It was too hot to move, let alone clean a musty old attic. And yet that's exactly where Marion found herself, up to her elbows in dust bunnies, bat guano, and junk. Antiques, her grandmother called them.
Marion had to admit, some of the stuff she found was cool. Old records. Vintage photo albums with unsmiling men in high collared jackets and women with tightly cinched bodices. Typewriters with a smattering of keys missing. A robin's-egg-blue rotary phone with the dial rusted stiff.
But there were other not-so-nice things, too. Like mouse skeletons and boxes of broken doll parts. A red velvet bag full of teeth, only a portion of which had belonged to small children at one time. The remaining teeth were clearly adult-sized, with rust-colored roots that Marion simply refused to recognize as dried blood.
And then there were the spiders. So many spiders. Big ones that could have fit in Marion's palm. Little ones the size of a penny. Wispy ones that scampered off when they felt the vibrations of her footsteps. Stocky ones that huddled up and stared at her with beady eyes.
Marion kept a rolled-up magazine tucked into the back pocket of her jeans in case any of them came within striking distance.
This was not how she had envisioned spending her summer vacation.
But Grandma Lou needed the help and Marion didn't have the heart to say no. Besides, her geoscientist parents were away for the summer, studying mineral deposits in Antarctica. And her best friend was visiting family for two months.
So Marion would rather brave an army of spiders than sit at home by herself, lonely and bored.
A light knock came at the door. She glanced up to see her grandmother standing on the threshold, carrying a glass of lemonade and cookies.
"How's it going?" Grandma said.
Marion lowered the box she'd been carrying as delicately as she could. But a plume of dust still billowed up like a mushroom cloud anyway. She coughed, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the air.
"Dusty," Marion replied, accepting the lemonade and cookies. "And lots of creepy-crawlies."
"You could work on the basement instead," Grandma offered. "Got a few snakes down there."
Marion made a face. "No, thank you. I have my hands full with the attic already."
Grandma Lou's gaze shifted past Marion's shoulder. She gestured to the opposite wall, too far away from the bare lightbulb overhead for any illumination to ward off the shadows.
But when Marion turned to see what her grandmother was pointing at, she could just make out the hulking shape of something...huge. Stretching from floor to ceiling, it spanned nearly the full length of the wall and it was shrouded in a moldy, greasy canvas cloth.
"Can you guess what that is?" Grandma said.
Marion glanced sideways at her. "If you say you've been hiding an original Picasso or Da Vinci painting up here and we can sell it for millions of dollars, I'm calling your bluff."
Grandma laughed.
"Not quite. Go ahead. Take a look."
Marion picked a path through the boxes and piles of odds and ends. She grabbed the cloth and yanked. Dust bloomed into the air, casting a haze over the attic.
Marion tugged her t-shirt collar over her nose and mouth as dust motes swirled through the room. When the air finally cleared, a giant mirror towered over the attic, its surface silvery-dark like the slippery sheen of an oil spill. An elegant gilt frame arched over the top, looping and twisting, tangling and clutching at the edges of the mirror in an intricate, mesmerizing pattern.
Marion ran her fingers over the frame, tracing roses the size of dinner plates and thorns as long as knives. Crows in flight with wings outstretched and snakes with fangs extended, forever frozen in mid-strike.
Then something soft and feathery and alive moved beneath Marion's hand. She shrieked and jumped back.
A black moth fluttered out of the tableau, wings whispering in the stillness. It trundled up the frame and disappeared behind the mirror.
"Where did you find this thing?" Marion said, willing her heart to stop racing. "And how did you even get it into your house?"
"I didn't," Grandma replied. "It was here when my parents bought the place. Obviously, it couldn't be moved. I mean, look at it. Must weigh at least a ton or more. And my parents were too superstitious to break it in order to take it out of the house in pieces. I forgot it existed after a while."
Marion gazed up at the mirror. Her reflection gazed back at her, half-hidden in shadow. At the top of the mirror, stiff, angular letters marched across a ribbon-like etching.
"It's kind of eerie." She pointed at the inscription. "Do you have any idea what that says?"
Grandma shook her head. "I asked my uncle about that. He was an Oxford scholar. Majored in ancient language studies. Claimed he'd never seen anything like it before. He copied it down, said he'd let me know if he found an answer." She shrugged. "But I never heard from him again. He was always getting distracted by one thing or another. Probably slipped his mind."
Marion stretched her arm out, pressed the tips of her fingers to the dark looking glass. She snatched her hand away in surprise.
It felt like a block of ice. How could it be that cold? The attic was well over ninety degrees Fahrenheit. With no air conditioning and only a little fan click-clacking along in the corner, Marion felt as if she was melting in her clothes. But that mirror remained frigid.
An unsettling prickle crept up the back of Marion's neck, like spider legs against her skin. She shivered and took a step back.
"It's weird," she declared. "Gives me the creeps."
"That's probably a good thing," Grandma replied.
"Why?"
Marion couldn't take her eyes off of the mirror. She wanted to look away, wanted to leave the room and hurtle herself outside. But she remained rooted to the spot, staring at the black surface of the mirror and her barely-there reflection.
"You know what they say," Grandma said. "Mirrors are a gateway for the spirits of the damned to enter into our world."
Marion tore her gaze from the mirror to stare at her grandmother. A heartbeat of silence filled the attic. She'd never believed in any of that. She didn't even go to church. But something about that mirror made her grandmother's words seem unnervingly real.
Then Grandma chuckled. "Kidding."
Marion blew out a puff of air. "Not funny."
"It's a little funny." Grandma waved toward the mirror. "Don't bother with that old thing. We'll figure out what to do with it later."
