Dead Reflections (7 page)

“Whatcha’ going to do with the ball for now?” Robbie stopped working with the screwdriver. He stood up and tested the board with one foot, satisfying himself that it was secure.

“I dunno. Kick it around.” Cory shrugged. He kicked the ball high into the air before grasping it again.

“We’ll look into a team at school, if you’d like,” Robbie told him. “It could be a good way to make some new friends.”

“I guess.”

“You seem a little bummed,” Robbie said. “What’s up?”

Cory fiddled with the ball, not really interested in kicking it around anymore. “I’m never old enough to go out with them.”

“Oh…I hear you. I was the youngest kid at home too. I know how you feel.”

“Did Uncle Tim always leave you behind?”

Robbie grinned and sat down on the top step. “Most of the time. A fifteen-year-old didn’t want a ten-year-old tagging along when he hung out with his buddies or wanted to keep an eye on a pretty girl. But he did make some times special just for me, like your brothers do on occasion.”

Cory squinted into the sun. “Was I an accident?”

Robbie’s grin faded. “No! Of course not.”

“How come I came so much later than them then?”

Robbie rolled the screwdriver back and forth in his palm. “You were a gift that came later so that, as our first two were growing up so fast, we could still have all the joys of a little one around. No one is ever an accident, sweetheart. We couldn’t imagine life without you.”

Father and son looked at each other.

“I’m sure you’ll make at least one good friend within the next week or two,” Robbie continued. “Take a walk up the road and see if you can spot any kids playing. Boy, girl, it doesn’t matter. Ride your bike around a little bit.”

“I suppose.” Cory sat down on the step. He wanted to ask his father how another family could be living inside their house, but he thought back to this morning’s breakfast conversation and knew that he couldn’t mention a word of it. Maybe, if he got to know Jeffrey better, he would invite Jeffrey over to visit. His father always held a respect around older people, and Cory felt that his father would probably like Jeffrey once they got to know each other. Jeffrey could bring his wife, and the baby. His mother would like the baby, Cory reasoned. She always went gushy over them in stores.

“You need air in the tires?” Robbie asked, breaking Cory’s thoughts. “Let’s go get your bike out of the barn. I’ll pump up the tires. I saw a corner store just two blocks up the road. I’m sure it sells treats and comic books. You worked hard setting up your room yesterday. That’s worth a few dollars for treats. Deal?”

“Deal,” Cory said. He put Jeffrey out of his mind. The old man would be busy taking care of his sick wife and doing whatever he did in there. He accompanied his father to the barn and watched as his father added air to his front tire.

“We can turn this barn into a play area too, up in the loft,” Robbie told him. “We might even get a few chickens so we can have our own eggs.”

“Really? Can I have one as a pet?”

Robbie laughed. “I suppose.”

He handed the bike to Cory, then dug into his pocket and extracted a five-dollar bill. “There you go, bud. All yours. Have fun. Just keep us updated so we know where you are.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Cory rode along their driveway. He glanced at the house and saw Jeffrey’s form standing in the attic window, watching him. Jeffrey waved. Cory, on instinct, waved back. When he looked back at the attic window a few seconds later, Jeffrey was gone, the window a dull square slate against the frame.

* * *

Tanya walked through the bedrooms as Robbie fiddled with porch repairs. She made their bed, then went into each of the boys’ rooms to straighten bedcovers and start unpacking boxes. Cory had left his covers tossed back, an open comic book face up on the bed. She’d seen him step outside with his football and heard his and Robbie’s voices drifting up through the open windows. Her poor wee one. She wondered whether they should have had another baby shortly after Cory had been born so that he could have had a sibling closer in age to himself, but that was a moot point. You don’t have a baby when your youngest is almost ten, and besides, she didn’t think she’d have the energy to mother an infant at this point in her life. She was thirty-eight years old. As soon as they got settled, she’d get back into her web design work. She thought she might like to take the smallest room on the main floor as her office where she could set up her desk, her computer, all of her books and manuals.

