Through the Mirrah Read online

  Through the Mirrah

  by K.C.OTENTI

  THROUGH THE MIRRAH

  Copyright © 2019 by K.C.Otenti

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Cover design by Dan Von Oss at Covermint

  Book Formatting by Derek Murphy at Creativindie

  First Edition: August 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  May you always see what your heart desires.

  Chapter One

  With her head in her hand, Aideen walked across a floor, tacky with spilled beer and whiskey. Jimmy handed her an ice pack as she sat down at the bar in front of a half-finished bourbon. She propped her elbow on the cracked varnish and pressed the ice pack to her head.

  “I can’t believe he’d hit a girl,” she slurred, but not enough to obscure her faint Boston accent.

  “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be gettin’ into fights,” Jimmy growled in an accent as thick as the black fur on his arms. “Much less startin’ ‘em.”

  “It’s not my fault.” Aideen peered up at him without lifting her head. “Bar fights are attracted to me.”

  Jimmy took her glass.

  “You don’t think all your drinkin’ has anythin’ to do with it?”

  “I keep this bar in business.” She sat up straight to puff out her chest. Her head swam, and she sank back into the ice pack. “The last owner always said so.”

  “You won’t if you keep gettin’ into fights.”

  “But Jimmy, I’m your prizefighter.” She flexed her arm and wobbled on the stool.

  Jimmy chuckled, then cleared his throat. Aideen had never seen him so amused.

  “Nobody wants to come drinkin’ at a place where the nightly entertainment is you gettin’ your ass kicked.”

  What did he know? He’d only bought the bar seven or eight months ago. Aideen’s been a regular much longer than that. This was her second home.

  “Seems full. A typical Friday night.”

  “That’s ‘cos you’re so drunk, you’re seein’ double.” Jimmy skirted the bar sticking out from the back wall like Cape Cod. He flung his arm around Aideen’s shoulders and steered her through the round tables scattered across the floor like the Islands.

  “You gotta go.” He shoved her toward the back door.

  “I’m sorry, Jimmy. You know I don’t mean to get in trouble.”

  Jimmy opened the door and glared at her.

  “I promise I’ll do better. I don’t want to hurt your business, Jimmy. Just let me finish my drink, and I promise I’ll go.”

  Jimmy sneered as he steered her into the dark alley.

  “I don’t wanna see your sorry face around here no more tonight.”

  “But I didn’t finish my drink.”

  “Take this and go.” Jimmy held out a nip bottle.

  Aideen looked at the bottle, then at Jimmy. His features softened. That didn’t ease Aideen’s mind, though. Her ex had a beagle that would gaze at him innocently, then look away as if trying to divert his attention. Her ex knew from that look the dog had gotten into trouble.

  That’s what Jimmy’s expression now reminded Aideen of. What kind of trouble was he trying to distract her from? One more nip wouldn’t do her any harm. Maybe he felt bad for kicking her out before she got to finish her drink inside? Taking the nip, she thanked him. His expression hardened.

  We wouldn’t want anyone to know ol’ Jimmy was a softy, right?

  “Ice pack.” Jimmy kept his hand outstretched.

  Aideen slapped the ice pack into his hand.

  “Go home and take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Know that you are alone. And remember that, whatever happens, you brought this on yourself.”

  Jimmy went back inside, letting the door slam behind him.

  “Screw you, too, Jimmy.” She wasn’t even sure what he meant by all that, but it was rude to have said it. “What does he know?”

  Aideen looked down at the tiny bottle. The label had weird, loopy scrawls across a picture of a bird-creature with empty eyes and a bald, wrinkled face. Aideen shuddered. Some foreign brand, although she thought she’d seen them all. She drank the nip and tossed the bottle aside before looking at the door one last time. Jimmy would have poured her bourbon down the drain as soon as he got back to the bar, so there was no point in sneaking back in. That drink was long gone.

  “I guess I’ve had enough, anyway.”

  Besides, Jimmy was pretty pissed at her right now. She’d let him cool off a bit before she returned.

  Tomorrow is a new day.

  Aideen slowly staggered home. She paused now and then to consider the architecture of the old Victorian houses, long since converted into condos. Forget the Painted Ladies. To Aideen, there was no sight more stunning than these row houses. Each had a different color scheme: subdued, earthy tones on this one, cotton candy pinks on the next . . .

  Aideen stopped and swayed in front of her favorite: an azure with white trim, and plum door and shutters. The slate-gray mansard roof and rusticated ground level gave it a bit of class. The wrought iron fencing and railing provided the intricate detail from the turn of the century. Well, the previous century.

  She may have been biased, though. The paint scheme had been her idea. She’d also been the one to score the reclaimed wrought iron (so they didn’t have to settle for steel). It made the home more authentic. She would love to see more detail on the transom over the front door, but the owner wouldn’t listen to her now. Not since they broke up.

  Sure, Aideen had made some mistakes. But had she really screwed up so much that he was willing to cut ties with the love of his life? Wasn’t she the love of his life? She sure felt he was hers. At first, anyway. She tried to remember the last time she felt head-over-heels for him. Or anyone, for that matter. She couldn’t.

