, didn’t you?”
When Piper didn’t reply, Ms. Spencer shook her head thoughtfully. There was an almost sad look in her eyes. “I hoped no one would ever find it,” she said softly. “I thought I had hidden it well enough. After my sister passed away, I brought the mirror to the attic and never touched it again. I was stupid enough to think the threat would’ve vanished by now, but I guess it didn’t.”
The old woman sighed. She had looked so peaceful at first, so tranquil, but now she seemed on the verge of crying. It took her a couple of moments to recover.
“I should’ve noticed when looking at you. You have that same haunted, disturbed look in your eyes that she had. The look people get when they see things that aren’t really there. Hallucinations, the psychiatrists over at Weaverley Asylum called it. Mismatched thoughts of a troubled mind. Guess what? They were wrong.”
Ms. Spencer moved her wheelchair to the other side of the room and grabbed a picture from her nightstand. She tossed the frame to Piper.
“That’s my sister,” Ms. Spencer told the young teenager. “Abigail. She was a beauty, wasn’t she?”
“Indeed,” Piper replied, unsure of what to say or do.
All she could do was stare at Abigail’s picture. The old lady wasn’t mistaken; the look in Abigail’s eyes was definitely one of horror, mistrust, and fear. Piper hadn’t realized she had the same distant, haunted look in her own eyes. But despite their haunted look, Abigail’s eyes were beautiful. They were piercingly blue. The kind of eyes that peered straight into the soul.
“Abby was a troubled girl,” Ms. Spencer explained, her voice growing sadder with every word she spoke. “She suffered from seizures when she was younger. Used to go into these trances. They could last for hours, and quite frankly, they terrified me. She would just sit there, motionless, unable to talk, see, or do anything but breathe. They scared our mother, too. Took her to all the best doctors in the entire country, but none of them knew exactly how to cure Abby.”
The older woman took a deep breath, shot another sad look at her sister’s portrait in Piper’s hands, and continued her story.
“The seizures lessened when Abby got older, and we were all quite relieved. Then we moved into that Victorian. A new start, my father said, away from the depression and his failed business, away from the past that was holding us back. We believed him and I think he believed it as well, but we never got the fresh start we longed for. You see, on the third week we were there, Abby and I were playing in the attic when we discovered this old antique mirror covered in cobwebs and filth. I wouldn’t have any of it, didn’t like that damned thing from the start. But Abby was enamored with it. She begged our mother to put it up in her room. I don’t think Mother was too fond of the idea either, but she couldn’t say no to Abby when she was finally passionate about something. Abby hadn’t been that passionate about anything since the day our cousin died.”
With a look of regret, Ms. Spencer looked straight at Piper. “She should have said no,” the old woman said in a harsh tone. “I should have grabbed that thing and smashed it into a thousand pieces. Sometimes you just have to follow your gut, and when that tells you something is off, you better make sure you believe it.”
Piper nodded. It was all she could do. Her gut hadn’t told her anything bad about the mirror initially, but now it was telling her that the object was cursed or haunted, and that she had to get rid of it somehow. But her heart—her heart was still telling her that it might be the thing that could reunite her with her father.
“Anyway,” Ms. Spencer continued, “soon afterwards, Abby began hearing things and seeing things that weren’t really there. It began innocently enough at first. She heard Mother screaming from downstairs, but Mother wasn’t even home. Then it got...more violent. Initially, we thought this was just another form of the seizures, only more malevolent and aggressive. I stopped believing that when I heard it too.”
Ms. Spencer’s look was deadly serious when she turned to Piper. “Whatever you think you are seeing or experiencing, it’s as real as you and me. It can harm you, girl, it can harm you deeply. That mirror...it’s cursed.”
“What happened to Abigail?” Piper asked, her voice failing her. It wasn’t more than a whisper, but Ms. Spencer had heard.
“She died,” the old woman replied. From the look on her face, it was obvious that it pained her to say that, even now. “They ruled it suicide. But it wasn’t. She might have been depressed, but Abby would never end her own life. It was that damn mirror that did it. It threatened her continuously; it harassed her, even wounded her occasionally. And eventually, it was that mirror that killed her.”
After a pause, Ms. Spencer continued. “You see, the mirror preys on those who are guilty, or at least those whom the mirror deems guilty. When we were younger, an accident happened in our previous home involving our cousin. Abby and Shea were outside at the time, while I was getting snacks in the kitchen. Shea drowned in our pool. Meanwhile, Abby just stood there...well, not just stood. She had a seizure, probably from the shock. I was too late to save Shea because I had been inside. I think Abby could never forgive herself for that. She was never the same afterwards. That’s why I think the mirror preyed on her. She thought she was guilty of letting our cousin drown.”
