Marian looked down
into the water around her feet and saw her reflection looking back up at her.
A wave of giddiness
swept her up so that she felt, briefly, for something to hold on to but it
evaded her—as she knew it would, she had just left the bank where she worked,
there was no railing, or pillar, near her.
She paused to get her
breath, recalling that, just for a fleeting moment, there had been a face,
besides hers, looking up at her from the mirror of the water.
Taking another deep
breath she turned to look at the bank, wondering, perhaps, if she should go
back inside to telephone for a Doctor since she felt quite dizzy and
disoriented.
There was no bank.
Just a muddy track
leading between trees and bushes. She looked to her front, there was an old tumbledown
shack with a crumbling porch in the distance; to the sides there were more
trees and more bushes.
“Oh, God! I’m in the
country! In my high heels!” As soon as she said it she knew how stupid it would
sound. More to the point was, “How did I get here from the middle of the city?”
She looked around some
more.
“And where is ‘here’?”
She felt her shoulders go down. She had been kidnapped, or something, in the
blink of an eye.
* * * * *
“Good morning,
Marian.”
“Good morning, Alice.”
“Shame to be indoors
on a day like this. We should be on the beach or sipping lemonade on the front
porch at home,” Alice said.
Alice was always perky;
she was also a country girl. Marian deplored the country and stayed as far as
possible away from it at all times.
Alice was skinny, she
bounced around everywhere. She was always full of energy. Marian was somewhat
chunky and prosaic. She liked to take things more calmly and logically. Her
idea of a nice afternoon was to curl up in front of the television with a bag
of something tasty.
They were both smart,
well dressed girls. Alice was a year or two senior to Marian’s mid twenties. They
both worked out two or three times a week and, generally, together.
Today Alice had a
strange thought process going on. Marian shook her head wondering where Alice
got these ideas.
“Have you ever
wondered what is the other side of the mirror?” Alice asked her over their
sandwich at lunchtime, “It’s just that it would be really neat if we could nip
into the mirror and hide there to see what other people thought of us when they
come in and comb their hair.”
Marian looked sideways
at Alice, “I think that when people come in to comb their hair they comb their
hair and worry about what that looks like. Why would they talk about us?”
“No, no. They gossip. They
say things to each other about other people,” Alice insisted.
“But not necessarily
about us,” Marian was firm on this point, “Besides, you could always rig up a
two-way mirror and a microphone. In fact, just the microphone would be enough.”
“We should want to see
their faces. You can tell a lot about people from their expression when they
talk—especially about other people. We could start an ‘Intra-Bank News Sheet’,
couldn’t we? About all the gossip?”
“Men gossip, too. You
should put one of these traps in their room, perhaps. Just to be fair,” Marian
observed.
“Oh, my!” Alice had
the grace to blush, “What if we saw more than we should?”
“Unlikely. Most men
have trouble getting it past their zippers!” Marian smiled at Alice knowing she
was ‘saving herself’ for a ‘special man’.
“Marian!” Alice’s
eyebrows went up like rockets as did her hand to her mouth, “How can you say
such things? How do you know?”
Marian was apt to
taunt Alice a little, playing on her chaste mind, “How will you know that your
‘special man’ is special if you don’t examine him first. Perhaps I could do it
for you and make recommendations?”
Alice giggled, still
blushing furiously.
Marian picked up her
‘Subway’ roll and began stroking it suggestively, “Now this is what I should
call a ‘special man’!”
Her coffee spurted out
of Alice’s nose as she snorted her laughter around the edge of the cup,
“Marian,” she choked, “You are incorrigible.”
“Indeed,” Marian
agreed, “But it straightens out when I stand up.”
They adjusted their
make-up, smoothed down their skirts and went back to work. Just another day at
the office.
All afternoon, Marian
kept thinking about this idea of Alice’s; what is behind the mirror. ‘Silliness,’
She thought, ‘Everyone knows that the only thing in the mirror is the
reflection of what is in front of it.’ She had done ‘Optics’ at school as part
of her physics studies; she certainly wasn’t given to strange flights of
fancies. And yet...
