“And save her?” said Curtis, his eyes wide and wondering.
“And save her,” I said. “And live again. And be Curtis. Because you didn’t kill anyone, and if you do it right, you can save her. Nobody has to be sad. Nobody has to lose anyone.”
Curtis turned to the cloud of images that showed the sunlit beach. “I have to go now, don’t I?”
And without another word, he did. Just turned and pushed his way out of the mirror, a rag-covered, scarred, and ruined man, stepping onto a beach in an unknown part of the world. When he was out, he turned back as though to say something to us, but his face fell when he saw only himself. Something must have caught his attention, because he turned his head and his face broke into a broad smile. He raised his scar-covered hand to wave and stepped out of the range of the mirror.
We watched for a while, but he didn’t come back. All we could see were sun-sparkled waves lapping the shore.
“Hard to go back to winter after that,” said Connor.
“We’d better, though,” said Luka. “Come on, Kenny. I don’t want you in too much trouble.”
I grinned and shook my head. “Sure you don’t.”
We returned to our own mirror and slipped into Granny Miller’s junk house, then back home.
“Go upstairs and pretend to be asleep,” said Luka. “Then if you’ve missed a phone call, that’s your excuse.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I better just come clean.”
“When there’s a perfectly good lie to tell?”
“I lied a lot to them already. There’s something—I don’t know—something Rick said about the mirror. I might not be the master of my fate—”
“But I can still be the captain of my soul,” Connor finished. He shrugged when I looked at him inquiringly. “My dad used to say it all the time.”
I turned back to Luka. “Maybe they’ll understand. We did good tonight.”
“Did we?” said Connor. “Think about how weird it’s going to be for them. He’s, what, forty now? He’ll wait ten years. When she comes out of that mirror and he rescues her, what does she see? Her husband’s aged twenty years, gotten all burned up, gone crazy.”
I shrugged. “They fell in love once when they were just a couple of years apart. Maybe that still counts. Maybe he’ll straighten out in the ten years he’s waiting.”
Connor and Luka stuck around for a few minutes more and helped me rehang the closet door. It slipped a little at one point and bumped my nose, which hurt like hell. Connor held the door away with one hand and, in an oddly tender gesture, reached out with his other to move away my own hand covering my nose. “It got broken,” he said. “Didn’t set right. You should get that taken care of.” He slipped a bolt into the hinge. “Seriously. It causes this thing called a deviated septum. Makes you snore a lot when you get older.”
“When I get older?” I said. “Who are you?”
Suddenly there was a kind of electricity in the air, like when an object met itself. Connor rubbed his messy curls and stepped back toward the closet. “Time travel’s funny, isn’t it? You got to do a lot of stuff this year. You even found out what your dad once wanted to be. What his dreams were.”
I hadn’t told anybody about that, not even Luka. “Who are you?”
“He would have been good, too. As an architect. When I was twelve, we built a tree house in the backyard. And not just some crappy platform with a roof. It had two different ladders, three levels, and five rooms. We even tried making an elevator with a bag full of rocks as a counterweight.”
We all jumped when we heard the door open downstairs and my mother announce that they were home.
“We should go,” hissed Luka.
“Who are you?” I said.
Connor looked toward the bedroom door as though he wanted nothing more than to go down there and meet them. Luka must have read his expression, because she grabbed his shoulders and turned him to face her. “No,” she whispered. “It didn’t happen, so it won’t happen.”
His shoulders slumped and he gave a defeated smile. “Okay.”
From downstairs, my mother called again. I called back that I’d be right down, but I didn’t take my eyes off Connor. Off you. “Are you my … ?” I said at last.
“Don’t say it,” said Luka. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Your gaze flicked to her. “Hey, I didn’t tell him,” you said with a grin. “I can’t stop him figuring things out. I’m not used to him when he isn’t old and slow.” You straightened up and held out your hand. “Connor Maxwell,” you said. “Born in 2000. Seventeen years old.”
“Kenny?” my mom called. “Who’s up there?”
“It was great to meet you,” you said. “I wish we could have had more time. Get that nose fixed, will you?”
You pulled me into a quick hug, then broke it off, held my shoulders for a second, and backed into the mirror. Luka promised to come back again and followed.
Moments after she disappeared into the mirror, my mother came into the room.
“Oh, Kenny, you didn’t,” she said.
I tried my best to meet her eyes. “I did.”
“What could have made you do that again?”
I scratched my head. “I think it was my son.”
Seven
You’ll go down the backward glass.
My parents were angry, but they still let me have a proper goodbye, and I’ll bet you know what happened. New Year’s Eve, our last day in the glass forever. My dad moved the mirror to the living room, because it wasn’t just my goodbye. Grandma and my parents had come to love Luka during the summer of my disappearance, so they all wanted to say their tearful farewells. Grandma said she hoped she’d get to see Luka again, and Luka said not to be silly, of course she would.
My mom gave her a few last-minute presents—some fresh-baked cookies and a handful of family photographs.
After a long hug, they all found excuses to leave the room, so Luka and I had a few minutes alone, though Mom stayed in the kitchen, clattering dishes to both tell us where she was and cover the sounds of our conversation.
“I can’t believe this is over,” I said.
“It’s never over, though, is it?” said Luka.
“How do you mean?”
She reached behind her and touched the mirror lightly. “It wasn’t over for Curtis when his year ended. It wasn’t over for Lilly or Peggy. It’s not like the story of your life is over.”
“But ours is,” I said. “Yours and mine together. If I go see you now, you’ll be a little kid. We had a good time, though, didn’t we?”
“The best.”
“I wish you could stay.”
“I wish you could come.”
“Would you just kiss her already?” shouted Grandma from upstairs.
I wanted to. But Luka was almost two years older than me. And she was beautiful. Was that the first time I was thinking this? Maybe it was. And she was my friend.
“Funny about that Connor guy, though,” I said, trying to change the subject.
“What was?”
“Him as my kid. He didn’t exactly say that, did he? I mean, I know you always say the mirror kids are all connected, but I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. “The names. His name was Connor. He said his sister and brother were Dana and Eric. I just don’t know if I’d ever pick those names, that’s all.”
Luka got a huge grin on her face and came to a decision. She stepped forward, grabbed my shoulders, and kissed me square on the mouth.
It was awkward, and it wasn’t a long kiss like you see in the movies, and maybe that’s all I’m going to tell you about it, because maybe it’s none of your business.