Ms. Spencer waved her hand dismissively. “But maybe these are just the fantasies of an old woman. All I know is that, although she was troubled, Abby only began experiencing these hallucinations after we discovered that mirror.”
“You think it’s really the mirror’s doing?” Piper asked. She didn’t want to seem unconvinced, because she did believe what the older woman was telling her, but she wasn’t entirely certain of it either.
“You don’t have to believe me,” Ms. Spencer said. “But tell me, have you or have you not seen strange things ever since you found that mirror?”
Piper remained silent, but her silence was all the answer Ms. Spencer needed. The older woman nodded knowingly, and then looked at Piper with a mixture of pity and regret.
“I wish, for your sake as well as my own, that I’d had the courage to smash that mirror into a thousand pieces when I could have. But I didn’t. I’m afraid, dear, that it’s now up to you to destroy it. Before it destroys you as it destroyed my sister.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Piper countered. “I don’t know what I should be...”
As she began talking, it dawned on her. She did feel guilty. She felt guilty because she couldn’t ease her father’s pain all those years ago. Because she wasn’t able to save him. She felt guilty for not telling the doctors what she knew, that terrible secret that had been nagging at her for five years. That was her guilt.
Ms. Spencer nodded. “I think we all feel guilty about something. I wish I could help you more, but I can’t. All I know is that the mirror is bad news. I don’t know how to destroy it, but I think smashing it will probably help.”
“Do you have any idea what it really is?” Piper asked. “Like, is it a portal, a...”
The old woman raised her hand, and Piper stopped talking. “I don’t know,” Ms. Spencer replied, “and I don’t want to know, and I reckon you shouldn’t either. Whatever the mirror is, it’s not good. You have to destroy it. Listen to me,” she said then, on an even more serious tone, “I made the mistake of letting it remain in the house. I know now I was wrong. Whatever you think the mirror is showing you, whatever chances it gives you to make things right, don’t believe it. It’s pure evil. You have to destroy it. No matter what.”
Piper nodded. The fury with which the old woman spoke was enough to convince even the most stubborn non-believer.
“And now,” Ms. Spencer said, “I’m sorry but I would like you to leave. This is too much for my old heart and bones.” She looked Piper straight in the eye. The young girl was surprised at how intelligent and strong this woman seemed, even though old age had made her more fragile. She still looked like she could take on an army. “Good luck,” Ms. Spencer wished her with obvious sincerity. “You’re going to need it.”
***
“Do you think she was telling the truth?” Alison asked after Piper had briefed her on what she and Ms. Spencer had talked about.
“Of course,” Piper replied. “Why wouldn’t she? She looked sincere enough to me.”
“I don’t know,” Alison answered, looking thoughtful. “I think she believed she was telling the truth, but from what I gather her sister was a real nutcase. Might as well be that Abby really did kill herself.”
“Come on, Al,” Piper countered, “you don’t really believe that.”
“Hmph,” Alison replied. “I just think the idea of the mirror killing her might be far-fetched. I mean, the girl did have seizures and she was probably pretty traumatized by watching her cousin die. Let alone the guilt she might have felt for not being able to save her...but anyway, now at least we do have an explanation as to why the mirror might be doing this to you.”
“I want to visit Abby’s grave,” Piper said suddenly.
She had been thinking about this ever since they left the nursing home, but it was only now that she dared to voice her opinion. Alison looked at her as if she had grown two heads.
“Really? You want to visit the grave of the girl who killed herself in your own house? The girl who just might be haunting you?” Alison shook her head in disbelief. “Why the heck would you do that?”
“Because I want to,” Piper answered. “Let’s not argue, okay? Let’s just do this.”
“Fine,” Alison replied. “We’re near the cemetery anyway. But I swear to God, this better not take long. I have an appointment with the hairdresser in an hour.”
“It won’t,” Piper assured her as they walked toward the cemetery.
The cemetery was small and tranquil. It wasn’t an obscure, terrifying place like some of those old Victorian cemeteries with large angel statues and mausoleums. They still buried people here. In fact, even Piper’s father had been buried here. Although Piper had visited his grave on numerous occasions before—sometimes if she was in need of advice, or when she felt she wanted to talk to someone—her heart still ached whenever she thought about her father, who was now nothing more than a lifeless corpse buried in mud, half-eaten by larvae.
It was something she shouldn’t think about. Her psychologist had said that as well, afterward, but Piper couldn’t stop thinking about it. She couldn’t stop thinking about what pain her father must have been in, and how she couldn’t do anything to help him. Now he was nothing but a skeleton.
