Backward Glass

Rick groaned. “So this is a kiddie movie? Cinderella or something?”

“Bite your tongue,” said Luka. “This is the best movie ever made. My mother didn’t do Disney.” She looked at us in exasperation. “It’s—oh, I might as well just play it.”

She had already fast-forwarded a little so that as soon as she pressed play, words started scrolling up the screen: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

They say you never forget your first time with Star Wars, and that sure is right for me. What I recall most about that night was my worry that I might forget some of it. That scene when Artoo and Threepio are on the surface of Tatooine and you can see the giant bones of some terrible desert creature in the background, I was only half there in the moment. The rest of me was trying to catalogue it, make sure it would never slip away.

I guess I succeeded, as did Jimmy and Rick, who were silent throughout the whole thing. About half an hour in, when Luka’s running stream of commentary had extended to such trivia as pointing out when a storm trooper’s helmet bumped against an opening door, the three of us begged her to shut up and let us watch the movie. She pretended to sulk for a few minutes, but I could tell she was enjoying our excitement.

When the end credits rolled, we sat like three patients recovering from electroshock therapy. Luka finally brought us out of it simply by getting up and pressing the eject button. “No,” said Rick. “Show it again.”

Jimmy stirred from his torpor and agreed, but Luka said no way. “It’s past two in the morning. Kenny has to get home.” She started disconnecting the VCR. “So do I. I have to sneak this thing downstairs before my mother wakes up. Anyway, you have to rest.” She stood up, holding the tape like it was orders from rebel command. “Remember, we’re on summer vacation now. It’s time to get going. There’s some kind of mission waiting for us in the past, and we’re going for it. Tomorrow’s mine and Jimmy’s day to go back. Here’s how we do it: Right now, I go all the way uptime, then Kenny goes up to his own time and leaves a doorstop between here and 1977. Tomorrow, at eleven, Kenny comes downtime here to 1967 and takes it out. Then I can go back to Kenny’s time, and Jimmy in the meantime goes back to 1957. Jimmy, you have to be alone there for a few minutes. It can’t be helped. Kenny then goes up to 1977 where I’ll be waiting, keeps the mirror open, and pulls me back to now. Then all Jimmy has to do is stick a hand out and pull us back to 1957. Jimmy, you can take off then if you want.”

The three of us just sat and blinked at her. We were still recovering from the explosion of the Death Star. Jimmy was the first to speak. “You know what’s wrong with this? I just figured it out.” He pointed at us each in turn as he spoke. “Kenny’s Luke, Luka’s that princess girl, Rick’s Han Solo—and I get it—fine, I’m the gold robot guy. But you know what’s wrong with this? We don’t got no little trash-can robot guy or no Obi-Wan Kenobi. We don’t got nobody who actually knows what’s going on. You think they could have done all that without the little robot guy or the Obi-Wan guy? We need an Obi-Wan.”

Luka just shook her head. “We don’t need an Obi-Wan. We’re going back, we’re finding out what’s going on, and we’re saving Margaret Garroway and Anthony Currah. If we can get up to the future, we’re finding out what’s happened with Melissa and Keisha, and maybe we’re saving them, too. If we have to, we’re stopping Prince Harming. This is our mirror. It’s our year. And we’re not letting anyone take it away from us.”

I actually saluted.

Four

Luka’s plan worked perfectly. I later found out she had pages and pages of diagrams in a notebook, but well before that I just learned to trust her about when we could travel in which direction. That night was a Thursday for me, a Friday for Jimmy, and a Tuesday for Luka. By a minute after midnight, we were in 1957, five years before I was born.

Jimmy took off as soon as he had pulled us through, promising to wait with Rick in 1967.

The Currah basement was the same as mine from twenty years up, but unfinished and dark. A metal shelving unit held all sorts of tools, paint cans, and cardboard boxes. Crates lined another wall. It was damp and dark. A tap dripped into a large sink.

Luka had come with her hand over her flashlight so we’d have the tiniest bit of light, and we stayed that way for a couple of minutes, listening.

Nothing.

The windows were set high on the walls, but you could see out of them. Once our eyes adjusted, we risked stepping away from the mirror and looked out into the darkness of 1957. No cars in the driveway. No streetlights.

After another couple of minutes, during which she examined the view outside every window, Luka pronounced it flashlight-safe. She found an open photograph album, and we flipped through some pictures of Anthony.

Was he still missing?

After a few minutes of snooping around, Luka began to shine her flashlight around the area in front of the dresser. “The thing is,” she whispered, “of anybody here, we’re the ones who probably know where he’s gone. Into the mirror.”

But what were we going to find, footprints in the concrete dust of the basement? Our own shoes would have scuffed any evidence there.

Luka took the top drawer out and turned it over. The words were still scratched into it, a little newer in 1957: Luka, help Kenny. Trust John Wald. Kenny says he is the auby one. Save the baby.

“I’ve still got no idea what I’m supposed to help you with,” Luka said. “Doesn’t sound like anyone’s home. I think we should go upstairs.”

I was getting less fearful as time went on. It was true that if we were discovered, all we had to do was escape to the mirror. Blood rushing with the thrill of the forbidden, I walked behind her.

I had never traveled through time to my own house before. The few times I had been to 1967 were late at night, and Jimmy didn’t want to risk taking us inside, so as nervous as I was about where we were, I was equally fascinated by the opportunity to see the new wallpaper that my mother had pronounced hideous two decades from now, and the light fixtures that she had demanded my father replace before allowing family visitors.

Our flashlight beams didn’t show much color, and I had seen many of these same views in the pictures I had found in my attic bedroom when we moved in, so the effect was of walking through a black-and-white photograph album emptied of people.

We padded quietly past the kitchen and the living room. In the hall, sitting directly in front of a much nicer front door than we had in my time, we found a large-lettered note: “Anthony, we have gone to Auntie Ellen’s. Nobody is angry, just worried. Call us.” They listed phone numbers to call, including the police.

We looked glumly at each other. “Maybe he’s given up on everything here,” said Luka. “Just wants to be with Margaret before she goes missing.”

Anthony’s bedroom was torn apart, every drawer turned out, the whole closet emptied. “This wasn’t planned,” said Luka. “Him going missing, I mean. Look at all the Weird Science and Tales from the Crypt comics. They don’t even look read. He was bringing these to Jimmy.”

From the angle of his mattress, I could tell it had been disturbed, but I looked under it anyway, finding nothing but two well-thumbed Playboys.

After a few more minutes of searching, we agreed we weren’t going to find anything. I asked Luka what she had expected. “I don’t know. Something about Margaret’s disappearance? I thought we might find some newspaper from ten years ago about it. Can you imagine what this has been like for him, knowing it’s coming? Maybe he went back to stop it.”

“Yeah, but would he think—”

A ferocious banging from the front door interrupted me. Halfway down the stairs, we both jumped. “Is that him?” I said when I had my breath back.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s that—”

The banging continued, heavy and desperate. We chanced a look down, and could see a large figure