The air downstairs may have felt still and smelled stale, but the air upstairs was freezing cold and was as fresh and crisp as outside. This was due to the fact that almost every window upstairs was wide open to the world. When they discovered Tracy they had shut a couple of the windows but their priority was getting Tracy out of there and figuring out what the hell had happened. In quick time they had completely closed all the windows and checked all the rooms upstairs until the only two left were Tracy and Katies rooms.


    “Katie’s first,” Cheri inquired. It was the lesser of the two evils.


    “Ok.”


    The tension coming from them was palpable. Neither of them wanted to be there. Although nothing out of the ordinary was happening in the house, for the moment.


    They entered Katie’s room and Jacob immediately retrieved the suitcase from the closet. Stopping short when he saw the three big brown shopping bags from Little Lilly Baby Boutique. It was a well-known specialty shop that catered to clothes for little ones from ages 0 to 1 year.


    “Let’s also bring these, a happy reminder of the baby.”


    “Good idea,” Cheri had already made a small pile of Katies pajama’s, socks, and underwear on the bed.


    Jacob plopped the suitcase on the bed and placed the three bags by the door. Within a few minutes they were finished with Katies room. The only one left was Tracy’s room. They stood outside the room, both hesitating to go in the empty room.


    “I don’t want to touch it. What if he’s listening?”


    “I’ll get it into the box, you check the window’s and look for anything that Tracy may have left behind and maybe we should just talk about not understanding what we saw. If he is listening, it will throw him off. Make him feel comfortable.”


    “OK, let’s do this.”


    Jacob swung open the door half expecting to find Alexander standing there, or some other type of spook. But the room was quiet. Jacob grabbed the white box that Mark had wrapped the mirror in as he stepped into the brightly lit room.


    “We didn’t even bother to shut the lights the last time we were here.”


    “It was a bad night for all of us,” Cheri replied as she was checking the closed window’s lock.


    “I think we were all just primed to see something weird. It was probably just reflections from cars on the street or something.” Jacob picked up the mirror. “I don’t see anything now,” he laughed then placed the mirror in the box.


    “I found a couple of small things of Tracy’s that we should bring. But I think most of her stuff was still in her bag. If we have everything let’s get the fuck out of here.”


    “Yeah, I’d like to get back to Katie.”


    With that they exited the room, grabbed the bundle of treasures they had collected from the upstairs and headed down into the foyer. They unceremoniously deposited the bags by the front door.


    “Livingroom, dining room, then the kitchen. After that I’d like to just take a look in the basement to make sure nothing is amiss down there.”


    “Sounds like a plan,” Cheri adjusted the thermostat to 78 degrees then they proceeded to tour each room as quickly as possible.


    Jacob grabbed the white plastic trash bag from under the sink and deposited it on the table so he could grab it on the way out, then turned towards the basement door.


    “So, tell me again what we are looking for,” Cheri asked Jacob.


    “An old leather-bound antique journal, handwritten with a pentacle on the front.” At the bottom of the stairs Jacob flipped on the light to expose the dusty spider ridden room. “The mirror was back there,” Jacob pointed to the back of the basement, the area directly underneath the master bedroom.


    “There’s a small bookcase back there. I’ll check it out.” Cheri stopped short and let out a small laugh. “The last time I was down here we were like ten years old. Katie and I decided to play hooky from school. Well, I decided and badgered Katie into it. We hid down here until Grams left for work. We played Halloween barbie making the barbies into witches and cackling like fools.”


    “I just can’t imagine you being the barbie doll type.”


    “I wasn’t, but Katie was. She cut school for me, and I played Barbies for her. That’s what our friendship was like from the beginning.”


    “That doesn’t look like a Barbie,” Jacob said pointing to a dust covered Bratz doll sitting on a beam above the little cheap plywood bookcase filled with old cobweb covered books.


    “That’s not a Barbie, it’s a Bratz. Think of her as the trouble making cousin of the sweet innocent Barbie. We did.”


    Jacob proceeded to search the area that they found the mirror in while Cheri scanned the bookcase.


    “Come on Katie, it’s only one day and we’ll have so much fun!”


    “What if we get caught? We’ll get into so much trouble.”


    “We won’t get caught, and even if we do the most you’ll get is grounded for a week.”


    If they were caught Cheri would get much worse than grounded and they both new it. They just didn’t talk about it. Ten-year-olds didn’t have the vocabulary to discuss such matters, but they did have empathy and kindness to help the tears dry up. Cheri’s father was a mean son of a bitch when he had too much to drink, which was not that often but often enough to leave an indelible mark on Cheri’s soul.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    “Ok, I guess we can hide in the basement until Grams leaves for work. Grab the Barbie box and sneak down there. I’ll say by to Grams and meet you.”


    Thirty minutes later the girls were sitting on a blanket in the basement with Barbie and Brats spread out laughing and enjoying the morning without Mrs. Blankenship, their fifth grade teacher. They stayed like that until lunch time when their stomachs started growling.


    “Help me,” an almost inaudible voice came from the back of the basement.


    Both girls stopped and stared at each other. They both had heard it, but didn’t really know what they heard.


    “What was that?” Katie stuttered.


    “Nothing, or probably just the window against the outside walls.”


    “It sounded like someone asking for help.”


    Cheri dug out a small flashlight from her backpack. Last summer, after a particularly difficult night, Cheri had made what she called a bug out bag in case she had to leave the house fast. This bug out bag consisted of a pair of shorts, tee shirt, a couple cans of tuna fish and pop tarts. She had also taken a small Swiss Army knife and flashlight from her dad’s toolbox. He never even noticed it was missing.


