Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Writing Challenges > Halloween Challenge

CHEVAL GLASS
by R.Schultz

Disclaimer: All "The Pretender" universes belong to Fox, NBC, TNT or whatever. It's confusing. At any rate I am NOT depriving these rich guys of anything. I play with their toys and return them to that cold heartless storage box where they're imprisoned. Good as new. This story is mine and may be arcived, provided credit given to eGroup and myself. Written Halloween night, 2000. Apx. 1000 words long.
Rating: G
Written for the PretendFic Halloween challenge.
Miss P/other, no sexuality or violence.

Once upon a time I would have assumed it was the work of my enemy, Raines. He's been inside my home before, it wouldn't be anything new. A shadow went by, maybe now to the dark under the stairs. A flick of a light switch, still nothing there. The thought of ghosts on Halloween was preposterous. However... There were the shadows.

So I decided to ignore the shadows. One of Mr. Parker's socio-pathological friends would be worse than ghosts. I couldn't stop them, any of them, so I've got to grow accustomed to feeling eerie.

In the bathroom I saw shadows in the mirror, felt quick caresses of my neck and cheek. A whisper, but no words. Fingers combing through my long hair. The sigh flesh makes against fresh bedsheets. A softness of sounds, insistent, demanding. Begging. Unheard words. Chills kept climbing my spine.

I had too much to do, certainly I needed no distractions, not now. No time to play games, there were the deeper sub-levels. It was Halloween and I had things to do.

Maybe, did I hear the voice say it loved me? Needed me? It cried for me. But every time I turned around, it was gone. No truths, just new lies being fed through my senses to my brain.

In the downstairs mirror, a fine old antique English Cheval Glass, my sight told me there were now two of me in the mirror. Despite the bright light of the hallway, it was cloudy within, impossible for me to make out details. Which one was the real me?

One was dressed for going out. Long floral print, Sienna cloth coat with a fox-tail collar. The other woman in a bright red blouse half open. A skirt so short it barely covered the groin. Long hair, or longer. Which one me? One of us made to touch the other.

Immediately pain lanced through me. The passage of the ghostly hands through my mirror's flesh left lines of fire and surprise. The stranger's hands left unbleeding wounds in me when she tried to caress my neck. I shuddered in reaction as her light kiss burnt my neck. The ghost was trying to hold on to me, and each touch of her unreal hands left agony behind. My real body now had fading lines of red on it where I could see the ghost's hands had been. Pain, but no blood. Lines of red, but no tearing.

I was haunted. On Halloween Eve. This would be a scary joke except for the lines of red on my face and hands. A scary joke, a fantasy. Yet as the spectral hands touched me, I knew fresh pain. The mirror- me was beng touched and the real-me was being hurt. Every time my hands went to her they passed through her, she seemed not to notice my touchings. I heard nothing, saw only fantasy in a mirror.

This is not real. I am having a hallucination. In an hour, a day, a month this will all be gone. It must fade. It must. Too many other souls were depending on me. I am strong....

My child was beside me, my hand clutched hers. Reality, a rock to hold on to. Dressed, somewhat, as a ghost. A child, hoping for too many candies, too much racing, gorging when Mommy doesn't see.

"Mama," she complained. "You're holding my hand awfully hard. Did I do something wrong?" Reality, future, present. With her the lines of pain faded, my muscles cleared, I was just seeing a bad reflection in a mirror. I swept my whole life, in the form of a child, high up into my bosom.

Kisses, a tickle-touch of the ear, she kisses me back, giggling. The chill returns. Someone is walking on my grave. Yet I somehow feel no panic, anger or hate. No delusion, no spirits. This twin me standing beside me in the mirror is... Whatever it is. Not knowing what next to do, I see my ghost may have been crying. Can ghosts cry?

My daughter points at me, the other me alongside the ghost. She looks about the foyer, searching for the twin me in the hallway and not finding this other me. Where was she? Only in the Cheval Glass Mirror. My darling touched her in the mirror's world.

