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Chapter 1: An Adventure on a Thursday
Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to – George Seaton
To start the story off, you’ll have to realize that my mother is a pack rat, plain and simple. Anything she’s ever owned (most of which will wait years between uses) is in storage in our little attic. There are books, cups, clothes, socks, shoes, jewelry, the boxes from old appliances (god forbid we throw that out. Warranties, you know), an old black and white TV, a microwave, one of those old walkmans that only play tapes, a stereo, several typewriters, six broken mirrors, and millions of other useless things.
This all started in the summer, because of that stupid old attic. We decided that we were going to have a garage sale, which was my dad’s excuse to get rid of everything in the attic. It was no secret that he was afraid that the house was going to collapse on us. Just about everyone in the family was. Even the cat.
So we had a messy attic and were planning a garage sale. You may be wondering what that has to do with anything. Well, to get everything out of the attic and into the garage for the sale, my parents needed someone who was willing to clean everything out for an obscenely small amount of pay.
This is where I come in.
My mother said that she would give me a hundred dollars to clean out the attic for her. At seventeen I had just quit my job at the Superstore, convinced that I could get a better job at the mall. Unfortunately, no one seemed interested in hiring me and I was now poor. I figured that the job would only take me two or three hours, and I was desperate for money. I agreed and didn’t take my mother’s laughter as a hint that I had made a mistake.
I figured it out soon enough. I had been at it for about a week and three quarters of the attic was still full of the stuff she had collected for who knows how long. It was all just lying there in a mass of useless, discarded crap.
By that time, I would have been willing to give my sister half the money to help me get it over with. But she was out at her friend’s cottage for the week, so I had to do everything on my own. Yay me.
So, I wasn’t expecting an adventure. Hell, I wasn’t even expecting to get paid. I don’t remember getting paid. But in the end, to my surprise, I did manage to stumble across an adventure.
I was just bringing an armful of overalls to dump in with the rest of it when I tripped over a small wooden chest. I swore under my breath as my knee made contact with the sharp corner, pressing my fist into my mouth and biting down. My mother was easygoing (any parent who willingly puts up with the loud crap I listen to is easygoing and almost a saint) until it came to swearing. Then she got mean. I listened carefully for the sound of footsteps on the stairs bellow. When none came, I gave a sigh of relief and turned to look over the chest I had tripped over, pushing the pause button on the boom box. It was about a foot and a half from the ground, two feet in width and three feet in length.
I was ticked off, but I knelt beside the chest to see what was inside. Curiosity killed the cat, right? I ran my fingers over the smooth wood and then opened the lid, gasping at the treasures inside, my knee pain forgotten.
There were old leather-bound books, vials of what I took to be perfumes, dresses fit for an elf or woodland spirit, and another little chest buried among the belongings. This one had a carving of a dragon on the lid, curled up like a cat in the grasps of sleep. It seemed alive, and I waited for a moment, almost expecting it to be. Then I lifted the small chest from the rest of the treasures. It was tiny enough for me to grasp in my two hands. Resting it on my knees, I opened it, my fingers running gently over the wood.
Inside, there was a small collection of jewelry. There where gems braided into thick ropes of gold and silver, thick glass ornaments hanging from solid ropes of leather, and delicate pendants handing from fragile chains.
To the far side of the chest, gleaming like a small star, there was a silver chain, from which hung a small tear-shaped pendant with a coal-black stone on it. Despite the dim light around it, it gleamed with an inner light. I took it from the pile and Moondance started up, almost on cue. Nightwish always had a knack for making my life seem a little more epic.
I turned my attention away from the music despite my love for the way the piano sounded in the opening and focused solely on what I held in my hands.
“Where did this come from?” I wondered out loud, in regards to both the box of treasures and that singular pendant in particular. I held it up in what little light came through the single dirty window (which would be my responsibility to clean later on.
I found the tiny clasp on the chain and fumbled with it for a moment. I’d been reading a lot of Stephen King that summer and my fingernails were bitten down. I managed to open the clasp, pressing the sharp little level into the bulge of my fingertip and quickly slipping it into the proper loop. I liked the weight of the chain against the bare flesh of my neck and I tapped the pendant, settling it at the top of my breasts before going back to look through the rest of the chest.
