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... They First Make Mad

To That Which Kills

A Mirror, Darkly

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... They First Make Mad

My stomach clenches, anticipating the next breach, but still I am unprepared. Picture a stone skipping across a glassy lake, but in reverse. The ripples move in towards the epicentre of every impact, each one bringing a jolt of ecstatic pain that unravels the senses, contorts muscles into cramping. And then the pain is gone and you’re airborne, flying relentlessly towards the next touchdown, your body remaking itself in agonising surges. Telomeres lengthen, years fall away, all in a smothering silence. Even though you know you’ve been screaming since the journey began.

Timing isn’t everything with this kind of travel. It’s the only thing.

The lozenge deposits me in a newly vacated service elevator and skips on towards its inevitable rendezvous with Planck time. The pain has gone with the transition. That was another me. Another life. I look at myself in the smoky glass of the wall panel. Fingers feel smooth, taught skin where an hour ago (subjective) there had been dry wrinkles. I have an erection. I smile at myself in the mirrored surface and exit.

All around me is bustle and life. This is Paris, 2096. Before the Pogroms.

The Left Bank is still intact and I stroll along, breathing the summer air, looking at the pastels and charcoals. My hand closes on my wallet. The codes it contains, set up 80 years ago (subjective), a couple of days past (realtime), promise a very comfortable lifestyle, but there’s no rush to access them. The old man I used to be was cautious to a fault and made sure the wallet contained banknotes appropriate to the era in case I was stranded by the dilation. I can think of better uses to put them to now. He chose Paris because of its conservatism, its relative political stability. But Paris has another side to appeal to a younger man’s appetites. I turn towards the Boulevard St Germain and the 6eme arrondissement.

Not for the first time it occurs to me what a selfish life I lead. I console myself with the fact that publicising my discovery would have consigned it to destruction at best and some darkly motivated government meddling at worst. Given the alternatives, I decided to put it to the finest use I could possibly imagine — providing me with a long and comfortable life. Some would consider this a petty and pointlessly self-centred use of such an invention. They are the dreamers and visionaries, and I’m sure they truly believe they can make the world a better place. Embarking on my third lifetime, I feel my way is far more grounded in reality.

I smile at the girl sleeping beside me. I smell the soft ringlets of her hair, mingled with the scent of fresh sweat and sex. She’s not beautiful. But the first bloom of youth gives her a certain attractiveness, a sought-after vitality which is ephemeral at best.

Standing on the cold parquetry, I stride to the window. The Boulevard surges with traffic like a mighty river. Flyers hover above the main flow waiting to swoop into newly vacated gaps in a seemingly chaotic but radar-controlled ballet of near misses. The slidewalks are likewise crowded with business people, café-goers, tourists, students. All of them approaching the ephemeral, while I feel myself becoming progressively more solid, more heavily engraved on the times with each passage. More real, even, than reality. Perhaps this is what it feels like to be a god.

‘Et une message pour vous, monsieur,’ the concierge says as I hand over a few crumpled bills. I look at the proffered mag strip as if it were a striking viper. There’s only one person who could know who I am and where I might be found this close to emergence. We aren’t meant to communicate.

Reluctantly, I snatch it from his nicotined fingers and push through the belle époque revolving doors to the street beyond.

My reader is the ‘latest’ model for 2096. The case, of course, is battered and scarred but it works well enough. I swipe the strip over the port and the screen lights up — Place George Pompidou. Juillet 16, 2096. 11.15am.

I check my chrono. I’d planned to cross the river to the central branch of the Banque de France anyway. This represents only a minor detour. But is it safe?

The trouble with an infinitely extended lifespan is that it multiplies natural caution at least tenfold. Your life somehow becomes much more precious simply because there’s more of it. I’d begun to grow irritated by a predilection I developed for doing nothing. It was the mark of an old man, and I’m certainly not that now. Besides, inaction could be equally deadly. A communication of this type would not be sent without some very good reason. I know myself that well at least.

I eschew the Metro, preferring to push along through the throngs of people. The meeting place isn’t far for my young legs. I feel so alive again!

The Seine flows darkly beneath me as I cross Pont St Michel. Ile de la Cité is far quieter and I pass the Conciergerie quickly. I’m just crossing Pont au Change when a man in front of me keels over suddenly and I fall on top of him.

“M’sieu’?” I begin, pushing myself to a half-crouch. Then I see his eyes. Completely milk white. I touch his face. The skin has lost its elasticity and feels hot. I crouch low over him, head craning to catch sight of the assailant as panic takes hold.

“Qu’ est ce que c’est?” a voice says from behind. And then I’m sent sprawling as another body falls across me. I get my knees under me, heave the weight off, and sprint for the far side of the bridge. There are shouts behind me and a gendarme’s shrill whistle, but I don’t dare stop running. Two people microwaved, one of them right on top of me. It has to be more than coincidence.

I’m well past Place du Chatelet before I force myself to a stroll, but my heart is pounding as much in fear as through my recent exertion. The Pompidou Centre isn’t far now, but will I be walking into a trap? The rational part of my mind tells me it’s probably safe. If whoever was shooting had sent the message, he would have waited at the meeting place, not knowing what route I may take. Perhaps I simply stumbled into some lunatic’s hour of carnage. No sane person would fire a weapon so close to the Prefecture of Police.

Cautious self-preservation wins out as I make my way to the wide open space that sides onto the Pompidou Centre. Crowds are out already, enjoying the warm summer sun. I keep to the west side of the square, in the lea of a group of older buildings that seem to glare accusingly at the retro-fitted oblong of glass and multi-coloured ducting opposite. I scan the rooftops looking for likely positions for sniper fire. But I’m fooling myself. I no more know where a professional killer might secrete himself than I can play violin. Still, circumspection is the best tactic. I skirt the square looking at faces in the crowd. Most of the people there are staring up at the huge hologram that hovers above them, the solar system in miniature, moving in stately fashion as digits on the holo-sun’s face count down the seconds to the next century.

I throw my last few coins at a street vendor and receive a cheese and ham crepe.

“Mostly empty calories, I’m afraid,” a voice says behind me.

I spin around. A man, my height and colouring, but with a full beard and moustache is standing there. I look into my own eyes.

“We’re not—” I begin.

“I know that. But this is a matter of life and death. Ours.”

I look around. The street vendor is watching us, an odd expression on his face as his eyes jog between my ‘friend’ and myself.

“Walk with me,” I say, and he falls in step as we begin to pace the outside of the square.

“You’re not going to give me prior knowledge?” I ask. I have an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some things were never meant to happen and this is one of them.

“Only what you need to survive. But I’m in more danger than you. I’m the second. It’s you who has the advantage.”

I stop and look at him. “I don’t remember any of this.”

He smiles in that annoying way I have. “It appears knowledge is limited by the speed of time, regardless of how often you go around.” Then he becomes serious again. “I came in from Nassau on the orbital flyer this morning. Someone is going to kill our sixth in two day’s time.”

I stop again. So life is finite after all. “Wait a minute. How do you know?” I ask.

“Number 4 saw the aftermath. It was on a newsvid. A madman with a gun in central Melbourne. Number 6 was caught in the crossfire. Four sought out 1 and told him. Of course number 1 couldn’t do anything until the lozenge carried him back past the event and ‘he’ became ‘me’. But the fact he knew about 6’s death was enough to kick him into a new timeline during the backward trip and, thanks to the lozenge, the rest of us came along for the ride. It’s a whole new ball game now. I figured I could use some help.”

“Too many madmen,” I say.

“What?” My earlier self looks at me as if I have gone mad.

“Someone was taking pot shots at people with a microwave gun on my way here,” I explain. “I very nearly didn’t make it. Suppose this madman in Melbourne wasn’t just firing indiscriminately.”

He grabs my arm and steers me towards the Metro entrance. “Where are we going?” I ask.

“To the bank and then the orbiter ‘port.”

Travelling with oneself — ‘seeing ourselves as others see us’ — is an unnerving experience. I quickly become annoyed at the predictability of my partner’s foibles. Insisting on a window seat, boarding at the last possible moment, eschewing the packaged meals in favour of some food supplement purchased in the ‘port lobby. Our/my decision to live out each life in separate parts of the globe takes on a new significance. It isn’t just to avoid prior knowledge and the awful feeling of predestination. If we are to share the same space for any amount of time we’ll probably end up killing each other/ourselves.

I try to distract myself from cataloguing faults by focusing on the reason for our flight. If the two shootings are linked, then I’ve been discovered. My active imagination lays out a whole galaxy of perpetrators but none seems more likely than any other. Has the government found my device in the future and dispatched assassins to wipe me from the time-stream? Or is it someone I offended in one of my incarnations, someone who has been able to discover my true nature and set about taking revenge in the most methodical, overkill way possible? There is still the possibility of coincidence. Live often enough and you’re bound to run into life-threatening situations more than once.

One hour after lifting, we step off our flight in Melbourne. The cheery sun of Paris is all but forgotten in the overcast chill of midnight in mid-winter.

“I have no idea where he’d be staying,” I say as we wait for the rapid-link into town.

“We know where he’ll be in two days time. At the opening of the Pacific Games. I even have the seat block pinned down in the stadium.”

The link speeds us into the heart of the city. Melbourne is a predictable clutter of thrusting towers in a collection of washed-out rainbow hues. It lacks the character of the European cities and is positively third-world compared to the beanpole spikes of the equatorial states. A glasteel canopy spreads across the CBD, sheltering us from the worst of the winter. We choose adjoining suites at one of the city’s ‘best’ hotels — they’re all the same really. There’s no way I’m going to share a room, but we need to stay close, so this is a compromise.

I lock the communicating door on my side and run a hot bath, sinking into a mountain of bubbles. I should be relaxing in a suite at the George Cinq, ruminating over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot by now. I had the next 80 years all mapped out, and now I can’t see past the next 48 hours. I rub at my temples, trying to massage away a tension headache. Damn this killer anyway. What right has he to endanger my lives? He’s a mayfly by comparison. A nothing. I think of what I’ll do to him when we finally track him down. I won’t be using anything as quick as a microwave gun.

My dreams crowd with phantom assailants, and I wake next morning feeling no better. My partner — I called myself Abel Cartwright in that incarnation — wants to go out to the Games site and do some snooping, but I beg off, suggesting it’s best we keep exposure to each other to a minimum.

I do some vague globalnet searching on the room port, but I soon give up. My entire being is refocusing around 11.23 am, Wednesday, 18 July 2096. If I save our sixth, my life can return to the track I’ve chosen for it. If I fail, I have to wait to become our fourth and try again. But between those two points will be 80 years of recriminations — ‘if onlys’ about what happened and ‘what ifs’ about my next chance. I don’t want to live my life that way.

So I wait in my room, drink too much, and hate. Hate the killer, hate the maids who interrupt me and leave again hastily — beds unmade, towels unchanged — hate the city below me.

I shower and dress early the next morning. I’m ready for Abel before he knocks and we leave quietly together, walking the few hundred metres down to the bay and Victoria Stadium where the opening ceremony will be held.

Security is slack — after all, these are the ‘friendly games’ — and we pass quickly through to the main arena. Abel has fake IDs for us as technicians with the globalnet datastreaming division. Trackside, the air is thick with hoverbots, and the crowd is already making a hell of a noise. I hate sport. Christ alone knows what ‘I’ am doing at the stadium.

“The police reports pegged the shots coming from that gantry,” Abel says, indicating an accessway above the second bank of seating across the field.

“Let’s go,” I say, anxious to get it over with.

A giant holo-orb is floating above the centre of the field. Some ageing chanteuse is belting out the Pacific Anthem, her bloated features magnified a hundredfold. I will be back in Paris in 6 hours, I promise myself. There is no way I am spending another night here.

Metal stairs run up through a gap in the stand. I take them two at a time. “Wait up,” Abel calls behind me. “You’ll scare him off.”

He’ll be scared, all right. But he won’t be going anywhere. I reach the door to the accessway and throw  it open. It slams against a support beam and the whole gantry rings with the impact. Someone’s crouched overlooking the field, halfway along, a heavy duty assault rifle pressed to his cheek. He looks up, startled. For the second time in as many days, I stare myself in the face.

I recover first, covering the distance between us before he can swing the rifle my way. I kick him hard in the side of the head, and he goes down, the rifle skittering away across the checkplate. I’m consumed by rage. I want to hurt something. Badly.  I reach down and grab a handful of shirt front. He has to be the fifth, or maybe higher.

“You idiot,” I say, slapping him hard. “You’re ruining everything, dammit—” slap. “What do you think you’re playing at—” SLAP. A gobbet of blood sprays from his ruined lips and I drop him to the decking. The crowd is screaming outside, it’s hot as hell, and this piece of shit — my own self, for Christ’s sake — is the reason I’ve been dragged here. He stares up at me, eyes all unfocused and laughs. Laughs!

The sound of the crowd fades, drowned out by a rushing noise that fills my ears. My cheeks are burning, and I grab him by the ears and smash his head into the decking. “Laugh that off!” I slam him again. And again. Arms wrap around my chest, dragging me away. I kick at the blood-spattered face until I’m pulled out of range.

