Through the Mirrah Read online

  “Hey, out of curiosity,” she turned to Imuhn. “Why have I still been in withdrawal? Wouldn’t that have been fixed when you healed me?”

  “Do you know how much energy that would have taken?” Imuhn asked. “To heal the extent of that damage would have drained me. I healed you more than enough to survive.”

  “Do you want a gojoos?” Sterling asked Aideen. “I have some in the fridge.”

  She shook her head.

  “Later. I want to take care of this now.” She recited the incantation. Nothing happened.

  “What did I do wrong? The mirror at Jay Ridge opened as soon as I read the inscription.” Well, the second time.

  “Is your heart’s true desire to go home?” Imuhn asked.

  Not anymore. Aideen gazed at Sterling and shook her head.

  “Allow me.” Imuhn looked into the mirror and repeated the incantation.

  The mirror dissolved, and a portal gaped between Sterling’s bedroom and Aideen’s living room.

  “Once I’m through the portal in my own world,” Aideen said to Imuhn. “Our deal is complete, and I owe you nothing more, correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “And there’s no fine print, no clauses demanding further action?”

  “No, I pride myself on straightforward deals. In exchange for destroying the necklace and leaving D’Nal Harrim, I gave you health. Nothing else is required or owed.”

  “Excellent. It was nice doing business with you, Imuhn. Sterling, I’ll see you soon.” Aideen flashed a wry smile when Imuhn cocked his head.

  She turned back to the mirror, sighed, and stepped into the portal, neglecting to consider the portal would spit her out at the same spot she had entered. As it was, she was unprepared for the fall from her mantel.

  AIDEEN LAY AMID THE BROKEN glass she had left behind when she first fell into D’Nal Harrim. Aideen looked at the empty mirror frame. The portal had vanished.

  Her palm caught a piece of glass as she pushed herself up off the floor. She pulled the shard out before switching on the table lamp and consulting the wall clock.

  “Two thirty? What day? It was midnight when I left—”

  She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and wiped the screen, trying to read the date through the scratches. Today was Saturday, the day she had left. It had been two and a half days in D’Nal Harrim, but here, it had been only two and a half hours. That was impossible, right?

  Yes, like traveling through a mirror into another world is impossible.

  Aideen smiled and jogged up the stairs. She stood in front of the mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door to begin the incantation. Then she noticed what she was wearing: a torn, bloody, dirty Jay Ridge guard uniform. She took a whiff of herself and instantly regretted it.

  Shower and change. Then I’ll go back.

  Once she was clean and clothed, she faced herself in the mirror once more, pictured Sterling, and recited the incantation.

  Nothing.

  She tried again, enunciating each word so the mirror could hear her.

  Still nothing.

  “Come on. I need to get back through.” She smacked her palm against the mirror, sending pain shooting up her arm. She’d already forgotten the cut on her palm.

  Can you hear me, Sterling? . . . Nothing.

  She pulled out the first aid kit she kept in the closet and bandaged her hand before returning to her living room. She frowned at the shards seeded in the carpet.

  “What if this was the only mirror that would let me through?” Aideen shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Others have gone through their own mirrors.”

  But what if each person is only allowed one?

  For kicks, Aideen recited the incantation at the empty frame, but it was like talking to a wall. She growled her frustration and paced her living room, avoiding the glass.

  She wanted to get back to Sterling—needed to get back. With Jimmy back in D’Nal Harrim, who knows what could be happening over there? Plus, with her newfound knowledge of how time passes between the two worlds, she felt the added pressure of passing time.

  She stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath. Freaking out wouldn’t help. She looked at the shattered glass on her carpet and frowned.

  “I could at least clean up while I figure out what to do next.”

  Aideen went to the hall closet to grab her vacuum cleaner. As she opened the door, she looked up to the shelf above where her coats hung, at a large box labeled “Shay’s Stuff.” The memory of the baseball she’d found in D’Nal Harrim flitted into her mind. The one Roger Clemens had signed. Her dad had owned one just like it.