I opened one of the books, looking through the pages. Most of the ink was faded and all but impossible to read. The pages that were legible were covered in spiky, handwritten text. From what I could make out, the book was a journal. The name Tully was mentioned quite a few times. Tully seemed to be the writer’s sister, or perhaps her close friend.
There’s no one in my family by that name. I thought to myself, leafing through the pages to another passage. I wonder whose journal this is. Was. I barely skimmed the pages and most passages where missing sentences and sometimes entire paragraphs, but I gathered that the diary’s owner lived somewhere far away from me. Near the end of the journal, there was another name mentioned: Deverell. It said something about leaving Deverell to see someone with a name that started with a B. The rest of the name was too faded. Bill, maybe, or Ben.
But what’s Deverell? I looked past the entry hoping to find more, but there were only three more pages filled out with unreadable scribbled before the end.
I studied the pages for a few moments. They were slightly crumpled and where the ink was faded, I could see bleeding marks. The Journal had probably fallen into a bathtub or something. The water had destroyed the words, and with it, the secret past of whoever had written in it. Damn.
I sighed, closing up the journal and putting it back in the chest. I pushed the chest to the far end of the room and covered it with a pile of old winter coats, promising myself that I’d go back to look through it again the next day. I left the necklace on, wondering about Tully, Deverell, and the strange person who had written the journal.
I turned down my music, a full-orchestra soundtrack (It may have been something from The Lord of the Rings, but I don’t quite remember anymore), and raised my voice so he could hear me over the moan of the decrepit air-conditioner. “Yes?”
“We’re watching a movie. Want to join us?”
“Depends. What movie?”
“It’s not a movie. It’s that weird TV show you have on DVD. Your father can’t tell the difference.” It was my mother’s voice now and its tone told me that I was needed downstairs.
“They’re all on those stupid discs. They look the same.” Came the anxious voice of my technology-retarded father.
I was in an accommodating mood, so I slid off my bed and tugged my shirt straight. On my way out the door I caught site of my new necklace on my computer desk. It seemed to glow, and I could almost hear it call my name. I had taken it off right after I had my lunch so my mom wouldn’t see that I had… commandeered it.
“This is insane,” I told myself, but I tried it on anyway and stood in front of my mirror. I almost laughed at myself. The necklace, which had a sophisticatedly magical air to it, hardly matched the rest of me.
I was a little strange, and that’s putting it mildly. I wore a charcoal baby doll shirt with black polka dots and a pair of black skinny jeans. My thick hair was to my shoulders, dark brown, straight and parted to the side, straight with overly long bangs that were always covering my left eye. I’d lately fallen for the trend of backcombing, so my hair was at its unnaturally thick best. I had a white bow clipped into my hair, not to hold anything back, but to decorate it. My ears where double pierced on both sides and each hole had a different style of silver hoop in it. I had one ring on each hand, a never-ending Celtic knot encircling the middle finger of my left hand and an Irish Claddagh on the fourth finger of my right. I also wore a bracelet with black glass beads on my left hand, and this never came off. My eyebrows where a shade darker than my hair, housing large brown eyes with thick black lashes. I was five foot eight and usually wore colorful flats on feet that were… large.
My friends looked nothing like me, ranging from the most colorful and cheerful people you could ever meet to the darkest and most formidable. We didn’t merge into any of the commonly accepted High-School clichés, so we created our own happy group of misfits.
I knew I wasn’t really gorgeous or a genius or anything, but I was happy with who I was… but I hadn’t always been like that. I’d gone though elementary school as the outcast who loved books more than human contact. I’d managed to find some friends in junior high, but they demanded conformity and I’d had to oblige. I’d been miserable than, and more depressed than I cared… we… still care to admit. Somehow, some of my classmates from Drama managed to pull me away from my false friends and help me realize my true self. I’d been a happy person ever since.
There was one good thing, however, about my lonelier days of junior high: I’d discovered music. I’d listen to anything so long as it wasn’t country or popular music, with the exceptions of a few of my favorite “trendy” bands. I listened to music whenever I could, and I usually had a song playing in my head even when my portable music players where nowhere to be found.
