CHAPTER NINE

Holding Mom’s violin in my lap, I sat on the trunk and stared at the bedroom mirror. Two faces stared back — my own, darkened by my somber countenance and evening’s fading light, and Kelly’s, wide-eyed and expectant.

After spending our Saturday taking pictures with Dad’s camera and failing to notice anything unusual, I hoped for a repeat performance of the mirror’s miracles, this time with a witness present.

Kelly, wearing loose-fitting jeans and a navy sweatshirt, fidgeted, first leaning on one hand, then on the other. “Are you sure everything’s the same?”

I rose from the trunk and scanned the room. “The desk lamp’s on, the curtains are closed, and my bed covers are pulled back.”

“It might be a long wait. I’d better put the coffee on.” She got up and peeked out the window. “Dad’ll be back soon with the new pics, and Clara should be here any minute.”

“Think we should let your father in on what’s going on?”

Kelly turned to me and waved both hands. “No way. Only you, me, and Clara. If my dad gets wind of this crazy stuff, he’ll go nuts.”

“Nuts? What do you mean?”

She paced in front of the mirror, making it appear that twin Kellys were marching in stride. “He loves spooky things, so he’d set up a media circus. He’s said a thousand times that he’d like to be on one of those reality TV shows.”

“Think he’ll look at the new batch of photos before he brings them home?”

She stopped and faced me. “Not likely. If anything, he’ll be looking through the sports magazines he probably bought. He likes to do that while he drives. Scares me to death.”

“I know what you mean. Like trying to jump over an open drawbridge in a limo.”

Kelly narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have to top my story, Nathan. I know you’ve been through scarier stuff than I have.”

“I wasn’t trying to top your story. I was just saying I know how you feel.”

She gave me a skeptical stare that burned for a moment before softening. “Okay. I’ll buy it. I should know by now that you’re not anything like my dad.”

“You mean he likes to top stories — ”

“Never mind.” She strode to the door and opened it just enough to squeeze through. “I’m gonna put the coffee on.” The door closed with a louder-than-usual click.

I stared at the knob. Apparently Kelly had a few hot buttons to avoid, especially anything related to her father.

Signing, I shifted my gaze back to the mirror. The reflection wasn’t going to perform on demand and prove that I’m not crazy. I had to stop dwelling on it. But what could I do while waiting for the new photos to arrive? Obviously there was no homework. I wouldn’t start classes at Kelly’s school until Monday.

I tucked Mom’s violin under my chin. If only Dad were here, then I would have someone who would listen to my troubles. Or Mom. She’d play something soft while I talked, closing her eyes and nodding. She’d drink in every word, then, with her eyes open and her bow at her side, she’d whisper poetic wisdom, coating me with comfort whether I understood her counsel or not.

I raised the bow to the strings and began playing “Brahms’ Lullaby,” holding some of the high notes a bit, just as Mom used to do when her strings sang me to sleep years ago.

Tears welled again, spilling over my lids and trickling down my cheeks, but I didn’t bother to brush them aside. I played on and on, closing my eyes and pretending to nestle in my own bed during those rare times between Mom’s world concert tours and Dad’s spy missions.

A vision of that bedroom came to mind. As the mental portrait of my younger self pretended to sleep, he peeked through a slit in his eyelids and watched Mom’s flawless strokes, an angel from heaven sitting in a rocking chair, playing for the King of kings, and the little boy had a front row seat.

I played the final note, stretching it out and softening my touch to make it fade, but when I lifted the bow, the song began again, more vibrant, more beautiful than ever. I opened my eyes. In the mirror, Mom sat in the old rocker in my bedroom back home, playing the lullaby. A five-year-old version of myself lay in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin.

A knock sounded at the bedroom door, then Kelly’s voice. “Nathan, what’s going on? I hear voices again.”

My throat tightened into a knot. I couldn’t move or speak.

She pushed the door open, then closed it quickly. When she saw the mirror, she gasped. “Nathan! It’s . . .” She ran to me and grabbed my arm. “What is it?”

I laid the violin on my mattress. “That’s my mom.” My voice rattled. “And that’s me in bed. This is exactly what I was thinking a minute ago, and it suddenly appeared.”

Just as the sweet music eased to a quiet hum, the door swung open again. Clara barged into the room, her purse in one hand and a laptop computer case in the other. “Nathan, your practice is really paying off. You sound — ” She stopped short, her mouth agape. “Oh, my heavens!”

In the mirror, Mom approached the foreground of the reflection, her eyes seeming to focus directly on me. She reached up and began pulling down a shade. “Good night, sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” The shade slowly covered the entire image and faded it to black. Seconds later, the mirror returned to normal, reflecting our pale faces.

