“Blake? It’s five in the morning.” He had a trace of a Quebecois accent.
“Joel. It’s an emergency. I need your car.”
“Yeah?” He switched from annoyance to concern in an instant. “Need a ride?”
“Out of town emergency. I’ve got to steal your car for a bit. Please.”
“How long?” he asked, turning away from the door.
I could see the mirror that was opposite the front door, wide and tall, with an ostentatious frame. The mirror girl was on the other side, staring at me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He turned back to me, holding keys firmly in his fist. His bulk blocked my view of the girl in the mirror. “Work with me here, Blake. I need something, if I’m loaning you my car.”
“I don’t know,” I repeated myself. “But I’ve got to go, I can’t ride my bike in this weather, and there isn’t any other way to get there. I’m stuck, and I don’t know how to handle this.”
“Slow down. What happened?”
“I think my cousin died. It’s two hours away, so if you needed the car, I could bring it back in a pinch, figure a way to get back, or-”
“Shhh,” he interrupted me. I made myself stop. Very calm, soothing, he said, “It’s fine. I’m so sorry about your cousin, baby.”
I shrugged, breaking eye contact. I wasn’t good with people being kind to me. Not without some warning. “I’m not sure it’s true. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Go, do what you need to do,” he said. He extended his hand, keys dangling from the ring that was now around his middle finger.
I took the keys, then fumbled with my own. I held my bike key for a moment, weighing it in my hand, then handed it over.
“You don’t need to,” Joel said.
“I do,” I said. “For me, as much as for you. I’m- it’ll make sure I don’t forget your car back to you soon, because I’ll miss it, and that’ll remind me.”
He nodded, then took my key. “I got you.”
“Thank you, Joel,” I said.
“You have my number, if you need it.”
I nodded. “You’re a good friend.”
“Speaking of… weren’t you going to set things up for Goosh’s show?”
I winced. My job. “I didn’t think. I don’t- shit.”
“It’s fine. I’ll explain to the others. We’ll use the Sisters.”
“Goosh told me she wanted to kill them, the last time she hired them.”
“She’ll find a way to cope, after I explain what’s up. Don’t worry. You focus on what you need to, and trust us to have your back. Okay?”
I nodded.
“There’s a hug here if you want or need it.”
I hesitated, but he knew that I would.
The lights went out. We were plunged into darkness, the hallway and lobby lit only by the moonlight that reflected off the snow.
I could see movement behind Joel. The girl in the mirror, moving her arms.
“Power outage?” he asked, stepping further into the hallway to look around.
“Looks like,” I said. My eyes were on the mirror. If he turned around, would he see her?
“I should go make sure everything’s okay,” he said. “Might be the breaker.”
The girl in the mirror raised her arms. Forearms crossed against one another, forming an ‘x’.
“Do me another huge favor?” I asked.
“What’s that?” Joel replied.
When he looked at me, I had trouble meeting his eyes. I wasn’t used to omitting the truth when dealing with friends. “Go back to bed. Sleep. I’ve got a bad feeling, and I’m not sure if it’s just because I feel like you’ll never get back to bed if you go now or if it’s something else. But I’ve got to go, and I feel like I’d be a lot happier if I knew you were in bed, instead of wandering around a dark building alone.”
“Gut feeling?” he asked. “That’s not like you.”
“Gut feeling,” I said. “Instincts.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure. For your instincts, I’ll be lazy this morning. Until I get the first irate phone call.”
I nodded. Then I accepted his offer for a hug, reaching out. He folded his arms around me, warm.
The girl in the mirror looked nervous, pacing back and forth, occasionally peering around, as if she could get a different perspective. A moment later, she strode out of view, stepping beyond the boundaries of the frame.
I took that as my cue to go. As I broke the hug, Joel rubbed his hand over the toque and then gave me a little push, an urging to get going.
I got going.
His car was in the garage, a few steps away, through a heavy door. I hit the button to raise the big garage door, and watched as the wall of snow that the wind had driven against the door tipped over, breaking into chunks as it hit the damp pavement.
I unlocked Joel’s Corolla, a car old enough that the only way to open the door was to actually put the key in the lock, and then stopped.
I moved the rear-view mirror until I had a view of the girl in the back seat.
“Answers,” I said.
“Go, and I’ll give you answers,” she responded. She sounded even fainter and more muffled than before. “You think the lights went out by coincidence?”
If I went, I’d get answers from her. I’d get answers from the house, about Molly…
Answers were good. I took a second to familiarize myself with both the car and with cars in general, where things were and how to operate the things.
In moments, both me and the car were traveling down the near-empty streets.
“Okay,” she said.
“Your name?”
“Rose.”
“Rose… who are you supposed to be? My grandmother?”
“No. I think I’m you. Your- our parents named me after her.”
I was silent, taking that in.
“I know I’m supposed to say something witty here, make a quip, but I’m barely thinking straight,” I said.
“I’m you, with one fundamental difference,” Rose elaborated. “I’m a girl. I think grandmother is trying to game the system somehow. A failsafe or trap or something, that kicks in when Molly dies and the inheritance turns over.”
The reminder of Molly’s death was a slap in the face. “How did you know, that Molly’s dead?”
“That’s complicated.”
“Two hour drive, Rose. We have time for a complicated explanation.”
“Not the time consuming kind of complicated. This stuff was explained to me. I crashed into existence, with only a few places I could go. I’ve got a lifetime of memories, but I get that I’m a fake. If I were real, I wouldn’t be sitting here, surrounded by an awful lot of darkness. I’d have a proper heartbeat, instead of this slow motion thump every few seconds, staying the same even when I’m freaked out. I see a bit of a glimmer of an outline here or there, where the light’s really strong on your end. But there aren’t many places I can go, Blake. Patches of light, where light passes through the mirrors. Only the mirrors in the house, and the mirrors around you count.”
I glanced up at the rear view mirror. She looked upset, her knees drawn up to her chin, feet on the seat in front of her. Was she cold, sitting there in pyjama pants and a camisole, barefoot in a car where my breath fogged up? Or were the lack of breath and response to the temperature the same as her heartbeat? Something false or simplified?