Jacob quietly knocked on the door to Tracy’s bedroom. When no acknowledgement was given, he cracked the door open a small inch. Inside the room was filled with an eerie darkness and a rush of musty and stale air wafted to assault his nose.
“Tracy?” he called to her a bit louder than the knock. “Tracy are you in there?”
Without warning they heard an ear-shattering scream come from the room.
Jacob threw open the door only to be met with a vision of Tracy sitting at desk screaming at the mirror. In the mirror Jacob could see a horrible reflection of dozens of people burning in flames and an older man in a black suit smiling with a sinister glint in his black eyes. He was whispering something to Tracy, but he couldn’t know what was being said.
“Tracy!” Jacob screamed as he ran over to her. Cheri at his heals screamed as she saw the visions coming from the mirror.
“Fuck!” Cheri screamed as she grabbed the mirror up.
“You’re too late! She’s mine and you’ll never get her back!” the man cackled at them.
“No!” Cheri screamed as she slammed the mirror face down on the desk.
Quickly Jacob scooped Tracy out of the chair, cradling her in his arms like a young hurt child he caried her to the bed. Laying her gently down he allowed her head to settle in his lap.
“Tracy,” he called to the trembling woman. “You’re safe now. We got you.”
“It’s all my fault,” she sobbed over and over again. Her tear-stained face strained with guilt and terror. “It’s all my fault.”
“Shhhhh, you’re ok now. We’re here.” Jacob held her like a wounded child crying in her father’s arms.
“What the fuck was that!” Cheri’s shock seemed to have worn off and disbelief and anger was setting in. “It looked like a portal to some demented hell dimension.”
“I have no words and no ideas and the only way we are gonna get any answers is to get Tracy back to normal so she can tell us what was going on.”
“We should call 911 and get her to the hospital.”
“NO! No hospitals and no police!” Tracy popped up, fear once again rolling into her facial expression. Her body was trembling with fear and adrenaline.
“Ok… ok… no hospitals and no police. But we do have to get out of this house.” Jacob smoothed her hair back and tried to comfort her. “You heard her, no 911, but we should call Jasmine. Let her know what’s going on.”
“All right, I got Katie’s phone, I’ll give her a call. You…” Cheri almost laughed at the sight of this young man caressing the hair of a woman twice his age. “You just continue.”
Cheri stepped out into the hall to make her call.
“Tracy, I need you to snap out of this and tell us what happened.” Tracy didn’t answer just continued to tremble in Jacob’s lap.
“Jasmine is driving down. It was difficult to try and explain so I just said she had a breakdown. I gave her your address. I just assumed we’d be taking her back there.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jacob scooped up Tracy and headed for the door.
“What are we gonna do with that thing?” Cheri asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“Leave it, we’ll figure out what to do with it later. Grab her overnight bag.”
By the time the trio left darkness had fallen the city. The clouds had cleared leaving the velvet black skies dotted with stars that shimmered like diamonds on a jeweler’s cloth. Jacob almost smiled as the cool night air from the open window of his sable truck bathed his face like a cleansing cloth soaked in fresh mint water. It was the kind of sultry night Katie would have dragged him all the way to the top of Wells Peak for a midnight picnic.
“What did you tell Jazz?”
“Just that Tracy had a traumatic event, and she needed to come down to be with her.”
“Yeah, this would be rather difficult to explain over the phone.”
“I can’t even imagine how I’d react. The person you love most in this world was terrorized by an evil spirit in a haunted mirror and is now crying like a two-year-old baby and stammering about everything being her fault. It’s just too much.”
“Not a baby,” Tracy stammered from the back seat.
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Both Jacob and Cheri shocked stopped and turned to peer at Tracy.
“Tracy,” Cheri softly addressed the still quivering woman. “Are you back with us?”
No answer from Tracy confirmed that she was indeed still in a shock state. However, her interjection into their conversation confirmed that she could hear and comprehend what was being said around her.
“Mister,” Cheri sighed remembering the already traumatized cat in her apartment. “Can we swing by and grab my cat? I don’t want him to be left alone for too long. And we have no idea what is going to happen next.”
“No problem. When did you get a cat?”
“It was Mark’s. I kind of adopted him after Mark…well after he did what he did.”
“I wasn’t aware that you and Mark where that close.”
“We’ve been friend for almost ten years. Him and Katie didn’t really mesh well so we kind of kept them separate mostly.”
“Umm…by the way, the mirror I gave you. You know it was made from the mirror Katie broke, right?”
“Yeah, and?”
“The same mirror Tracy had.”
“Oh…” the thought that Jacob was alluding to but didn’t want to say out loud sank in. “It’s still in the box. Should I bring it?” Cheri looked at her right hand. A two-inch-long red mark was still throbbing where she had grabbed fire ravaged mirror that was terrorizing Tracy into a mental stupor. She didn’t really want to touch the box the mirror was in, much less bring it with her anywhere.
