Chapter 22

22

     Jordan passed through school like a vapor, wafting in and out of classes, and finally home again where she flung herself upon her bed once in her room. She felt the bed depress beside her and a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see that Stacey had followed her. She sighed, pulling from her friend’s grasp, rolling into the fetal position on her patchwork quilt.

     “Jordan,” Stacey whispered beside her, “Let’s face it. If you didn’t have the mirror, the same thing would’ve happened anyway. We would’ve been none the wiser to begin with.”

     “Umph,” was Jordan’s only muffled reply. It had all made sense once the facts were laid out before her. Pastor Simmons was a friend of the family’s- her mother took him dinner at least once a week since the accident, and they often visited his church for Christmas eve and Easter services. He had simply never entered her mind. And then there was the nagging truth that every person the mirror implicated was someone Jordan knew. Why was that? Was it possible, Jordan pondered, that the Mirror was causing these events rather than foretelling them? Maybe the mirror was a curse and not a blessing at all, in which case Bethany had every right to ignore it, to live her life like everyone else- unknowing. Clueless.

     “We need to understand how the mirror works, how it thinks,” Stacey was saying and at this Jordan sat up, static electricity wreaking havoc on her brown hair- wisps floating like spider webs around her head. Stacey sat staring at her, her freckles in stark contrast to her pale face and red hair and Jordan realized it had been just as hard on Stacey as it had on her.

     “I don’t think the mirror thinks, Stace,” Jordan finally said. “We’re the ones who need to think and we just didn’t pull it off. I never would’ve shown you the mirror had I known it would’ve worked out this way.”

     But Stacey wouldn’t accept defeat. She jumped off the bed, grabbing the sheet of paper with the clues from the mirror and plopped down on the bed again.

     “OK,” she began. The rune makes sense since Pastor Simmons was a leader of the church, as does the cross. The heart- I guess it meant heart attack. But what about the Caduceus?”

     “I duknow,” Jordan sighed, “Medical emergency maybe.”

     “Mmm,” Stacey murmured.  “You know, I remember once my mother telling me that Pastor Simmons was involved with a church in Texas, printing Bibles in several languages as part of a ministry. It came back to me today. You said the Caduceus was also a symbol for printing. Could be that it meant that all along…”

     “Well, either way, we didn’t get it. That is the bottom line, Stacey. I swear I wish that stupid mirror had never come into my life. Why didn’t I just ignore it like Bethany did?”

     “But you can know, Jordan. Know when things are going to happen…”

     “Know?” Jordan interrupted, snapping at Stacey in anger, “Is it right that we know in advance, Stacey? You said so yourself. What does that make us if we know these things? Things that people aren’t meant to know ahead of time?”

     Sighing, Stacey let the paper float to the bedroom floor. “I don’t know, Jordan. Alls I know is that you have the mirror and it does show these things. I’m just trying to make sense of it. That’s all.”

     After much deliberation, both girls gave up for the day and Stacey headed home. Jordan logged into her blog and dumped all her doubts and fears ending with many questions, Should I act on what the mirror foretells? Is it ethical to know what any normal human would never know? Is it possible that the mirror itself brings these things to pass? And if so, how do I stop it?

     Evening came and Jordan readied for bed. A grim resolve had beset her; the mirror had to be destroyed. The sad fact would always remain with her, that she could’ve known and that in itself felt like a curse. She knew that bad things would happen. It was a fact of life. And she would always be haunted by the knowledge that if the mirror had remained she might have stopped it. Yet, balanced with that, was the exhaustion of figuring it all out in time, keeping it a secret, and attempting to stop fate itself; all tasks of superheroes, and Jordan had come to realize that superheroes didn’t really exist.