Chapter 1

I’ve always dabbled in antiques. Not that I’m an expert, nor do it as a means to make money. I’m just attracted to the old, mostly hand-forged tools and objects.

Handmade tables and chairs had always fascinated me too and I had picked up a few odd pieces. I even had some handmade musical instruments that I had found at estate sales and a few from some flea markets out in the rural areas.

I had a dulcimer that sounded like something you’d hear at a Bluegrass Festival when I strummed the strings. Not that I could play it, but it made me wish I could when I heard the sounds it made.

I found a free standing oval shaped Cheval mirror in an old abandoned barn on the back side of my aunt’s place when she died. I had gone over to help the attorneys settle her estate, since I was her only living heir. I loaded the old mirror in my truck and brought it back with me.

I guess the reason I was so attracted to that old mirror was the fact that my mother had one just like it, and when she died, I got it. I had cleaned it and used some furniture polish on it, never worrying about the scratches and scrapes in the finish. It looked good and I had it on display in my large bathroom downstairs.

When I got home with this one from my aunt’s property, which actually joined the land my mother had left me in her estate, I could hardly wait to get my prize mirror inside and compare them side by side.

I carried it straight to my big bathroom and put it right beside the one that had belonged to my mother. They were identical, right down to the brass loop knobs on each side of the tall oval mirror frame that loosened to let you change the angle of the mirror glass to see from your feet to your head.

I gathered up a couple of newspaper sections and placed them on the floor, then slid the mirror over on them before I started washing and wiping on the old wood finish. As dirty and dusty as it was, it cleaned up just as good as the one I already had, and I was thrilled to have a matched set.

I couldn’t help but wonder at the history behind them, and at the images they must have been exposed to, in their service with two women and God only knows who else.

I hurried to get the Windex and a roll of paper towels so I could clean the glass. I wanted to see if the mirror glass itself was as good as the first one. When I sprayed Windex at the top, of course there were muddy, murky rivulets of cleaner that ran down the glass. I loosened the brass knobs and raised the bottom of the oval mirror, so that it would lay horizontal in the stand.

I was literally amazed to see how well the mirror glass cleaned up. There were a few specks on the glass that felt like a fault of some sort when I scratched at them with my fingernail to get them off. After repeated tries, I gave up and cleaned the rest of the glass.

I had the overhead light on and the ceiling fan was slowly turning. I watched the reflection of the spinning blades and felt dizzy, until I shook my head. The center of the glass looked to be rippling, like a pebble had been tossed into a still pond, the small waves spreading in concentric circles until they were at the edges of the glass.

In my so called educated mind, I reasoned that the rippling effect of the glass had something to do with the new, screw-in fluorescent bulbs in the light fixture, coupled with the slowly rotating blades on the fan. Sounded good to me, so I lowered the oval mirror to fasten it upright, facing the other mirror so I could compare them.

I was bent forward, my hands on my knees. as I looked the two old antique mirrors over good in the light. I reached out once more to scratch at the small raised speck, which as near as I could tell, seemed to be where the ripples were originating.

The glass felt soft, I could have pushed through it with my hand. I jerked my hand back and looked at it closely. The ripples were still making concentric circles, spreading outward, as if even passing beyond the cherry-wood frame surrounding the oval glass.

This was really weird now. I backed up and looked at it from a different angle, knowing there had to be some logical explanation to this.

I needed a beer to settle my logic down.

I went to the kitchen and got a cold beer, then came back to sit and look once more at the almost hypnotizing effect of the spreading, concentric circles in the glass that looked just like water. I pulled up a small stool that I had gotten somewhere because it looked like a piano bench. I kept it in front of my original Cheval mirror as a decorative dressing stool.

I sat on the padded stool and pondered this anomaly, sipping my beer and scratching my chin, as if that would help me think better. The beer did help and I got another one.

I was drawn to the mirror again and once more sat down to study the glass. I leaned over and looked behind the frame; there was nothing but the old thick brown paper stapled to the back, still in its original shape, except for the faded, aged look.

I sat back down and reached out to tap the glass with the top of my half empty beer can.

There was no tap; the can actually entered the glass without making a sound. I jerked my hand back, spilling a few drops of beer that sloshed out. With my right hand on the outside edge of the mirror frame, I leaned closer and once again tried to tap the glass, harder and faster this time. My hand went completely inside the glass. I mean, it was if I had no hand, like it was stumped off above the wrist. I jerked my hand back and spilled more beer. I turned the can upside down, drained it, and hurried to get another one.

“FUCK,” I said aloud.

I was on my way back to the bathroom once again when my cell phone rang. I still had it in my pants pocket, so I put my beer down and pulled it out. It was Annie, my stepdaughter.

“Hey, Dad, we’re just coming through town, you need anything?”

“No, I can’t think of anything; you and I will have to go back to town tomorrow and load up on groceries if you are both still planning to take the three month trip with me.”

“You couldn’t pay us to stay home this time. We need a break, and three months on the road with you doing all the driving, is way too good to turn down,” she laughed.

“I got news for you, I’ll have two co-pilots that can drive as well as I can, and they’d better get their driving gloves on too,” I told her and we laughed. Stacy, her college roommate, is traveling with us this summer; the first summer either of them has stopped studying long enough to take a trip with me.

