Through the Mirrah Page 3

  Aideen didn’t mean it. If White Hair had been twenty years younger, she could have been America’s Next Top Model. She and her sister both. Aideen assumed they were sisters, as they were identical aside from their hair.

  “I’m sorry,” White Hair said. “I just meant . . . What happened to your face?”

  Aideen fiddled with her baseball as she related her escape from the Turkeys through the culverts.

  “Let me get you a cloth.” White Hair turned toward the cabin.

  Black Hair grabbed her wrist.

  “Don’t you dare, Lux.”

  Lux flashed her a burning look that rivaled the flame in Black Hair’s eyes. She freed herself and went inside. As Black Hair turned back to Aideen, a glint at Black Hair’s neck caught Aideen’s eye. A round, milky quartz cradled by crescent moons hung from a delicate chain.

  “That’s a lovely necklace.”

  “How did you escape the Turkeys on the train?”

  “I was just lucky.”

  “Most Refuse wouldn’t have been able to pull that off.” Black Hair stood toe-to-toe with Aideen and sniffed. “I can smell the poison on you. You’re an Alk.”

  “Wait, the Dark Man is after me because I drink? A little excessive, isn’t it?”

  “Dark Man?” Black Hair barked. “I suppose it’s fitting.” She crossed her arms and glared at Aideen.

  Aideen stepped away from Black Hair and eyed her as Lux returned. Black Hair yanked the cloth from her hand, dropping it in the dirt.

  “Why did you do that?” Lux picked up the cloth and flapped the dirt off.

  “She doesn’t deserve our help.”

  “You don’t think anyone deserves help.” Lux handed Aideen the cloth.

  Aideen took it and patted the blood from her face, afraid to come between the sisters.

  “That isn’t true,” Black Hair said. “I just know better than to waste my time trying to help this filth.”

  “Mom and Dad weren’t filth.”

  Black Hair pointed her finger in Lux’s face. “Don’t bring them into this.”

  “They were already in this, thanks to you.”

  “So now this is my fault?” Black Hair threw her arms up.

  “It’s always been your fault! If you weren’t so infatuated with that Trapper—”

  “At least he likes me back.” Black Hair spun toward Aideen, who shrank back. “Go. The Turkeys will find you and take you to Jay Ridge, where you belong. But you can’t stay here.”

  She stormed into the cabin and slammed the door.

  “I’m sorry about that.” Lux dabbed at her eyes with shaking hands. “She hasn’t been herself in a long time.”

  “Is she dating a Trapper?”

  “She had been. He vanished about sixteen years ago. I don’t know what happened, but Nox has been grumpier and more mysterious ever since. I’m afraid she’s . . .”

  “What?”

  “Maybe nothing.” Lux shook her head. “I have no proof. But I know someone who could help you.”

  Lux led Aideen to the far side of the clearing. “This path leads out of the forest, to the Compass. Sterling Falcon works there. He’s helped Refuse before. He can bring you to the Brown Ostrich.”

  “How is an ostrich going to help?”

  “It’s not—” Lux looked to the sky as a shadow passed over them.

  Aideen peered up to see a lone Turkey circling overhead. It dove straight at her. Lux scurried for the trees in Aideen’s periphery.

  Aideen tightened her grip on the baseball in her hand. As the Turkey sped toward her, claws working, Aideen wound up and lobbed the ball at its head. It connected with a crack.

  The Turkey fell to the ground and Aideen rushed backward. The monster gained its footing and shook its head. Swiveling its long neck up toward the sky, it took off in the direction from which it came. Lux emerged from the woods as Aideen collected her baseball.

  “You should hurry,” Lux said. “The scout has found you; the Trapper won’t be far behind. You need to put distance between him and yourself.”

  Aideen nodded. “Thank you.”

  She turned and set out for the Compass and Sterling Falcon.

