Mirror of Shadows by T. Lynne Tolles Page B

girl? she thought as she hit the bottom of the grave and the bones. Terrified and in pain, she scurried to one side trying get off and avoid the bones of the resident corpse. She looked up the narrow shaft of the grave and screamed for help over and over until her throat hurt and her voice grew hoarse. A hard yank on her arm made her yelp and scream again as she seemed to be flying up and out of the grave. With a glance back at occupant of the grave, Ella saw a hint of gold sparkling from under the noose. It was the last thing she saw before she found herself sitting upright in bed, with Jeremy shaking her gently by the arm.
     
    *****
     
    “ Are you okay?” he asked. His hair was every which way, his t-shirt was on inside out, and his pants weren’t zipped. Ella could only assume he had gotten dressed as he ran down the hall to find out why she was screaming.
    She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them tight. “I’m okay, I guess.”
    “Did you have a nightmare?” he asked.
    “I’m not sure they are nightmares any more.”
    “They? You mean you’ve had more than one?”
    “I’ve had a few since I’ve moved in here,” she admitted.
    “Why haven’t you told me about them before?”
    “I don’t know. You already think I’m nuts. Guess I didn’t want to add any more ammunition to your claim.”
    He smiled. Putting a hand on her shoulder he said, “Why don’t you give it a try?”
    “They are visions, I guess, like seeing the past. The first was of my grandmother. She was my age and she was trying to warn me that I was in some kind of danger.
    “The second was of a mob of faceless people chasing a girl through the forest, catching her and then hanging her. She looked just like me, but after thinking about it more, I’m not so sure that she wasn’t just an ancestor that looked like me.
    “And this last one, I fell into a grave landing onto its occupant, which I think was the woman who was hung.”
    “These visions — they’re related then?”
    “Yes. I think so and they are all centered on the mirror.”
    “The mirror? What mirror?”
    “The mirror I asked you to take down and then you put back up just to spite me?”
    “I have no idea what you are talking about. I took the mirror down and put it in the attic. I didn’t put it back up.”
    “Well, it’s back on the wall. I saw it just before I left last night.”
    “I didn’t put it back up. Why would I do that?”
    “I don’t know; why would you? Maybe you were angry?”
    “I thought you knew me better than that.”
    “You’re not exactly easy to get to know.”
    “I guess, but angry or not, I wouldn’t do something like that.”
    “Who then?”
    “I don’t know, but I too have been finding things misplaced or moved. I just didn’t think much of it. I’m sorry you think I could do something like that. I’ll go take the mirror down right now and put it away,” Jeremy said as he stood up and left the room.
    Ella wanted to say something but she didn’t know what. Instead, she laid back and pulled the sheet over her face in frustration.
     
    *****
     
    When Ella came down to get some coffee, she found Jeremy in the hall covering the mirror he had just taken off the wall with a sheet. Their eyes met for a moment and she could see the sadness he felt at her accusation, but she wasn’t sure what to say just yet. She was still processing the vision and wondering how the mirror got on the wall if Jeremy hadn’t put it there.
    She continued her search for Boo in another area of the forest well past the graveyard and very near the other end of Cauldron Lake. She found nothing quite as interesting there as she did the previous day, but after several hours she did come upon some ruins. A stone foundation ran the perimeter of what must have been a small home. Remnants of a hearth and partial chimney remained there too. The chimney had long since collapsed in on itself, but the hearth was very much intact.
    Ella thought it must