David Lomax: Backward Glass

No reply. I looked into the thick hedges, snow-blind after the dim mysteries of the carriage house. But I could still tell height, and this was a kid, no taller than me.

I strode forward, shielding my eyes. “You’re not allowed to come here,” I said, maybe a little louder and harsher than I had intended, but I was trying to build up steam. “Cops closed it off.”

The figure withdrew to the other side of the hedge and took off toward the creek.

“Stop!” I hesitated for a moment, then ran to the boxwood shrubs my dad had planted, the easiest part of the hedge to slip through.

The guy was a good runner. He sprinted ahead of me, dodging trees and jumping bushes. When he reached the creek, I got a better look. A dirty white jacket, too thin for January. A foolish-looking orange woolen hat with one of those knit balls bobbing on top.

It’s funny how you can switch from feeling one way to something totally different. I had wanted to catch this kid and give him a shake, tell him he better get off our property or else.

Then, in the middle of running—I was lonely. Just like that.

“Hey, wait,” I shouted, gasping. “I just want to talk.”

The kid veered away from the creek again. We were coming up on the fences that separated us from the subdivision, and it was either climb a fence, go back to our house, or descend to the muddier ground near the trickle of water that was Manse Creek. He headed to the house.

I tried to cut him off, but he was too fast, and I was breathing hard.

Then I got it. He was doubling back to the carriage house. I’d been tricked. I put on a burst of speed, but then slowed. Why hurry? There was only one way out.

I switched to an out-of-breath jog, keeping him in sight through the winter-bare saplings that dotted the ground. He twisted sideways and slipped through the hedge, losing his hat on the way. I saw a hand flash back through and grab for it, so I put on another burst of speed.

The hand disappeared, leaving the orange hat caught in the hedge. I snatched it when I got there.

Before I had even begun to worm my way through, I heard the door slam. I rounded the front of the little house, pushed open the door, and stepped through.

The dark was almost total, cut only by the dimness making its way through the hayloft window. I was worried that the guy might be right beside me, but then I heard a scrape from the second floor.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Are you the one?” came a gruff voice from the shadows. Was he trying to disguise his voice from me, trying to sound older than he was?

“Am I what one?”

“The one the mirror chose? This time, I mean. It’s me in ten years.”

“Who are you?” I said again. “Look, it isn’t safe up there. I’m sorry I scared you before.”

The shadowed figure above made a dismissive sound. “You didn’t scare me. This is 1977, right? Are you the one who scratched that message in my drawer?”

“What message? What drawer?” I was beginning to wonder if this was my first encounter with a junkie. “I don’t know what you mean,” I added. “Look, my name’s Kenny Maxwell. I live here. Well, not here, but in the big house.”

There was a long silence. “You’re Kenny.” It was something halfway between a question and a statement. The kid rattled a piece of paper. “So you did write out those rules.”

“What rules? What are you talking about?”

“The note Melissa brought back. That she got in the mail.” He sounded impatient now, and the gruff was slipping out of his voice. “Do you know what’s going on? Have you gone back?”

I held out my hands to calm him down, but I didn’t step any closer. “Back where? I don’t know any Melissa.”

“Don’t know much, do you?” I didn’t answer. After a long pause he spoke again. “I’m going. It’s your note, so you can have it back, I guess. Jeez, I thought you’d have more answers. Help Kenny. What am I supposed to help you do? I guess we’ll figure it out, but I’ve stayed too long as it is. Bye.”

Bye? “Wait,” I said. I held out my hands, ready for him to rush me, but there was a quick rustle above me behind the furniture.

And then nothing.

“Do you need help or something?” I said after a moment. There was no reply. “What’s your name?”

But I knew I was alone. That way your voice is when it’s only you in a room. It was impossible, but I knew it was true. I walked up the stairs.

My dad hadn’t finished stripping the lath, so the dark space where the baby had been still dominated the back wall. To the right as you came up the stairs was the cluster of old furniture, much more carelessly placed than in my room. A bed had been ruined with a pile of chairs and two well-worn school desks. I picked a path between dressers, chests, and a pile of splintered remnants.

I wasn’t at all scared of the kid jumping out at me. He was gone, I was sure of that, however impossible it was.

It was the note that guided me. He said he was leaving it, and there it was, a new piece of paper sitting on the top of that same low dresser I had noticed before. I picked it up, but couldn’t read it in the dim light.

I looked at the mirror, then down at where I had been standing. Yes, this was the thing the kid would have ducked around. I squatted to open its four stubby drawers. Nothing. I ran my hands over a surface that looked to have been finished and refinished several times. The wood framing the mirror at the top was scroll-cut in fancy loops, but everything else was square and functional. I guessed the idea was that the lady of the house would sit in front of it to put on her makeup and jewelry. But if that was so, why did the mirror need to be so tall? It rose a little more than four feet above the dresser. Had it been tacked on later? Maybe. As near as I could tell, it didn’t have single scratch on it, and it threw back the dim light perfectly.

No kid hiding. No ghost jumping out.

“I just wanted to talk,” I said again, but my voice sounded stupid to me in the empty place, so I went back down and into the light, feeling the paper between my fingers as I went.

As soon as I got outside, I closed the door, sat down on the step, and looked at it.

The first thing that struck me was the lettering. Clean, like letters printed in a book, not punched into the paper the way a typewriter does.

The Rules

The mirror works January to December, on years ending in seven. It takes you backward from eleven until midnight. If you’re in an even-numbered decade (like the eighties or the sixties), it opens for you on an even-numbered day. Odd decade (seventies or nineties), odd days. Once you’ve gone backward, you have to wait until after midnight to return. The mirror picks one person every decade, and never picks older than sixteen. But you can turn seventeen and still use it.

There are other rules, but I didn’t say them before, so I shouldn’t this time.

Good luck,

Your friend for all time,

Kenny Maxwell

The Rules

2. From an even-numbered decade, you can go back on even-numbered days. Same for odds.

What do you do when you’re confronted with something that’s obviously crazy?

You don’t talk about it, that’s for sure.

I put the note and the orange hat with the list under my mattress, and spent the day thinking about how nuts I was for not throwing it all away and telling my dad I had seen some kid trespassing.

It was the twenty-third of January, so don’t think it wasn’t lost on me that at ten-thirty that night I was supposed to be half an hour away from … something. Odd day. Odd decade. Takes you backward.

My parents are strict early-to-bedders, so the house was quiet. I sat by my window and looked out, though not at the hedges and the carriage house, since my window faced the street. A new snow was falling.