ROSE THOUGHT SHE heard the sound of a piano playing. Not from the television, radio, computer or anything like that, but a real live piano? She was sure of it. And it was playing a tune she recognised!
"D-D-Dad?" she muttered, her face scrunched up in confusion.
It was one of her Dad's Christmas songs. She remembered him making it up the Christmas before he went missing. She rushed up to the upright piano which was up against the wall opposite the settee. But despite the howling storm, which could not be kept out of the house, she realised it was definitely not coming from that. She wondered where on earth the piano playing was coming from. She prowled around the living room, befuddled...
Eventually she determined that the piano music was coming from behind the boarded-up fireplace.
So maybe her Dad was in the house next door!
And still the Christmas song continued...
But Rose, as hard as she strained her ears, could not hear her Dad's accompanying vocals. She couldn't see how anyone could know that tune or play it the way she remembered her Dad had played it. There was even his usual mistake when his thumb knocked the black note. Moreover, what made all of this so interesting, was that he had told her he made the song up just for her as an extra Christmas present.
She ran back to the kitchen with her heart thumping excitedly in her chest.
"Mum! Mum!" she shouted above the raging storm.
Lightning strikes lit up the kitchen as if God had an interest in adding flashbulb photography of the Lavender's kitchen to his infinite collection of photographs of humanity. Thunderclaps accompanied the lightning strikes, piggybacking on their heels, constantly pounding and shaking the entire house.
Rose tugged urgently at her mother's arm.
"I won't say anything, Mum. Just come into the living room. Something really strange has happened. Please, come on!" She looked intently into her mother's eyes, and added, "And this time it's not my imagination!"
So forceful was Rose that she managed to quickly wrench her mother's prized cup of tea out of her hand and put it down on the kitchen table before dragging her reluctant mother into the living room.
"See? Listen! Hear it?"
"What? I can't hear anything?"
"Well, the storm's far noisier now, but I can still hear the sound. And Mum, don't get upset, but I'm sure of it. I'm absolutely certain."
"Sure of what?"
"Listen, Mum. Listen! It's definitely Dad playing the piano!" Rose pointed emphatically at the boarded-up fireplace.
Rose's mother was about to volcanically erupt when suddenly her face transformed into a living question mark.
"What the...? That does sound just like your father's piano playing."
She edged trancelike to the fireplace and bent her head down. Listening intently...
The piano music poured out from behind the fireplace's boarding bringing some sort of paradoxical harmony to the cacophonous storm. It was without doubt Mr Lavender's Christmas tune and it was playing in his style.
"Good grief!" gasped Rose's mother. "The Christmas Song he wrote for you. Well, I don't see how it can actually be your father, Rose, but we must at least investigate."
"It must be from next door. He might be there!"
"No, Rose—next door is on the other side of the house. On the other side of this wall is the street!"
"Oh yeah. The chimney column sticks out into the pavement. Silly me, Mum."
"Well, where is the sound coming from—that's what I'd like to know?" questioned Rose's mother.
"Me too, Mum."
"Hmmm, it must be a top quality tape recorder, but I'll be damned if I can answer the question as to how someone must have got behind the fireplace to put it there, and how it could suddenly switch itself on?"
"Maybe the storm shook it on, Mum. The whole house is rumbling and grumbling, pretty much."
"Okay, Rose, this is a sick joke. I'm angry, but I'm on your side, dear, and I will leave no stone unturned until we solve this mystery."
Rose liked the sound of that comment, and it was obvious where she inherited some of her mental characteristics from.
"And neither will I," Rose added, determinedly.
Rose's mother proved herself to be surprisingly resourceful. She quickly ran into the kitchen and returned with some bread knives and set to work at loosening the boarding.
She pulled it back...
The piano music could be heard a lot more clearly now, and the storm could not disguise it no matter how violent it was.
"There's nothing there, Rose," said her mother. "A lightning strike has knocked out all the bulbs in the chandelier except for one. I can't see anything but black."
But Rose's mother's eyesight was not as keen as her offspring's.
"Nope," said Rose, slowly shaking her head. "It goes back."
"Back? What are you talking about? There's nowhere for it to go back to."
"Watch, Mum!"
Rose dug into her pockets and pulled out a ten pence coin. She threw it into the open fireplace...
It chinked on the floor as if it had landed five or six feet into the fireplace...which seemed an impossibility.
Just then a lightning bolt lit up the living room and Rose and her mother could see quite clearly that there was a low-ceiling tunnel running down at a slight decline. They would have to go on hands and knees to explore it.
"Just hold on here a minute while I get a torch," said Rose's mother. "There's quite a powerful one up in my bedroom."