Marion struggled out of the bog of canvas cloth at her feet. She regretted taking the covering off now. The mirror was too high and too big to get the cloth back over it, at least not by herself. The thought of cleaning the attic with that monstrous thing looming over her made Marion grimace.
"Marion?" Grandma said.
Marion snapped her head in Grandma's direction. "Yeah?"
"I asked if you wanted pizza for dinner. We can order something in an hour or two."
"Oh. Sure. Sounds good."
Grandma frowned and stepped forward. She pressed the back of her hand to Marion's cheek.
"Are you feeling okay?" she said. "You're very warm. Maybe you should take a break and cool down. It's like an oven in here."
Marion glanced at the mirror again. She couldn't deny how elegant it was, beautiful, breathtaking. If she stared long enough, it almost seemed as if the silver frame and all of its roses and crows, snakes and thorns began to move. Shifting and gliding together.
Then she blinked and the illusion was over. Now she was hallucinating. She had to get out of this attic.
"You're right," Marion said. "A break would be a great idea."
She followed her grandmother out of the room. As soon as Marion crossed the threshold with the door firmly shut behind her, she sucked in a gulp of air. As if something had been crushing her ribs, making it hard to breathe.
***
Marion didn't remember returning to the attic. But she stood in front of the mirror now, the smooth surface black as a starless sky. Somewhere far away came the echo of her grandmother's voice.
"Pizza's here!"
Marion didn't move. As a bead of sweat slithered down her back, all she could think about was how blissfully cold that mirror was.
How wonderful would it be to press her cheek to the glass and escape the heat for a while?
A flicker of movement drew Marion's attention downward. Crawling across the stiff peaks of canvas cloth at the base of the mirror was a small gray spider. It scuttled over the moldering dunes of fabric until it reached the silver frame. Picking a path through engraved vines and flowers and beasts, the spider finally came upon the glass.
The spider didn't climb up or across the mirror's surface.
It stepped through.
Marion could see it, moving deeper and deeper into the shadows of the mirror. The surface hadn't even rippled. As if the mirror wasn't really there – merely a trick of the light and the dark. A trick of the mind.
Then a delicate rush of air swept out of the mirror, bringing the scent of rotting apples, over-ripe and too-sweet. A few errant flecks of snow drifted out of the mirror, landing on Marion and clinging to her clothes.
"This can't be real," she whispered.
She knew it wasn't possible. She knew something about all this was...wrong. But Marion took a step toward the mirror anyway, drawn like a moth to the flame, hypnotized by its beauty, heedless of its killing heat.
She stumbled.
Marion glanced down. She'd tripped over a baseball bat, the handle broken, the wood jagged at one end. For a brief moment, she envisioned herself scooping up the bat. Bracing her stance wide with defiance and determination. Slamming the bat into the mirror and sending thousands of glass shards exploding around her.
But she didn't. The thought slipped from her mind and vanished with no more substance than a curl of smoke.
Instead, Marion laid her palms flat against the glass in a gesture that could only be described as reverent. It was a holy thing, deserving the highest respect and protection. It should have an altar before the whole world, she thought.
One minute, the surface was there, hard and unyielding. In the next moment, the mirror bowed inward like a spider's web. Marion felt like a beetle, suspended on the surface tension of water.
She held her breath. Tipped forward on her toes. Frost crackled out across the mirror from where each of Marion's fingertips touched the surface. It burned like a cold fire, stinging with a thousand needles.
At last, slowly, Marion sank, further and further into the mirror.
Then she blinked and she was there. On the other side. Grandma's attic was gone, replaced by a black forest, snowy hills, and not another soul in sight.
Where was she?
Rising all around Marion were dark, twisted trees, as if they had forgotten what it was like to grow toward the sun. Sprawling left and right, grasping and grappling at each other with gnarled branches and knobby roots.
Because there was no sun here, Marion realized. Only a wan pallor like weak moonlight sifting through clouds.
Several inches of snow pillowed Marion's footsteps. She held out her hand, caught a few flakes...
But it wasn't snow. It was gray and oily to the touch. And it never melted. It just smeared between her fingertips, dissolving into a powdery puff of nothing. Was it...ash?
Marion turned, searching for the comfort of the mirror and the familiar ground of Grandma's attic.
It was gone. Only the forest and the ash drifts remained. Marion flung her hands out, searching for the mirror. Maybe it was hidden. Maybe she couldn't see it from this side.
The more Marion searched, the clearer her mind became. The mirror truly wasn't there anymore. Her heart careened against her ribs with fear at the realization that without the mirror, she had no way of getting back home.
A piercing screech tore through the silence.
Marion flinched, scanning the trees. What kind of animal could make a noise like that? Caught between a howl and the grind of broken glass against rusty nails. Her flesh crawled with goosebumps to hear it.
There. Cresting a hill in the distance, something...flew.
The shape was nearly human, shrouded in gray just like everything else in this godforsaken world Marion had stumbled into. It stretched out tattered, barren wings and its face didn't have any features at all. Only dark pits for eyes and the blur of a mouth, like a smudge of charcoal on paper.
Then another creature surged over the hill. And another. Five. Ten. Twenty strong. Too many. And that hideous sound poured out of their gaping mouths without pause, without breath.
Marion's stomach twisted. She swore under her breath, wishing one last time for the mirror to appear. All it would take was one step and she would be safe. Back in Grandma's attic with the spiders and the mouse skeletons.
But the mirror didn't show and the monsters kept coming. Boiling over the hill like ants after the rain.
Marion turned and took off, running into the trees.