"Mommy, which one is you?" I lift a hand, to poke her in the side, letting my mirror image do the same thing. My other ghost in the mirror plays lightly with the long hair of my daughter, within the mirror.

"Do you have a sister, Mommy? Where is she? How come I can't see her except in the mirror?"

The ghost me caresses my daughter with all the aching longing a childless woman sometimes shows in the presence of the young. She touched my mirror-daughter and the hair is moved here. The neck is caressed there and I watch the close faint body hairs lay down under the presence of the unseen hand.

The mirror-me has now acquired a golden edge. As if she were done in an outline of gilt. The immaterial hand can be felt by my real-daughter as well as the image. In the mirror....

Only Saint's are supposed to have acquired that golden nimbus, that unearthly beauty and joy. I am seing the edge of.....

"Anyone home?" It is Smitty, I recognized her voice. Her own three children are already squabbling over who had the best haul thus far. I looked back into the darkling vision and the mirror is now mundane, clear, empty of all but myself and my child.

It only took a few minutes, we were already dressed for trick-or- treating, and we were walking to Smitty's station wagon. We were going to take the kids through one of the upstate middle-class neighborhoods. The pickings would be better there. Was I this greedy as a child?

My girl raced to get a back row of seating to hog. Smitty noted how I looked as if I had seen a ghost. Well, yes, dear, I did. You can get the shrinks to take me away tomorrow, can't you? No need to rush.

No thank you. I'm never going to mention it. My mother didn't raise any retarded children. Tell anyone on Halloween night I'm having tactile and visual hallucinations? Not bloody likely.

I noticed Smitty's two girls comparing something which seemed all bright pastels and primary colors.

"Pokka-moona," Lee said. Shirley disagreed. "Poekeena-moon."

"What is that?" I asked. Shirley raced back to my front door, looking about, once there. If she and Lee were pulling a gag, they had me hooked already. Great method acting. Shirley returned at a suicidal pace, of course.

"There musta been a hunnerd, in that dish you had, by the front door, Mrs. Parker. Only now it's all gone sommeres," Shirley stated. Lee piped up; "We were sorta hoping you were going to tell us about this stuff."

"What dish?" I asked, walking back.

The porch was empty, no dish, no bright packets of...candy? Nothing. Even the doormat was inside tonight. I asked to see one of the packets once we were all back by the station wagon again. Lee pulled out one of the items.

"See? Lots of candies inside." Trust children to find any candy wherever they go. I could make out an easy dozen of the bright packets at the bottom of Lee's bag. None of them had been the least bit shy about helping themselves. The trouble is that I NEVER put out dishes of goodies. The squirrels would simply steal them all if I did.

"P-O-K-E-M-O-N," Smitty carefully said. "What the damned hell is that?"

"Watch your mouth around the children," I whispered. Immediately I knew I was going to get it.

"You know Mrs. Holy Mouth Catherine Parker, I seem to recall a word or two you had to say when you found that Mouse...."

"Rat."

".....Mouse having himself a nibble of your frankfurters week before last. And your little MISS Parker carefully teaching my kids every golden syllable."

"Okay, okay, sorry. I'd still like to know where that dish of new candies disappeared to."

"Why?"

"My daughter is going to throw a snit if she doesn't get any of those pokeing-along candy packets before the night is out. Think yours could share?"

I looked back at the house, another chill racing up my spine. The ghost was back. Time to leave.

In the now darkling foyer a figure once more clouded the surfaces or depths of the antique mirror. Wearing an indecently short skirt, half-open red blouse, tracks of tears on her face.

A hand ... for a moment ... thrust itself out of the reality line of the looking glass. Once a hole had been punched between HERE and THERE you could catch the scent of cigarette smoke, Estee Lauder, rabbit fur and vodka. You could now hear the voice of the ghost in the mirror.

There was all the pain possible in the world concentrated in that one word.

"Mama?"

 

end