“Stop it!” It’s Abel. “Get a hold of youself, for God’s sake. We’re meant to be saving a life.”

“He deserves it,” I snarl.

A massive explosion lifts us up together and flings us against the gantry wall. There’s an eerie silence, and then the screaming below starts up again, this time laden with terror. The banner covering the front of the gantry has been blown away. Across the field, there’s a smoking hole in the seating where our sixth had been. Floods of people are running now, fleeing the blast zone. Abel pulls a slimscreen from his pocket.

“— bomb, most likely a terrorist attack,” the announcer’s saying. “Wait. We have an image of the terrorist. Believed to be still at large in the stadium.”

A grainy still, taken by hoverbot judging from the angle, appears. The image is being cleaned as we watch — a man bending down, touching a translucent sphere with one small grey rod protruding from its pearly white surface. The face is looking right at the lens.

“Number 6,” I say in a hoarse whisper. Abel sinks back on his haunches.

“What is happening to us?” he says, his face pale. “I’m not a violent man. I’m not a bomber or a sniper. I’ve never even been in a fist fight. But look what you did, all of you.”

I sit beside him, sparing a glance for my own handiwork slumped on the floor. The rage has left me as quickly as it came. Abel’s right. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t hurt a fly. And as for the rifle, I’ve never picked one up, let alone fired one.

“Something’s changing us,” I say. There’s a scrape behind me, and when I look around, our fifth is standing, swaying slightly, the rifle pointed at my eye socket. I should feel fear, but something hardens inside me. I grab the muzzle, push, twist, and ram the butt into his face, using the momentum to come to my feet. I know this shouldn’t be happening. But the fact that it is sends a thrill through my body. He goes down and I flip the gun, press it into his ribs, and fire. The recoil pitches me onto my back, and the body disintegrates. By the time I sit upright, Abel is headed for the exit.

“Wait,” I call, but he slams the door behind him, making good his escape.

It’s probably for the best. Abel’s obviously still more like the old me than what I’m becoming. I don’t know what’s causing it, but the effects are obvious. Perhaps humans aren’t meant to be remade again and again, aren’t meant to be gods.

The truth is, it can’t continue like this. Living quietly in the past is one thing. But this will change the future — my future, where my relatives and friends still live — irreparably.

I hunker over my own remains, pat pockets slick with blood until my fingers close on cool hardness and pull out a smooth, ceramic smart gun. Standing, I peel off my bloodied coveralls, wipe at spatters on my face and hands and push the gun into my belt, untucking my shirt front to conceal it.

Number 6 has to be stopped. And number 4 if he’s half as bad again as me. Once I’ve killed them, and any others out there, I may have to pay Abel a visit. And perhaps Number 1.

And when it’s all over, when there’s no one left, I’ll have to think about my own final disposition. If I live to travel back as number 4, there’s always the chance I’ll change my mind, try to put things back the way they were.

I don’t think I can let that happen.

To That Which Kills

The secondary sank in the east, staining the cavern walls blood red. Its light held little warmth, and the freezing winds picked up once more to break against the escarpment and pluck at the whispy hairs around the Gren’s feeding cavity.  The creature turned away from the opening and moved into the cave, shuffling resignedly towards the rude aggregate of sticks and mucus that clung to a broken stump of limestone stalagmite.  The o’lok it carried seemed to weigh much more than it should, its sharp-billed head dragging along the stone floor at the end of a long, scaly neck.  The corpse was still warm, but the Gren chicks in the nest barely registered its presence as the adult knelt on spindly legs and pushed the meal towards them.

She’d thought it would be an easy climb.  But 3 months of gently upward curving decks had made her more than usually wary of steep, angled planes and sheer drops. Jac edged herself to the lip of the escarpment, dipping her head and shoulders bird-like back and forward, building confidence with each nod to look over the edge.  Then she saw forest canopy far below.  Dazzling, lush greenness hooked her after such a long transit.  No wonder Colony wanted this place so bad.

“You’re not supposed to be up here.”

Startled, she pulled back from the edge, stumbled, and fell into waiting arms.

“Especially while you still have your space legs,” the voice finished.  She looked up at the face above her, framed by deep azure sky.  Tanned, lined, older. A strong face, but not unpleasant even if it was upside down.  There was strength too in the arms that hauled her back onto her feet.  She turned and extended a hand.

“Thanks, I’m Jaclyn Tumael.”

Her saviour brushed past her to the edge and, leaning out over one sinewed leg, beckoned her closer.  “You were after your first glimpse I take it.”

She hesitated to go so near to the edge again.

“Come on, I’ll hold you.  You’ll be quite safe.”  He flashed a brilliant smile, and she knew she would be.  “It’s something you shouldn’t miss,” he coaxed.

His hands circled both her arms just below the shoulders, and she looked out over the edge.  A hundred metres below, a Gren launched itself from the breeding ledges.  She caught her breath as it fell ten, twenty metres until the updraft stretched tight the membrane between its front and rear limbs and carried it in a lazy spiral far above its starting point.

“Wondrous, aren’t they,” the man whispered in her ear.  She felt the same thrill running down her spine that she heard in his voice.  “See how the membrane stretches between the bifurcated forelimb.  That’s how it steers. The leading edge lets it feel the shifting currents and select between them before it commits itself to any one.”

Her mouth was dry as she watched the creature wheel in the sky.  It was like watching music.  The fluid movements of the creature were utterly entrancing. By comparison she’d never felt so earthbound.

Suddenly, the long tapered body jack-knifed and plunged downwards in a tight spiral towards a slow moving dot far below.  It came out of the spin in a perfect arc right on top of its prey.  There was a jolt in the smooth flight path; an impossible tangle of arms, legs, and wings; and a tortured screeching carried to her on the wind.  Then the membrane spread full against the thick atmosphere again and the Gren was rising, but slowly this time and with a heavy burden.

The hands drew her back from the cliff edge.  “You’re very lucky,” the man said.  They don’t often hunt this time of day.  Come on.  It’s time to go below and rejoin the others.”  And he started off down the track leading away from the escarpment.

Jac fell in stepped, dazed by what she’d seen. She was still discerning enough to know she’d been caught where she shouldn’t have been however.  “Uh, you won’t report me,” she asked.  “To the supervisor, I mean.”

The smile came again.  Jac liked it.  It was a nice smile.  “No, I don’t need to do that.  Besides,” he slowed his pace looking thoughtful, “the Gren are something special.”

She could feel the change in him, the sudden loss of playfulness.  “Are you any closer to finding out why they’re dying?” she asked.

“No,” he sighed.  “I’m hoping there’s some bright spark in the relief that can work it out.”

They were approaching a steel door set into a smooth rock outcrop.  Jac guessed it was the elevator head.  “It must be hard for you to leave with so many questions unanswered.”  He turned and looked at her oddly.  “I – I mean,” she stammered,  “you obviously care a great deal about the Gren.  But now the relief team’s here you’ll be shipping back to Central.”

He pressed the small panel to summon the lift.  “You’re right of course,” he said and his eyes narrowed.  “But I won’t be leaving.” He extended a hand to her.  “You’ll have to forgive my twisted sense of humour.  I’m Michael Sharpe. Your supervisor.”

The largest of the three chicks pushed itself up in the nest, extended a feeler from its cavity and prodded at the kill. The adult waited, tense, barely daring even to breathe. The chick’s downy hair bristled and it shivered, shifting position to point its head in the opposite direction, and lay on its side with a plaintive growl.

“I know it’s only been a slight increase,” Jac said hesitantly, looking round the table at the other team members. “But even this much atmospheric CO_2 is enough to place the cool alpine breeding sites the Gren favour in short supply.” She gathered together her flimsies and sat, tensely awaiting the word of her peers.

Chandra cleared his throat.  “It could certainly explain the abandoned clutches we found in the lower sites.” Jaclyn felt relief wash over her, she knew now why she liked him. “How long till it affects the escarpment?

“The modelling shows it’s a cyclical event, and the effect’s waning now. You’ve already recorded bigger than average clutches below. I think the Gren may be about to turn the corner.”

“Good work,” Sharpe said and squeezed Jac’s hand, leaving his own there a second or two longer than necessary.  “Good work from everyone.”

This morning, when she’d awoken and he was gone from her bed, she’d started to feel foolish.  Had it been just another intern one night stand for the supervisor?  But looking into his eyes now, she could see the same heat she’d met the night before, still felt it herself. She didn’t just feel relieved.  She felt glad.

“I’ll be transmitting your report to Central, Jaclyn,” he said.  “With a note of commendation from myself.”

“Haaaaa!” Jinks hooted from across the table.  “Are Colony going to be pissed off or what?  This is one planet they’ll have to stop licking their chops over.”

“Now, now,” Sharpe warned with mock seriousness.  “That’s no way to talk about our sister division.  We’re all working for Central after all.” Jinks greeted this remark with another guffaw.  “Besides,” Sharpe persevered, “Colony are being extra friendly to us right now.  They’re bringing in our next supply run.”

“What?” Jac said, feeling a fresh burst of unease.  “They shouldn’t come within 3 parsecs of here.  What’s happened to the Research ship?”

“It’s in dry-dock,” Sharpe said. “ Suspected xeno-hazard, and you know how long a full inspection can take.  So if you don’t want to be without your creature comforts…”

Gently the adult slid a branched forelimb beneath the chick’s abdomen and turned it back to the meat. The hatchling’s eyes swivelled to regard the adult with an indecipherable expression on its elongated face.  Then it sighed and laid its head across the o’lok’s body but did not eat.

“Just make sure the bastards don’t overshoot,” Jac called into the compac.  It was blowing a gale up there.  On the screen Chandra clutched the hood of his parka with one hand and waved at her with the other.  She could see Jinks and Harker in the background, their beacons already activated.  Chandra’s voice strained to be heard over the link, but stray words were lost as the winds gusted.  “— can hear it now.  It must — final approach.”

“Roger that,” Jac said, flipping to long range.  “You should have visual contact soon.  It’s about to break through the cloud cover.”  Even as she spoke the grey delta wing punched through the cloud deck.  It slewed wildly to port as the wind grabbed it, then steadied again and eased into a hover above the pad.  Jinks and Harker were signalling to it with their beacons, but the ship stayed where it was.

“What’s going on?” she murmured then keyed the lab intercom.  “Michael, I think you should get up here.” She didn’t hear his response.  The Colony ship was on the move again.  It fired it’s attitude jets and began to move sideways away from the pad.  “It’s heading for the no-fly zone.  Chandra!” she screamed into the compac.  “Get them back.”

The ship’s momentum stalled as it reached the top of the escarpment and was buffeted by the updraft.  Chandra and the others were running after it, waving their arms uselessly. It pushed on over the edge and dropped out of sight of the link.

She grabbed for the intercom again, and then was pitched to the floor as a dull roar and the warning klaxons sounding simultaneously.  There was a crash of glass somewhere, and the fans began to blow hard.

“Radiation danger,” the computer said.  “Seals locked.  Atmosphere on recycle.”

Jac clutched the edge of the work station and reached for the Compac.  “Chandra, Jinks.”  There was nothing but static.  Sharpe ran in from the domicile area and stopped in the doorway. His forehead was covered in scratches. He looked at her ashen-faced.

“What the fuck have they done?” she said.

“Where were the others?” he asked.

“On the rim when it happened.”  Fear gripped her.  “They must have caught the full blast.”  Sharpe slumped against the wall. A thin trail of blood was running down his cheek. Jaclyn watched it and felt her mind freeze over.

She crossed to a locker, grabbed a hard suit and pulled it over one leg.

“What are you doing?” Sharpe called to her.

She stared at him, wondering what the answer was until it fell from her lips. “Checking on the Gren, of course.” She slid the fastening shut and headed for the emergency lock.

“You can’t do that,” he said, moving to catch up with her.  “It’s not safe—”

His words were cut off as she secured the door behind her.  She pulled a blaster and compac from the lock wall and the monitor cycled open the outer door.  A dark and narrow passage led to a slight outcrop just above the breeding ledges.  There was no sign of the ship.  Its remains were probably scattered somewhere under the forest canopy by now.  The chin display showed her immediate surroundings were hot, nearly off the scale.  She shuffled onto the outcrop, keeping her back to the cliff and bent one knee, searching with the other outstretched foot for the ledge a metre below.  Her breath sounded loud inside the helmet, and her skin was prickling along her arms and legs as if the radiation was already penetrating her shielding and exciting the individual atoms.  She made it onto the ledge and moved, still clinging to the wall, until the way broadened a little.  Then she came to the first of the caves.  Tentatively she peeked around the corner of the opening, then moved slowly out into the open.  Four Gren were there.  Two lay together in an embrace near the front of the cave.  One was slumped over the nest, trying in vain to protect the eggs within. The flesh of its legs was seared completely off the bone  The last was still burning, spread-eagled face up beside it.  She moved on, the sick feeling in her stomach intensifying as she went from cave to cave and took in the senseless destruction of it all.

Finally exhausted, she sat with her back against one of the stone stumps that supported a nest.  A Gren lay beside her.  It looked untouched, and she stroked the delicate hairs covering its elongated head.  The black eyes stared up lifelessly at her, accusingly she thought.