“No, leave it in the box.” The car pulled up to Cheri’s house. “Are you gonna be ok going in there alone? I don’t really want to leave Tracy alone in the car.”
“I’ll be fine…” she really didn’t feel fine, but the damn cat had already be left alone without food and water for three days during Marks breakdown, she didn’t want to do that to him again. “It’ll take me a few minutes. I’ll bring down all his stuff first, then get him in his carrier and bring him.”
Cheri exited the truck and headed into her house.
Jacob turned to the back seat and placed his hand on Tracy’s.
“We’re going to figure this out and make this right. I promise you.”
Twenty minutes later the four of them, including the furry feline, were back on the road heading towards Jacob’s place. The Silence in the car was deafening. Everyone in their own little worlds but thinking about the same thing. Until Cheri broke the tense silence.
“Did you know that Katies great grandmother owned the cottage and land upon Well’s Peak?”
“No, I do know that she loves it up there. Any reason to hike up that trail and lay about the cliffs was a good day for her.”
“When her grandmother inherited it, she sold it back to the state so it could be included in national park that surrounds it. She told Katie that the cottage gave her the creeps anyways.”
“We only went into the cottage once. Back in college, we’d been dating for about six months, she took me up there for a midnight picnic. Except by the time we got there it was pouring rain. Surprisingly the door was unlocked.”
“Was it as creepy as Katie’s grandmother thought?”
“It was dusty and dirty, but otherwise normal.”
A soft meow came from the back seat as Mister was pacing in his carrier. Without looking Tracy slipped her long slender fingers into the cage door to comfort the anxious kitty. Within a few seconds Mister settled down, resting against Tracy’s fingers.
A few minutes later they pulled up to Jacob’s place. The night no longer felt ominous but quiet and restful. Nothing had really changed, only they had come to see Jacob’s house as a safe place. Jacob scooped Tracy up while Cheri carried Mister into the well lite house.
Jacob laid Tracy on the bed in the master suite before going to check in with the nurse watching over Katie.
“How are things going?” Jacob brushed the hair out of Katies face and placed a small, sweet kiss on her cheek.
“Medically,” the nurse gave him a half smile. “Medically she’s stable, no major fluctuations in her vital signs. She’s taken all her feed without any adverse reactions, and she hasn’t tried to argue against any physical repositioning. Emotionally all I can say is that for the most part her facial expressions have been calm, almost content. She did have a period of about ten minutes when she was crying. I tried to talk to her, but she never responded. I just kept giving her positive affirmations hoping she could hear me at some level.” The nurse pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Jacob. “I marked all the time and events in case you wanted to check the video to see what was happening.”
“Thank you, I’m sorry I don’t remember your name.”
“It’s ok you’ve had a rough couple of weeks. My name is Hazel Larsen. I’ll be taking the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday day shifts for as long as you need me.”
“Excellent, I know this is day one and we are just getting things in order. Is there anything you may want to make this easier, more comfortable, for you or Katie?”
“Nope, I think you have everything covered, but I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”
“Thanks,” Jacob started to leave the room. “Oh, in the top draw is folder with a list of restaurants and account numbers for all the nurses to use to order food. I need y’all at your best, not sitting here hungry waiting for the end of your shift to eat. Please order anything you want, on me.”
“That’s really not necessary.”
“I know, just consider it a perk for taking care of two patients in one body.” Jacob placed his hand on Katies’ still flat belly. Regardless of Katies state of being this baby was going to continue to grow.
“Thank you for your consideration and I will make sure to let all the nurses know how you feel. It is truly appreciated.”
Just as they finished their short conversation a loud urgent knock came from the front door. It had to be Jasmine. She had gotten their in record time, and considering she was coming through evening afterwork traffic it was a minor miracle she wasn’t stuck in some traffic jam on a freeway midway between her house and his.
Jacob opened the dark oak door and before him stood one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. It wasn’t the first time he had seen her, but each time he was struck with a feeling of warmth and love that couldn’t be adequately described in a word. She had soft warm brown eyes that Tracy had once described as being comforting like a steaming cup of hot chocolate on Christmas morning. Only today they were full of a mixture of fear and concern for the woman she loved more than her own life.
As soft and warm as Jacob new this woman to be he had also seen her in action in the courtroom. In the courtroom she was as sharp and penetrating as a butchers knife. He and Katie had once gone to see her work and watched her tear apart a defense witness on the stand. By the time she was done the young man was crying and begging the judge not to punish him for lying. He had be threatened, the lives of his family had been threatened, and he couldn’t loose his children.
“Where is she? What happened to her?” Jazz pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the house.