The graveyard was completely abandoned, but Piper preferred it that way. She scanned various tombs, one older than the one before, until she encountered the one she was looking for. Abigail Spencer’s tombstone was remarkable. It stood out from the others. It was situated underneath a large willow tree, so it was cast completely in shade. There was a small statue of an angel placed directly above the tombstone. The statue wasn’t threatening. It was rather peaceful, as if there was a guardian angel looking after Abigail, even now that she was long gone.
The tombstone had originally been white, and although dust and decay had worked its way on it, it still looked innocent and child-like. A withered bouquet of flowers was positioned on top of the stone, and Piper wondered how many times Ms. Spencer succeeded in visiting her long-lost sister now that she was at a nursing home.
Sighing, Piper bent to her knees and caressed the tombstone. Unsurprisingly, it felt just like an ordinary tombstone. Still, there was something about being here, so close to someone who’d had to live through the same things she did, that made her relate to Abigail Spencer in a way she’d thought unimaginable.
Abigail had been obsessed with the mirror as well. And all her obsession had led to was an untimely death in what some called a suicide. Perhaps it wasn’t a suicide after all. Possibly it had been the mirror that had done this to her.
“Don’t...” she heard a faint voice say.
Piper bolted up and looked around her, but there was nobody there. Alison was gone, and Piper was all alone in the cemetery.
Where the heck is Alison? Piper thought. This is getting creepy.
“Don’t...” the voice said again, this time a little more urgent. “Don’t trust her.”
Piper scanned the area around her, but still there was nobody in sight. Not a living soul. Just the dead. Did that mean...?
“Abigail?” Piper asked. “Abigail, is that you?”
When nobody replied, Piper tried again. “Don’t trust who?”
The voice remained quiet, as if it had said all it wanted to say and now returned to the eternal slumber of the dead.
Piper’s mind was full of questions. Had the detached voice belonged to Abigail? And if so, who did she mean Piper couldn’t trust? Diane Spencer, perhaps? Had Diane had something to do with Abigail’s death, and was she now covering it up by inventing the mirror story? But that would make no sense. Abby’s death was ruled a suicide, and that seemed like cover-up enough. Why would her sister invent something else?
Besides, Diane Spencer sounded genuine. Maybe the voice was talking about somebody else. Maybe it belonged to another spirit, trying to warn her about Abigail’s evil ways. But that would be an awful lot of spirits, especially for someone who didn’t even believe in the supernatural before any of this started.
Nevertheless, Piper’d clearly heard something or someone whisper: Don’t trust her. Now the question remained—who was she not to trust?
“Piper? What are you doing here?” a familiar voice asked, startling Piper.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise her to find Joey standing not too far from her, looking at her with a mixture of relief and surprise. He clearly didn’t expect to see her there. Piper, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised at all. Lately Joey seemed to show up just about everywhere, even when she didn’t expect in the slightest for him to be there.
“Just visiting,” she replied awkwardly, unable to come up with any convincing lie. “What are you doing here?”
She glanced around, expecting to see Alison somewhere, but she was nowhere in sight. Oddly enough, she had just been a couple of steps behind Piper earlier. Perhaps she had run off for her scheduled appointment with the hairdresser.
Piper wasn’t sure whether or not she was glad to see Joey. Part of her was happy not to be alone in a cemetery, but part of her didn’t trust him. Last time he turned up, she’d been chased by some shadowy force. Now he was here, at a graveyard of all places.
“Just visiting,” Joey answered with a half grin. “Family?” he asked, gesturing in the direction of Abigail’s tombstone.
“No. Someone who lived in my house before I did,” Piper explained. When she looked at him and noticed his puzzled expression, she realized how stupid that sounded.
“Listen, Joey, I really have to go,” Piper said urgently. “See you at school.” She didn’t want to spend another second here, and definitely not with him. She had no idea what his role in all of this was, or if he even had one, but she wasn’t about to wait and find out.
“Wait a second,” Joey said, putting out a hand to stop her. “Let me escort you out of this place.”
Piper couldn’t describe the feeling that overcame her when he stood like that, his hand on her upper arm, his eyes genuine and sincere, yet demanding as well. She was scared. Scared of Joey. No, not of Joey...but scared of something. She felt an electric vibe racing through her body at the exact spot where Joey had touched her. That was what scared her. Not the fact that Joey was touching her, but the emotions she felt when he did. When exactly had she started to feel something more for Joey than just friendship?
“I can handle it on my own,” she replied curtly, broke free from his grasp and practically ran out of the graveyard.