Rose's mother quickly rushed out of the living room and returned within a minute with the torch.
"Well, it doesn't make sense," said Rose's mother, shining a powerful beam of torchlight into the fireplace, confirming that the slightly declining tunnel was still there. "That tunnel just can't be right. The gentle downward slope of the tunnel isn't enough for us not to be seeing the street outside. We'll get to the bottom of this. So, come on then, let's go. Let's follow the piano playing."
And so they got on their hands and knees with Rose's mother leading the way with her powerful beam of torchlight, and Rose following close behind, looking a little like an inquisitive cheetah cub in her white large black polka-dotted T-shirt.
The tunnel slowly arced to the left and kept arcing.
"We're moving in a circle, Mum."
"I think so too."
"And the tunnel's sloping upwards now. Won't we end up back in our house?"
"Perhaps we will. But unless a new hole has been made in our house's wall, I don't see how we can get back into it. One thing's for sure, we can't exit this tunnel through the fireplace, as that's the place we entered it, and we've been walking on our hands and knees away from it ever since."
"The sound of the storm has stopped," said Rose. "The piano music has stopped too. It's eerily quiet. I can hear myself breathing."
"Ah...yes. There's some light ahead, Rose. Looks like electric light too."
The arc of the tunnel levelled out and Rose and her mother could see a square exit at a slight incline. Rose's mother turned off her torch.
"Oh well, we're approaching the exit to the tunnel, see?" said Rose's mother.
"Yes, Mum. But isn't that the living room ahead."
"I think so. Looks like a new hole has opened up in the wall."
Rose and her mother emerged from the tunnel into a familiar-looking living room.
But...
They had exited through the fireplace.
"We seem to be back in our living room, Mum. We've come out of the fireplace? But how can the tunnel have done that?"
"It can't. And I can't see any sign of the boarding that I put to the side...? This is all very peculiar."
"Oh no!" gasped Rose, eyeing the living room with great uncertainty through knotted eyebrows. She squeezed her mother's hand tightly.
"What is it, dear?"
"The living room's back to front!"
"Er, oh yes," said Rose's mother, her eyebrows rising. "It's a mirror-image. It's like we're sort of in a Through the Looking-Glass situation."
"At least there's two of us. Alice only had herself."
"Look, up there!" Rose's mother pointed up to the chandelier. "We're definitely in a different room. All the bulbs are working."
"What if were in a world where everything is a mirror-image," said Rose, "even the people?"
"The curtains are drawn," said Rose's mother. "I'll pull them open and see if the world outside is a mirror-image. We can look at some car number plates and see if there written back to front."
Rose's mother rushed up to the bay windows and pulled down on the curtain cord that swished open the royal-mauve heavy felt curtains...
But nothing could be seen through the windows except a thick roiling snow-white mist.
"What does it all mean?" said a befuddled Rose.
"Well, at least you don't have white skin covered in large black polka dots."
"Huh?"
"The strain of measles that you said would kill you. By which I mean, I don't think we're dead."
"Oh, yeah, I see. I didn't think that maybe the lightning bolts had struck us through the windows and killed us. But if we're not dead...what's going on, Mum?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Well, that's no good then, because my guess will only be as bad as yours."
Just then, outside the living room, coming from the direction of the kitchen, the sound of a teaspoon chinking against some crockery sounded.
"Did you hear that, Mum?"
"Yes. It sounds like the way your father used to make his coffee. Always stirring his milky coffee and bashing the spoon on the inside lip of his mug before throwing it in the wash basin hoping I would clean it up."
"Yes, Mum. It does sound like Dad. And then he would trudge into the living room whistling one of his latest tunes and start making up new tunes and songs on the piano."
Just then, the sound of whistling could be heard approaching the open living room door.
Rose and her mother pushed themselves back against the wall beside the fireplace, huddled together, frightened at what might enter the living room...
And into the living room, carrying a large mug of steaming coffee came the figure of Mr Lavender.
"Dad!" shouted Rose.
But her father showed no sign of noticing her, as he walked towards the upright piano and placed his coffee cup on its lid. He pulled the piano stool out from under the keyboard, sat on it and lifted the piano's keyboard lid.
Rose made to rush towards him, but her mother held her wrist tightly.
"Rose, that's not exactly your father. It's a mirror-image of him. See the large freckle on his left cheek? That's supposed to be on his right cheek. And his hair is parted on the opposite side to how it should be. I know my husband all right, and that man sitting at the piano is his mirror-image. And when you shouted at him, he didn't even flinch. He didn't even notice us."
"Yes," said Rose. "I know my dad too. Yes, it is a back to front Dad."
Mr Lavender, then started to play the Christmas song that he had written for Rose as her extra Christmas present.