By the time five
o’clock had come around she had forgotten all about it. Her mind was now on
cleaning up her desk. She liked to leave it as she would want to see it in the
morning. Next phase of the plan was to go and get something to eat.
Marian stood at the
main door of the bank looking out at the street beyond. It had been raining
heavily, something she had not noticed from inside. No umbrella but the sky
looked as if it was clearing now. Walk down half a dozen wet steps and
then along the pavement; but should she turn left towards the burger restaurant
or right towards the new salad bar.
Decisions. She had a
good salad with her roll at lunch so she elected to turn left and head towards
the burger restaurant.
Just as she was about
to drop off the bottom step she noticed there was a large puddle. There came a
vague recollection of having seen water there before after rain so, knowing it
was quite shallow, she put her foot in it.
* * * * *
The shack looked
empty. She was so uncomfortable tripping along this rutted track in her high
heels. The steps up to the front door were broken, clearly untended for years. The
veranda was shabby and peeling, the whole place looked as if it was about to
collapse at any minute.
Marian was frightened.
She had no comprehension of how she had come into this situation and even less
idea of what her situation was.
The plots of several
horror stories that she had seen sprang to mind. Her hands were cold and
sweaty, her stomach was in knots of fear and her muscles were freezing up so
that she could barely move.
“Who are you?” A wheezy
old voice spoke to her.
Marian nearly
collapsed with the shock. She put her hands out in front of her to stop herself
falling over, trying to regain her balance. Her face was contorted in fear, her
eyes staring and her lungs scraping air in spasms down her throat after the
first tortured cry.
“I’m sorry,” she
managed to blurt out, “I didn’t know anyone was here. It all seemed deserted.”
Marian looked around
desperately seeking out the source of the voice. Nothing. She could see nobody.
“I am here, young
girlie,” the voice spoke again, “You will not be harmed. Ha! I am far too old
to cause hurt to a fit looking young lady such as yourself.”
Marian peered up on to
the veranda. The far end was in the gloom of several trees overhanging the stubby
roof. A rocking chair began to slowly tilt to and fro; the collection of rags
on it moved with it but the top had an independent motion. Marian walked
slowly, hesitantly, down the grass towards that end of the porch.
“Why do you not come
up here with me?” the voice asked her.
“I’m not sure if the
wood will take my weight,” she answered through a mouth still parched with
fear.
“It is stronger than
it looks, my dear. You will be safe. Step up here with me I have water. Cool,
sweet, water. You sound thirsty.”
It seemed to Marian
that she little choice. She had no clue where she was or why she was there. At
least this... person could tell her the ‘where’. She hoped.
She went up the steps,
one by one, very carefully. Two out of the five creaked very painfully but
held. Over by the front door was a mat; it said ‘WELCOME’ on it—backwards. ‘It
must,’ she thought, ‘be some sort of local idiosyncrasy’. She walked slowly
down the veranda until she came to the rocking chair.
A severely wrinkled
face with kind eyes looked up at her.
“What is your name,
child?” the old person asked her.
“Marian... er... ,”
she tried to decide if the person looking at her was a man or a woman.
“I am Claire. Will you
play with me?”
“What would you like
to play,” Marian thought that humouring the old lady was the safest way.
“Are you my new
Mammy?” The old woman asked her.
“Uh, no. I’ve just got
here,” Marian was really puzzled by that. Surely this old lady’s Mother must
have died long ago.
“My Mammy just went to
the next world. Did you come down to replace her?”
“No, no. I have no
idea where I am or how I got here.”
“I need a Mammy. You
must have come to look after me from the other world.”
“What is this other
world? I do not understand what you mean,” Marian was beginning to panic again.
The old lady reached
down and picked up a large bowl in shaking hands. There was about an inch of
water in it.
“Look,” she said,
“Look into the bowl of water and tell me what you see.”
Marian edged forward
and looked. She could see nothing but her own reflection and said so.
“Aaah! The other world—the
other you. You have crossed over to look after me. You are my new Mammy.”
From then on until the
end of her life, Marian spent every opportunity to stand, patiently, in every
puddle she could find.
But she could never
find a way home.