She began hanging up his clothes in his closet. She paused, remembering how they’d found him yesterday—dazed and coated in plaster dust and cobwebs—and took a moment to inspect the inside of his closet. She ran her fingers along the thick plaster walls, glancing up at the ceiling. She saw nothing out of place; no tiny door, no entrance into a crawl space. She shrugged. He could have fallen asleep in here, heard his name being called, and stumbled from room to room looking for them. A kid half-asleep could be pretty darned disoriented. She put the thought from her mind, loving the brilliant sun streaming through his window.

She finished hanging up his clothes. A watery melody came to her along the breeze. It lasted seconds, a muted wind chime sound, only familiar. She sought to identify the tune. It had been from “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” She wondered if the former family had left a set of chimes outside somewhere, although she’d never seen a set that could elicit a melody like that. The sound stopped as quickly as it had begun.

She continued with her tasks. It was starting to look like a room. She placed his lamp on the desk and bent to plug it into a nearby socket when she heard a baby cry. Her maternal instinct made her straighten up. She would have sworn the cry had come from inside the room. Tanya walked over to Cory’s window and glanced into the yard. She saw nothing. She knew she’d heard a baby cry.

“I’m not going crazy,” she mumbled. “I heard a baby.”

She checked the other bedroom windows, thinking a neighbor with a baby might be close outside. She saw no one. She stood in front of the spare bedroom, and on impulse, stepped into it.

This room had an odd, almost held-breath feel about it that she attributed to its not having any furniture. Flies buzzing in the warming sun drew her attention to the bathroom. Tanya saw two new flies moving up and down the panes in an attempt to reach the outdoors. She opened the window, drew the screen back, and let them out.

“I’m sure there’ll be more of you.” She regarded the old mirror. It was four feet high and five feet across, expanding over most of the wall. It had a heavy, ornate gold painted frame common to turn-of-the century fare. It could use some cleaning, but she liked it enough. She saw a scattering of fingerprints on its glass. She used the palm of her hand to smudge them away, then noticed that some of the fingerprints seemed to be
in
the glass itself…as if someone had pressed from the other side.

“Strange,” she muttered. Must have been a manufacturing defect from all those years ago. She’d have to point it out to Robbie. Maybe they wouldn’t keep the mirror, heritage or not. “We can probably get a good price for you,” she murmured. She left the bathroom, and never saw the shadow that stepped across the glass the instant she left, its fingers touching from the other side.

* * *

She became engrossed in tidying Cole’s and Chris’s rooms and forgot about the baby’s cry and melodic chimes. It must have been sound traveling from a nearby house, the effects probably more immediate because of the direction of the wind. Robbie came upstairs and popped his head around the corner.

“Up for a tea and a sandwich?” he asked.

She tossed a stray hair from her eyes. “Sounds good. You making it?”

“I can do that, m’lady,” he bowed. “Cory took his bike up to the corner store to get a treat. Poor kid doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

She placed some items on Chris’s dresser, then walked towards Robbie. “I know.” They walked towards the stairwell together, then descended to the kitchen.

“I know it’s not quite ‘home’ yet, but by the end of today we’ll have the basics set up in each room. By next week, I’ll have curtains up and will have painted at least two or three rooms.” She set the teakettle on to boil. “It’s going to be cozy. Funny…I went into the spare bedroom, just to take a look and decide how I might want to fix it up for the boys—I let some flies out through the bathroom window and noticed fingerprints all over the big mirror. I went to rub them away, then saw that some prints are actually on the other side of the glass. Isn’t that odd? Someone must have touched the glass just prior to it being coated all those years ago.”

Robbie, who had been casually laying out slices of bread along the counter, stopped in his movements. “Inside the glass?”

“Yeah. I rubbed and rubbed, but they’re actually on the other side of the glass.” She saw the look of horror on his face and stopped. “What’s wrong? You look as if I’d said I saw a hand waving at me from the other side.”

He shivered. “I don’t think I want the boys using that room as a study. I don’t like that damned room. It just doesn’t have a good feel. I hate that mirror.”

Tanya laughed now. “Oh, come on, Rob. It’s the only room in the house that’s still completely empty. You were just shaken up because we couldn’t find Cory yesterday. He crawled out from under a bed or something where he’d fallen asleep.”

