us to do the same.
“I still say it’s nothing,” said Rick. “But—fine. Go ahead, tell them.”
Jimmy rubbed his forehead. “Last night? I tried going back to see him. It’s been almost a week and nothing. The mirror’s in the basement, so if he’s not there, usually I just bug out. But then I hear something. A lady—crying. She’s talking about, ‘My Anthony, my little boy.’ It was real heavy. Then there’s another voice and he says he wishes they had reported it sooner. And the lady, she gets out how they didn’t think much of it because Anthony’s been spending a lot of time at friends’ places lately, but now it’s a week and none of his friends have seen him. Then the man starts talking about how he should take a picture away with him, and that’s when I got out of there, ’cause all the albums are in the basement. I took a look out the window before I went, though, and sure enough there was a cop car.”
Luka shook her head in disbelief. “This isn’t right. It’s Margaret that goes missing—have you even talked to her about that yet, Jimmy? And that isn’t until September. Anthony didn’t go missing.”
“I kind of talked to Anthony about it a couple weeks ago,” Jimmy said, “and he knows all about it. It’s only ten years ago for him, right? He said he tried to bring it up, but Margaret wasn’t interested. She said everything was going to work out.”
“Anyway,” Rick said. “The Anthony thing. Jimmy and me went to the library today. We looked up newspapers from ten years ago. We even asked my grandmother. She says Anthony was just fine when they sold the place to my dad and moved to Alberta a few years back. She knows other kids have gone missing over the years, but not Anthony. So it has to turn out, right?”
“But what about the guy?” said Jimmy. “I think we gotta tell them about the guy.”
Rick rolled his eyes. “This again. Jimmy, there’s no guy.”
“What guy?” said Luka.
“It’s nothing,” said Rick. “Jimmy says there’s been somebody hanging around here. He just got spooked is all.”
“I had a good reason,” said Jimmy. “This is some weird stuff. Rick didn’t want me to say. He says it’s just some kids or whatever. But I seen someone hanging around the neighborhood.”
“Come on,” said Rick, “you’ve been saying that for weeks. There’s no evidence anybody’s been around here but us.”
“Don’t be too sure about that,” I said. It was the first time I’d spoken for several minutes. As the rest of them argued, my eyes had turned to the package of hockey cards Jimmy had given me. They all turned their flashlights my way.
“What do you mean?” said Rick.
I didn’t answer right away. “Jimmy, where’d you get the newspaper to wrap these up?” I held the bundle he had given me up to the flashlight.
Jimmy frowned. “It was just lying around. We were sitting around waiting for you guys.”
Luka had caught on and took the bundle away from me. “Oh, man,” she said, reading the same date I had read just a minute before. “Will you look at that?”
I held it up for them all to see, and as they read the article at the top of the page, the one that had been circled in black marker, I got a perfect view of the chill that ran through them.
Second Girl Attacked
in Cursed Suburban Home
A teenage girl is in hospital after an attack in her Manse Valley home left her with severe head injuries almost exactly ten years after a similar attack on another girl in the same house.
Keisha Blaine, who was home alone, managed to get to a phone after her attacker fled the scene, and was rushed to hospital with severe head injuries.
Police are now looking for a dark-haired caucasian man in his forties with a medium build, around 5’10”.
Bizarrely, an almost identical attack happened to Melissa Peat on June 5 ten years ago. Peat, fifteen at the time, had injuries severe enough to put her in a coma.
Peat’s attacker, also described as a dark-haired man in his forties, was never found.
“I am never leaving my house again,” said Jimmy and looked around at us for support. “Come on, you guys. This is Prince Harming. He’s cracking their heads open. That’s what we’ve been hearing from way back. He’s probably the one who made the mirror so he can get kids out of their time when nobody’s going to miss them.”
“And that explains why he attacked Melissa and Keisha right in their homes, does it?” Luka snapped. For all her bravado, though, she looked around furtively. Our ring of flashlights suddenly seemed small in the abandoned house.
“Point is he’s been here,” said Jimmy. “Someone has. Any of you guys bring that paper back? I didn’t think so. How do we know he’s not here right now? June 3. That was around when Keisha was supposed to come through, right? She was supposed to be bringing something about Prince Harming. Then what? Crack-bang is what. Then he goes for Melissa. And Anthony’s missing in 1957. And we know Margaret Garroway goes in September 1947. And a baby gets killed. It’s time to quit this, you guys. Pretty soon we’ll be the only ones left. And this paper, it was right here.” He looked accusingly at Rick. “You said there wasn’t a guy. Well, who left the paper, then?”
That shut us all up, and for a few long moments we sat in our circle of flashlights and listened to the small noises of the June night outside. Wind in the trees. A car passing by. Four or five streets away, a dog barked.
“Question is,” said Luka, “who is it who was here? Look at this paper. It’s not like it’s new.”
I took the paper from her and felt it in my hands. She was right. I could see how Jimmy could have just absently picked it up and used it for wrapping. It looked like it had been sitting around for years. “And what about this? Look what’s written here.”
We had only looked at the article at first, not noticing the words written on the old paper in what might have been fresh pen: “Better watch out. He’s lurking around. C. M.”
“C. M.?” I said. “I know those initials. They’re from my list, the list of mirror kids. C. M. is from 2017. Jimmy, this isn’t from Prince Harming, it’s from someone like us.”
“Yeah, sure it is,” Jimmy said. “Someone just like us, only he doesn’t ever talk to us and he leaves notes laying around. How do we know C. M. isn’t Prince Harming? How do we know it isn’t a trap?”
“What trap?” said Luka. “What kind of trap are you being lured into when somebody warns you to watch out? Isn’t that the opposite of a trap?”
“Look, none of this is getting us anywhere,” Rick said. He took the paper from Luka’s hands. “We have to be careful is all. We know Anthony ends up okay. We don’t know about Melissa or Keisha or Margaret, though. So nobody travels alone if we can avoid it. Look out the mirror before you walk out. Start being smart.” He glanced over at me. “Anyway, we can’t quit yet, Jimmy. What about our big plan? What about … you know?”
Jimmy grinned. “Aw, yeah. You mean about Kenny’s—”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” said both Rick and Luka at the same time.
He shut up.
“What is this?” I said. “What’s going on?”
Luka shook her head. “Rick’s right. We’re just not making any decisions right yet. We made a plan for one more meet-up at least. Wednesday for you. June 19.”
“Hey, that’s my birthday,” I said.
Everybody looked away at the same time. Even with the flashlights all still trained on the newspaper, I was pretty sure I saw a couple of grins. They wouldn’t say anything more, though, and it was late so we broke for the night.
Just as I was about to head through the mirror after Luka, Rick put a hand on my shoulder and with a jerk of his head indicated I should stay for a moment. Then he asked Jimmy to go wait for him at the front door. He nodded toward the mirror as Luka’s trailing hand disappeared inside it.
“I see you looking, H. G. Wells,” he said with a wry smile. “I see you worrying, too.”
I shrugged. “I don’t—what am I worrying about?”