  Not sure what she was expecting to find, Aideen carried the box from the closet shelf into the living room. She placed it on the table and perched on the couch, considering the cardboard moving box her mother had given her. As a housewarming gift, she supposed.

  It had been almost nine years since they’d last seen each other. Aideen hadn’t expected her, having never even given her the new address. Grandad must have told her. Her mother arrived at her doorstep, shoved the box into her hands, and walked away. Aideen never opened the box; it would have been too painful.

  She slowly pulled open the interlocked flaps. The faint aroma of anise and orange—Gojoos!—lingered on the box’s contents. She lifted its treasures, one by one, and placed them on the coffee table next to the box.

  His baseball mitt she remembered well from their catch sessions in the backyard. A handful of photos of her and her dad, some of which she didn’t remember anyone taking. She held one up, looking at her tiny, infant self—a few weeks old—sleeping in her dad’s arms.

  He looked terrible. His red, puffy eyes and disheveled hair told of someone who had suffered a great loss. Yet he held his only daughter in his arms and Mother was presumably the photographer. Aideen shivered as she tossed the photos onto the table, then turned back to the box.

  “Aha!”

  She pulled an acrylic cube out of the box. Her father had kept his Roger-Clemens-signed baseball in it, but it was now empty.

  Just because it’s empty doesn’t mean that was his ball in D’Nal Harrim.

  Judging from her mother’s stories, he had likely pawned the ball to buy more booze. She hated thinking about her dad that way, but it explained the missing memorabilia.

  She set the cube aside and lifted a small, fuzzy blanket out of the box. Caressing it evoked a comforting familiarity. She ran it through her hands, looking for a marking or tag that would tell her where the blanket came from or why her father would have kept it. Her fingertips brushed against embroidery and she turned the blanket over, gasping.

  There was a word—a name—in D’Nalese embroidered into a corner of the blanket.

  Aideen’s name.

  She traced the letters with one finger, questions racing through her head. Why would Dad have a baby blanket for me from D’Nal Harrim? Why had he said nothing about it?

  The empty display cube alone wasn’t conclusive evidence that Dad had been to D’Nal Harrim, but the blanket was at least circumstantial, wasn’t it?

  Aideen scolded herself. She had learned the legal-speak from the cop shows she watched, but it sounded pretentious when she used it.

  But Aideen held proof, a link between her father—and herself—and D’Nal Harrim. What did it mean? There was no one to ask. Even if people had been to the other world, how would she know? She couldn’t go around asking them.

  She could ask her mother. If Dad had been to another world, he must have told her. But she hadn’t spoken to her mother in years. What would she think if Aideen called her out of the blue to ask if Dad used to travel through portals?

  If Mother didn’t know about it, Aideen would sound insane. That’s assuming she would even be open to listening to Aideen in the first place.

  There was always Sterling, if Aideen ever figured out how to get back.

  Pulling her phone from her pocket, she checked the time. She’d been home
for an hour, meaning she’d been away from D’Nal Harrim for twenty-eight. Was Sterling still waiting by his mirror, or had he given up? Why wasn’t the incantation working? According to Imuhn, her heart’s desire should be to return. How could it not be? She needed to return to Sterling.

  She tossed her phone onto the couch cushion beside her and leaned back.

  How did it work the first time? She never said the incantation. She hadn’t even known it existed. There’s something more than the incantation at work. But what? The Ostrich? D’Nalians put a lot of faith—and power—in that bird.

  She peered into the box again. There was one last item that looked like a handmade storybook. The title was in D’Nalese: The Immortal One. Its cover featured a man stabbing another man with some kind of statue. It reminded Aideen of the bas relief she saw when she first arrived in D’Nal Harrim. An envelope poked out from between the pages. Aideen slid it out and flipped it over.

  On the front, in her mother’s handwriting, it read, ‘For Aideen. Keep this with you when you travel.’ She turned the envelope over and saw someone had torn it open. She peered inside to find it empty.