“Jac!” the compac squawked at her.  She thumbed the contact.

“I’m here.”

“I’m at the top of the escarpment,” Sharpe said, breathing heavily.  “Chandra, Jinks, Harker.  They’re dead.”

The silence on the open channel seemed to swallow her.

“You pick up any life signs?” Sharpe asked.  Dazed, she shook her head and pulled herself to her feet, feeling for the scanner in her thigh pocket.

“They all look dead to me.”  She keyed the instrument.  Its tiny screen lit with the test pattern, flashed and then blacked.  A tiny beat sounded.  She blinked and brought the scanner closer.  “I’ve got a sine wave,” she said.  She bent over the Gren and played the instrument down the length of its body.  Nothing.  As she stood, the scanner came close to the nest.  The wave jumped.  Her hands felt numb and her scalp tightened as she brought the device closer.  “It’s the eggs, Sharpe.  The whole clutch.  They’re alive.”

The adult stood again, staring at the chick for a long moment before moving past the nest to the back of the cave.  The secondary dipped below the cave mouth, and shadows crept up the limestone stump.

The Gren watched  until the darkness swallowed the chicks. Then wearily, it melded with the solid stone and was gone.

The darkness past the holo-wall had a different texture.  With the touch of a forelimb the Gren’s high domed head split apart, the outer dermis peeling from its neck and over the feeding cavity.  The articulated frame beneath opened with a soft snap and Jaclyn eased herself out. She stepped onto the cool rock and clung to the machine Gren for a moment, steadying herself before wiping sweat matted hair from her eyes.  The dark wall ahead swung away, stabbing bright light into her eyes, and she pushed herself forward into the lab.

“There’s a towel for you,” Sharpe called over his shoulder.  He was sitting hunched in front of the sensors, and Jaclyn walked the few steps to where he sat, towelling her hair dry as she went.  She felt bone tired, but Sharpe still managed to look worse, the lines on his face etched deeper in the screens’ glow.

“They’re not going to touch it,” he said, giving up his seat to her.  “And the life signs on that little one…”

She flicked at the sensors, but each one of the caves told the same story. “Why don’t they eat, dammit?” She eased her neck to one side, feeling misaligned bones click back in place.  Sharpe laid his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs digging deep into knotted muscle.

“Don’t!” She stiffened against his touch and he pulled away.  His hands hovered uselessly above her shoulders for a second, then dropped to his sides.

“The ship contacted us again,” he said.  “They’ll be here in another fiveday.”

Jaclyn swivelled in her seat and looked up at him.  “And?” she challenged.  They hadn’t made small talk in two months.

His eyes slid away to the console.  “It’s a recall ship.”

She sprang to her feet, brushing him aside, and came up short against the tankful of sedated o’loks.  The room seemed suddenly too confining.  “Tell them to turn back,” she said, hearing the desperation in her own voice.  “Invoke a quarantine.”

“And what would be the point of that?” he asked, nodding towards the screen. “Look, Jac, maybe it’s for the best.  We’ll go back to Central.  I can get you a good assignment.  It can be like it was before, between the two of us.”  He moved towards her to comfort her, but she held up arms to ward him off.

“Just don’t touch me right now, okay?” she said, and Sharpe reddened.

“I’ve stuck my neck out for you,” he said, his tone harsher.  “If Research knew what I’d let you do—”

“Don’t give me that—”

“It’s not standard procedure.”

“Nothing about this is standard!” she shouted.  She felt so full of anger, so powerless. Slowly, she let out a breath.  “We’re watching a race die, Michael. Don’t lecture me on procedure.”

“Look, why not bring them into the lab? We’ll put them on a drip.  They don’t have to die.”

“And leave Colony free to move in?” she bristled. “Once we take them out of their habitat it’s all over.  Colony will have a 3000 unit dome up inside 6 months, and I doubt very much any of the chicks will make it to breeding age once that happens.  There’s no way I’ll let those bastards gain from what they did.”

Sharpe rolled his eyes, “You’re not starting on that again.”

“I’m not dropping it if that’s what you mean. Where’s the investigation team Research promised?  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d brokered some dirty deal to cover the whole thing up.  We give Colony this planet, they ease up on some more promising sectors…”

Sharpe sat heavily at his workstation. “Proof, Jac.  It’s a good idea to have some before you start accusing anyone, especially another Division.” His brows knitted together as he stared at her. “You want to know the real reason Research pulled the plug?  I told you not to file that report.”

“They said that?” she demanded.

“They didn’t have to.  We’re up before the Expenditure Committee soon.  They can’t afford to have a loose cannon out in the field making wild accusations. It doesn’t look good.”

“But…” She halted as her eyes widened.  “You didn’t endorse my report.  You bastard, you said you would.”

Sharpe looked away, his fingers riffling a pile of flimsies.  “I’m sorry.  I wanted to.  Dammit, my tenure’s up soon, you know that.”

His hands were trembling, and he looked suddenly old and frail to her.  “What’s the use,” she sighed, the anger leaching out of her.  “The Gren were doomed the second we found they were living on a worthwhile piece of real estate.  Humanity always end up destroying whatever stands in its way.  It’s in our nature.”

“You don’t believe that, Jac.”

“Maybe.  Once.  I’m having a hard time not believing it now.” She felt tears stinging at her eyes and turned away, heading for the domicile area.  “I need a shower.”

“Jac,” she heard Sharpe call after her.  “Jac, I’m sorry.”

She slammed the shower stall door behind her.  The stinging water was cold and she gasped, grabbing at the nozzle until the temperature was bearable. She wanted to scream but Sharpe would come running and she’d had enough of his company for now. He was so — risk averse. That more than anything had ended the relationship for her.  There’d been no question in her mind about what to do when she’d found almost all the eggs had survived.  They had four years of carefully documented research on Gren behaviours.  They had the hide suit for close observation.  They had nothing to lose.

But now it was all coming to an end.  Jaclyn slammed masochistically at the hot tap and shrieked as the water turned frigid again, then shut off the flow.  Screw Colony. And screw Research too, she thought. Sharpe was too old and too much part of the establishment.  He had a lot to lose.  But it didn’t make him any more right.  She dressed quickly in a one-piece and walked back along the corridor.

Sharpe threw her a feeble smile as she entered the lab.  “We still have five days.”

“Pity the Gren don’t,” she said and instantly regretted it.  Lashing out would achieve nothing.  “Prep another batch of food, will you?” she finished in a more placatory tone.  “I need to go top side. We’ll try again at sun up.”

She took the other corridor to a plain steel door and slapped the touch pad. The shaft car was waiting, and it took her directly to the surface. She pushed the pad to exit, but the car remained locked.

“Standard field issue equipment must be worn before exiting to the surface,” the shaft monitor intoned.

“Just open the door,” Jac said angrily.

“Standard field— ”

“Okay, okay.”  She grabbed at the hatch beside the door and pulled out a bandolier with a blaster and compac attached.  She slung them over her shoulder and clicked the fastener shut, and the lock hummed to itself as the door swung aside.

“Thank you,” the monitor responded.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, stepping out onto the cliff top.  “We wouldn’t want anything getting the wrong idea about who the dominant species is around here.”

She was sheltered from the wind by the shaft head, but she could hear it howling through the rocky outcrops above.  A band of thick cloud was moving in quickly from the west and a massive thunderhead rode above it all, illuminated from within by tongues of lightning.  As she climbed the path to the top, the wind began to whip around her, pushing and pulling and making it difficult to stand.  Could a planet mourn the passing of its children, she wondered.  And if so, would it hate those that caused the loss?

As she reached the edge of the escarpment, she leaned into the wind.  The moon was full and still clear of cloud.  Silvery highlights painted the forest canopy below, all the way to the vast inland sea. She’d planned to take a boat out there next summer.  This place had been so beautiful, so peaceful when she’d first arrived.  Now it seemed tainted. Better they hadn’t come at all.

A shaft of lightning illuminated the pathetic marker they’d placed here after the crash. It was followed by a long, throaty roll of thunder. At least one person in Colony knew what had really happened, had sent five of their own people on a suicide mission.  But she’d never be able to prove it.  She was already discredited at Central.  They weren’t likely to listen to her again. They could have her job if they wanted, she decided.  She wouldn’t be seeking reassignment. She hadn’t joined up for this.

The wind dropped slightly and a shushing noise came to her.  A darker shape moved against the blackness, and she leapt before she was even fully aware of the danger, rolling away from the edge as she pulled clumsily at the blaster and fired.  The mass above her shrieked and dropped exactly where she’d been standing only moments before.  She scrambled to her feet and ran towards it, her breath short and rapid.  The thing was fluttering around, trying to take off again on ruined wings and screeching in agony.  Lightning crackled around her, and she could see it was an o’lok, a large one.  “Oh, great,” she said, sighting down the barrel and pulling off another shot. The beast ceased its thrashing and let out a final, rattling breath.  “Chalk another one up for Humanity.”

I’m no better than Colony, she thought, looking down at the o’lok’s remains.  We’re trapped by our instincts.  Breed, kill, occupy. It’s hard-wired into the central cortex.  And no amount of philosophising is going to bypass that.

She holstered the blaster and bent down to pick up the o’lok, slinging it over her shoulder and turning back down the path towards the shaft-car.  There was another flash and a bone-rattling crunch almost directly overhead, as if the sky had split asunder. Heavy rain began to beat down. The car was waiting for her but didn’t comment on her burden.

Sharpe half-stood as Jaclyn walked wet and bedraggled into the lab.  “Good God, Jac.  Are you all right?”  he said, eyeing the lifeless o’lok.

“Couldn’t be better.  Just exercising my God given talents.  You haven’t euthanased the o’lok’s yet, have you?”

“No,” he said, still sounding concerned.

“Well you can save one for later.  I had a little run in with the local fauna and my friend here lost.”  She stepped into the vestibule and lay the beast down on the floor.  “I don’t want it to spoil,” she said, pulling off the one-piece and stepping into the control frame.  She swung the cage shut, and the Gren skin sealed over the opening, then she sent a forelimb out to pick up her kill.  Sharpe closed over the wall as she pushed through the holo again.  Her internal display set itself for night vision, and she could easily see the nest.  The storm was in full voice outside, but the Gren didn’t seem to have moved at all.

She knelt with her back to the cave mouth and lifted the o’lok to the nest, proffering it to the chicks as she’d seen the adults do so many times before.  There was no movement for a string of heartbeats. Then the biggest chick turned it’s head towards her, a feeler snaking out to touch the carcass.  Slowly it pushed itself up and opened its feeding cavity wide.  The other chicks were stirring too.

“Sharpe!” she sub-vocalised into the throat mic.  “Are you getting this?”

Sharpe was staring disbelievingly at the display.

“Give me a scan,” she ordered.  The biggest chick leant forward and took a bite out of the o’lok. The others were arching towards it now, even the smallest, and she hefted the heavy carcass forward so they could attach to it more easily.

“Okay, okay,” Sharpe said, his fingers rattling across the keyboard.  “Light, temperature, aural and olfactory cues appear to be normal.  I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Well I sure as hell do.  What about the o’lok?  Scan it.  While there’s still some left.”  The chicks were gobbling hungrily at the thing now.

Sharpe fine-tuned the sensors and ran a base-line comparison.  He chewed his lip as he searched the readout for clues.  “It’s an adult,” he said.  “It’s bigger than average.  Chemical composition seems... Wait.  The glycogen level is off.  It’s a lot lower.  And the adrenaline’s up, it’s whole system’s flooded with the stuff, but —”

Jaclyn began to laugh, “Oh my God,” she said.  One of the chicks looked at her strangely, its head cocked to one side.  “I’m coming out.”  She tossed stray scraps of o’lok into the nest and let the chicks fight for them.  They’d all eaten more than enough.

The door to the lab opened, and Jaclyn was already half out of the suit, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t trip the last latches properly.

“Are you okay?” Sharpe asked, helping her out of the cage and walking her to a seat.  Her whole body was trembling uncontrollably, and she sat heavily and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Actually, I don’t feel so good now,” she said, swallowing bile.  “It’s okay.  After everything, it’s all just gotten a bit too much.”

Sharpe placed her robe around her shoulders and went to the dispenser.  He was back in seconds with a cup of water.  “Here.  Drink this and tell me what happened.”

She gulped the contents and handed him the cup, sitting back in the chair and taking a deep breath.  “They’re feeding because I’m a murderous human being, and I’ve never been so glad of the fact.”

“Jac, just tell me,” Sharpe urged.

“You never look outside the square, lover,” she said with a sad smile.  “We’ve been euthanasing the o’loks.  Killing them as humanely as possible to reduce their suffering.”

“Of course.  It’s standard practice.”

“But it’s not Gren practice.  They’re hunters, and the hunt involves the chase and a violent death. It induces physiological changes in the prey: lowers glycogen, increases adrenaline flow, makes it ‘smell’ right or whatever.”

