Chapter 8

8

     A few days later, Jordan sat at her computer, chatting online with Stacey. It was nearly 9 o’clock at night, Jordan’s parents out for the evening. Yawning, Jordan sent a hug smiley to cheer up her friend.  

     “It’s just so hard to Believe,” Stacey’s words made Jordan’s heart tighten, although she continued to read her friend’s lamentations. Rocky’s death had been very tough on Stacey, who seemed to love him more now that he was gone, than she seemed to while he was alive.

     “I mean… he’s dead, and there’s nuthin we can do about it. It’s over. He’s gone.” Jordan wondered if the whole “death thing” was more the root of this than Rocky himself.

     Shame crept up Jordan’s spine and settled into her chest like a crushing weight that would never go away. She had the answer, right in her attic. Right there and yet…

     “G2G” Jordan typed hurriedly and she logged off, intent to follow through with this. First Bethany was dead. If Jordan had taken the mirror, could she have prevented it? Most certainly, if what Bethany said was true. Then there was Rocky. Someone that young certainly didn’t deserve to die! Again, the mirror could’ve saved him, although how exactly, Jordan didn’t know.

     She juggled the pros and cons in her mind.  Not using the mirror meant that people would die; People she loved and cared about. Using the mirror meant that she would have to stop the event from happening before it occurred. How impossible was that! Yet in her desperation to protect those she loved, Jordan realized that she could not ignore the mirror any longer. What if her father’s plane were to go down while he was traveling to one of his business appointments? Something like that would be simple to stop. Just make him miss the plane.

     Taking a shaky breath, Jordan proceeded up the steps and through the heavy door into the attic once more. The light was dim in the pitch black of night that had settled from the outside in. The mirror looked like a giant ghost and hurriedly, before she lost her nerve, Jordan pulled the sheets from the mirror.

     The mirror hadn’t changed any, not that she had expected it to, but honestly, she didn’t know what to expect. She spied the strange symbols arching over the top of the mirror and she pulled an old chair over so she could reach the top for a closer inspection. Carefully, she climbed onto the chair and leaned in closer to examine the symbols carved around the top portion of the mirror, arching over the top like some strange umbrella. No where else did Jordan see any form of writing or drawing. Intent now on studying the mirror, Jordan ran her fingers along the symbols, wondering what they meant.

     At first she smelled it. It was like stepping into an inside pool. The chlorine smell assaults your nose causing it to burn, and your eyes begin to water, and that is exactly what she smelled. A faint breeze, so faint that she almost wasn’t sure it was there, blew around her and to her horror, Jordan saw swirls of what looked like colored fog, moving in a circular motion within the glass of the mirror. Turning sharply, she saw that nothing was behind her, and that this was truly happening within the mirror itself.

     She had no idea how she had gotten it to work, but guessed that rubbing the symbols had something to do with it. She saw pictures and symbols start small in the center of the mirror, growing larger as they moved outward only to disappear once they reached the forefront of the glass. Desperately, Jordan looked around for something to write on. How could she have known this was going to be some kind of brainteaser where she was gonna to have to figure it all out? Bethany had never mentioned that!

     With nothing to write on, Jordan could only stare into the mirror as the final symbols and pictures flashed within its surface. A bike, a baby, a car, the number 3344, butterflies and symbols, lots of symbols. The final picture was a mushroom. A mushroom? Jordan pondered what she saw as the mirror went blank, its reflective surface almost appearing to be a dark pool where one could step in and visit other worlds. “This isn’t Pendragon, Jordan,” she chided herself, thinking of yet another of her favorite books, and moved closer to the mirror once more. This was no story. It was real.

 She tentatively placed her fingertips on the symbols again, and rubbed them from left to right as she had done before. Nothing. “Hmmm,” She muttered as she whipped the sheet up into the air and back over the mirror. She had enough for the day and her mind was reeling with wonder, fear and doubt. Sneezing from the dust assault, Jordan dashed out of the attic and down the stairs, wondering what all those pictures and symbols could possibly mean, wishing that she had been able to catch them all. With only half the puzzle, Jordan realized that it would prove near impossible to figure out.