  Aideen rummaged through the items from the box, shaking the blanket and feeling around the inside of the mitt. She overturned the box and shook it. Nothing.

  What had been inside the envelope? And why was something from her mother mixed in with Dad’s stuff?

  There was only one way to find out. If she called, would her mother even speak to her? She looked at the clock again and was surprised at how little time had passed.

  Not if I call at 3:30 a.m. She paced the room. What to do until a more reasonable hour? Sit here and wait?

  She tried the incantation at the bathroom mirror again, in case it needed time to recharge or something. (You never knew; Sometimes there were weird rules about magic.)

  It didn’t work.

  Aideen returned to the living room and replaced her father’s things in the box, leaving out the blanket, book, and envelope. Her mother should be able to explain the envelope. Maybe Sterling could explain the others.

  Curious, she flipped through the pages of the book, then returned to the first page to read it. The Immortal One was just a man . . . who was over two hundred years old.

  The man’s youngest child was proclaimed the Prophesied One at birth. Due to dangers from the Trappers and Turkeys, the man took the child to another world. He returned months later to find the rest of his family dead. In his grief, he became an Alk. When pursued by Trappers, he returned to the other world. D’Nalians thought he was dead.

  One hundred ninety-two years later, war between the Refuse and the Trappers broke out in D’Nal Harrim. The Ostrich sent word to the man it was time to fulfill the prophecy—the Prophesied One needed to lead the war. But the Prophesied One, having been in the other world where time passed differently, was still only a child, and the man returned alone.

  D’Nalians, amazed he was still alive, called him the Immortal One. He fought in the war, which the Refuse won. The Refuse questioned the prophecy, but the Ostrich told them there were worse times to come. The Prophesied One would return and save their world from a great darkness. D’Nalians hailed the Immortal One.

  Aideen thought about her own childhood. She couldn’t be the Prophesied One. She’d remember her father traveling between worlds. Her dad had given no clues, no reason to believe he was anything but a native Earthling. Besides, she had no siblings, so she wasn’t the youngest. And her mother was still alive.

  It isn’t me.

  She remembered what Sterling said about Gideon being in the running for Prophesied One. Did he know his father was the Immortal One? Did he remember travels between the worlds or stories of his family in a faraway place?

  But if it wasn’t her . . . Why did her dad have this stuff?

  She placed the book on top of the blanket before returning the box to its shelf in the closet. She returned to the book, wanting to read it again for hidden meanings, to study the drawings as if they’d tell her some secret. Like how to get back to D’Nal Harrim. But she’d drive herself crazy thinking about it.

  “There’s gotta be something else I can do.”

  She had plenty of good alcohol stashed around the house. A blackout would kill enough time. She shook her head, dismissing the idea. Coby? Just as bad an idea. She had no evidence for him she’d changed, so he’d be unlikely to help her, even if he heard her out.

  She was out of ideas, unless . . .

  Designing comforted her, and she could get lost in it for hours. She pulled out her drafting paper. What should she design? Another new floor plan for the house? Her thoughts flashed back to Sterling. She’d design a new Compass Tower for him. Or the Brown Ostrich. She conjured an image of the Bo, what it might have looked like before it was destroyed. She had to capture it on paper.

  It was a struggle at first to let the anxiety and worries—and the freshly developing headache—go, but as she drew, the peace she always found in the work overtook her.

  AIDEEN WOKE TO SUNLIGHT seeping in through the gap between her curtains and a piercing pain between her eyes. She squinted and waited for the grogginess to pass. Her brain replayed the events of the day before, and she sat up to check the time.

  “Six p.m.? How did I sleep so long?”

  She had left Sterling fifteen D’Nalian days ago. What if something had happened to him? As she had drawn and slept, had he been tortured? What if all her friends in D’Nal Harrim had been killed?

