Free Backward Glass by David Lomax Page B

Jimmy and I had been hesitating. She didn’t look at me anymore, just faced outward as we heard her mother’s feet on the stairs.
    “What’s going on up there? You know my rule. You better not have a boy in your room. Is that it? Being a little tramp? Going to make the whole neighborhood hate me even more?”
    “Mother, you’re imagining things,” said Luka. “I’m doing homework.”
    How many seconds since Jimmy had gone in? I pushed into the mirror. Still hot. I couldn’t even think about what Jimmy would do once it crashed through to him what he had done. Thirty years uptime. What was taking him so long?
    “Don’t you ‘mother’ me. I’ll send you to your father’s whether he likes it or not,” said Luka’s mother. “And whoever that is up there, you better—”
    It was too much for me. Hoping desperately that Jimmy was through and the mirror would open in the right direction, I stepped up and pushed my way in. I didn’t care about the cold, didn’t even let it slow me down.
    The cold.
    Downtime cold.
    I was going home.
    My T-shirt caught in a splintered bit of the frame for a moment, but I kept pushing. Inside, I paused to check that the rippling image-bits showed my carriage house, then charged out, shivering into the warm spring air.
    I was so relieved to be back that I just sat on the dresser and rubbed my arms for warmth, then leaned back against the mirror to breathe a sigh of relief.
    And sank back into it.
    My back burned with uptime heat. I sprang away and whirled around. This wasn’t supposed to be possible. The mirror shouldn’t open for me again until eleven tonight. Even then, it should take me back, not forward.
    I reached out and touched. My fingers sank in, burning as they went, freezing as I withdrew.
    It was then that I saw the thread. It led from the sleeve of my T-shirt all the way into the mirror. I gave it a gentle tug and it grew taut. I remembered the tear as I caught it going in.
    For want of a better object, I took out my house key and touched it to the mirror, exactly where the thread was. It clinked against the glass. I could move it right next to the thread, even let the thread in a little and pull it back out, then touch the key against the mirror again. Tap, tap. As soon as my finger touched, though, the mirror let it through.
    Aside from the thread, this was the way the mirror normally worked. It wouldn’t let through any inanimate object unless part of us went through with it first. If I put the key in my fist, it would go through.
    I didn’t move for a few long moments, thinking about what this must mean. Could you hold them open indefinitely like this? Could we have been going backward and forward at will all this time?
    I heard my name called outside. My mother. Home for half an hour by this time.
    I ripped the thread from my T-shirt. What could I tie it to? I couldn’t pull it too far or it would tear away at the other side, and what if this was the only time this would work? What if I tried to show it to the others and couldn’t make it happen again?
    “Kenny!”
    The key. I quickly tied the thread around it. Tension pulled it toward the mirror, but though the thread wanted to go through, the key just clinked against the glass and stayed there.
    I heard my name again and fled down the stairs.

    I was excited enough at my new discovery that, after my yelling-at for not being home and not leaving a note, I still risked staying up past lights out and went back to the carriage house.
    Luka was waiting. “Okay,” she said, pointing to the thread, “this is amazing. Why couldn’t we have figured this out before? Do you realize how amazing? When we pass it on to the others, anyone can go as far back or forward as we like.”
    I felt the same breathless excitement, but I also had a lot of questions, having had time to think. It was an odd- numbered day, just after eleven at night. Normally, I should be able to go back to 1967, but the mirror heated our hands