Tony’s voice echoed in the hall. “Where is everybody?” He appeared at the door, his big eyes scanning the room. “Oh. Here you are.”

As Kelly turned toward him, her voice shook. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Got your prints.” He tossed a photo package onto the bed and crossed his arms. “You all look like you’ve seen a headless ghost.”

Kelly sprang to his side and pushed him out the door. “Nathan was playing a sad song on his violin. It made us all feel kind of blue, you know, with his parents dying and all.” Her voice faded down the hall. “Coffee’s ready. You want some?”

I scrambled for the package, tore it open, and dumped the photos, about twenty or so. As I arranged them on the bedspread, I glanced at Clara. “Take a look. Recognize anything in these pictures?”

She set the computer case down and walked to the bed, her voice trembling. “Nathan, what did I just see? Was that really your mother?”

“I’ll explain later, or at least I’ll try. Just look at these before Tony gets back.”

“Very well.” She withdrew a pair of glasses from her purse and peered at the first photo while I looked on. Within a dimly lit room, three laptop computers sat on a curved desk that abutted an equally curved wall. A Microsoft logo floated randomly across each screen. “No,” she said, pulling back, “that place is unfamiliar to me.”

I touched the second photo, even darker than the first. It showed a large room with a tall cylindrically shaped object at the center of the floor. “What do you make of this one?”

“Is that a telescope?”

“Maybe. It’s sort of shaped like one.”

Clara grasped my wrist. “Get me up to speed, Nathan. Where did these photos come from?”

“From Dad’s camera.”

While Clara sat on the bed, I gave her a rapid-fire update about recent events. I even played a few measures of Brahms Lullaby on Mom’s violin to demonstrate.

When I finished, Kelly breezed back into the room. “I got him interested in a rebroadcast of an old Lakers game.” She looked at the mirror. “Is it playing any more tricks?”

“No.” I gestured toward the bed. “The pictures are, though. I told Clara what’s going on.”

“Including the voices?”

Clara blinked. “What voices?”

Again I took a minute to give her a quick summary and a few examples, including the Taj Mahal and Buckingham Palace comments.

“And I heard more voices just before I walked in here,” Kelly said as she sat next to Clara. “I couldn’t catch it all. A man said, ‘The computers decode,’ then a woman said something about a telescope, but it wasn’t Clara.”

“So there’s a connection.” Clara picked up the second photo and handed it to Kelly. “Does that look like a telescope to you?”

Kelly squinted at the image. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“What else did the voices say?” Clara asked.

“I was out in the hall, so some of it came through the door kind of garbled.” She laid the picture back on the bed. “The voices were pretty loud, Nathan. You must’ve heard them.”

“I didn’t hear anything but Brahms.” I lifted the violin to my shoulder. “When it’s next to my ear, I can’t hear much else.” I played several quick notes, ending with a high C.

Kelly’s face turned ashen. Her lips parted as her jaw dropped open.

“Are you feeling sick?” Clara asked.

“No. I heard a voice again. Just now.” She looked at us imploringly. “Didn’t you hear it? It was a woman’s voice, loud and clear.”

I shook my head. “Not a word.”

Clara locked her hand with Kelly’s. “What did she say?”

Kelly’s face fell slack. Her eyes opened wide, and she spoke in an eerie monotone as if trying to mimic a ghostly voice echoing in her mind. “Hurry, Nathan, before it’s too late.”

“Play some more,” Clara said, pointing at the violin.

I laid the bow across the strings. “Brahms again?”

“Anything. Let’s see what happens.”

I restarted the lullaby, trying to play softly enough to hear the voices. Kelly closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she spoke softly. “I hear something. Quiet voices, like people whispering to each other.”

“Can you make out what they’re saying?” I asked.

She opened her eyes. “No. They’re too quiet.”

I switched to my part of the Vivaldi duet, increasing the volume slightly.

Kelly concentrated again, then shook her head. “Still just whispers.”

After trying several different compositions and getting the same responses from Kelly, I lowered the violin with an exasperated sigh. “Are you sure you’re hearing whispers?”

She set a fist on her hip. “As sure as you were when you saw that weird stuff in the mirror.”

I pointed the bow at her. “Touché. I deserved that one.”

Her lips thinned out. “Well, maybe we’re even now.”

I studied her countenance — combative with a hint of disappointment. I had no idea how to respond, so I held my tongue.

“How strange, Nathan,” Clara said. “A voice spoke to you by name.”

I spread out my hands. “But hurry and do what? What happens when it’s too late?”

Kelly nodded toward the photos. “Let’s look for more clues.”

We picked up and set down several photos, most of them showing buildings and people I didn’t recognize.