  She ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  Recomposing herself, she went downstairs to the kitchen. Not really hungry, but concerned about her inadvertent fast, she attempted a light snack. Either the toast or her mouth was too dry because she couldn’t choke it down. She threw the toast in the trash and pulled out her phone. She selected ‘Mother’ from her contacts and held her breath as the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  Aideen let her breath out but found no words.

  “Is someone there?”

  “It’s Aideen.”

  Silence.

  “I have a question. It’s important.”

  A pause. “Go ahead.”

  “Do you remember leaving me something in an envelope? The note on it is in your handwriting, but I found it in the box of Dad’s things. The envelope is empty.”

  She wouldn’t ask about the D’Nalian book and blanket. Not yet. Let’s see if she’ll answer this first, then we’ll go from there.

  “No, I don’t.” Her mother used the tone she always used when she was lying.

  “Please, I need to know. Why was it with Dad’s stuff? What was in the envelope?”

  A sigh.

  “I suppose it’s time to tell you the truth. Are you still in Boston?”

  “I’d tell you if I’d moved.”

  “Would you?”

  It was Aideen’s turn to remain mute.

  “I’ll be in the city tomorrow. We could meet for coffee somewhere around nine?”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “I’ve got some business in the West End.”

  “The Common’s not too far from there,” Aideen said. “How about Dunkin’s on Park?”

  “Fine.” Aideen pictured her mother dismissing her with a wave. “We’ll get coffee, and I’ll tell you what I took.”

  “You took it?”

  “I’ll explain tomorrow.”

  The connection broke before Aideen could say anything else. She put the phone on the table, sank back into the couch, and counted the hours in her head. Meeting Mother at nine tomorrow morning meant waiting another fourteen hours. A month will have passed in D’Nal Harrim while she was looking for answers.

  Her stomach leaped into her throat and she ran for the bathroom. She clenched onto the toilet seat, dry heaving. When her body realized it wasn’t doing any good it settled, and Aideen rocked back on her heels.

  “I should have taken a gojoos before I left.” She stared at the wall above her toilet,
wishing there was something else she could do to get back to D’Nal Harirm. “Sterling will think I’ve abandoned him.”

  NIGHTMARES ROUSED AIDEEN before dawn. She knew they weren’t real—Sterling starving to death in the tower, Ash gruesomely tortured at Jay Ridge, Imuhn standing over her and laughing as she bled out through the hole in her gut—but her mind wouldn’t let them go.

  She got up and dry heaved again. Her abs ached. Who needs crunches? In the shower, her hands shook so much she kept dropping the soap. While she dressed, dripping with sweat again, she wondered why she had even bothered.

  Downstairs, she couldn’t sit still. She tried to calm herself by drawing, but the pencil trembled, leaving jagged lines across the page. No wonder it’s so hard to quit drinking. I can barely function.

  Pacing, her mind fixated on the liquor she had in the kitchen. If she hung around here, she’d end up giving in. She needed to stay sober for Sterling and the others.

  The thought occurred to her that a drink or two would help—they would steady her hands, at least. She stormed out of the house, deciding to catch an earlier train. She would wander through the Common before meeting her mother.

  AIDEEN SAT WITH A LARGE, regular coffee at the small, round table. (The New England kind of regular, with cream and sugar.) She stared through the window at the people entering and exiting Park Street station, wiping sweat from her brow as it threatened to sting her eyes.

  Was her mother even going to show up? She checked her phone again. She said she’d be here almost 20 minutes ago. Aideen tapped her fingers on the table before pushing back her chair and standing.

  “Aideen.”

  She turned. Her mother, as impeccably groomed as ever, stood holding the strap of her shoulder bag with both hands.

  “Mother.” Aideen sat back down. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

  “I almost didn’t. But you deserve to know. It belongs to you. I didn’t take it to be malicious, I just didn’t believe your father’s stories. I didn’t see the harm . . . Are you hungover?” She peered at Aideen, disdain clear on her face.

  Aideen ignored the question. “How about you start from the beginning? With the envelope. What was in it?”