She stood shakily and crossed towards the display.  “Look at them.”  The eldest chick had clamped the o’lok’s hip bone in its feeler and the smaller hatchlings were pushing each other out of the way and trying to pull the bone from its grasp.  “I think there’s hope for them now.” She stole a glance at Sharpe standing beside her.  “We just need a little more time.”  His face clouded, and she felt the tightness in the pit of her stomach return. “Until the first brood starts flying.  Becomes truly independent again.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

“Yes it is, dammit.” She pulled the robe more tightly around herself.  “The Gren are dying.  We can save them.”

The years settled on Sharpe’s face. “Despite what you think, Jac, I used to be a lot like you,” he said.  “I was all fired up when I joined Research.  Ready to be the champion of xenodiversity, and no one knew better than me how to go about it.  I still believe in the work, but things are much more complex once you get to be on the inside.  We have to consider Central.”

Jaclyn shook her head.  “No we don’t.  Prove to me the job’s still important.  Help me now.”

“I already have helped you,” he snapped, “and I’ve compromised my own position into the bargain.”

“Bullshit. You covered yourself when you didn’t endorse my report.  You can write the whole thing off as poor judgement on your part, coupled with a delusional intern who overstepped the bounds and interfered with the Gren chicks.  But I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t been so afraid of the consequences.” Her jawline tightened as she saw the look on his face.  “Jesus, you’re even fooling yourself.  But you’re afraid of the wrong thing, Michael. It’s not Central you’re betraying. I know you love the Gren.  I saw it that first day up on the escarpment. It was a lot easier to give up when the chicks were refusing to eat, but can you really stand by and do nothing now?”

Sharpe licked his lips and watched the screen again.  The chicks were resting peacefully now, their bellies full.  “I’m getting old, Jaclyn.  Maybe too old to be out this far.  Certainly too old to live with any more regrets.”

“Either way you’re going to regret something, Michael.  Just make sure it’s worth it,” she said.

Sharpe’s breath whistled out loudly between pursed lips.  His glance flicked from Jaclyn to the display, then he crossed to the workstation and leaned on it heavily.  His hand reached down and palmed a storage shelf open.  Jaclyn heard the grate of metal against plastic, and saw the glint of a blade as he turned and slowly advanced on the o’lok tank. Twenty of the animals lay sedated inside. He halted in front of the glass and reached for the resusc valve. “Call the ship,” he said, his voice tight. “Tell them to turn around.  Tell them we’re staying.”

A Mirror, Darkly

1.

She’d found the mirror — or maybe it found her — years before, when she and Nick were still together. It had been abandoned, covering a bad crack in the wall of the single room they’d let together in Tamarama. Whether some other renter had left it behind or the agent had placed it strategically to suck them into signing off without comment on the condition report, she didn’t know.

It wasn’t the most attractive of mirrors. A thickening sliver on one corner — about seven inches long — was missing, the glass sharp and ready to slice an unwary hand. The silvering had a pinkish tinge to it that gave way to a sort of liver-spotting across the bottom third, and a leaden grey opacity was creeping down from the top edge to join the liver spots like some cancerous stalactite. As a result, much of the usable surface reflected the surroundings in a vague and undefined manner.

Nick was all for tossing it, but she’d said no, joking, ‘Seven years bad luck’. So they stored it under the double bed.

Sparing the mirror hadn’t helped. She’d found herself just as abandoned in the end. Nick left and no-one replaced him. She trawled the mirror behind her from share-house to share-house and always it nested beneath a threadbare blanket under her bed. She never stopped to wonder why. There was no rational reason and she was — on the surface at least, and who dared dig deeper than that — a rational person. But if she’d been really honest — if she’d been able to question herself about it, she’d admit she was waiting for it to come good. She’d spared it. It was in her debt. That mirror owed her.

During her next move — to another share-house in Erskineville — the removalists broke the angled mirror that usually sat on her chest of drawers. It was only then that she consciously thought of the other mirror. She’d shoved it, wrapped in its brown blanket as usual, under her bed. It filled the space beside the box of glass Christmas ornaments and the backpack she’d bought in her twenties, when a life spent travelling the world still seemed a possibility.

The move had been tiring. Setting up her desk under the window and filling her bookcases had taken ages. But she bent to the task. One final effort to make everything perfect, to finish her nest and shut the door on the outside world again. There was a good spot for it against the wall at the end of her bed, between that and the dark wood dresser her aunt had given her. She pulled out the bundle again, unwrapped the blanket and rested the mirror against the plaster, tilting it so it wouldn’t topple. Now, about that broken corner… She grabbed an orange scarf from the dresser drawer and went to drape it across the top edge, then suddenly pulled her hand back, sticking her index finger in her mouth and simultaneously tossing the scarf on her bed to avoid it getting stained with blood.

‘Owwfff,’ she said round her finger. The blood tasted sweet on her tongue. She pulled the finger out and looked at the deep, straight line across the pad. It blossomed with renewed bleeding so she stuck it back in her mouth and made for the bathroom cabinet. One-handed she unwrapped a band-aid, then stuck the finger under the tap where it turned the water a pale pink, and then dabbed it on a tissue and quickly and tightly wrapped it with the plaster. The absorbent pad of the band-aid began to spot with red almost immediately so she stuck another dressing on top, increasing the pressure.

She didn’t like blood at the best of times. Especially her own. She took a long drink from the still running tap and splashed a bit of water on her forehead and the back of her neck before turning it off.

She grabbed a sponge from under the basin and went back to her room ready to rub up any blood stains, especially from her prized rug. But when she got there she couldn’t find any blood. Not on the floor or the mirror, even along the edge where she’d cut herself. So she picked up the scarf again and — far more carefully this time — draped it across the top edge to hide the missing corner.

The effect was really quite stylish. Standing in front of it, she could see the deco lamp-fitting hanging from the pressed tin ceiling and the dark picture rail cutting a swathe across the mushroom coloured wall. Now she looked at the mirror properly, it didn’t seem as opaque as she’d remembered. Certainly there was the spotted discolouration at the bottom and a grey line running down the centre, which bulged into a lumpy diamond shape near the middle, but the rest of it was okay. And its aged appearance seemed to fit the era of the room. She smiled at her reflection, pleased with herself, and with the mirror. Finally done.

Her new housemate, Noeleen, was out for the night, staying at her boyfriend’s place — half her luck. So she made a quick broth and noodles on the electric hob and brought it back to her room, shutting the door at last. The sun was going down and the last golden rays struck off the mirror, fanning across the wall, and brought out the pattern in the ceiling. She smiled again and ate her soup, watching the colours through the window change to crimson and purple. Winton Marsalis lulled her on the CD player. The room grew dark and slightly chilly until she pulled the doona up and read until her eyes drooped.

That night she dreamt Nick lay beside her in the darkness, whispering words she couldn’t quite hear. She could feel his touch, light and delicate on her neck, the fingers running slowly down her spine, the small of her back, her buttocks, parting her already moist lips and then his weight was upon her, pushing into her in long, slow strokes. Her thighs swayed as she pulled him deeper inside, heat building in a delicious burning, on and on.

She woke to an empty bed in the early morning light. Her cheeks were wet and she felt dead inside. ‘Get a grip, Isobel.’ she said aloud, pulling the doona around her. Her voice sounded hoarse and shaky to her ears.

2.

When she felt the loneliness pressing in on her, she threw herself into work. Even at its most annoying, it engaged her completely, and she was good at what she did. Her clients knew it too. But she’d already spent way too much time working on this particular website. She was going back and forth with a client who couldn’t decide on the colour palette let alone stick to a hard and fast decision about content architecture. The mirror made her workstation a lot brighter, casting light from the window back onto her reading material, which was a good thing. But after yet another webpage iteration her eyes were tired and sore. Tireder than she imagined, because as she leant back in her office chair she thought she caught movement in the mirror. She looked towards the door, which was open, to see if Noeleen or her boyfriend had come in unheard. But there was no-one. Back in the mirror her room was a perfect, motionless reflection. She shook her head, got up and made a cup of tea in the kitchen.

Later that day, as she was emailing the latest screenshots to her client, she heard a buzzing sort of insect noise. Very faint. She looked around but couldn’t see anything, and the window was shut. She glanced at the mirror and saw movement. Nothing obvious. The clear part of the mirror reflected her and the room perfectly but the greyish diamond down the middle seemed to be moving. Or something was moving behind it. She shuddered. She hoped there wasn’t some odd bug worked up behind the silver. She didn’t do bugs very well. There was a rippling behind the dull pewter marking, like thin milk with a darkness behind.

She stood, pushing the chair back, and carefully removed the scarf from along the top of the mirror, keeping her hands well clear of the sharp edge. No slug-like trails or anything else obvious along the lip. Steeling herself, she prised the mirror slowly off the wall and peeked behind it, expecting some horrible larval moth thing to fly up into her face. Nothing. She pulled the mirror out further. Just the brick red reverse of whatever the backing was with a line of numbers printed across it.

She lay the mirror back against the wall and hunkered down beside it, looking more closely into the dark and milky stain. There was the noise again. And movement. What the hell was it? If she squinted it looked a little like a figure sitting on a chair or stool. But we always anthropomorphise shapes, she thought, don’t we?

The ‘figure’ seemed to lean forward, bringing an ‘arm’ up. Then she heard a voice, tiny and tinny. ‘Samantha? Yes, I suppose it is a bit of a surprise —’

She shot back so quickly she fell almost flat out on the floor, hitting her head sharply on the chair arm. ‘Fuck!’ She rubbed at the sore spot. When she sat up again, the movement in the mirror was gone. Nothing but pewter grey in the middle and room reflected in the rest. Her brow was furrowed and she consciously smoothed it out. She’d turned thirty last year and didn’t feel the need to hasten what she felt was becoming an ever more obvious ageing process.

She could hear Noeleen in the lounge watching TV. Luckily she hadn’t heard her cry out. She didn’t want her to think she was crazy. Perhaps she was. But she felt spooked now and propped the door open so — although she didn’t voice the thought — she could make a quick getaway if she had to. Maybe she should throw the mirror out. But that would involve breaking it, no matter how far at a remove the action might be. The alternative was to give it to a friend. But that didn’t seem right either.

Besides, in that part of her mind she never visited the thought occurred that — maybe — this was the mirror starting to repay her.

Out in the pale winter sunlight and on her way up to the veggie shop she got a little perspective. Whatever it was she thought she heard or saw obviously hadn’t happened. She might have fallen asleep in her chair, dreamt it all and then woken when she fell to the floor after dozing too deeply. That seemed far more likely than people living in her mirror.

3.

A week went past with life returning to quiet and lonely normality, until it happened again.

She’d not-quite-consciously been ignoring the mirror for most of that time. Work was hotting up, with two more clients booked in on what were quick turnaround jobs. So when she finally broke off from a marathon session at the PC, her eyes wandered and she noticed the stain on the mirror was fading. The greyish diamond had almost gone, although there was still a faint milk stain where it had been. It didn’t seem likely the mirror could be repairing itself — perhaps the sunshine was ‘drying it out’ after being stuck under her bed for so long, although the blanket was never damp.

As she focused on the surface, she caught a movement again but didn’t draw back. Even though she’d dismissed the whole earlier incident, she’d been half-expecting something else to happen in a doublethink sort of way. And as she watched, the last of the milky cloudiness disappeared and there was the figure again, but much clearer this time. He was sitting in an armchair, holding an old-style phone to his ear.

‘Samantha?’ he said again, and his voice was clearer too. ‘Yes, I suppose it is a bit of a surprise. No. Don’t hang up.’ The man grimaced.

He was in his mid-thirties dressed in a brown skivvy and flared pants. With his long hair and sideburns, Isobel thought he was a refugee from the seventies. ‘Look,’ he continued. ‘I want to see you again. Just to talk. Please?’ There was such a look of concentration on his face. This conversation meant a lot, she could see that. The creases on his brow smoothed and he smiled. A nice smile. ‘Great. Thanks, Sam. Meet you at the usual? Eight o’clock?’ He nodded and placed the receiver down. It was one of those weirdly angular trim phones that cost a bomb in antique shops. The smile turned into a grin and he shook his fist in celebration. And then the image was gone, the milky stain reappeared, and she was looking at her puzzled self in the mirror.

Isobel sat back, thinking about what she’d seen and heard. The room the man had been sitting in wasn’t this room. Even behind the big modular, brown leather couch, the string-art sailing ship on the wall behind — with a clock where the moon might be — and the improbably bulbous television in the corner by the window, the dimensions of the room were wrong. Was this a reflection stored in the mirror from some other place and time? Or a bridge to that other time where events were unfolding as she watched? The alternative of course was that she’d gone psychotic.

But she realised she didn’t feel scared. This wasn’t some threatening demonic vision, some evil haunting. It was interesting. Who was this man, she wondered. What did he do? What was his relationship with Sam? And did he love her? It sounded like he’d stuffed up in some way, or maybe he’d broken it off, like Nick, for no reason — even after all the sharing, the tender words, the intimate, beautiful times together…

She felt herself being drawn into that familiar circle of what-went-wrongs and consciously pulled back. That was a dead end.

She took to glancing regularly at the mirror throughout the rest of the day. But it remained resolutely unchanged. Was that all she was going to see? She hoped not. She wanted to know what happened with the man and Sam. Did they get back together in the seventies, fall in love, get married? Were they still alive today, looking back on nearly forty years of wedded bliss?