  Can’t change the past. I just hope that someday, he’ll talk to me again.

  WHEN SHE REACHED HER little, gray Cape with the picket fence around the front yard, she thanked her guardian angel (or whoever) she’d forgotten to shut the gate behind her this morning. As she studied the simple latch, its pieces danced and swam until they were turned around like shuffled puzzle pieces, waiting for someone to turn them right-side up. She blinked and pushed through the gate.

  The tangle of weeds serving as a garden along the front path greeted her. A lone tiger lily, which would have burned orange against the overgrown greenery in the daylight, stood defiant among its dead sisters. How did watering and weeding always seem to slip Aideen’s mind?

  “Fight on.” She raised a fist to the flower. It nodded at Aideen.

  Idiot. Flowers can’t nod.

  A breeze or a small animal crawling through the undergrowth could have jostled the flower. She considered throwing something, but what? She had her keys, but she needed those to get inside. And her phone cost a fortune, so forget that. She staggered up the cracked concrete steps to her flaking front door. One of these days, she’d paint that.

  Inside, she stumbled to the coat closet under the stairs and pulled open the louvered door. She rummaged through the coats hanging inside, reaching into an inner pocket of her favorite pea coat to pull out one of her emergency bottles of bourbon.

  “Nothing wrong
with a nightcap.”

  Twisting off the top, Aideen took a swig from the bottle before she turned and lurched into the living room. She didn’t bother turning on the light; she used the illumination filtering in from the hallway.

  Even in the semi-dark, the black and white motif dominated. She hadn’t meant for the room to seem so stark, of course; she was going for a modern style but never finished decorating. The onyx of the bookshelves and credenza, and the dark fabrics on the chairs and sofa marked voids among the shadow-tinted whites of the floor and walls.

  In the mood for Party Rock Anthem, she made her way to the old RCA stereo sitting on the credenza. She hit the power button and waited for the display to light up. Nothing.

  What the hell is wrong with this thing?

  She spun the unit to the side, revealing its frayed power cord, wound up and twist-tied out of the way.

  Who needs you, anyhow? She turned, tripped over something she couldn’t see, and flopped onto the plush sofa cushions.

  The bottle rose to her lips with more grace than she had shown falling to the sofa. The clock on the wall chimed, and she chugged from the bottle through all twelve tones. Liquor sloshed between her ears, but a thirst inside of her insisted she needed more. It dared her to overflow.

  “Do you double dare me?” Her murmur perforated the quiet, filling the room.

  Her eyes wandered to the pictures lining the mantel over the fireplace. The memories from the photographs were so faded they could have been from a whole different life.

  Coworkers, friends, and her closest loved ones had lost touch over the past year or two. They no longer called, even to ask how she was.

  To be fair, she had stopped answering. They only complained about her drinking and said needed help. As if she had a problem.

  Upending the bottle, she drained the last drops down her throat. She wiggled the bottle, then peered in through its mouth, searching for hidden liquor in its depths.

  I guess I do have a drinking problem: I’m all out.

  There was more in the kitchen, and upstairs, but she didn’t trust her balance anymore. She stared into the mirror above the mantel, considering her options.

  Her reflection stole her attention as a flush heated her face and neck. Her temperature rose as shame burned in her gut and rage burned near her heart. The weight of the bourbon in her stomach threatened to make an appearance, too.

  Was it wrong that her reflection made her ill? Perhaps, but she pushed the thought aside before she could think too much about it.

  In her rare, confident (and sober) moments, she knew she turned heads. If anyone saw her in this state, however, they’d be turning their heads away.

  A messy bun had lost the battle to contain her long, wavy tresses; strands dangled or stuck up at odd angles. Her heavy lids obscured her eyes and traces of the makeup she had applied that morning mottled her face. All the flaws that stood out so clearly wavered, blurred, and regenerated as a dark presence. The grim and foreboding illusion raised goosebumps on Aideen’s arms.

  Full of self-loathing, she couldn’t stop herself from crying. She hurled the empty bottle at her reflection, shattering the mirror. As the glass of the mirror fell away, her sobbing caught in her throat. Tears still tracing courses down her cheeks, she stood, swaying.

  After two tentative steps, she lost her balance and fell, grabbing for anything that would prevent a face-plant on the hearth. Her hands clenched onto a shelf of the closest bookcase, nails scraping the wood. She hoisted herself back up and waited for her head to stop reeling. When she let go of the shelf, her fingers left tracks in the light frosting of dust.

  She stared at her grandfather’s mirror. He had checked his hair and tie in it before work every morning until he retired. Good thing he doesn’t need it anymore.

  The falling glass revealed another scene, as if a photograph had been hiding behind the mirror. The crumbling stone walls and open hallway framed by portions of ionic columns was a scene out of ancient history. Thin wisps of clouds floated across the bright blue sky. The sparse grass grew mostly near the walls.

  Must be a popular place. But what is it doing behind my mirror?