I tapped the necklace and then tucked it beneath my shirt, heading for the door and thinking about the two girls who had saved me from myself. Leah and Erin. Nearly three years later, they were my best friends and always would be.
I walked out of the room and slammed my door, an old habit of mine. I rolled my eyes at my own mistake as my father’s voice reached my ears.
“Kaie! Don’t slam the doors! You’ll break something!”
He always gave me that warning – nothing had ever happened. But, after going down the first three stairs, I heard the mirror fall over with a loud crash. I ran back and lifted it, grumbling to myself as I thanked the heavens for not letting my dad hear anything. But perhaps I wasn’t as lucky as I thought, because, as I was straitening the mirror, my thumb touched the glass and went through it.
I pulled back, startled. What just happened? I put my thumb back to the glass. It went in with a shiver and I freaked out, almost breaking the stupid thing.
There must be something wrong with my brain, I thought, slowly rubbing my thumb until it felt halfway normal. Slowly, carefully, I put my whole hand up to the glass. The mirror seemed to turn to liquid at my touch and my hand went through with my arm following close behind. It felt like I was putting my arm through ice, though, and I promptly pulled my arm back out again.
There had to be a logical explanation for this. There always was. That was what I’d always been told, in my thirteen years of school (counting preschool and kindergarten). I went through every useless tidbit of information my teachers had shoved down my throat. They pranced through my brain and then shivered away, leaving an entirely uninvited idea: Magic.
I closed my eyes, determined to shut the word out to whence it came. True enough, I’d never given up my love of books, not even at the demands of my junior high “friends”. Magic was the common thread through all my favorite novels, but of course, it wasn’t real…
Was it?
A new, courageous energy built up in the pit of my chest, timidly poking through my veins before gaining strength and charging through my blood. Swelling theme music formed in my head (This one had a Danny Elfman feel to it) and I rolled my eyes at my own imagination. I tapped my necklace, wondering if it had anything to do with the feeling in my blood, or the change in the mirror, or both. I wondered: could magic be real? And if so… could my mirror take me to somewhere else? Somewhere separated from earth?
The idea of being able to go to a separate world tugged my heart until it ached with my yearning. Science had its place in the world, but so did dreams, and mine had always been filled with magic and adventure. And those, I was sure, lay just beyond the other side of the mirror.
If my mind was putting up any sort of fight against my desires to see whatever lay beyond the mirror’s glass, I didn’t notice. I took a deep breath, hoping my parents wouldn’t notice my absence until I got back, and hoped that the magic I was about to use was the good magic, not the bad kind. I put my hand out again, resting its palm to the mirror. It went through with barely a shimmer of resistance, and an icy tingle shivered through my body. My necklace glowed brighter and began to lift off of my throat, pointed single-mindedly towards the mirror.
A tremor of fear went through my, but the courage in my veins took over and I took a tiny step forewords and more of my arm went in. Every warning signal went off in my head. Stop here! Don’t you dare go any further!
I took step after step, inching my way into the mirror, until finally I was at the mirror, half in, half out. It was like being submerged in liquid silver and I felt like a mermaid, or a siren. My mind was screaming at me not to go any further. I tried to take a breath, but I couldn’t.
I was frozen this way.
My mind screamed again for me to get out, to step back into my room and forget about this. My brain told me to go downstairs and watch television with my family and get rid of this stupid necklace. I struggled to take a breath, but something was clogging my throat and I couldn’t. Panicked, I took another step. My hand was still outstretched and I could feel that my fingers were out of this liquid on the other side, feeling a cool breeze. I just had to find out what was on the other side of the mirror, no matter what happened… and, besides, if anything happened, I could just pop back out… right?
Well, maybe.
I took a step forward
A/N: Well, chapter one is up! Let me know what you think, as this is my first time posting an origional story on the internet and I'd really like to know what everyone thinks! I've been writting and re-working this story for about seven and a half years now and I want to know if it's worth all that work!
Thanks for reading!
-WT