It was very distracting, even worse than a Facebook addiction because the mirror was there, right beside her and accessible twenty-four hours a day. Even when she was away from it, taking a walk or driving somewhere, she’d be thinking about the man, how the conversation was received on the other end of the phone, if they met and how it went over. She wondered what she’d do in a similar situation. And then she didn’t have to wonder at all.

Two days later, her mobile rang. She was expecting a client, but the voice on the other end chased away her businesslike demeanour and left her lost for words.

‘Isobel?’ Pause — waiting for an answer that didn’t come, couldn’t come — then, ‘It’s Nick.’ What was she meant to say? Several more seconds passed. ‘Isobel, can you hear me?’

Social conditioning kicked in even as she was trying to work out how she felt about him calling her out of the blue like this. ‘Nick. Long time no… whatever.’ She stopped herself. Did that sound like she was angry? Did it sound bitter? Try again. ‘How’s things? Why are you calling?’

It was his turn to be silent. ‘Yes, well. Good question. Not one that’s easily answered. Um…’ More silence. ‘Look, the phone’s probably not the best… I mean —’

Spit it out, she thought.

‘Do you think we could meet for a chat?’ he finished lamely.

‘Well, I don’t know. What do we have to chat about?’ And even if you want to chat, do I? she wondered.

‘Just a quick drink, Isobel. Tomorrow night, unless you’re busy. Please?’ he added when she didn’t answer.

She couldn’t deny him. She took a breath. ‘Okay. It’ll have to be after eight though. At the Town Hall pub.’

‘See you then,’ he said. And rang off. In a movie, she’d have stared at the phone incredulously. She resisted, but her insides were stirred up and that old familiar tightening of the chest was making its play for the high ground of her consciousness. No, bugger you, she thought. I’m not going to wallow in pointless anxiety just from one bloody phone call. Maybe he’s come down with a terminal illness or something. It doesn’t have to be about me. Or us. Then she felt bad about thinking Nick dying a lingering death was better than raking over old emotions. Finally, with an effort, she got back to work and steadfastly ignored persistent thoughts of Nick or the mirror.

It was trivia night upstairs at the Town Hall. The quizmaster was in full swing and tables were limited so they met downstairs near the pool tables. Isobel had taken over an hour to work out her clothes, not at all sure why apart from the obvious fact that she liked to look good when she was out. Nick was wearing his usual jeans and that black leather jacket he always looked spunky in. They endured the awful ‘should we kiss: shouldn’t we moment’ and he finally pecked her in the borderlands of her lips and her cheek. She looked at him trying to discern any change — haggard with rings under the eyes from lack of sleep when he realised what an idiot he was, incipient alopecia from all the worry — but there was none of that. He looked the same and that wasn’t fair. She’d cried her eyes out off and on for weeks, hadn’t slept well for what felt like months, and she still had dreams.

He bought her one of the better Cab Savs and smiled awkwardly. ‘So how’s the new share-house?’

‘Good.’ But she didn’t want small talk. It just sounded so forced. She wanted some honesty. ‘What did you want to see me about, Nick? Do I still have some of your CDs?’ That was perhaps a bit harsh, but she couldn’t help it. She felt so tense.

‘No. You’re right. Look, Isobel…’ He took a drink of his wine and sighed heavily. ‘I have been an absolute fuckwit and I know that now and I want to see you again because I miss you. I love you. I don’t want to not be with you.’ A roar of laughter came from a foursome at the nearest pool table as the cue ball fired off the table and hit the wall.

Isobel felt her face flush and her head started to buzz with a million thoughts. Did she want him back, what would happen if she did, could she trust him, he’d hurt her so much, she was lonely, life was dull, he’d been fun, would she sell herself short if she said yes, why now after nearly eighteen months, and on and on. ‘You left me, Nick,’ she said. ‘You said it wasn’t working and just walked out. Do you know how much that hurt me?’

‘I know. I’m an idiot.’ He looked wretched. He reached out for her hand. She almost pulled back but the feel of his skin on hers, the way their fingers twisted together in that familiar way, made her stop, made that old ache leap into her chest again.

‘I’m thinking I’d be an idiot to put myself in a position where you could hurt me so badly again,’ she said. His hand tightened on hers.

‘I am so sorry, Isobel. Please. If I could take back the hurt I would.’ He stopped, perhaps realising no words could ever do that. His eyes were shining. ‘Just think about it. If you can’t, I’ll understand.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and she smelt him, felt the curls of his hair on her brow. ‘Call me if you think I’m still worth it,’ he said and was gone.

Her own tears started on the walk home. She was crying again for the end of their relationship, the fear of restarting it now and the loneliness she’d been doing her best to ignore all the time in between. She opened the front door quietly, not wanting Noeleen to see her. Her housemate was up in the darkened living room at the other end of the hall, the walls painted with shifting light from the television set.

‘Hi,’ she managed to call out in a voice approximating normal and closed her door on Noeleen’s reply. She looked at herself, mascara streaked on her cheeks. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall…’

She took her clothes off quickly, got into her cotton pajamas and snuggled under the doona, her breath coming in short gasps as she wept silently into the pillow. Why now? And why did it reduce her to the emotional equivalent of a train wreck? All she wanted was some certainty, some easy unstressful answer. But she felt pulled in three directions at once. She couldn’t ignore it and she couldn’t — it seemed — make a decision about Nick. Sleep refused to come for hours and when it did, her dreams were disturbed. No doubt it was because she was stressed to the max. But those bad dreams might have had another cause. At the foot of her bed, the mirror had darkened. And, stranger still, it began whispering to her.

4.

She woke with that clarity and peace that only comes from complete mental exhaustion. She couldn’t argue with herself anymore. Let what happens happen. The day was grey and quiet. She remembered it was Saturday. She rolled over and picked up her book from the bedside table, folded it open across the spine and read. Some time later, maybe an hour or so, she heard Noeleen waken and start moving around in the kitchen. Then there was a tap at her door. Noeleen, poked her head around it. ‘Thought you might like a cup of tea,’ she said, and then came fully into the room and handed Isobel a hot mug. She sat on the edge of the bed looking at her. ‘You all right? You were quiet last night but I thought I heard crying. Tell me if it’s none of my business.’

She sipped at her tea. ‘No, it’s okay. Ex-boyfriend that’s all.’

‘Ah. Let me guess. He’s either accusing you of keeping his favourite shirt or he wants to get back together?’

‘The latter,’ she said. ‘After being the one to break it off.’

Noeleen squidged round so she was leaning with her back against the headboard beside Isobel and laid her ugg-booted feet on the bed. ‘So, let’s see.’ She held up one finger after another. ‘He’s either missing the regular sex, on the rebound after his current girlfriend dumped his sorry arse, or he realises what a dickhead he was.’

Isobel smiled despite herself. ‘Well it’s been well over a year, so it can’t be just the sex. But I’m not sure if he’s been seeing anyone else.’

‘So it could be number two but potentially number three. Either way you should make him suffer.’

‘That sounds a bit manipulative.’

‘Not at all. It’s self-protective. It’s a way of making these idiots realise they can’t stuff you around and they’d better be damned sure of their feelings because otherwise they’ll be jumping through hoops for nothing.’

‘Maybe,’ Isobel said.

‘Fancy some cinnamon toast?’

She smiled again. ‘That would be fantastic.’

‘Be right back.’

Noeleen hopped off the bed and scooted out the room. Isobel drank her tea. There was a faint rumble of traffic noise, not as bad as a weekday. She wasn’t sure about making Nick jump through hoops, but Noeleen was at least right about sussing him out some more. She didn’t even properly understand why he wanted what he wanted. And until she did, she couldn’t make a decision about whether to trust him or not. She allowed herself a little glimmer of hope, but marshalled it carefully. This wasn’t the time to lose perspective.

Noeleen appeared again with a plate stacked high with toast and took up her possie on the bed before launching into a truly hilarious story about getting thrown out the Bank Hotel on ‘ladies night’ and Isobel’s mood improved out of sight.

At least this was normalcy. Everyday things she could deal with. The vision in the mirror seemed like a dream. And Nick calling so soon after more than just a weird coincidence. Had what she’d seen been just wishful thinking — or caused by wishful thinking more like? She couldn’t see herself dreaming up seventies romances. Alone in her room once again, she almost laughed. A wishing mirror? Come on. It was very ‘fairy tale’. Had it picked up on her thoughts or desires, presented her with a scenario and then created the same thing in the real world? She had the feeling, though there was no rational reason to feel that way, that it wanted to help her. Well it was fanciful, certainly. More prosaically, she’d obviously developed an overactive imagination. No sex will do that to you, she thought.

She left it a couple of days, concentrated on her work and just gave herself a bit of time and distance. And maybe there was a bit of making him sweat on it too, the first of Noeleen’s ‘hoops’ perhaps. But then she rang and they agreed to meet for something to eat that night in King Street. Isobel was glad he’d chosen a restaurant they’d never been to before — a cheap and cheerful Szechwan Chinese where she could indulge her chilli fetish. It felt like new beginnings.

They played catch up, safe conversations about work and friends. They shared a Shiraz, but she was careful to pace herself, needing to keep in control. It would be so easy just to fall into bed with him again, feeling his warm smooth skin against hers, his lips on her neck, her nipples, her inner thighs. Stop it, she thought and pulled herself upright, covering the reddening of her cheeks — she hoped — with a quizzical look at him across the table.

He was scanning the bill and she pulled her wallet from her bag.

‘Let me,’ he said, pulling his own wallet out.

‘No. Half and half.’ He looked a little crestfallen. ‘But you can walk me home.’

‘Okay.’ He smiled that little boy smile she had fallen for once before. Straight teeth and dimples, who could resist?

They walked together down King Street. She laced her fingers into his and they moved in silence down past the Townie and through Erskineville. It was a warm night, the low cloud reflecting the light of the nearby city. People were out everywhere, the footpath tables at the Rose crowded with smokers. They turned into her street and she reluctantly let go his hand to dig in her bag for her keys, coming to a halt beside her gate. She looked at him, It was obvious he wanted to come in, still desired her, wanted to fuck her and she wanted to be fucked. But not now. Partly it was what Noeleen had said, wanting to make him prove himself but it was also partly fear. Fear of being hurt again. And then he kissed her, softly on the lips and she opened up to him, their tongues meeting, exploring each other tentatively and then with more urgency, she felt him harden against her and she pulled back.

‘No,’ she said almost panting and pulled her bag up in a half-hearted gesture like a shield. That look was in his eyes again, the bad puppy look. ‘Nick, I had a lovely evening. I just need some time to get used to this again is all. Okay?’

He touched her shoulder. ‘It’s completely okay. Honestly, Isobel. I’m just really glad that we were out together tonight. It’s more than I hoped for.’ She couldn’t see any guile or insincerity in his eyes. He leant in and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘I’ll call this time.’ And he turned and walked back up towards Erko, turning briefly to wave.

Inside, she quickly got ready for bed. Noeleen was out for a night of ‘hot and uncomplicated sex’ she had said earlier. She’d also reinforced her hope that Isobel wouldn’t be engaging in sex — hot, cold, lukewarm or otherwise because ‘sex-with-the-ex’ was about as complicated as it got. She left the lights off as she undressed and pulled her pajamas out from under the pillow, which was why she noticed the faint glow from the mirror. Intrigued, she buttoned her top up and hunkered down in front of the glass, which had a swirling opalescence in the centre. As she watched a scene resolved which was chillingly familiar. The man she’d seen earlier was walking with a tall slim woman down a reasonably lit suburban street. It was as if Isobel were walking backwards in front of them like some sort of steadicam operator. The woman fascinated her. She was beautiful, long auburn hair caught up in a ponytail, green eyes, a face that looked ready to smile. She was lithe and very sexy, her body clothed — fashionably Isobel supposed — in a cheesecloth drawstring blouse, massively flared faded denims and leather sandals. No doubt a shorter woman would have been in platforms in that era, she thought, but the whole effect would have looked pretty darn trendy in twenty-first century Newtown. The man — she wondered what his name was and when exactly they both lived — wore a tan cord three-piece suit. He looked like he’d walked off the cover of an op shop Mills and Boon. The long collar-tips of a paisley bodyshirt were turned over the jacket lapels, completing the effect. They walked hand in hand past cars that Isobel didn’t recognise, but they looked boxy and heavy for the most part, some of them bristling with chrome. The couple didn’t talk, and it seemed to Isobel a companionable silence. The man was smiling as he walked and the woman looked relaxed, holding his hand and striding along.

She sniffed the air. ‘Evening jasmine,’ she said. Isobel could hear her quite clearly. ‘I love that smell. It’s so restful. All the work of the day done, the pace of life slowing at last and then the jasmine plant releasing its scent just as we have time to pause and appreciate it.’

They stopped then and the man took a deep breath. ‘You’re right,’ he said. His voice was deep and warm. ‘I should get you some jasmine perfume, maybe. If you like it so much.’

The woman’s brow furrowed slightly. ‘Martin. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ She let go of his hand.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’m just not sure what happens next. I mean I had a lovely meal. It was almost like old times, but these aren’t old times, are they?’

