The house was desolate, and a breeze moved the curtains just slightly. They could hear the car idling in the driveway, waiting for them.
The mirror was big—but not so big that two people couldn’t carry it down the stairs. It would have to stick partway out of the trunk, but they could get it out of there.
They each grabbed a side of the ornate blackened frame and began to lift it. It did not move an inch, as if it were anchored to the floor.
“What is this thing made of?” Gretchen asked.
They tried again, bending at the knees and pulling up with all their might, but it was no use. Gretchen hunched over to take a breath, and as she did, a hand appeared, pressed flat on the glass—as if they were lifting not a mirror but a darkened glass cage.
She jumped back, then sat before the mirror on her knees and put her palm over the one pressing out.
“I’m here,” she whispered to Mona, then she tugged on Hawk’s sleeve. “Look, look,” she said, pulling him down beside her. “It’s her.”
Hawk knelt and peered into the mirror. The woman had put both her hands now on the glass.
Gretchen was smiling, overwhelmed with the vision of her mother’s ghostly face.
“She’s right here,” she said. “Do you see her?” The idea that she could communicate with her mother, that she could be in the same space with her, was overwhelming. She had so much to ask her.
Hawk was silent.
“Do you see her?” she asked again.
He said, “I don’t, Gretchen.”
“Well, she’s there!” she said, and she could hear the wail building in her own voice. “I can see her. You’ve got to help me move this.”
“We’re not getting it out of here today,” Hawk said.
“We’ve got to!”
“Not with just the two of us. Best we can do now is get ourselves out of here and get some help.”
Gretchen pressed her hands hard against the glass—hoping against hope she could somehow slip through it and stand beside her mother. Put her arms around her. Smell that tea tree oil and chai tea scent. Tears sprang to her eyes. Just because Hawk couldn’t see her mother didn’t mean she wasn’t there.
“We need to help her.”
“And we will,” Hawk said. “But not now.”
Something crashed downstairs and they could smell smoke.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, taking her hand.
Gretchen wiped her face and stood resolutely. She was reluctant to leave the mirror behind but had a strong need to go to the attic. Something was telling her to get Esther’s photographs, the ones she’d pinned around the room.
“I’ve got to go up to my . . . to Esther’s studio,” she told Hawk.
“Not by yourself.”
“You actually think you can protect me from an accident or from spirits?” She laughed at him. She was about to say she’d lived through worse, but realized it wasn’t true at all.
He was looking at her strangely. “You’re back,” he said to her.
“Of course I’m back,” she said, not knowing what she meant. “This is my house. You get going and help Hope, I’ll meet you at the car in a few minutes.”
They ran down the hall together, parting at the long banister. Hawk stepped down nimbly, keeping an eye out for ankle-high ropes, and she bounded up the attic stairs two at a time.
In the studio her old Leica was right where she had left it when she’d taken Esther’s camera. And the walls of Esther’s studio, where all her photographs were hung, were covered in blood.
Sickened and terrified, Gretchen grabbed the Leica and slid it around her neck along with the Nikon. It was as if every photograph Esther had taken was dripping with deep red paint, but it had that smell, a thick metallic stench. She covered her mouth and nose and forced herself to stand there, blinking tears from her stinging eyes. Outside the window, the sky was bright and she could hear the sound of the weather vane turning in the breeze. The walls seemed to be breathing, dripping red.
An icy breeze moved through the room and the door slammed behind her. That’s when she saw Celia and Rebecca. They were holding paintbrushes and their faces were sooty. They looked more rabid than ever.
Gretchen clutched her camera in front of herself. Her first instinct was to run, but instead she knelt down so she would be closer to their height. As soon as she did, the girls stepped back, crouching, like cornered animals, their eyes darting from side to side.
“Did you paint the walls?” Gretchen asked them, trying to talk steadily and calmly, trying to have the friendly tone you would take with living children up to some mischief and not dead children who were trying to kill you with a swarm of wasps.
Rebecca nodded.
“We fixed the pictures,” Celia said. “There’s so much paint.” She sounded hoarse, like a child who has been crying for a long time, and she was wheezing slightly, a strange musical intake of air between breaths.
“Now we can fix up the house!” Rebecca said, jumping up to her feet, then balancing on her toes, smiling.
“The way we fixed the church,” Celia said.
“You fixed the church?” Gretchen asked.
Rebecca and Celia nodded.