Mirror of Shadows Read Free Page A

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    “…”
    “ Okay then. I’ll see you at the house this afternoon. Thanks.”
     
    *****
     
    Though Dead Oaks Hollow was a small town of 300-plus residents, the property it encompassed was quite big. The outskirts were rural and many of the roads suggested by the GPS were dirt and unmaintained. The pouring rain made the journey even more challenging. “First thing I need to do is get an all-wheel drive car or SUV. Geez,” she said to herself.
    Most of the roads she travelled were wooded on both sides—some areas more densely than others—and she wondered if there were any neighbors around as she hadn’t seen a house in a while.
    She was gaining some altitude with several steep inclines, and with every turn the roads seemed to narrow. Many of the muddy routes looked more like hiking trails than actual roads. She lovingly called the GPS, ‘Betty’ since it talked to her and was kind enough to give her directions, but Betty didn’t always give her the best route to her destination and Ella was starting to wonder if this was one of those times. She checked the GPS several times to see if the little red blinking dot had veered from its course, but according to the device, she was going the right way.
    The fog was heavy and made the drive trickier and bit spooky. It, too, made everything devoid of color, giving the surroundings a gray tinge and dulling the shadows. She passed a row of five gnarly oak trees that looked like they had been dead for eons. Their branches snaked out from their trunks in every which way and fallen branches littered their bases. One of the trees had half-fallen long ago, making it look like it was crawling towards the makeshift mud road she was driving. Creepy , Ella thought.
    The fog made them look menacing and alive and she wondered if these were the five dead oak trees after which the town had been named.
    “Turn left in two hundred feet,” Betty said.
    “Are you sure about that, Betty? That doesn’t even look like a hiking trail,” Ella said, not really expecting Betty to respond.
    She made the left anyway, following Betty’s instructions. There was a fence post near what could have been construed as a very small road, but the fence itself was long since gone. She travelled at a crawl up the foggy forested road as the wipers worked at high speed trying to keep up with the torrential rain. A clearing in the trees to the right gave her a quick glance at a lake. As she continued, she thought this seemed to be the start of a theme. She deduced that she must be traveling the perimeter of ‘Cauldron Lake’ mentioned on the map.
    She followed the road as it made a large sweep to the left and then another to the right.
    “You have reached your destination,” said Betty.
    “I have? But I don’t see anything,” Ella said to her GPS friend. That is when Ella realized that the road had changed from dirt and mud to a crushed rock. The mud-clad tires collected the tiny rocks and threw them every which way in the fender wells and undercarriage, making a horrendous sound. Slowly, she finished the sweep to the right and found a huge clearing studded with several ancient oak trees and a large mansion. Moss and ivy had engulfed the North side of the house like a disease. The most prominent features of the house were its gabled tower, enabling one to see far out on the lake and the grounds, and its wrap-around porch. The house was white, or at least it had been once. Marlin had not lied; it needed paint, BADLY. Its peeling facade, its green disease, and its leaning porch made it look foreboding and scary, but no doubt in its prime it must had been a magnificent architectural piece. It had many gables, including two very prominent ones resembling eyes on a strange human face.
    She sat there in the car, wipers smacking the sides of the windshield, and took in all of it. So this is where Grandma grew up , she thought. She tried to picture it in all its glory with a young girl