In the dark suction, a golden fish flashed before him. He lunged. The instant his hand closed around the fish, Daniel was running uphill toward Volta’s house. Volta had to see it. When Daniel opened the door he saw himself standing across the threshold. He didn’t realize he was looking into a mirror until a faceless man stepped from behind it, raised a pistol, and shot him in the head. Daniel collapsed to his knees. He felt the fish flop out of his hand. Even though he knew he was dead, he could still see. The pool of blood spreading from his wound was almost like the surface of a lake at water-level. The golden fish flopped into view. When it reached the edge of his blood, it righted itself and started swimming toward him. Suddenly, it disappeared into the depths. Daniel kept watching, waiting for it to come back up. The cooling blood began to congeal.
Daniel dressed quickly in the cold room. The water was running low. What he really wanted was some food. He hadn’t eaten in four days. He thought of buckwheat cakes with maple syrup and Virginia ham, and almost swooned.
Daniel walked softly across the room and knelt in front of the door. In a minute he heard Volta moving down the trail, humming cheerfully under his breath. He quit humming as he approached the shed. Daniel waited, poised. When the edge of the envelope appeared under the door, Daniel snatched it. He growled softly at first, letting it build in his gut, rise, hold, suddenly erupt into a roar, and as suddenly cut off. He listened. He could hear Volta humming as he walked back up the trail. Well, Daniel thought, at least he has something to think about. And added aloud, dolefully, ‘Yeah, like what a fool I am.’
Under the bed, bolted to the frame between two sheets of plywood, is a mirror. Prop it up securely and position yourself comfortably in front of it. Count your bones until they glow, then relax for about ten minutes, until you’re breathing calmly and evenly. Shut your eyes and try to empty your mind. When you open your eyes again, look at yourself in the mirror. Look deeply into your own eyes. See yourself through yourself. The point of integration is the surface of the mirror. When you join yourself there, you will vanish.
These are your final instructions. Try as often and as long as you want. I maintain my faith in your success.
As Daniel slid under the bed, he would have given twenty to one that the mirror would be round. He would have lost. As he discovered when he spun off the wingnuts and pulled the plywood sheets, the mirror was rectangular, roughly two feet by four, in a slender maple frame. He propped it against the western wall and, after folding one of the quilts under him, sat down about three feet away.
He closed his eyes and imagined his skeleton. He started counting his bones, quickening the rhythm until the circuit blurred and energy looped through his hands, feet, loins, spine, and skull. His bones began to glow as if the marrow was aflame.
The glow faded into an empty tranquillity. Daniel opened his eyes and looked into his own eyes looking back. He saw his skeleton stretched out on the bottom of a lake, his bones the glossy black of ebony. He wanted to lie there forever, but a resonant drumming from the surface seemed to summon him. He felt his skeleton float upward. But it didn’t break into light. The lake surface was frozen; Daniel’s bones rattled against the ice. The drumming was almost deafening now. People were banging the ice with shovels in the hopes that the vibrations would raise his body. He could hear them calling to each other but the ice muffled their words. He tried to call out, to tell them it was all right, he liked the bottom, but the thick ice made it hopeless.
He’d started sinking when Volta, calmly and distinctly, said ‘Life.’ Daniel stopped his descent and floated, gathering what strength remained. He kicked back toward the surface, feeling the cold water rushing through his eye sockets, ribs, pelvis. As he neared the frozen surface, he balled his right hand into a bony fist and slammed it upward through the ice, shattering it into a geyser of diamonds. His bones were fleshed when they touched the air. He pulled himself out of the lake through the hole he’d opened. Severely disoriented, he turned in circles, looking for the shortest way to shore, but fog obscured his view. His flesh felt wet, but he wasn’t cold. In fact, it seemed balmy. He turned and faced what he hoped was west and started walking. He hadn’t taken three strides when he stepped over the edge of a cliff.
Volta had just finished decoding a long message from Jean Bluer when he heard Daniel scream. He stood on the backporch in the early morning light listening intently. When there were no further sounds from Daniel, Volta glanced at his watch. It was seven-thirty. At seven-fifty, another scream shredded the silence. Volta turned and went back inside, leaving Daniel’s bewildered cry echoing away across Laurel Creek Hollow.
Daniel’s terror was reflexive, powerful, total – ‘cellular,’ as Volta had called it. Daniel was irked at himself for being surprised. Volta had noted that the feelings of wetness and warmth were precursors to the drop.
On his second attempt, Daniel had no previews of coming attractions, no sense of wetness or warmth. He met himself on the surface of the mirror and immediately fell. Though startled, Daniel managed to form an image of himself falling. He could control the fall with the image, but his grip was shaky. The sound of the wind planing over the shed roof cracked his concentration.
He was focusing too slowly, caught in movement rather than anticipating it. He needed to leap to the moment of transformation, catch the fall as it started. But first he needed rest. He felt so confident he drank the rest of the water, then took an hour nap.
The third time was the charm. The instant he merged with his image on the mirror’s surface, Daniel imagined himself falling with a concentration so powerful and precise that the terror never really began. He opened his eyes.
The mirror was empty. The quilt cushion was bare. Amazed, Daniel stood up and walked through the mirror, the wall, the laurel tree outside. He walked up the trail thinking, How can I walk without a body? Without feet? Why don’t I just sink into the ground or float off? He wasn’t troubled by the questions, just curious.