Chapter 7

7

     Jordan returned to an empty house. Her mother had a women’s church meeting and her father was out of town on business. She spent the first hour wandering around the house. She couldn’t seem to get the mirror out of her mind. Pausing, she looked up the stairway in the direction of the attic door. The mirror lay just beyond. And who knows if what Bethany told her was actually true.

     Nevertheless, the thought of the mirror and the strange story that Bethany had told, kept creeping into Jordan’s mind all night. She had tried on her clothes twice, attempted to watch a movie, but gave up it was so boring, and finally she ended up sprawled across her bed with the latest Teen magazine. 

     Absentmindedly, she turned the pages until an ad caught her attention. There was a woman, leaning in close to a magic mirror. The mirror had a face that looked like something from Snow White, and the woman was holding a jar of face cream. The caption read: “The mirror doesn’t lie, honey, try No Wrinkle Zone today!”

     “The mirror doesn’t lie,” Jordan mumbled to herself. Butterflies began to race in her stomach and her flesh goose-pimpled like Braille. It was like her body knew what she was going to do before she ever made a conscious  effort to do so.

     With grim determination, Jordan decided that the only way to conquer this fear was to face it. Her father had always taught her that. It rang especially true in seventh grade when Jordan was faced with a bully at school. The girl was a freakin’ Amazon! She continued to pick on Jordan, her father had said, because Jordan wouldn’t look her in the eye and tell her to get lost. So, Jordan did just that. Monday morning, with quiet resolve in her heart, Jordan found Jack (her name was really Jacqueline but must’ve been too weak for her, so she always went with Jack.)

Jack was sitting with a group of girls at a long white cafeteria table in the corner of the lunchroom. Jordan marched right up to her and screamed, “Stay out of my life! I am sick of your crap! I have done nothing to you, so leave me alone!”

It earned her a bloody nose; however, Jack never bothered Jordan after that day. Maybe what her father had said had some truth to it after all. And truth was what Jordan was after as she nearly crept toward the stairs leading to the attic.

Slowly she made her way up the steep stairwell to the attic above. The stairs were snuggly fitted between the two pale green walls, and like a sentinel, a dark mahogany door stood central at the top.  As though a cool breeze blew through, Jordan found herself shivering as she rested her hand on the cold, brass, polished doorknob.

     It took her forever to actually open the door and stick in her hand to flip the light switch just inside the door. It made her recall the story they had read in school, “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. The character in the story had been spying each night on an old man while he lay sleeping in bed. In detail the deranged narrator explained how it took the better part of the night just to crack the door open, he was being so careful. Shuddering, she also recalled that the narrator had hacked the old man up too. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind (although her 8^th grade teacher would’ve been proud) and she forced herself to step into the stuffy attic.

     The attic always seemed magical to Jordan. Probably as a result of years of reading fantasy fiction novels like Harry Potter  and  Garth Nix’s Sabriel and Ariel. The books bounded with the amazing, the impossible, and yet there it was in black and white. Anyone with an imagination could take it from there. Imagination was something that Jordan had a lot of, and it was running away with her as she stood in an attic full of the forgotten.

     Dust swirled and sparkled in the narrow beams of the day’s last light that snuck through the dilapidated shutters. At 8 o’clock at night, one thing about summer she loved was the long hours of daylight. Slowly, Jordan crept up to the mirror and gingerly placed her fingers on the sheet covering it. It was like she didn’t even want to touch it. Any of it. Yet, strange fascination and the game of ‘what if’ had provoked her this far. The not knowing was worst of all. Pressing her mouth into a line, and with grim determination, Jordan grasped the sheet and yanked it from its resting place.

     The mirror itself was beautiful. Tall, oval, and with its own stand. It could be angled, she found, by pushing it upward or downward. The wood was swirled in deep reds, blondes, and rich browns. Curly maple was a strong wood, she had seen dulcimers made with the material and because of the beautifully colored grain of the wood, the instruments were just gorgeous. And expensive. Jordan of course knew her parents could never afford such things, so she had chosen a simple tear-drop shaped dulcimer made from pine instead. 

The hair on Jordan’s arms raised like static electricity was in the air, and she shivered as she stared at the huge mirror. It seemed to loom over her like it were ten feet tall. Slowly she approached the mirror, step by slow step, her hand outstretched, fingers straining, until they contacted the cool, smooth glass of the mirror.

Her heart began pounding furiously as Jordan leaned in, gazing into the mirror, wondering with a mix of fascination and horror what she would see if she continued to stare and stare…

“Jordan!” Jordan practically screamed and she fell backward onto the floor. Her mother was home! If her mom came up and found her in the attic, it was all over. That mirror would end up in Jordan’s room for sure.

Quickly, Jordan threw the sheets over the mirror. Just as the white cotton cloth wafted into place over the old mirror, Jordan took one last peek. Nothing. It was just an old mirror. However, she couldn’t help thinking that the mirror should stay right where it was…just in case.

Jordan heard her mother call for her again, and she tiptoed across the attic, turned off the switch and once more found herself easing the door open enough to stick her head out. The coast was clear! She took off her shoes and hurried down the wooden steps in her socks. She had just reached the bottom when she heard her mother coming up from below. Panicking, Jordan raced to her room and dove in, landing across her bed, just as her mother reached the landing and called for her again.

“Jordan, are you here?” her mother asked, obviously irritated now. Jordan sat up on her bed just as her mother entered the room to find Jordan disheveled and a bit flushed. “You feeling alright, honey?” she asked.

Faking a wide yawn, Jordan lied, “I was sleeping mom. Just woke up. Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“Sleeping! At 8 o’clock at night? Jordan, I think I’m going to make you a doctor’s appointment.” And with that announcement, Jordan’s mom left the room to carry on with her usual evening routine.

“I need a doctor alright,” Jordan sighed. “A psychiatrist!” She collapsed back onto her bed trying to imagine how stupid she must’ve looked when her mother’s call had knocked her on her butt. That blasted mirror seemed to bring nothing but trouble. If it were not here, Jordan wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Yet it was there, up the stairs just yards away, and Jordan still wasn’t sure if what Bethany said was true or not. And if it was true… would Jordan use it? Could she?  She wondered how long she could hold out.