Graham Masterton - Mirror

Mr Capelli put in, 'We saw a ball, yes? A child's ball. In here it was blue and white, in there it was a tennis ball.'

He swallowed hard, and then he added, 'I saw Emilio in there, my own flesh and blood; but here it was —' He lifted one arm towards Boofuls, then dropped it against his side. 'In here it was this boy.'

'This boy?' queried Father Lucas, inclining his head toward Boofuls.

Uneasy, Mr Capelli wiped his sweating palms on the sides of his pants. Father Lucas walked back toward Boofuls and hunkered down beside him, inspecting him through his television-set spectacles as if he were a doctor and Boofuls had been brought to him with suspected mumps. Boofuls completely ignored him and carried on watching television.

Father Lucas held out his hand, but Boofuls, without looking at him, moved his own hand away.

'What's your name, son?' Father Lucas asked him in a gentle voice.

Boofuls' eyes remained fixed on Grover. 'My name is Lejeune,' he said.

'Lejeune? Is that French?'

Boofuls shook his head. Father Lucas waited for him to say something else, but when he didn't, he rose to his feet and said, 'He's a relative of yours?'

'He's my -' Martin began; but Mr Capelli immediately interrupted.

'He's a friend of Emilio's; a good, good friend. Best buddies. His parents had to go away for a week or two. So — well — he's staying with us. With me and Mrs Capelli.'

Boofuls didn't make any attempt to deny this fiction; but kept on smiling.

'Well . . .' said Father Lucas. 'I'm not too sure what it is you want me to do.'

Mr Capelli grasped his arm and spoke to him racetrack-confidential. 'I want you to tell me if that mirror is a good mirror or an evil mirror. I want you to tell me what you feel when you touch it. Also, I was hoping that maybe you could think of some way to get Emilio out. Some holy way, do you understand what I mean by holy? Just so that nobody gets hurt. You see Lejeune here, well, I wouldn't want him to get hurt, for instance.'

'Why should there be any danger of him getting hurt?' asked Father Lucas.

'Father,' Mr Capelli replied, 'I just don't know. But maybe prayer can help. You know - maybe you can ask God.'

Father Lucas tried to look benign. 'God isn't exactly an agony uncle on some local radio station, somebody you can call up just whenever you feel like it.'

'I know that. He's better. Look at His ratings. God has better ratings than anybody you can think of, on any station.'

'Mr Capelli,' said Father Lucas, 'let's just take this one step at a time. You're asking me to tell you whether the mirror is good or evil. Well, let's find out. There's a little test we can do. I suppose you could call it a litmus test for blasphemy.'

'Litmus?' frowned Mr Capelli, as Father Lucas took a small phial of silver and dark blue glass out of his coat pocket.

'Didn't you do any science at school?' Martin asked him. 'Litmus is a powder that turns red in acid and blue in alkali. They make it out of moss.'

'And this is litmus?' Mr Capelli asked, pointing to Father Lucas' phial.

Father Lucas smiled and shook his head. 'Not quite, Mr Capelli. But it has a similar effect. It is water from the Holy Shrine at Lourdes, mixed with salt from the Sea of Galilee. It is said that if it touches any evil or desecrated object or person, it will burn them, like acid.'

Boofuls looked across in interest when Father Lucas said this; but after a while he returned to the television. Little House on the Prairie seemed to entertain him more than foolish priests who sprained their ankles playing baseball.

Father Lucas unscrewed the cap of the phial and lifted it up in front of the mirror. 'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,' he intoned, and cast drops of holy water at the surface of the mirror in the sign of the cross.

To his astonishment, the holy water flew right through the surface of the mirror and splattered onto the floor in the reflected sitting room.

Father Lucas stared at the image in the mirror, then touched the glass of the mirror itself, then stepped back to stare at the real floor.

'My God,' he whispered. 'It's there, in the mirror, but it's not here.' He licked his lips anxiously. 'It went right through. How could that happen? It's solid glass.'

Martin said, 'Now you know why we called you.'

Father Lucas waited for a moment, plainly unsure what he was going to do next. 'There could be some scientific explanation,' he suggested. 'I always look for the scientific explanation before I start imagining that I'm face-to-face with something demonic. Well, it's only right. Science in itself is a wonder of the Lord; and if a phenomenon eventually turns out to defy science, well then, it's all the more wonderful for that.'

'So what are you going to do?' asked Mr Capelli. 'All you lost in there was some holy water. I lost my grandson.'

'Well,' said Father Lucas. 'This isn't really my bag, so to speak. I'm not an exorcist; and I'm not too sure that an exorcist is what you need. You may be better off with a physicist.'

Boofuls laughed out loud, but it wasn't at all clear whether he was laughing at the television or at Father Lucas. Mr Capelli gave him a stern look, and he said, 'I'm sorry.'

Stiffly, Father Lucas got down on his hands and knees and patted the floorboards where (in the mirror) they were wet. Martin had done the same thing when Boofuls' ball first bounced into the reflected room; and with an equal lack of success.

'I can see myself touching it,' he said, 'and yet my fingers aren't wet. It's quite astonishing.'

He held out his hand to Martin to help him back up again; but just as he did so, something came flying out of the mirror in exactly the same parabola as the holy water had flown in. It splattered onto Father Lucas' forehead and down the side of his cheek.

He cried out 'Ah!' in surprise, and lifted his fingers to his face. He had been hit by several white glutinous droplets, which dripped onto the floor, and hung from his fingers in thin sticky strings.

'Here,' said Mr Capelli, taking out a large clean handkerchief and unfolding it. 'Here, Father, wipe yourself with this.'

'What in God's name is it?' Father Lucas asked in disgust. He lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed. Then he sniffed again. Then — his horror so strong that he almost panicked — he snatched the handkerchief from Mr Capelli's hand and wiped and wiped his face until it was bright scarlet all down one side.

'Semen!' He quivered. 'Semen!'

Mr Capelli crossed himself, and then crossed himself again. Martin helped Father Lucas to climb to his feet. Once he had steadied himself, Father Lucas stared at the mirror in anger and frustration. 'This is the work of the devil, you must have realized that from the very start.'

'But what can you do?' Mr Capelli begged him. 'The work of the devil is something that priests are trained to handle, eh? So you can do something for us?'

Father Lucas was about to say something when he turned unexpectedly and looked at Boofuls. Boofuls was staring at him with one of his triumphant, expressionless faces.

For a moment, their eyes engaged in a silent, careful game of question and answer. Then Father Lucas walked over to him and said, 'What do you know about this mirror?'

Mr Capelli caught hold of Father Lucas' arm. 'Listen, Father, he doesn't know nothing at all. He's only been in town since yesterday.'

Father Lucas continued to stare at Boofuls in the way that a confident man stares at a dog which has a reputation for being vicious and mad. 'Lejeune,' he said. 'That's your name, is it? Lejeune.'

Boofuls smiled fleetingly and said nothing, but he didn't take his eyes away from Father Lucas, not once. Martin didn't like the look of that smile at all. It made him shudder, as if somebody were stepping on his grave.