  Reaching out a trembling hand, her brain insisted she would touch the surface of the broken mirror. But her hand continued until her arm was outstretched. She gasped and waggled her fingers. The air appeared to ripple, disturbed by her touch.

  “What the . . . ?”

  She dragged a chair closer to the fireplace, pausing every time she lost her balance. Grasping the mantel again, she hauled herself up onto the chair and leaned close to the mirror to get a better look.

  Her brain warned her she would be squishing her nose against the mirror at any second. She leaned further forward, knocking over a couple of the picture frames. She leaned far enough to lose her balance, and began to topple, headfirst, through the mirror.

  Chapter Two

  Aideen fell face-first into the packed dirt. She turned her head and blinked at the mid-morning sun.

  What just happened? Brushing her hands on her pants, she stood and stared.

  “Not exactly Looking-Glass House, is it? Then again, I’m not exactly Alice.”

  Not only was she no longer in her house, but she wasn’t anywhere near Boston. The eight-foot-tall walls surrounding her were constructed of . . .

  Is that travertine? Ancient Romans used travertine. But those columns . . . She pivoted slowly to face the Ionic columns, which she could now see were topped with a portico. That’s Greek. Where the hell am I?

  The portico’s triangular pediment displayed a bas-relief of one person stabbing another person. The weapon didn’t look like any kind of knife Aideen had ever seen.

  She headed toward the space below the portico to inspect it closer, but her bourbon caught up with her. Stumbling, she fell to her knees and heaved as the liquor retraced its steps, stinging her throat on its way out. She spat and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Crawling around the puddle and between the columns, she searched for something that would explain how she appeared here. Nothing stood out as unusual—for a mixed-heritage atrium, anyway.

  She continued to the far wall and leaned on it as she stood. Keeping one hand against the cool limestone, she walked around the perimeter of the atrium. She pretended to appreciate the texture, but she really wanted to keep herself from falling over.

  “Trapped in a Roman and Greek atrium in a painting.” What other explanation was there for the image on the back of her mirror? “What is this, Charmed?”

  Surveying the atrium, she hoped to see a window back to her living room. Too bad she didn’t have Phoebe’s Smart Spell to help her find a way out of there.

  As she made her way along the wall, her breathing shallowed and her heart picked up its pace.

  Am I stuck here?

  Her hand fell to her side and she teetered when the stone disappeared. She regained her balance and peered down the short hall she remembered from the mirror-painting. She sighed.

  “It may not be the way home, but it’s a way out. I’ll take it, for now.” She laid her hand on the wall and moved down the hall.

  Aideen reached the end and shielded her eyes from the sun with an arm. It was an odd thing to do, exiting a roofless structure; she’d been warmed by the sunlight ever since she arrived.

  Why is the sun suddenly so bright?

  Then she remembered how clouds worked.

  “What brings you here?”

  Aideen jumped, lost her balance, and fell back against the doorway.

  “Shit. Don’t scare me like that.”

  A scrawny, leathered man dressed in tattered rags squinted at her. For a moment, Aideen swore she recognized those eyes, but they couldn’t be . . . This man—and this place—was a stranger. Her thoughts sputtered as they drowned in bourbon.

  Well, whatever bourbon is left.

  “Are you drunk?” he asked.

  “I had a few drinks before I went home last night.”
Aideen gazed at the sky, where the sun crawled behind a fluff of clouds. An inscription over the doorway, in weird, loopy script, caught her eye. Another flash of recognition. “Of course, last night was like, just now. Before I got here. Maybe I had more than I realized.”

  “Here, eat this.” Rag Man held out a spiky, purple potato.

  “What is it?”

  “My last gojoos. It’ll take the edge off the alcohol.”

  “Go-Juice is what my dad used to call his beer.”

  “This is better than beer.” He twisted the gojoos. Its juicy green pulp dripped down his hands as he offered her one half.

  Aideen took the fruit and held it to her nose. She smiled.

  “Anise and orange. Daddy always smelled like that.” She bit into the flesh. “This is wicked good.” She wiped her chin on the sleeve of her t-shirt before finishing her half of the fruit. As she stuck a sticky finger in her mouth to lick off the sweet juice, she noticed a tall, dark figure striding toward them.

  “Who’s that?”

  Rag Man followed Aideen’s gaze and cringed.

  “Run. You can’t let him catch you.”

  Aideen, confused, made no effort to move.

  “He will throw you in prison if you don’t run NOW!” Rag Man yanked her away from the wall and shoved her in the opposite direction.

  Aideen watched while the figure’s features became clearer as he got closer. His Stetson-style hat sat low on his brow and his black trench coat dusted the tops of his combat-style boots.

  Rag Man jumped between the Dark Man and Aideen.

  “You don’t want her. She hasn’t done anything.”

  “Yet,” the Dark Man growled.

  “We don’t even know if she’s viable yet.”

  “She must be, or she wouldn’t be here.”

  Rag Man stepped toward the Dark Man, as menacing as a skinny, homeless guy could be.

  “If she is, what makes you think you can stop her?”

  “If this is all the backup she gets, I think I’ll manage.”