Clara snatched up the last photo. “Look, Nathan. Interfinity.”

“Interfinity?” I peered over her shoulder at a picture of Dad standing next to a man wearing a white laboratory smock. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a corporation that observes strange astronomical features. At first they were associated with alien hunters, looking for signs of life out in the great beyond, but later they moved into serious science, like figuring out all that stuff about dark matter and axions.”

Kelly scrunched her eyebrows. “What are axions?”

“I don’t know enough about them to explain.” Clara wiggled her fingers as if typing on a keyboard. “I just typed Solomon’s notes when he took a case for them. Someone had stolen Interfinity’s technology, so he had to get it back, some kind of device that creates what they called an Interfinity corridor. I have no idea what that is, but I do remember that they used a special kind of mirror.”

I pointed at her. “Another connection. A mirror.”

“And that’s probably why your father gave it to you for safekeeping.” Clara walked over to the wall mirror and stared at her reflection, but the tall gray-haired lady on the other side just stared back with the same skeptical aspect. “Obviously there is much more here than meets the eye.”

“So what do we do?” Kelly asked. “Go to Interfinity and see what’s up?”

“That’s one option, but I’m thinking we should go straight to the horse’s mouth.” As Clara stroked her chin, her glasses slid down her nose. “Nathan, you can access your father’s webmail account, can’t you? Perhaps we can find out more about his latest project.”

“Yeah. I think I remember his password, but I’ll need a computer.” I pointed at the computer case Clara had brought. “Is that for me?”

“Since yours is at the bottom of the river, I bought you a new one.” Clara retrieved the case from the floor and set it on my desk, her body blocking the lamp and casting a shadow across the carpet.

In the mirror, the light dimmed, and the walls darkened, but nothing strange appeared, though Clara’s shadow seemed denser than most, almost like it had substance.

Kelly’s eyes darted to the mirror and back. She had seen it, too, but when I opened my mouth to mention it, Tony’s voice knifed into the room.

“Anyone hungry?” He swept in with a mobile phone in hand. As soon as he entered, the lamp in the mirror cast a reddish glow over his reflection. Hunching over and wearing nothing but an animal skin, his image looked like a caveman carrying a slingshot. “It’s halftime, and my stomach’s begging for a liver and anchovy pizza. I could order an extra large if anyone’s got the munchies.”

I edged away from the mirror, hoping Tony’s eyes would follow me. “Liver and anchovies? You really put that on a pizza?”

“I guess your dad never fed you a real man’s food.” Tony flexed his bicep. “Stick with me, and you’ll have guns like mine in no time.” His reflected image grew long hair all over his body and looked like a chimpanzee showing off his muscles.

Kelly slid an arm around his and turned him toward the door. “Why don’t you go to the Pizza Ranch and get an extra large with half liver and anchovies and the other half with …” She raised her eyebrows at me.

“Uh … pepperoni?” I offered.

Kelly nodded. “Yeah. Pepperoni.”

“Pepperoni’s cool. It has protein.” Tony dug a set of keys out of his jeans pocket. “Anything else?”

Kelly patted him on the back. “Can you pick up some of those fruit drinks at Walmart? They’re Nathan’s favorite.”

I lifted my brow at her, but she shot me a keep-your-mouth-shut glare. I complied. This was no time to protest.

“But that’s the opposite direction from the Pizza Ranch,” Tony said. “I don’t have time to do both before the second half.”

Kelly pushed him toward the door. “I’ll record it for you, and we can all watch it together when you get back.”

Setting his feet, he eyed the photos on the bed. “So what’s up with the pictures? Any good shots?”

“They’re old ones that belonged to Nathan’s father.” She pushed harder and guided him out the door and down the hall, her voice fading. “You’d better get going. I heard Nathan’s stomach growling.”

As soon as the door closed, Clara’s shadow dimmed, and the reflection returned to normal.

I leaned a shoulder against the door. “That was close.”

“I know.” Clara laid a hand on her abdomen. “When I saw that chimpanzee, I strained so hard to keep from laughing, I think I reopened my hernia.”

I stepped away from the door and swept a foot along the carpet. “I don’t see any Clara guts anywhere.”

“Good one.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re getting your sense of humor back. Maybe spending time with Kelly is good for you.”

“Yeah.” Guilt squashed my momentary lightheartedness. How could I be happy so soon after my parents’ deaths? “Maybe so.”

Clara slid the photos together into a pile, careful to keep them in order. “By the way, I put a new phone in the laptop bag and a debit card for any immediate expenses, so make sure you find them and put them away.”

“I will. Thanks.”