Annie is twenty one now. God, it sure doesn’t seem like she should be that old. I’m not her paternal father, I married her mother when Annie was only a year and a half old, and she has always insisted that I was her real father, no matter who may have gotten her mother pregnant. I couldn’t love her more if she was twins, and now that Carol is gone, Annie and I are even closer than ever. She’ll graduate in December with a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics, and she’s already enrolled to start her Masters during the spring semester. She’s smart as hell, and plans to go right on into her post grad studies for her PhD.

I closed the phone and laid it on the bathroom vanity top. I turned to look at the mirror and the rippling circles were still there.

I knew the girls would be here in a few minutes. I wanted to try and figure this out before they get here and tell me it’s some simple optical illusion that my mind was conjuring up, and that neither of them could even see it.

I sat on the stool once more and ‘tapped’ my beer can against the glass with the same results. I had a brilliant idea and with my nearly full beer can in hand, I ran to get my digital camera. Hell, I may not be headed for my Masters, but I wasn’t some dumb-ass either. I came back in a hurry, with my digital camera turned on and warmed up. Holding the camera, I put my hand inside the mirror and snapped three quick pictures, turning the camera to get more than one angle if, in fact, there was something there to take a picture of. I half expected the camera to be torn from my hand when I pulled it back through, and I jerked it hard. It easily came to me, and I looked at it good. No worse for the wear, as near as I can tell, anyway.

I clicked the button to view my pics and dropped my beer right in the floor.

There was this tropical paradise in all three pics. A beautiful beach, the bluest ocean water I had ever seen, and coconut palms along the shore thirty yards from the water.

I picked up my beer that had somehow landed upright on the bottom of the can, sloshing some, but not all of my beer out. I turned it up and drained it, then grabbed a paper towel and wiped up my mess.

I heard Annie drive up and went to meet them. They’ll get their chance to see this now. I know they’ll think I’ve had too many beers.

“Hey, Dad. Gosh you look so handsome, I may never go back to college,” Annie said, as we hugged.

“Yes you will too, and you need to have your eyes checked soon.”

“No she doesn’t either, Dad. We both know you’re the best looking man in these parts,” Stacy said, as we hugged too. Stacy was also just like my daughter; she had lost her dad when she was three and barely remembered him. When she and Annie became friends in middle school, she adopted me. We even had an adoption ceremony that day to make it official, just the three of us.

They both were about 5’ 4”, with dark hair they kept cut short, quick to fix in a hurry. They both refused to wear contacts and opted for round, black-rimmed glasses. They told me it made them look more like a scholar and kept the horny boys at bay. They were both wearing shorts and tank tops, casually dressed as they drove home for the summer.

“OK, where’s the cold beer? We’re planning on getting crazy, getting drunk, getting naked, getting sun, and having fun for three weeks,” Annie said.

“I knew you both would want a cold beer when you got here. I have plenty in the fridge and I’ve got your first two in the freezer getting really cold. Get them and come to the bathroom with me. I have something to show you,” I said, and walked ahead of them to the bathroom.

“Annie, I think Dad’s going to get frisky with us,” I heard Stacy say with a laugh.

“You wish, you horny devil,” was Annie’s reply.

“Don’t horny devil me, you would too and you know it.”

“Hush, he’s going to hear us,” Annie laughed, as they came down the hall to the bathroom.

I was sitting on the stool, drinking my beer, watching the ripples as they moved outward in perfect concentric circles, never stopping, never speeding up.

“What’s up, Dad? We thought we were all getting into the big whirlpool tub together,” Annie laughed.

“You wish,” I said, and laughed when they both looked at me, stunned, then we all laughed.

“Dad, you have another Cheval mirror. Where did you get this one?” Annie asked.

“It was in the old barn over at Aunt Harriet’s place and I brought it home today. Both of you look at it real close and tell me what you see, then I have something else to show you that will roll your sleeves up and curl your hair.”

“What’s causing those ripples, Dad?” Stacy asked, as she leaned over me to look.

“You two are the smart ones in the family, you tell me.”

“Have you touched the glass, to see if they’ll stop?” Annie asked.

“Yes, tap the glass with the top of your beer can.”

“Like this?” Stacy asked, and reached up to tap the glass just as I had earlier, her can went through the glass, just as mine had.

“FUCK, I mean, gosh. Sorry, Dad, that slipped out,” Annie said, and laughed.

“That was my exact reaction when I did that. Now I want to show you something that will blow the top off all you’ve learned in your years of school,” I told them, and handed them the camera.

“What are we supposed to do with this?” Stacy asked.

“Turn it on and look at the last three pictures and tell me what you see.”

Stacy turned the camera on with Annie looking over her shoulder.

“That looks like Hawaii, Dad. When did you go there?” Annie asked.

She looked at me and I could see her mind spinning her thoughts about the mirror and the digital pics.

“Dad?” Annie said.

“Dad, do these pictures have anything to do with the mirror?” Stacy asked.

“Yes, switch it to over to take more pics and put your hand right through the glass and take a few more, be sure to take more than one angle.”

“Are you sure? I mean, will my hand really go through there? That’s not possible, is it?” Stacy asked, knowing it wasn’t reality, but she saw the pics.

“Do it, Stacy,” Annie said.

“Here goes,” she said, as she eased her hand, camera and all, right into the glass of the mirror. She looked at Annie and smiled, then we could see her turning the camera in all directions as she took at least a dozen pictures.

She pulled the camera out and we all gathered around to look at the screen. There were pictures, just as I had taken, only more.

Chapter 2 »