    “I’m going to check it out.” Cheri gave Katie a mischievous grin then jumped up, tossing the flashlight in the air, barely catching it. Then she turned to head to the back.


    “No way! It could be something… not good.”


    “I’m going to look. Come with me or stay here… by yourself.”


    Katie sighed then got up to follow Cheri to the back of the basement.


    “Hey, check this out,” Cheri pulled back a dirt-stained white sheet to expose an old dusty mirror.


    “That thing must be a hundred years old!”


    A thud came from behind the mirror as they were admiring the intricate carved framed. The girls jumped from the loud sudden sound.


    “Oh damn!” Cheri pulled the heavy mirror away from the wall and Katie peeked behind it and pulled out a leather-bound journal.


    “Check out this old book.” She flipped through some of the pages. “I wonder what these symbols mean?”


    “It’s just somebody’s old diary.” Cheri took the book and tossed it on top of the bookcase. “Let’s go back to the game.”


    Even at the age of ten Cheri was already an adrenaline junkie. She loved rollercoasters and scary movies. Katie was just the opposite; she hated being scared. Katie would rather ride the river boats and carousel at the amusement parks. Even with these fundamental differences they managed to have the best times together. Cheri would ride the slower rides all day long and Katie would endure a couple of rollercoasters for Cheri. They agreed to only watch scary movies on the day when the sun was out and comedies at night before they fell asleep so Katie wouldn’t have nightmares.


    The girls went back to their make-believe family of dolls. Giggling as one of the dolls fell off the bed on top of her baby. Until they heard it again.


    “Help me…”


    Both girls screamed and ran up the stairs into the kitchen. Together they fell on the floor laughing so Cheri’s sides had hurt.


    Cheri had been right, they weren’t caught. Cheri had forged her father’s name on a note excusing the absence and the school hadn’t even bothered to call Grams about the missed day of school. That was the first and last time Katie had cut class, Cheri made a habit of it. This is about the time the two girls formed different circles of friends, but still consistently coming back to each other.


    “I think I found it,” Cheri called out holding up an old leather-bound journal.


    Someone had taken the time to wrap the journal in acid free paper and stored it in a specialty acid free book box to help preserve it. It was a good thing too, after two hundred years it should have been a pile of dust.


    “Great, let’s get out of here.”


    Jacob turned to head up the stairs when he unceremoniously tripped over the Bratz doll that had gotten knocked off the beam and sent him to the floor. Still laughing, they scurried up the stairs, gathered everything they had collected and headed out to the truck locking the door behind them. With a small sigh of relief, they locked the mirror and its shattered pieces in the cargo box in the back of the truck and the rest of the stuff in the back seat of the cab.


    It had only taken them an hour to clear the house and nothing supernatural occurred. But the drive home seemed to take several hours. In reality, the distance between Katies and Jacobs was only about twenty miles and usually only took twenty minutes.


    The silence in the truck was deafening. Both of them felt the heaviness that loomed in the trucks’ cabin. Now that they had the journal, and the mirror pieces the real question was could they handle what was coming next. Did they have the strength to do what was going to be asked of them? Did they have a strong enough connection to each other to protect themselves and Katie while they did what they had to? And finally, why were they trusting this old woman to know what was really going on?


    “Now what,” Cheri asked as they pulled into Jacob’s driveway.


    “We have a small problem, well maybe a big problem. I’m just not sure what to do about it.”


    “What’s the problem?”


    “It’s the mirror. Shayla said in order to contain Blackwell back into the mirror we needed to have all the pieces.”


    “I thought that’s why we at Katie’s house. To collect the mirrors.”


    “Yeah, but there is still one shard missing. The one Mark used to… the one Mark used to kill himself.”


    “Oh,” Cheri thought for a moment. “It’s a closed case so they don’t need to keep that evidence. I have a friend that might be able to get it for me. I’ll have to make a call.”


    “I don’t want you to get into any trouble.” Jacob looked at her with sad concerned eyes. “As worried as I am about Katie, I still couldn’t bare losing another friend.”


    “After this we’re more than just friends, we’re family. Nothing is going to stop us from doing what we need to do to get Katie back.”


    Jacob gave her a solemn nod.


    “I’m not even sure I can get the shard, but the least I can do is make a call.”


    As they exited the truck both of them looked back at the cargo container in the bed.


    “Leave it, at least we’ll know he can’t reach out to hurt anyone from a dark locked box.”


    Just about an hour later Cheri came skipping into Jacob’s office. Her demeanor the opposite of the forlorn and exhausted woman who had come in earlier.


    “Wow, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you look happy.” Jacob commented from behind his cluttered desk. He had taken to doing most of his work from home, heavily relying on his assistant to keep the office in order.


    “A shower, cup of coffee, and a couple phone calls can do wonderous things for a girl.”


    “My cop friend confirmed that the incident was quickly ruled a murder suicide so nothing but the bodies and photos were taken from the shop. The scene has already been released to the family. Then I called his sister, and she said I could go in to get my things anytime. I already know the code for the back door so getting in won’t be a problem. She did say that I probably wanted to wait until the day after tomorrow because crime scene cleaners will be there tomorrow.”


    “I think we should go today; a cleaner will probably see it and toss it into trash. Then we’ll never be able to find it.”


    “Agreed, not that I’m eager to walk into another one of Blackwell’s atrocities I just want to make sure we get everything, all the parts and pieces.


    “Sorry to interrupt,” Jasmine stuck her head into the office. “I overheard parts of the conversation, and I think I’d like to help. Tracy and I have been sitting with Katie most of the day and I need to get out of this house for a bit. And feel helpful.’


    Jacob nodded, then looked Cheri for confirmation.


    “That’s cool with me. We can go do that and you can do whatever it was that you were doing before I interrupted.”