Martin put his hands in his pockets. It looked to Isobel like he was closing down and the woman seemed to see that too. ‘I like you, Martin. You should know that. You made me happy. But then you walked away. And that was very painful to me.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a cigarette, lit it. ‘It’s just, I need to know what’s different now. Why are you back, and how do I know you’re not just going to leave me again?’

‘Look — Sam.’ He place a hand on each shoulder, drawing her closer. ‘I’ve been foolish. I was scared, because of what I felt for you. Maybe it doesn’t make sense but it made me feel vulnerable. So I ran. And I wish I hadn’t. But running didn’t help me either. I missed you even more. I just want a chance to prove I want to be with you. That I won’t hurt you ever again.’

‘You can’t promise that.’

‘I know. That’s life. But I sincerely want to try.’

She looked at him for a long moment and then dropped her cigarette to the ground as he drew her closer and they kissed. A long kiss. His hands moved down the sides of her body, cupping her buttocks and pulling her closer. She seemed to melt against him and then she pulled away. ‘No. Martin.’

Déjà vu all over again, Isobel thought.

He looked hurt, almost angry for a moment, Isobel thought, and then he smiled. ‘Sorry. You’re just so damn sexy. You know I’ve always thought that.’

‘Let’s take it slow. I just need a bit of time, Martin.’ She kissed him on the cheek and then took his hand as they began to walk again. Isobel looked closely at Martin but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His speech had sounded very sincere but, like Nick, she realised it didn’t really answer anything. It was fine for Nick to say he was sure about them being together now, but he’d been sure that they shouldn’t be together either. Tonight had been very nice but they hadn’t resolved anything. He had to explain to her what had changed to make this right and what happened before wrong. Otherwise there was no reason to take him back.

The mirror image faded and she tipped it a silent thanks. With Noeleen and the enchanted looking glass watching out for her, maybe things were going to turn out okay. She hopped under the covers and allowed herself to think back on the evening. Nick was — she had to admit — very cute. And intelligent. And funny. And his politics were right. And he thought just enough like her and just enough unlike her to make their conversations stimulating. And he had a beautiful body, she knew that. And he was good in bed. Very good, in fact she’d never responded to another lover quite the way she had with Nick, and… Damn! She could feel that familiar fluttering in her belly and lower, between her legs. Obviously it had been too long.

There was no way she was going to get to sleep now without a little help. Slowly she pushed her hand down the front of her pajamas and thought about what would have happened if she’d asked him in.

5.

The next day she woke feeling very cheerful. Her good mood lasted through the morning. Work was going well, and she was concentrating on moving some html around when the front door bashed open and Noeleen walked past, going down the hall with an armload of groceries. She backtracked and stuck her head through the open doorway to Isobel’s room.

‘Careful,’ she said.

Isobel looked up, distracted. ‘Hmmmm. What?’

‘You’re humming a happy song. And you don’t even realise you’re doing it. What are you going to be like if you two really get together? An outbreak of dancing in the kitchen? I might have to find a new house and a new housemate.’ She made for the kitchen again without waiting for a response.

Isobel sighed and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She did look happy. Younger even. No worry lines on her forehead and there was colour in her cheeks. She stuck her tongue out at her image and got back to mousing. ‘It’s all under control,’ she said to herself. Just then her mobile rang. The screen showed it was Nick calling.

‘Hi!’ he said and there was a sudden loud rattling noise and a dinging of bells.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Where the hell are you, it sounds like a fairground or something.’

‘Sorry. Just avoiding getting knocked down by a tram. I’m in Melbourne — took the early flight down here for a quick job, trying to convince the Vic Office we are not all a bunch of convict descended ne’er-do-wells.’

‘Oh. What’s the weather like?’ She grimaced. What the hell kind of conversation killer was that?

‘Bit of everything as you might expect. Look, um, I’m down here till this afternoon, but I scored some tickets for The Basement tonight. Some cool jazz playing and I thought I’d buy you dinner.’

‘Oh you did, did you?’ She smiled. ‘Well I guess I can allow that.’

‘Great. Eight pm. Meet you at the bus stop at Circular Quay. Wear something beat-poetish.’ He hung up.

Still smiling, Isobel got up and walked down to the living room to catch up with Noeleen. Well, to tell her the good news really. ‘Hey you, Nick’s taking me to The Basement.’

Noeleen was sitting at the table staring glumly at her mobile phone. ‘Good for you. I’ll babysit your Persian rug because there’s fuck all else I have to do tonight.’

‘What’s up?’

‘That dickhead boyfriend just cancelled on me. Again. He is so fucking dropped.’ She shook herself, forcing a smile across her face. ‘Oh, don’t listen to me. I’m just not having much luck at the moment. Hey, I’m happy for you, though. It’s about time you had a bit of good fortune with men. And who knows, maybe some of it will rub off on me.’

It was a great band. The lead singer was a statuesque blonde with a voice like cream poured over gravel and a range that was amazing. The crowd was appreciative, the food was average — well that was to be expected really, eating was always secondary at The Basement. But the bar was certainly well-stocked. Isobel had a liking for single malts and Nick bought her some Talisker which was so smoky and smooth. She probably had a little too much, truth be told, but she was enjoying herself and Nick was being wonderful. Attentive, entertaining and funny talking about the Melbourne Office and the rivalry with Sydney. He sought her opinion and listened to it, laughed at her jokes and swept her out the venue on his arm and hailed a cab which they both piled into in fairly uncoordinated fashion.

‘I think,’ she said with that practised kind of speech pattern adopted by the fairly tipsy, ‘that I am a little drunk.’

‘Well, you’re in good company,’ Nick said. ‘I think I may have had one or two over my limit. And it’s a school night. Ah, fuck it. I’m having too good a time to care.’

When they got to her place, he followed her out the cab. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she said and then instantly felt a bit mean. The cabbie was peering at them through the window but Nick waved him off.

‘I can walk from here,’ he said.

‘To Summer Hill?’

‘It’ll clear the head. It’s a good walk.’

‘Okay.’ She wasn’t convinced though. ‘Cos I’m not asking you in.’

‘Didn’t presume that you were going to, darling,’ he said, affecting an air of hurt pride. He leant in and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Honest.’

It perhaps wasn’t the time or place, but the scotch had loosened her tongue a little. ‘You say you’ve had a change of heart about us, Nick. But I just need to understand why that’s happened. What makes you want to be with me now when you didn’t before?’

He nodded. ‘Fair question. And this is only a semi-sober answer so if I don’t express myself properly you have to give me another chance to explain tomorrow.’

‘Okay.’ Despite the alcohol, she felt herself tensing up. Did so much depend on this?

He exhaled loudly, gathering his thoughts. ‘Maybe our — biorhythms were off or whatever. Maybe I’m just a slow-fuse kind of guy.’ He took her hand. ‘I knew you loved me, Isobel. You told me and I felt it every time we were together. And I wanted to feel the same way about you, but if I was honest with myself I didn’t. So I waited, thinking that that feeling would come. But it didn’t seem to. You can’t wish yourself in love. And I didn’t want to lie to you. Didn’t want to say “I love you” when I didn’t feel that. So when I thought it had been long enough that if love hadn’t knocked me over the head by then it never would, I finished it. Because it wasn’t fair to take your love when I couldn’t give any in return.’

‘You could have told me at the time, you idiot,’ she said. She felt tears behind her eyes but forced them back.

He let go of her hand, seeming uncertain. ‘You’re absolutely right. But I was a coward. It was too hard to be honest. Sorry. Guess I’m not perfect after all.’ He thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘So I left. I cut you off completely. I know it was cruel, but I thought that would make the hurt go away quicker. That you could be angry with me instead of being sorry for yourself. You could forget me and I could forget you and we’d both move on.’ He paused and took both of her hands in his again. ‘But it wasn’t that easy — for me at least.’

He looked at the ground and then gave a short laugh. ‘And one day I realised it had happened. I was in love with you, too bloody late. I wasn’t going to call. I’d had my chance. But that didn’t help. So I called you expecting to be told to fuck off in no uncertain terms. And I can hardly believe you’ve given me a second chance, Isobel. But now I have it there is nothing I won’t do to make this work for us. I love you, Isobel. I love you and I want us to be together for as long as humanly possible.’

Silence. She looked at him for a long time. It was as if they were both trapped in the moment, caught in amber, neither capable of thinking, breathing, doing anything else until the question between them was answered. It was at once the simplest and most difficult question Isobel had ever considered. Slowly she pulled him towards her and kissed him full on the lips. ‘Okay.’ She kissed him again. ‘Safe home.’

His face broke into a big grin and he turned on his heels and walked, only weaving ever so slightly, in the direction of Summer Hill.

Of course she could have relented and asked him in. But actions were as important as words. What he’d said rang true with her and she couldn’t help a rush of excitement as she unlocked the front door. It was exciting. To be loved, to have someone you care about cherish you and know that they wanted to be with you, wanted to do whatever they could for you. To share, really share yourself with someone else. It was all she wanted.

And yet she didn’t sleep well that night. She tossed and turned in a half-awake state, conscious thoughts trailing off into imaginings and vice versa until she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or awake at any given moment. It was like when she was a little girl and she had the flu. That kind of feverish reverie that you can’t escape no matter how much you try but when you do wake you can’t remember what disturbed you so.

Tiredness and constantly dipping into thoughts of Nick meant she didn’t achieve much work the next morning which was bad because she had a deadline looming — a presentation to a credit union on an intranet revamp. Deadline or no, by lunchtime she had to get out of the house, so she walked up to King Street and strolled along towards St Peters looking at the retro fashion and furniture shops. It was a chilly day, despite some winter sun. There was a fairly strong wind blowing and she wrapped her coat around her and tightened her scarf.

She was looking through a window at a particularly nice deco table and chairs when a movement inside caught her eye, and her focus shifted. It was Nick. A smile came to her lips, but before she could tap the glass to get his attention she saw him laughing. He was talking to a very attractive blonde and staring intently into her eyes. She laughed too, then touched him on the shoulder and turned to walk out the shop. She stopped in the doorway and gave him a little wave, which he returned. Isobel felt sick. Then Nick saw her and came out onto the street.

‘Hello there,’ he said, smiling. ‘This is a bit of luck.’ And he kissed her.

She couldn’t help stiffening at that but he didn’t seem to notice. Her mind was running at a million miles an hour but she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to appear nosy, or suspicious, but she couldn’t leave it alone. ‘Yes. Just taking a break.’ She managed a smile. ‘Who was that you were with?’ She tried for an offhand tone but it rang false to her ear.

He looked a little puzzled, then raised his eyebrows. ‘Haven’t got a clue. She dropped a contact lens in the shop and I almost stood on it. She washed it off in a little purse thing — you women carry amazing amounts of paraphernalia in your bags — and then put it back in. It was one of those tinted lenses that made her irises look purple. Quite an amazing effect. Hey, have you had lunch?’

Her heart calmed a little as she listened to him. It all seemed harmless, but she was still a little unsettled. ‘Uh, yes. In fact I need to get home. Big job to finish off. What brings you to King Street anyway?’

‘I was seeing a client up near the uni, and I felt like stretching my legs, so I thought I’d walk to St Peters and catch the train from there. How’s the head?’

It took her a moment to realise what he meant. ‘Didn’t sleep too well, but that’s all. It pays to drink top shelf spirits, I suppose. How’s your head?’ she said, remembering his rather roundabout gait back up her street to the main road.

‘Same. Nothing a raw egg and Worcester sauce couldn’t cure.’ Was he being serious, she wondered. ‘But speaking of food, would you like to have dinner at my place Friday night? I’ll dig out the Jamie Olivers and cook up something tempting.’

‘Ooh, smooth topic change.’ She smiled despite her mood. ‘Yes, I can do that. Okay. See you then.’ And this time she kissed him. But on the cheek. Not the lips like last night. He smiled and was gone in the direction of the station.

Walking home she found herself going round and round in mental circles about the girl in the shop. It sounded harmless enough — if it was the truth. Hell, was she going to go into a tailspin every time some little thing like this happened? Was she so insecure, so afraid of the relationship failing again? Trust. Trust was essential and she should trust him. He’d never two-timed her before. Or not to your knowledge a treacherous voice said in her head.

But he had disappointed her before. Maybe she’d been stupid but she’d trusted that they would be together for a long time, maybe forever. They had fit so well. She’d felt so comfortable, so in love, so happy. And then the wheels had come off when she least expected them to.

When she got back to her room she looked at her reflection in the mirror, trying to see some certainty within, something solid and credible that would make the worries go away, but there was nothing. She didn’t notice the attention, but in truth the mirror was staring at her as hard as she was staring at it. And it saw something it could exploit.

6.

Work continued slowly that afternoon and Noeleen wasn’t around — again, although this time she probably wasn’t with her boyfriend judging by her mood yesterday.

Isobel ended up watching some season 3 Deadwood on the DVD and wondering why the show suddenly turned to shit after such a great first couple of seasons. But, on her internal TV screen, she kept replaying that little scene in the shop over and over, looking for cues — the tilt of a chin, the shift in Nick’s stance closer to the blonde that might mean she and he were together, or if not together that he’d rather like it if they were. Fuck. She pushed the remote and switched Deadwood off. She was going to bed, much good that it would do her. She couldn’t sleep, not feeling the way she did.