She walked to the desk and turned the laptop on. “Better get started on your father’s email as soon as possible. Your parents’ funeral is on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday? Did the police find them?”

“An anonymous person sent a photograph of their bodies and said he would reveal their location by Monday. If that tip pans out, I want to be ready, assuming the funeral home can prepare the bodies quickly enough.”

I swallowed past a painful lump. “Do I have to go?”

She tapped on the keyboard. “Of course you have to go. You will be a pallbearer, and I was hoping you’d play something. Dr. Malenkov suggested that you and he should play the Vivaldi duet.”

“No.” I lowered my head, keeping her in view. “I couldn’t handle that.”

She gazed at me for a moment before nodding. “I understand. I’ll arrange for different music.”

“Thanks.”

She took my hand. “Do you want to be a pallbearer?”

I kept my head low. “I guess I can do that.”

Kelly barged in and leaned back on the door, slamming it shut. “That was close.”

“Exactly what I said.” I touched my stomach. “But I didn’t know I liked Walmart fruit drinks.”

Kelly flashed an injured expression. “I had to get him out of here, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t have to lie.”

She set her hands on her hips. “Get real, Nathan. Don’t tell me you never lie.”

Clara forked her fingers at us. “Both of you hush. This is no time for a spitting match.” She handed the stack of photos to Kelly. “If you two can’t work together, we’ll never figure this out.”

Kelly lowered her hands. “If he keeps looking down on me, we can’t work together.”

Clara pointed a finger that almost touched Kelly’s nose. “Listen, little lady, condescension isn’t a one-way street. Maybe you need to come down off your high horse and trust him.” Clara turned to me and shot a hot stare. “And that goes double for you, Mr. High and Mighty. You’d better learn to trust her.” She stalked to the door, jerked it open, and stormed out of the room.

As soon as her heavy footsteps faded, Kelly spun toward the exit and took a hard step toward it.

I held up a hand. “Wait.”

She halted and turned toward me, tears in her reddened eyes. “What?”

“I … uh …” I had no idea what to say, but I had to come up with something. Maybe I could follow what Dad always did when Mom got upset. Just ask questions. Get to the root of the anger. “Are you mad at me or your father?” I winced at my own words. It was a pretty dumb question.

“Both.” She tapped her socked foot on the floor with a fast beat and turned toward the mirror. “He’s a clueless buffoon. What’s your excuse?”

I looked at the mirror over her shoulder. A tear spilled from one of her eyes.

Pulling her lips in, Kelly swung her head to the side, avoiding my stare. Her foot continued its frantic tapping. “Don’t you have something to do besides stare at me? Like figuring out that password?”

“Not yet.” A strange sensation poured over my body, a tingle that radiated across my skin. In my reflected image, an almost imperceptible light bathed my face, microscopic particles that attached to my skin.

Although I stayed motionless, my reflected head shifted, leaving the aura of light behind. Somehow the Nathan in the mirror had detached and moved on his own, first laying his hands on the shoulders of Kelly’s reflection, then turning her around. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” my mirror image said. “You’re my sister now, and I’ll do anything to make sure you’re my friend, too.”

The real Kelly focused on the mirror. Her reflection wrapped her arms around my reflection and laid her head on his chest.

“I’m sorry for being such a jerk,” her reflection said. “We just need to get to know each other better.”

As the two reflections embraced, Kelly slowly turned and faced me. “Is …” She swallowed hard. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

I licked my lips. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

She slid her arms around my waist and laid her head against my chest. “Then say it. Say it like you mean it.”

Her trembling arms sent shivers up my back. I reached around and returned the embrace, keeping my touch gentle. I whispered into her ear. “You’re my sister now, and I’ll do anything to make sure you’re my friend, too.”

“And I’m sorry for being such a jerk.” She looked up at me. “We really do need to get to know each other better.”

I patted her lightly on the back. “Like Clara said, we need to trust each other.”

“Do you trust me?” Her teary eyes sparkled.

I nodded. “Yes, I trust you.”

She pulled away and lowered her head, silent for a few seconds before whispering, “I hope you’ll keep trusting me, no matter what.”

I glanced at the mirror. It had returned to normal, including Kelly’s sad profile as she kept her eyes averted. I reached for her hand and interlocked our thumbs. “Trust is a two-way street. As long as we trust each other, we’ll be fine.”

Now looking at me, she tightened her grip on my hand, a hint of a smile brightening her face. “I can live with that.”

I nodded at the mirror. “I don’t think I like my thoughts being projected on a theater screen.”

“Looks like my dad’s wish came true. We have a reality show right here in our house.” She let go of my hand and headed for the door. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To record the game like I promised, but if anything happens on The Nathan Show, I want to hear all about it.”