  COARSE, WILD GRASS CARPETED the ground between the forest and a roughly circular pond. Ahead of her, a giant head carved from marble stared straight at her. The head didn’t look human; it reminded Aideen of Sam the Eagle.

  What is a marble Muppet head doing here?

  To Sam’s left, a long plank bridge stretched from the shore to the island in the middle of the pond. A great stone tower topped with a golden dome rose from the island. The sight again evoked the feeling of being in a dream; a similar dome topped Boston’s State House.

  Further to Sam’s left, to the right of the pond, the grass thinned and disappeared into a sandy desert. A small building huddled in the distance, but Aideen couldn’t make out what it was.

  Beyond the pond in the other direction, horses grazed on the tall marsh grasses growing from the gray sand. They appeared painted, their manes in flowing curls, as if freshly freed from a carousel.

  Aideen moved past the marble statue to see what lay behind the tower. The birch-white trunk (assuming this was a tree) was skinny and knobby like a spine. Aideen stared at the strange configuration of leaves resting atop the trunk and her stomach lurched.

  “Is that a brain?”

  The mass pulsed. She blinked, sure she had imagined the movement, but the leaves pulsed again.

  The damn thing is breathing.

  Aideen turned away, hand over her stomach, willing it to settle.

  Was this Sterling guy really going to help her? Nox didn’t want Aideen getting any help; maybe Lux was just pretending to be nice. Sterling could be one of those Trappers. What if Sterling was the Dark Man’s name, and Aideen walked right into a trap? Eyes darting back and forth, Aideen wondered which way to flee.

  As she glanced to her right, a tall, handsome man limped into sight. Had he come from a GQ photo shoot or did he always dress that way? Aideen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  This must be Sterling Falcon.

  Sterling limped toward the bridge, holding a bag of what appeared to be Necco Wafers. He rummaged in the bag and pulled out a pink wafer, popped it in his mouth and crunched on it before he noticed Aideen. As he approached her, his cool, ocean-blue eyes met hers.

  “Hello. Who are you?”

  “Aideen.” She pointed her thumb toward the woods. “Lux suggested I come to see you.”

  “Did she?” He held out his bag. “Want a wafer?”

  “No, thanks. Lux said you could help me—”

  “Right. Come on, then.” Sterling turned and limped across the bridge. Aideen followed.

  “Are you okay?” Aideen asked Sterling’s back.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You’re limping.”

  “It’s an old injury.”

  “What happened?”

  Sterling paused for half a second before continuing toward the tower. “That’s a long story.”

  At the tower entrance, Sterling popped another wafer into his mouth. As he punched the code into the keypad next to the door, Aideen craned her neck to watch Sterling and he shifted to block her line of sight.

  The door popped open and Sterling held it, motioning for Aideen to enter first. He followed her inside and secured the door.

  Aideen surveyed the round room. A hulking desk to the left housed a computer and a sign with the weird, loopy writing she recognized from the inscription above the entrance to the atrium. The same writing on the nip bottle Jimmy had given her last night. Or was it only a few hours ago?

  A water bubbler, like the ones that dotted the hallways at public schools, hung from the right wall. Straight ahead stood an elevator with a polished metal door. Crowning it was a dial-and-needle floor indicator displaying a dot on one side and two vertical lines on the other. A large sign on the wall, behind the desk and next to the elevator, disp
layed more strange writing.

  “What does the sign say?”

  Sterling stepped around her and limped to the desk.

  “It says Reception is here on the first floor and the Utility Room is on the twenty-second.”

  Aideen considered the sign, then the elevator indicator. “There are only two floors in this whole tower?”

  “If I only had one, the elevator wouldn’t work.”

  “What about floors two through twenty-one?”

  “I didn’t need them.” Sterling gestured for Aideen to come forward. “Let’s get you checked in.”

  Aideen approached the desk. Sterling placed his bag of wafers down and pulled the keyboard closer.

  “Name.”

  “I already told you my name.”