And he started singing. His mouth moved, the veins on his neck, grew slightly—but no sounds came out of him.
"That's strange..." said Rose's mother. "We heard the spoon chinking on the coffee mug. And we can hear the piano playing. But we can't hear your mirror father singing."
"Well, it's only fair. He can't hear us, so we can't hear him."
"Yes, but he can't see us, yet we can see him."
"Look out, Mum. He's stopped playing and I think he's getting up."
Mr Lavender pushed his stool back, stood up, took a sip of coffee, then turned towards the fireplace...and began walking towards it.
"He's coming to talk to us, Mum!"
But Mr Lavender walked up to the front of the fireplace and ignored Rose and her mother, who were standing up against the wall to the left-hand side of it.
He took something out of his trouser pockets. It was some sort of credit card sized thin rectangular card. He flicked it, sending it spinning, into the fireplace, then did an about turn, returned to his piano and grabbed his mug of coffee, before walking out of the living room.
Rose ducked back into the fireplace, and retrieved the small thin card.
"Look, Mum. It's a train ticket." Rose held out the train ticket for her mother to examine.
"It's been printed back to front, of course," observed Rose's mother.
Suddenly, the living room door smashed forwards clean off its hinges and crashed onto the floor...
And there, standing in the open doorway was a huge gorilla-shaped creature standing on two legs. Its skin was made up of a jigsaw styled arrangement of mirrors. It had huge, powerful glass fangs. Its head was covered in glass spikes. Its eyes were huge, bulbous mirrors.
It opened its mouth. And it sounds could be heard.
"Get out of my world!" roared the creature, casting a severe eye on Rose and her mother. "Another world is calling you and a power within it, far greater than mine, has yielded you a clue to find its unique entrance. A much more sophisticated entrance than my simple Mobius-mirror tunnel. Get out! Get out! Before I rip you to shreds and reverse each and every one of your atoms, so that they belong in my world."
The creature then let out the most terrifying, jarring, high-pitched scream, spewing out shards of glass from its wide open mouth, which fired towards the wall on the vacant right-hand side of the fireplace. Each shard thudded and buried itself in the wall.
Rose and her mother did not need any further encouragement to leave the living room, to leave the mirror world.
They swept into the fireplace and moved on all fours with fear in their eyes as if escaping a forest fire. This time Rose was in the lead.
Heavily breathing and soaking in sweat, they reached their own living room in next to no time.
There was still just one bulb working in the chandelier, but now there was plenty of light streaming through the bay windows.
The storm had cleared. The only sound outside of the house was that of the odd passing car and the melodious happy sound of birdsong.
When Rose and her mother looked back at the fireplace, it looked as a fireplace should with no sign of any tunnel.
Rose's mother urgently put the boarding back into place. Then, with a huge effort and a little help from Rose, she pushed the heavy upright piano in front of the fireplace.
"At least if that terrifying creature should ever come into our mirror world, which it would surely look like to it, we'd here it coming."
"Gosh, Mum, that was really frightening, but guess what?"
"What?"
"I'm sure it must mean Dad is alive, as I've always believed. That world that the creature said is calling us. He must be in that world, mustn't he?"
Rose's mother looked at Rose, deep in thought.
"I did not think I would ever agree with you on this matter, but recent events have obviously made their mark. I agree with you. He must be in the other world. But where is this world?"
"We've got a clue, Mum. The train ticket. Unless you dropped it in our panic to get out of the mirror world..."
Rose's mother whipped out the train ticket from the pockets of her jeans and held it up triumphantly.
"I shall read the printing on the ticket by holding it up to the mirror," she said with a pleasant smile.
Rose's mother held the train ticket up to the living room mirror that was on the wall opposite the fireplace. Rose quickly pulled up a chair and stood on it, so she could get a good look too.
"Barton on Sea, Hampshire," said Rose. "Where's that?"
"South coast of England. I spent a week there with your father before we got married."
"But how is it a clue. Mum?"
"Look at the travel date of the ticket."
"It's for tomorrow. On my birthday."
"Not quite. Unless we are talking about your eighth birthday. Look at the year. It's last year."
"Oh, the day Dad went missing!" said Rose, excitedly, with wide open eyes.
"Exactly. So, just as your father gave you an extra Christmas present with his song. Tomorrow we'll be going on a week's holiday to the seaside for your extra birthday present. If this other world does exist, and we haven't just imagined everything that's just in these last ten minutes happened, it has to be connected with Barton on Sea."
Rose gave her mother a tight hug around the waist. And she lost herself in her thoughts, thoughts that she might actually one day see her dad again...
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I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).
T. J. P. CAMPBELL.