Brushing her teeth in the bathroom, she looked at her panda eyes in the mirror. If she’d looked like that this lunchtime it’s no wonder he was looking elsewhere. ‘Stop it!’ she said through a mouthful of toothpaste.

The cabinet under the sink was ajar. Rinsing off her toothbrush she went to shut it, and stopped. There was an orange plastic pill bottle in there she hadn’t noticed before. She picked it up and read the label. It was Noeleen’s — sleeping pills apparently. ‘Sonata,’ she read. Hmm, catchy name. ‘Contains Zaleplon. Not to be taken where there is a history of cancer or liver disease or when pregnant.’ No to all of those, I hope, immaculate conception notwithstanding. ‘Habit forming.’ Well, she wasn’t going to make a habit of it. She took one, rinsed it down with some water from the tap and then replaced the bottle. Then she got in bed and waited for the thing to take effect.

At first she thought it wasn’t going to work. But then the feeling came on her slowly. It was as if she were sinking into the mattress. Her arms and legs felt leaden and a small laugh escaped her lips. She started to worry that maybe she was having a reaction. Was she speeding? But then her thoughts started to come sluggishly and she recognised that ‘drifting off’ feeling that meant sleep was on the way. Thank goodness, was her last coherent thought. As the drug took hold and she slept more deeply, she began to talk in her sleep. The mirror listened.

The light had a strange quality, that golden obliqueness that spoke of early morning. She was outside. Around her was the kind of murmured conversations and general food and drink detritus of the very late stages of a party. She must have been up all night. She was sitting on an outdoor sofa and beside her was a sorry individual: a young man with dark hair and shaggy sideburns, snoring softly and perched in a very uncomfortable position against the other arm of the chair.

‘Morning bracer?’ A woman stood over her, half in shadow with a pitcher of something red and a glass. She had on a bright housecoat and her mascara was badly smudged. ‘John and I crashed. God knows when. He’s still out of it. Here, you need one of these.’ The woman thrust a glass of the red stuff into her hand, nudged the sleeper, who didn’t respond, and then moved on. She sipped at her drink. A pretty potent Bloody Mary, heavy on the Tabasco.

There was a house behind her she didn’t recognise, big bay windows leading into a lounge with a ridiculously padded orange leather couch. She was on a brick verandah overlooking a reasonable sized lawn leading down to a wooden fence. It was somewhere in the ’burbs, judging by the space between the neighbouring houses. Then she realised what she was wearing: very dark indigo jeans, tight to the knee then flaring improbably and a heavily brocaded waistcoat with nothing underneath. Her breasts were peeking saucily over the top. Or rather, not her breasts. A handbag was lying beside the arm of the couch. She rummaged in it, drew out a handmirror, looked at herself. Auburn hair in a ponytail, heavy make up on green eyes, full lips. Oh, she thought, with that lack of surprise that often accompanies dreams. I’m Samantha. Which means ‘I’m livin’ in the Seventies’. The people around her — let alone her own style of dress — seemed to confirm that. Kaftans, flares, body shirts, lots of hair, especially facial hair on the men. They were a very hirsute bunch. So where’s Martin, she thought.

Nobody seemed to be bothering much with her. She stood up — barefoot — and took a better look around. There was no sign of Martin and she didn’t recognise anyone else. She walked over the verandah and in through the doors to the lounge. The leather couch was empty but a man and a woman were writhing on the floor behind it, their clothes loose. Into the hall, the walls were lined with tribal art — masks, wooden carvings, highly patterned pieces of woven grass. A study off to the left, empty, front door ahead of her, ajar and showing a brick path and another swathe of lawn up to the road, door to her right only slightly open. She pushed on it and saw Martin’s cord jacket thrown over a free-standing vase. She looked inside and froze. Martin, lying naked on a scatter cushion on the floor. On top and with her back to the door, a blonde. She was straddling Martin, her hips grinding down on him, her back arching. Isobel/Samantha held the doorframe to steady herself. Martin was looking right at her, still pumping. ‘Well what did you expect, you frigid bitch?’ he said and laughed at her. The blonde stopped her gyrations and turned slowly, cheeks pink, forehead glistening with sweat. Isobel/Samantha stumbled back into the hall and ran for the front door. That woman, Isobel thought. It’s the woman in the shop with Nick.

She woke in bed with a start. Sunlight slanted obliquely through her window. The dream was still vivid behind her eyes, the shock of betrayal almost a physical thing. Fuck. She wasn’t taking another of those pills any time soon. That wasn’t rest. She didn’t feel rested. She felt tensed up like she was going to snap. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was all but off the deep end if her anxieties were starting to invade her dreams like that. The girl in the shop… No, she thought. It was the pill that was the catalyst. I wouldn’t have dreamt that otherwise. I’m not that insane. You sure about that? a betraying voice whispered in her head.

She wished Noeleen were here, just to have someone outside her head to talk about these things to. Nick wouldn’t do that to me, she told herself in lieu of a sane outsider talking her down from a figurative ledge. He’s a nice, decent man.

7.

Nick dropped her an email that afternoon. Nothing of great importance. Just one of those new-couple dating things that had nothing up-front to say but was laden with a subtext of ‘I like you; I care about you’. She didn’t respond. She was deep into a self-feeding circle of anxiety. She shut the PC down, grabbed her coat and went out for a walk, trying to feel decisive and in control. But she wandered around without any purpose and the anxious feeling in her chest just got worse. She felt paralysed by fear. Fear of being alone, fear of her heart being broken again. She couldn’t think her way out of it, no matter what sensible things she told herself. An hour of this passed without any relief and when she passed the kids’ playground for the third time she turned back towards home.

She almost walked right into Noeleen as she opened the front door into the hall but stopped short as she saw the blood. Noeleen was standing, staring at her upraised palm with a bright red gash running across it.

‘Noeleen.’ Isobel said, but her house mate didn’t move. ‘Noeleen?’ Again nothing. Isobel reached out and touch her shoulder. Noeleen looked at her with sudden recognition then down at her hand again.

‘Fuck, I’m bleeding!’ she said.

‘Come on,’ Isobel said and took her by the arm leading her down the hall. Her room was wide open and the scarf on the mirror was pushed to one side. She thought she’d closed the door. Had Noeleen been in her room?

She led Noeleen into the bathroom and ran the cut under the tap. ‘How did you do this?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Noeleen said. ‘I was in the kitchen… I must have cut it on a knife.’

‘And forgot where the first aid kit was?’ Isobel hunkered down and got the small kit out the bathroom cupboard. The cut was deep but not as long as she’d thought. It made her feel a bit squeamish. She put a gauze pad over the cut and then bound it with crepe bandage, fastening it with a safety pin. ‘There. That’s the extent of my first aid skills. Can you move it?’

Noeleen wiggled her fingers.

‘Do you want me to take you to Emergency?’

‘Cup of tea would do me. If it starts hurting maybe you could drive me there. It feels okay now.’

Noeleen sat in the living room while Isobel made her a cup of tea and tried to remember if she’d shut her door. Hadn’t she locked it behind her? She couldn’t remember.

She sat with Noeleen and they sipped at their teas. Noeleen seemed more like her old self now. She’d been pretty vagued-out in the hall. Then she remembered what Noeleen had said the day Nick asked her out to The Basement. It’s about time you had a bit of good fortune with men. And who knows, maybe some of it will rub off on me.

‘Noeleen, were you in my room?’ Had she touched the mirror? Was she stealing some of its magic for herself? Noeleen looked at her strangely. ‘It’s just you were up near there in the hall and my door was open. I thought you might have cut yourself in there.’

Noeleen shook her head slightly. ‘No. I don’t think so.’ Then she added. ‘Mind you I don’t know how I got there from the kitchen.’ She smiled wryly. ‘This sudden lack of sex is obviously bad for my brain. How have you been able to function for so long?’

But Isobel didn’t find that funny. Did you touch the mirror, she wanted to ask. But it was one thing to think it and another to flat out accuse her.

‘Well, I’d better get back to work,’ she said and excused herself.

Back in her room she shut the door behind her and examined the mirror. The scarf was pulled back from the sharp edge, but there was no blood on it, the mirror or the carpet. And there had been a lot of blood. Just like when I cut my hand, she thought vaguely. But that thought was pushed aside by another, more insistent: she couldn’t trust Noeleen, not after this. The mirror was hers. It was here to help her, and she needed that help more than ever now. Now that she couldn’t confide in Noeleen any more.

Noeleen watched TV that night and Isobel stayed in her room, lying that her head was aching from too much screen work, and making her head ache by thinking on and on about Nick. This wasn’t what relationships were meant to do. It was a mess. She should call it all off. But then she remembered Nick’s words that night, the way he looked, how she felt when he touched her, and she knew she couldn’t end it. Which threw her back into thinking about his sincerity, the girl in the shop, how she’d invaded her dreams.

Gradually she tired herself out with all this thinking about things that may have no basis in reality. And she remembered the email that she hadn’t answered. So, before bed, she SMSd Nick to say she was looking forward to dinner. And when she slept, she didn’t dream, or didn’t remember if she had.

The taxi dropped her at the end of Nick’s street. The day had flown by in a kind of semi-conscious daze and she still felt tired. Then she’d taken ages to decide what to wear, casting off successive options into an ever-growing pile on her bed. Finally she’d plumped for a long cotton skirt and matching top she’d picked up last month on the North Shore. Even so, she was a little bit early so she took the time to walk the length of the street, her boot heels clicking on the footpath. Spring was coming and the air was scented with wattle and the resiny smell of gumtrees.

Nick’s apartment was right at the end of the street in a converted flour mill, all security doors, internal courtyards and mezzanine floors. The entrance was flooded with light as she approached and someone was coming out of the doorway. Isobel stopped mid-stride, nearly stumbling. It was the blonde from the shop, from her dream. The woman walked smartly up the path and smiled at Isobel as she passed her. It was as if someone had wrapped a cold hand round Isobel’s torso and was squeezing so her breath came in shallow gasps and her head felt full with blood.

This can’t be happening, she thought. She turned to watch the woman, who climbed into a black Mazda parked nearby and drove off. Had she been visiting Nick? ‘No,’ she said aloud. This was a coincidence. She knew Nick. There was no way he would do this to her. She was being silly. Still she was shaken and what little happiness she’d been able to conjure about tonight’s dinner fizzled.

She pressed the buzzer. There was an incomprehensible noise from the speaker grille and then the door buzzed her in. Nick was waiting in the hallway on the second level, an airy transom with a huge oak beam cutting across the ceiling. She looked for any sign of tension that might show he’d been hurrying the blonde out before her arrival, but there was none. He was smiling. It was a beautiful smile. No guile there at all and she felt her own smile in return, weak but there all the same. She handed him the bottle of wine she’d brought and he kissed her, full on the lips — slow and lingering. He tasted of cinammon.

‘Welcome,’ he said, ushering her through the door. The place was such a change from his last apartment before they moved in together — a rather dingy flat with ‘well-loved’ second-hand furniture. White walls predominated with concealed and appropriately dimmed downlights. Furniture was minimal, a glass and steel dining table, a sleek silver hi-fi, plasma screen on the wall and a low, modular couch in the corner by the floor to ceiling window.

‘Well you have come up in the world,’ she said.

‘Some things change for the better,’ he said, offering her a glass of wine. ‘I have pot-roasted guinea-fowl with sage, celery and blood orange for your dining pleasure.’ He frowned. ‘You do like guinea-fowl, don’t you?’

‘Never had it. But it smells wonderful.’ She sipped the wine and rolled her eyes. ‘And this wine is delicious. It knocks the plonk I brought from Dan Murphy’s for six.’

‘Well, I admit I am trying to impress you.’

Or feeling appropriately guilty, she thought. Shut up, Isobel!

They sat and he talked about work, asked her about hers, changed the CD. He gave good chats. That was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place — his active mind, always thinking about stuff, analysing it. But all the while her traitorous brain was looking for clues, waiting for him to slip up, reveal himself.

The food was delicious too, and there was berry sorbet for desert and then coffee made on sleek home espresso machine. It was a textbook evening, a textbook seduction. She felt things were moving towards their inevitable conclusion.

‘I just have to use the bathroom,’ she said. He told her where to find it and she walked across the polished boards, up a couple of steps and into the loo.

She finished up, flushed, and washed her hands. There was a mirrored medicine cabinet over the basin. Quickly she opened it and had a look. Men’s toiletries, deodorant. Nothing ‘fem’. But then behind two bars of wrapped soap on the bottom shelf she saw a familiar pack. Her gut dropped like an elevator. Keep a grip, she willed. She picked it up, looking at its reserved rose pattern. Tampons. Only two left.

It doesn’t mean anything, she thought. They must’ve been left here hidden for ages. I mean, it was silly to think Nick hadn’t had lovers in the time that they’d been apart. Notwithstanding the fact that I haven’t. He probably hadn’t even noticed they were there, okay?

Still when she went back to the living room and sat beside him on the couch she drained her glass to steady her nerves. He refilled it, glancing at her. He looked nervous all of a sudden. The role of practised seducer sliding off him.

