Free Beyond the Reflection’s Edge by Bryan Davis Page B

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    Echoes of laughter filtered through the hall, male and female, then a shushing sound. Grabbing his shirt and throwing it on, he tiptoed to the bedroom door and paused there, fastening his buttons under the swaying camera. A light knock sounded from the other side, then a whispered call. “Nathan!”
    Kelly’s voice! He turned the knob and cracked the door open. “What’s up?”
    “Shhh! … Are you decent?”
    “Yeah, I —”
    She pushed the door and squeezed through. “Good.” Dressed in a long bathrobe and wool socks, she glanced around the room, her voice barely audible. “Who else is in here?”
    “Who else?” he whispered back. “What are you talking about?”
    “I was on my way to the bathroom. I heard voices.”
    He peeked out the door. “I heard a woman laughing. Could that be it?”
    “No.” She pushed the door closed with her back and held the knob. “That’s my dad. He’s … uh … playing cards, I think.”
    “Oh … Cards.” Nathan furrowed his brow. He finally realized what Kelly’s father was up to. “Is he playing solitaire?”
    She tilted her head downward and shook it slowly. “He’s not really playing cards at all.” After a few seconds, she lifted her head again and gazed at him. Her brown eyes glistened. “I guess your dad never did stuff like that, did he?”
    “No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “He had a lot of old-fashioned ideas.”
    Kelly’s lips curled downward. She spun to the side and bit one of her knuckles.
    Nathan’s heart sank. How could he be such a pig? What her father was doing was breaking her heart. He reached for her shoulder, but pulled back. “I’m sorry. I … I didn’t really mean it that way.”
    Her voice cracked. “Yes, you did, and I deserved it.”
    He reached again. This time he let his hand settle gently on her shoulder. She flinched, but only for a second. “How long has your mother been gone?”
    “Maybe three months, but they’ve been sleeping apart for years.” Wiping her eyes, she shrugged and forced a trembling smile. “She just found another guy and took off, like trading in an old car for a new model.”
    He pulled his hand away. “And you got left in the backseat?”
    “Yeah. Something like that. She said I was more like a son than a daughter, so I’d be better off with Daddy.”
    Nathan winced. “Oh, man! That’s gotta hurt!”
    “Don’t worry,” she said with a sigh. “I’m used to it.” Shaking her hair out of her eyes, she turned toward him again, wiping a tear. Her voice still trembled. “Anyway, I heard other voices. They came from your room.”
    “There’s no one else here.” He gestured toward the mirror. “Just me and my reflection.”
    “I know what I heard, and it wasn’t your voice. Someone said, ‘Buckingham is as opulent as I imagined,’ but I couldn’t make out the rest.”
    “Buckingham? Like Buckingham Palace?”
    “I guess so. I’m not the one who said it.”
    “Well, I didn’t say anything about Buckingham Palace.” He turned toward the mirror — still normal. “But lots of weird stuff has been going on.”
    She slid her finger behind the camera strap. “Like taking pictures of your room at midnight?”
    “That’s part of it.” He held the camera up for her to see. “This is … I mean, was, my dad’s camera. It was in the trunk.”
    Her eyes lit up. “The trunk? How’d you get it open?”
    He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That’s kind of hard to explain.”
    “Was anything else in there?”
    “Yeah.” He pointed at the violin on the floor. “That was my mom’s.”
    She scooted to the trunk and knelt, squinting at its weathered wood. “I still don’t see any seam.”
    Nathan squatted next to her, picked up the violin, and nervously plucked a string.
    She rose and sat on the trunk. “Did you say something?”
    “I don’t think so.” He laid the violin back down. “Maybe I was thinking out loud.”
    “About