  “Of course.” Sterling poked at the keyboard keys. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. I didn’t know—”

  Sterling dismissed this with a wave. “Not to worry, there’s an opening.” He continued his poking. “Occupation?”

  “Architectural Intern.”

  “So you’re a creator?”

  “I guess so.”

  Sterling nodded. “Land of origin?”

  “‘Land’? You mean, what country am I from? The United States.”

  Sterling consulted a list taped to the desk next to the computer. “‘Away’ it is. Any experience commanding armies?”

  “I’m not gonna need that, am I?” Aideen peered at the list of names of different countries, states, and some names she had never seen. “United States” was on the list.

  “It’s just a question. Should I take that as a no?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I don’t have experience commanding armies.” She pointed to the list. “What’s that?”

  “A cheat sheet. Geography’s not my strength, so I listed the places that aren’t a part of this world.” He cleared his throat before moving on. “Any fighting experience at all?”

  “I get into bar fights more than I like to admit.”

  “That’s something, at least.” He shoved the keyboard away and grabbed his wafers.

  Motioning for Aideen to follow, he strode in his uneven gait to the elevator. There were two round buttons. The top one had a cursive ‘ih’ on it. The bottom one sported a backward ‘h’. Sterling pressed ‘ih’ and waited for the door to open.

  “What were all those questions for?” Aideen asked.

  “They help me figure out who you are, where you’re going, and how I can help you.”

  Sterling and Aideen entered the elevator, and Sterling pushed the ‘||’ button on the panel. The door closed, and the elevator car jolted into action.

  “My answers to those questions don’t tell you much.”

  “I rely more on the brain scan, anyway.”

  “Brain scan? What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a device on the ceiling above where you were standing at the reception desk,” Sterling said. “It retrieves more information than I could ever get from a few questions. It’s very advanced technology.”

  Aideen crossed her arms.

  “Sounds like an invasion of privacy to me.”

  “I do apologize, but it’s much more efficient than asking questions.”

  “Why bother with the questions at all, then?”

  “They’re to distract you from the brain scan.”

  Aideen thought about what Sterling might find in her scan, and her stomach sank. He wouldn’t want to help her if he knew what lived inside Aideen’s head. How much would he learn? He may decide not to help her after all and turn her in to the Trappers.

  Aideen watched the digital floor indicator above the elevator’s call buttons, unchanged from the single dot indicating the first floor, as she feared for her future.

  The indicator blinked to ‘||’ as the elevator slowed. There was a ping, and the door opened to reveal a cream-colored cut pile carpet. A vaguely Moroccan pattern papered the walls.

  Sterling gestured for her to step off the elevator ahead of him. She walked far enough into the room to allow him to enter behind her. He moved to a small table against the wall where a giant, old LaserJet-like printer held a short stack of papers in its output tray.

  Aideen approached a small array of oak and leather furniture huddled in the center of the room.

  “This doesn’t look like a utility room.” She ran a hand over the smooth arm of the sofa.

  “Sure it does. It looks however I need it to look, based on what I use it for.”

  “What, like the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts?”

  “I don’t know what that is. Take a seat.” He jogged the papers and turned as Aideen picked the chair facing the elevator.

  She caught a glance of him wincing and froze.

  His chair? She guessed, moving to the couch to sit near the center. Sterling nodded and took his seat.

  Aideen’s fingers drummed on her knees as Sterling thumbed through the printout. Recessed lighting gave the room a comfortable glow, and a table lamp between the couch and the chair provided enough light to read by.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but—”

  “One moment. Let me . . .” Sterling shuffled the pages he had already scanned to the bottom of the pile. “Is that so?” He eyed her. “You grew up west of Boston?”

  “Yeah. Mattanassis. What’s the big deal?”

  “And now you’re in Eastern Massachusetts,” he read. “Where things haven’t been going so well.”

  “I’m just going through a rough patch. I don’t understand what that has to do with any of this.”

  “West to east . . . opposite of the sun.”

  “That doesn’t explain anything.”

