Parker
This time, though, the candle was lit silently. There was no sound of matches being struck, though a small matchbook rested near where the candles lay. Maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention, I’m not sure.
She appears again. Her hair long, dark, and curly. Her skin is a pale that you usually only expect to see in apparitions. She looks deathly ill, almost. Her cheekbones are protruding this time. Her blue eyes vacantly stare at the point above my head somewhere.
She comes up to the candle and stands behind it for a moment. The mirror appears and so does the rocking chair.
I stand awkwardly for a moment, wondering if she is going to break the mirror this time, or if I have to. I find myself compelled to do it myself when she simply strides over to the rocking chair and sits in it. She rocks back and forth, humming a tune I vaguely recognize from somewhere, but I don’t know where.
I walk up to the mirror and look into the image it is reflecting. The woman is in the chair, rocking back and forth still, her hummed tune still in the air. She is smiling down lovingly at a small baby in her arms, cooing every once in a while, though the humming never stops. When I look back around to the woman, she is still staring vacantly into space. When I look back to the mirror, the baby reappears.
I feel tears well up in my eyes.
I’m jealous of that baby.
With a pained sob, I put my fist into the mirror. The glass slides neatly to the ground at my feet. I stare at it for a while and begin to cry, wondering what it is I’ve done. What does it mean? What will happen to me now? Where will I go?
Still crying, I walk over to the small table where the candle sits. I stare into the flame and let it dance for me for a few minutes. Just as I bend to blow it out, something makes me turn around to where the woman is sitting. I think it’s the feel of her eyes.
I turn to look at her and she is now looking at me, her eyes still vacant, but I know that she is aware of me now. She holds out her hand to me and I instinctively walk over to her and take it.
She runs her thumbs over my skin, bleeding from the broken glass. As she rubs, there is no pain. The bleeding stops. And there are no scars or scratches.
She looks up to me when she’s done and holds out both of her arms to me now. Something about the pose is pleading. She needs this. I need it, too.
Despite my greater size and weight, I sit down in her lap. I rest my head on her shoulder and she wraps her arms around me. I put my thumb in my mouth and she begins to rock back and forth, humming softly.
As I enjoy the sound of her voice, my eyes wander. There is nothing to see, since the room is still so dark it’s almost like not even being in a room. I look around, to the candle, toward the place where it sounds like the piano music is coming from, and finally to where the shattered mirror is.
Or should be.
The mirror is still there, but it is no longer shattered. I look into it for a moment, feeling as though I should be confused, but I’m not. I’m not confused when I look into the reflection of the woman with her baby in her arms, cooing softly, the baby giggling as she does so, grabbing at her hair.
I’m the baby.
And suddenly I know who she is, too.
She’s my mother.
The candle goes out as silently as it was lit. But it’s as though the light in my head is being lit for the first time.