‘Well then,’ he said.

‘Well indeed.’ She took another sip of wine, already feeling her latest rush of nerves subsiding. Did she want to do this? Oh — god — yes. ‘I think you should kiss me now,’ she said.

He put his glass down and his arms were round her, his lips on hers in one swift movement.

They kissed, tentatively at first then with more heat until their tongues touched, and then her mouth opened and the kisses came more hungrily. He mumbled something but she didn’t understand, his voice was so thickened with desire. And she wanted him. She wanted him now. Fingers fumbled at buttons and then she was undoing his trousers and pulling his cock out. He moaned, or she did and his fingers slipped under her pants and pushed into her. They stood somehow and, still clutching at each other and shedding clothes all the way, they made it to the bedroom, falling together on the covers and dispensing with the last of their clothing. She felt his weight on her and she arched, butting her pubis against his cock.

‘Wait,’ he said, gasping. ‘Condom.’ He reached in the bedside drawer, grabbing a packet and moving quickly to get the condom on. And then he was in her in slow strokes. She could feel the length of his cock as it penetrated, rubbing on her clit. God she’d missed the feel of him inside her. And then he did something that took her out of the moment. The way he was moving his cock, varying the angle, he’d never done that with her before, quickening as he went.

Butohfuckworryaboutitlater, she thought, because it felt good and her orgasm was on its way. There was nothing that could stop it and it was going to be a big one. She cried out once and then her hips writhed as she came, long and hard and deliciously and through the feeling she could feel his cock kicking inside her as he emptied himself.

She didn’t stay the night, though he asked her to. She wasn’t sure why but she suddenly wanted just to be home, and he’d offered to run her back but she’d insisted on a cab.

There had been some very lovely post-coital cuddling during which he was very sweet and then he’d gone down on her. Which he’d done before, of course, but this time his technique was different again, his tongue teasing and kissing her and bringing her to the edge of orgasm but then slowing, easing off until the feeling subsided and he started in again. She rode the wave of it, moaning loudly and losing herself in the sensation, going with the waves of pre-orgasm, thighs tightening and relaxing and then she came and it made that earlier orgasm seem like nothing at all, her whole body shuddering and any conscious thoughts dissolving into disjointed meaninglessness. When she regained a level of awareness some time later, his arms and legs wrapped round her, she thought how amazing that was but how strange. To fuck someone you knew, and had fucked so many times before, but whose bodily cues and rhythms just didn’t feel the same at all. It was shortly after that that she’d left.

The thought niggled at her all the way home in the cab. It had been a virtuoso performance and that was the problem. It hadn’t been sex with Nick the way she’d remembered it. He’d gained a lot and more varied experience and he’d used it on her and it had been magnificent but she thought about her dream, about Martin and the way he’d played Sam along being all sincere when all he really was was a root rat that… She stopped herself. Wait, that was a dream. Not real… Or not a vision in the mirror is what she meant to say. What possible bearing could it have? And then she remembered the tampons. Just when had they been left there?

The wine had worn off by now, and the after-sex glow, and she was left with a sour taste in her mouth and just as many suspicions as before, maybe more.

When the mirror saw her coming home, saw the expression on her face, read her mind, it was pleased. Things were coming to a head.

8.

It was Saturday morning. She woke in her pajamas feeling glum and just a little sore between the legs. Noeleen was in the kitchen and she joined her for coffee and toast at the rusty table in their concreted back yard. The olive tree was starting to flower and there was a mild spring breeze blowing the tops of the gum trees on the other side of the back lane, adding a pleasant swishy rustling to the sounds of the day. But nothing penetrated Isobel’s mood. She was thinking about ending it with Nick, but did she want to and how could she after she’d just fucked him? Wouldn’t that just be a bit psycho-bitch-from-hell? The thing was she still wanted him but she didn’t know if she could put up with how the whole situation made her react. Nick was fine. It was her that needed to change but how to do it? It wasn’t that easy. Maybe she needed therapy.

Noeleen was nattering about her new boyfriend who was apparently much better than the other one — in every way possible, it seemed: better looking, better job, better salary, better clothes and better sex.

Isobel was only half-listening, nodding and grunting on auto-pilot, but Noeleen didn’t seem to notice. Isobel’s phone bipped and she picked it off the table. SMS from Nick. ‘Morning, lover. It’s the most beautiful day I’ve seen in a long time’ and a smiley followed by three Xs. She didn’t reply. She didn’t know what to say.

‘So we’re off to hit a couple of galleries today and then he’s taking me to dinner “somewhere nice”. It’s all a big secret and I’m feeling very spoiled.’ Noeleen flashed a grin at her.

‘That’s great. Your luck’s changed too,’ Isobel managed, but — guiltily — she didn’t feel happy about it.

‘SMS from lover boy?’ Noeleen asked. ‘I noticed you were “en retard” last night.’ Her eyebrows arched. Isobel nodded. ‘Well good for you not replying right away. Treat ’em mean.’ She got up. ‘Look, I’ve got to dive through the shower and get out of here. Might see you tonight, but who knows.’ And she pecked Isobel on the cheek and was gone away into the house.

Isobel had another cup of coffee while Noeleen ran the shower and some time later heard a yelled ‘see ya’ and the door slam.

On her way back to her room, her mobile rang. It was Nick. She switched the thing off. She needed time to think.

But thinking had to wait, because as she rounded the doorframe into her room, she saw a scene coalescing in the mirror. She stopped in the doorway, watching.

Sam was sitting in a tapestry upholstered armchair beside a window. Full sun was showing through the net curtains. She had her chin in her hands, elbows on knees, and tears falling slowly down her cheeks, mascara running. There was a knocking, growing more insistent as she ignored it. Finally she dragged herself up and moved to the door. ‘Go away,’ she said.

‘Open the door, Sam.’ The voice was muffled, but Isobel was sure it was Martin. She began to feel a little unsteady.

‘Leave me alone,’ Sam said. ‘Go back and fuck that whore some more.’

Isobel felt like she was at the top of a long drop, looking down. This couldn’t be right. She’d dreamt the party not seen it in the mirror.

That doesn’t make it any less real, the thought came to her.

Martin said something Isobel couldn’t hear. It was low and guttural, full of anger, and then the door shuddered and Sam stepped back, startled. ‘Go away,’ she said again, taking another step and turning to the phone on a side table by the chair. Her hand froze there, reaching for the receiver. ‘I’ll call the police, Martin. I mean it.’

There was another bash at the door and it shook in the frame. Instead of picking up the phone, Sam’s hands leapt to her chest and she backed away further towards the mantelpiece. Her eyes widened.

The door crashed and then flew open, the lintel splintering and Martin stood their, sweat pouring down his face, his clothes disheveled. Sam gave a squeal but her throat seemed constricted with fear, unable to really call for help. She skittered sideways from the mantelpiece as he advanced and then Isobel saw she was standing in front of a mirror. Her mirror. She could see Sam in front of it, Martin’s back as he advanced on her, and the cold rage in his face reflected in the glass.

‘You bitch,’ he spat. ‘Now you’re going to get it. And you’re going to like it.’

And then the glass was clear and Isobel was standing, breathless with fear in an empty room. Her hands were trembling as she brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. Her thoughts came slowly, trying to understand what she’d seen, how it had married up with her own dream. What had happened to Sam and what did it mean for her? Was she in danger? Slowly she walked towards the mirror. It was completely clear now, free of any blemishes. She saw herself in it and her face frightened her. She looked pale and lost. What on earth can I do? she thought. What’s going to happen to me? The room seemed to fade away from her.

She had to get out of the house. She dressed quickly, threw her pajamas on the floor, grabbed her bag and sunnies and went out.

She drove into town, following her normal route out of instinct without really noticing the shops, the traffic, anything. But then she was in the Domain underground car park, standing outside her car with keys in hand. She took the walkway up to the park. It was a nothing sort of day. Neither hot nor cold, some people around but not crowded. She walked up past the Art Gallery and over the road into the Botanic Gardens, passing through the trees redolent with the smell of fruit bats and down to the lake. She sat on the grass watching the ducks wandering around. She didn’t think about anything much, she just sat there, waiting, not really participating. Slowly the sun swung through the sky and then she thought, it’s time to go. She chose a different way back up the slight incline, cutting across the grass instead of keeping to the path. In a shaded patch beneath a Moreton Bay Fig, a couple were lying on the grass together. She glanced their way, saw a curl of brown hair beside a lick of blonde. Then she looked again. Her body became stone. Nick was lying beside a girl. A blonde. The blonde. The one from the store. From his apartment. They were kissing. Passionately. His hand was inside her blouse.

The words were out of her my mouth before she knew it, hard and venomous. ‘You fucking BASTARD!’

Nick looked at her, his face registering shock, then surprise, then guilt. At least he had the decency for that. ‘Isobel,’ he said. The woman was pulling herself up to sitting, rearranging her bra.

‘Fuck off!’ Isobel shouted, then turned and ran — ran like she’d never run before. She heard him shouting after her, but she kept going, fury and grief battling inside her, and one thought: get to the car. Get home.

And then she was there, back in her room, back in her pajamas, back staring at the mirror and her eyes in the mirror and the tears running down her face. Had she even gone out? But she must have. The sun was setting. She hadn’t been standing there all day.

She held her arms around herself and her body shivered with the sobs. She’d been so stupid. And she’d let him hurt her again.

She jumped at a light tap at the door. Was Noeleen home after all? Had she forgotten her key?

She went to the door, listening. The rapping came again. ‘Hello? Anyone home?’

Nick. Her throat tightened and she snibbed the deadlock. ‘Get away from me!’ she screamed. ‘Just get away!’ she backed from the door and hit the hall stand. Noeleen’s vase fell smashing to the floor and she slipped, a shard of china stabbing the sole of her foot. She screamed again as she crashed to the ground.

‘Isobel.’ The rapping became a banging. ‘Are you all right?’ The door started shuddering. She screamed again, her eyes searching the room and locking on the mirror. In the glass Sam was backing away and then Martin had her, his hands gripping her throat, as he shouted at her and her screams died in her throat. The hall door crashed open. Nick was reaching towards her.

‘Isobel, I’ve been calling all day.’

Her bloody foot slipped on the boards as she tried to scrabble away.

‘God, you’re bleeding. Let me help you.’

Isobel looked wildly around, eyes on the scene in the mirror, on Nick reaching towards her. He was coming for her. Just like Martin. She bashed up against her bed. Pushed herself up to stand, resting most of her weight on her good foot.

‘Get away from me,’ she shouted. Her voice was weak, breathless. ‘Go back to that slut in the Gardens.’

‘Gardens? You’re not making sense. I’ve been at home all day. Stop, you’ll hurt yourself.’

He grabbed her by the shoulders. She wrenched away and his hands fell on her neck. He looked angry. He was going to kill her. She screamed again, twisted away and kicked at him.

Nick took a step back, tripped on the Persian rug. His arms came up as he tried to keep his balance but it was too late. He began to turn as he fell.

Isobel watched. Everything seemed to slow. Nick was falling backwards. He’d be spreadeagled on the carpet close to the mirror. The image in it was gone. Was she safe now? Had it been a warning? Then it seemed to her that the mirror tilted off the wall, just a few inches. But Nick was still falling, his head and body turning. His neck hit the broken edge of the mirror. Slid down it and he fell to the floor, the mirror knocking back into place again.

Blood. Fountaining. She looked at Nick. His neck was slit right across, blood flowing down his shirt, spurting into the air, painting walls, the curtains, running down the mirror, staining the carpet. She couldn’t move. Paralysed with horror. Nick was watching her, one hand trying to keep his neck together, the other reaching out for her. His eyes were wide, horrible. And then the blood slowed, the light faded from his eyes, his hands dropped to his side and she realised she was screaming.

9.

The red mixed with blue. Flashing lights that painted the hall, the steps through the broken front door, the faces of neighbours, peering from the footpath.

Death by misadventure the policeman had said. She stood in the corridor, Noeleen holding her. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop watching as they bagged him up and carried him to the ambulance. The blood. Her room was covered in it. The walls were awash. The pattern in the carpet was invisible under the load of red it had absorbed. But the mirror. She’d seen the blood running down it. The mirror was clean. Not one speck of red remained on it. But beneath the surface the liver-spotting had returned, so only the edges were reflective.

‘Noeleen,’ she said. Her voice was faint and thready. ‘Can you take that mirror out of here, please?’

Copyright information

First published in Australia in 2016 by Keith Stevenson

www.keithstevenson.com

please direct all enquiries to the publisher at keith@keithstevenson.com

Compilation copyright © Keith Stevenson 2016

‘… They First Make Mad’ first published in Agog! Fantastic Fiction (Agog Press 2002)

‘To That Which Kills’ first published in Aurealis Magazine #27/28 (Chimaera Publications 2001)

‘A Mirror, Darkly’ first published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #50 (ASIM 2011)

The right of the Keith Stevenson to be identified as the author of these stories has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

Out There is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. This means anyone can copy, distribute and transmit Out There as long as they attribute the work back to Keith Stevenson, do not charge for it, and do not alter, transform or build on it. More information on the licence is here — http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/