“We don’t know where he went,” Robbie cut her off.

Tanya sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with the room, hon. It’s this big empty cavern, but once it’s painted, with nice blinds and furniture and homey things, it’ll get a lived in, good feel to it again. I can make that bathroom really cute, too. I’m just not convinced I want to keep the antique mirror. It’s too big and gaudy and I’d actually like to modernize the area.”

“I’m thinking of taking it off too,” Robbie said. “Maybe we should just keep the room as a guest bedroom, for when our parents or friends come to stay with us. The kids can each have a desk in their own room, or for that matter, up in the attic, away from the rest of the house.”

“I suppose,” she said. “Hurry with those sandwiches. I’m hungry!” She laughed at him again. “We do almost have more house than we need, but better than being cramped. Especially when grandchildren finally come along.”

They ate their sandwiches.

“I suppose part of the attic would be a better study area for all of them,” she agreed. “We could turn it into a whole recreation area in that one spot, with a loveseat and a games table and such. Funny, but while I was cleaning Cory’s bedroom, I swore I heard a baby cry for a few seconds. That, and what sounded like a music box or chimes.”

Robbie coughed hard, almost choking on his sandwich. His face turned red and his eyes watered as he fought to catch his breath. Tanya, half concerned, half amused, rubbed his back.

“Are you going to be okay? What did I say? I said I thought I heard a baby, not that I wanted another one.”

He shook his head and took a long moment to regain himself. He stared at her.

“What?” she implored. “You’re looking at me like I’ve said something insane. I figured it was just the sound of a neighbor’s baby carrying along the breeze. The room does look like it was for an infant, though…that pale pink paint.”

“They lost their baby,” Robbie said, his voice flat. “Hawkins mentioned it to me on the phone this morning. I’d called him with a few questions about the place.” He decided to fib. “I’d asked him if the former owners had had kids and if they knew of any kids Cory’s age who might live along the street. He said they’d had a little girl, and they’d lost her. Crib death. She was only a few months old.”

“Jesus,” Tanya said. She placed her half-eaten sandwich down on her plate. “That’s terrible. How sad. Was that the baby’s room?”

Robbie nodded. “Yes. We’ll get it painted and fixed up for Cory. It’s sad, but it’s something in the past. We can’t let a sad memory affect our future here.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Time for happiness in this house again.”

“I agree,” Robbie said. He clinked the edge of her tea mug with his. “Cheers to that!” They laughed again, but it felt strained.

Cory pedaled. A high, white cumulus cloud banked to the southeast, promising another banger by early evening. A couple of little kids about three years old stood on the sidewalk and watched him as he rode past, one with a finger thrust into his nostril, his booger-picking stance stilled as he observed Cory with curiosity. Cory dismissed them: they were way too young to even think about hanging out with.

He reached the corner store, a small wooden structure that reminded him of a local fishing shack his father used to bring him to back at their old town, and leaned his bike against the side wall. A few adults lingered about, one in front of the magazine rack, another choosing lottery tickets, another trying to make a decision over various jars of jam. A middle-aged woman sat behind the counter, her hair dyed a florid red. She glanced at him. “Hi, son.”

“Hi,” Cory said. “Do you have comic books?”

“Over there, by the magazines. Lower shelf.”

Cory perused the contents for a minute. He decided upon a new
Spiderman
comic. He walked back to the counter where a bunch of loose nickel, dime, and quarter candies waited in open cardboard boxes.

“You want candy?” the lady asked him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. She handed him a small brown paper bag. He spent another minute deciding over the selection. The bell over the door jingled. Cory saw a girl of about ten or eleven years old walk into the store. She was pretty, with shoulder-length dark hair and freckles over her nose. She walked up to the red-haired woman and asked for a paper bag.

“You look like you’re out of breath, Gina,” the woman told her.

“I ran here,” the girl said.

“Why? We’re open all day, honey.”

The girl giggled. “Nothing better to do.” She looked at Cory who flushed at her attention and looked away. He saw the lady smile.

“You new in town, son?” the lady asked.