  “You may not have led any armies, but you do possess some strong leadership qualities . . . integrity, empowerment, positivity . . .”

  “Does it tell you what I did at the dog track in eighth grade?” Aideen waited as he shuffled papers, read the excerpt, and frowned. “Not exactly brimming with integrity and positivity now, am I?”

  “You survived, and haven’t tried again, right?”

  Aideen crossed her arms over her chest. Sterling shook his head.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t think it will be a problem.”

  “A problem regarding what?”

  “You’re destined for important things, Aideen.”

  “This is crazy!” Aideen sprang up. “This is the craziest, most elaborate dream, or hallucination, or blackout-induced trip I’ve ever had. Every time I think I’m going to wake up, it keeps getting crazier. All I want to know is: how do I wake up, or get back home, or whatever you want to call it?”

  “This isn’t a dream.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It took time to travel from Lux’s cabin to here, right?”

  Aideen nodded.

  “How did you get there from the atrium? How long has passed since you got here?”

  “How did you know I was at the atrium?”

  “That’s were everyone comes through. How long?”

  “I dunno. A couple of hours? I passed out for a bit . . .”

  Sterling frowned. “When was the last time you had a dream that felt like it lasted a couple of hours?”

  Aideen walked to the window as she considered this and realized no dream—even the ones where there was a lot going on—had ever felt long at all.

  “If that’s true, where the hell am I and how did I get here?” She gazed out the window at the creepy tree and shuddered before facing Sterling again.

  “This is D’Nal Harrim, a lovely little county in the land of Emanon. As far as in relation to wherever you came from, no one knows for sure, aside from ‘on the other side of the portal’.”

  “You’re telling me I got here by coming through a portal?”

  “Obviously.”

  Aideen grimaced.

  “Where’d the portal come from? Why was I the one to come through it? How does that even work?�
��

  Sterling stammered as Aideen continued.

  “This isn’t Earth, is it? Are we on another planet? In another galaxy?”

  Sterling shook his head. “That’s beyond my understanding, and most of D’Nal Harrim’s scholars also happen to indulge in certain discouraged behaviors.”

  “They’re in Jay Ridge?”

  “Those still living.”

  Aideen shuddered again. This whole place is creepy.

  “If it helps any, it wasn’t the Trappers’ idea to round up and kill Refuse.”

  “Whose idea was it?”

  “The Turkeys.”

  “They can speak? And they told the Trappers to help them? And the Trappers went along with it?”

  Sterling placed the stack of papers next to the lamp on the side table and leaned back into his chair.

  “Trappers think they’re in charge, with the Turkeys serving their purpose of ridding D’Nal Harrim of Refuse. However, the Turkeys began recruiting Trappers hundreds of years ago, to help them eradicate the humans who had taken over their land. The Trappers convinced themselves that Refuse are destroying the moral fabric of our fine land and wish to contain them so they can’t do further harm. They take the Refuse they capture to Jay Ridge, where the Refuse are poisoned until they die. The Turkeys then feed on the bodies.”

  “Aren’t the Trappers human, though? How come the Turkeys haven’t killed them?”

  “The Trappers are as human as the rest of us, though more in touch with their dark sides. I couldn’t tell you the Turkeys’ intentions with them, though.”

  “How do I get home?” Aideen returned to the couch and perched on the edge of the cushion, knees almost touching Sterling’s.

  Sterling sat up and leaned toward her. “The only way between your world and ours is a portal. You can open one by—” He looked past her. “Is that smoke?”

  Aideen gaped at the elevator. Sooty smoke seeped into the room from the elevator shaft. Muffled crackling filled Aideen‘s ears.

  “What’s burning?” She didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Judging by the increasing amount of smoke and by the heat emanating from the floor, my guess is the tower.”

  “Isn’t the tower made of stone?”

  Smoke continued to fill the air.

  “Actually, it’s petrified wood.”

  “I thought petrified wood was stone.”