Mirror of Shadows by T. Lynne Tolles Page A

disappeared into the black moving shadows.
    Ella stumbled backwards, bumping into the wall behind her, feeling as though she had suddenly been ripped from another dimension. Next thing she knew, she found herself in her bed sitting upright, breathing hard and sweating. Trying to get a grip on what she had seen and realizing it must have all been a dream, she took a deep breath and looked around finding it was morning and the sun was just peeking over the mountains. Traces of rain that had run down the ceiling window sparkled in prisms like diamonds through the oncoming sunlight.
    She pulled back the covers to get out of bed and a wave of panic pulsed through her body. She put her hand to her mouth, trying not to scream, as she found her feet covered in dry mud and her sheets soiled with dirt. Hadn’t it just been a dream? She couldn’t think. What had happened? Was she going crazy? She checked the floor but there were no footprints like in her dream. But how could her feet be covered in mud and not have tracked the mud into the room?
    She reeled in fear and dread when a barrage of questions flooded her brain. She thought she was going to be sick and ran to the bathroom. A wave of nausea passed after she splashed her face with some cool water. When her breathing settled to a normal pace she took a long, hot shower and tried to wash away all the traces of the dream as she watched the dirty water swirl around the vortex of the drain then out of sight.
    When she finally felt that reality might have come back, she turned the water off and dried off. As she started to get dressed she caught a glimpse of the sheets on the bed. Panic struck her again when she saw there was nothing on the sheets. No dirt. No mud. They were pristine, crisp white sheets. Her legs went limp and she fell to the ground in a boneless pile, weeping. Only half-dressed, she held her head for a moment, trying to make some sense of everything she’d experienced. It must have all been a dream—a terribly scary dream. Why had it carried into her wakefulness? She wondered if she was losing her mind. Had Grandma Rose’s death pushed her over some line into madness? She didn’t want to think about it, but at this point she thought it a distinct possibility.
     
     
     

Chapter 7
     
    Ella moved through the day, pushing her dream out of her mind as far as she could. It rained all day, never really letting up, or getting any worse, kind of the way Ella felt—just a dull pain of grief and a sense of dread. She avoided the hallway with the mirror as if the plague were incubating there, but with the parade of trucks coming and going and depositing appliances and essentials to Ella’s new home, it was becoming a nuisance. Ella tried to rid her mind of the dream of her grandmother warning her of impending danger and the sudden flashes of her own terrified face staring back at her inside the mirror; it had burnt an impression on her brain that was not going to fade away any time soon.
    Ella looked down at the counter seeing a hammer with blue tape around the neck of the handle. She grabbed it and headed for the hallway.
    There were no delivery men to see her act of insanity as she approached the mirror, stood before it, and raised the hammer above her head. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then swung the hammer down hard. The forward thrust of her arm was stopped with a strong firm hand at her wrist before the hammer made contact with the mirror. Before she could determine what had happened, a familiar voice spoke.
    “What are you doing?” Jeremy asked, taking his hammer from her.
    “I’m getting rid of this awful mirror. I hate it. It’s old, it’s gaudy, and it’s creepy.”
    “Creepy? I’ll give you old and gaudy, but creepy?” he asked as he looked at their reflection within the mirror.
    “Yes, creepy and if you make me explain, you’ll think I’m insane.”
    “I already think you’re insane,” he said with such a straight face that