Mirror of Shadows Read Free Page B

playing with a doll on the large expanse of what was surely grass at one time but now was knee high with weeds. I’ll bet it was beautiful here . She smiled at thinking about her grandmother as a little girl swinging from one of the great oaks and humming some old nursery rhyme.
    Ella turned the engine off and reached in the back for her duffle bag. She slipped on her shoes, and then grabbed a hoodie from the bag and put it on over her robe and zipped the bag up. With the duffle in hand, she grabbed the keys from the envelope and her purse and made a mad dash for the porch. As she ran she noted that all the downstairs windows had been boarded up, presumably to keep squatters and kids out of the house.
    Wiping her face with the sleeve of her wet jacket, she rummaged through the keys, and soon found a likely candidate for a perfect fit in the keyhole. In it went and turned easily, catching only once before stopping. She twisted the knob and the door squeaked open into blackness. A musty smell of dampness was overwhelming but she forged on and found a light switch, which of course did not work. Looking around in the darkness she found a candle on a nearby table. She set her bags down and dug around in her purse for a lighter. She didn’t smoke, but her roommate at school had and she’d left her lighters everywhere. Ella knew she must have one in her purse and as she suspected, her hand grasped one and she proceeded to light the candle.
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    The candle didn’t give Ella much light, but it was enough to maneuver around without tripping over anything. It was eerie exploring by candlelight in a residence unfamiliar to her. Floorboards creaked, shadows moved with the candlelight, and the rain poured on. Most of the furniture was covered in sheets giving the illusion of many short, odd-shaped ghosts scattered around the rooms.
    It was better near the boarded up windows where light tried desperately to seep in at the edges but with little success. She heard a thump that made her turn quickly towards the sound, but she couldn’t see anything. She moved ahead slowly, making her way around what she could only assume was a covered chair, when something rubbed her leg. Her heart skipped a beat and a yelp of a scream leapt from her lips as she saw the silhouette of a small cat running away.
    She sighed with relief and spoke out loud, “Get a hold of yourself, Ella. It’s just a lonely kitten looking for a pet. Sorry, kitty,” she called after the frightened cat. “I’ll be better when the lights are on and then I can find you something to eat.”
    She thought she heard a little meow of acknowledgement, but she shrugged it off as a ridiculous notion. She had now explored most of the first floor and decided to head back towards the door. She could change into something other than her wet pajamas and hopefully find a hammer and/or crowbar to pry the wood off the windows and get a better look at things.
    As she walked down a long hallway she thought about the house and how she felt about it, whether she liked it or not. She hadn’t decided one way or another really, except that it was huge for just one person. Regardless of how she felt about her new home, she really had no choice in the matter; after all, she had nowhere else to go. This thought rattled around in her mind as she walked down a long hall noting a large, ornate mirror hanging on the wall. As she passed by it, she thought she saw something other than herself moving in the mirror. She turned towards the mirror with a jerk, seeing her own reflection in the candlelight but there was something else too.
    Was it a black mist? A play on the candlelight? Or a shadow? Yes, she thought, a shadow moving from the edges towards the center. Her heart was pounding hard in her ears and her own breathing became deafening to her as she slowly raised the candle towards the shadow in the mirror.
    The shadow reacted and jumped away from the light and so did Ella. She