When she was near the entrance, she turned around and saw Joey looking at her, bewildered. She didn’t care. Not in the slightest. Then she felt a pang of regret and realized that maybe she did care after all.
***
“So, glad to see you’re still around,” Piper remarked angrily at Alison as she saw her standing near one of the rosebushes surrounding the cemetery.
“Sorry, P.,” Alison apologized. “I saw Joey and...I couldn’t....”
Piper’s anger lessened immediately and she pulled Alison into a half hug. “I’m sorry, Al,” she said. “Of course, I understand.” She let go of her friend and held her at arm’s length, studying her face. “Don’t let him get to you,” she advised. “He’s not worth it. He’s an idiot for ditching you in the first place.”
“I know,” Alison said, but her heart wasn’t in it.
The two of them started walking in the direction of Piper’s home.
Surprisingly, the weather had improved since they visited Sunny Rest. It was nice for the time of year, though it was already near dinnertime and sunset would be in less than an hour. The rosebushes surrounding the cemetery were in full bloom, although it was long past summer. The great oaks had begun to lose their leaves, but the flowers and smaller bushes remained intact. They would probably last until the first snow began to fall, covering the entire world in a blanket of white purity.
There were many people still outside, but most of them were letting their dogs out or walking hurriedly to wherever they should’ve been by now.
The two friends talked about what hairdo Alison should choose for her appointment–short or go for extensions, keep her blond natural color or add some highlights–and all the other regular, down-to-earth stuff teenagers occupied themselves with, when suddenly a girl appeared out of nowhere and practically ran into Alison.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to apologize?” Piper shouted at the girl.
The girl, who had long black hair and pale skin, turned around and stared blankly at Piper. It was the Goth girl from the bathroom at school. She had looked at Piper oddly then, much as she was looking at her now. Still wearing the same excessive amount of bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, she looked like she’d walked straight out of a rehearsal for the newest music video for Marilyn Manson or Black Sabbath.
“I didn’t even come near you,” the girl replied eventually. There was something about the way the girl regarded Piper that made her feel very uncomfortable.
The girl may have looked like a person walking on the borderline between dead and alive, but her piercingly blue eyes placed her most definitely in the alive and kicking category. Upon closer investigation, Piper realized the girl had a few piercings as well. One in her lower arm, three in her ears, and one in her lower lip.
Piper didn’t usually hang with the Goth piercing-loving crowd, and she didn’t intend to. She didn’t like to argue with people, either. However, she couldn’t just let things slide without standing up for Alison, because heaven forbid that Alison would actually stand up for herself. She was much too nice to raise her voice to anyone, even if said person behaved like a total idiot.
“My friend,” Piper said. “You nearly bumped into my friend.”
“Oh,” the Goth girl said, narrowing her eyes when she looked at Alison. “I see.” She then seemed to think of something else to say, but changed her mind. “I’m sorry,” she eventually blurted out, but she kept her gaze fixed on Piper rather than on Alison. Although she’d said she was sorry, everything about her screamed that she wasn’t.
“Good,” Piper replied. She wasn’t about to press the issue. As she was about to turn back around and walk away, the Goth girl’s voice stopped her.
“My name is Felicia,” the Goth girl said. “What’s yours?”
Although Piper wasn’t in the mood to play games right now, especially not with a person she disliked as much as this girl, she replied, “I’m Piper, and this is Alison.”
She then looked at her best friend, as if urging her to say something as well, but Alison remained stubbornly mute. She was like that at times. If she wasn’t going to talk, then no army in the world could get her to change her mind.
“Nice to meet you,” Felicia replied, and her gaze rested on Alison for a moment too long for Piper’s taste. There was something about this girl that was peculiar.
Felicia looked at Piper. For a moment, her gaze just lingered on her. “It’s not your fault,” the strange girl said unexpectedly. “Stop feeling guilty.”
“What...?” Piper began, but she stopped midsentence.
“Come on, P., let’s go, she scares me,” Alison said, pulling Piper’s sleeve and looking at Felicia with a mixture of fear and dread.
Piper knew exactly how Alison felt for the strange girl who probably worshipped Satan in her spare time and was now quickly coming closer to Piper.
“Stop feeling guilty,” Felicia repeated, now standing only inches away from the other girl. “Or it will destroy you. She will destroy you.”
“You’re crazy,” Piper said and grabbed Alison’s arm, intending to get as far away from this insane person as possible.
“I can sense her!” Felicia practically shouted. “I can sense her, and she’s not happy. She wants revenge. You better watch out. Please!”
For the second time today, Piper ran away from someone because she felt threatened. The only difference was that this time, she didn’t look back.