Glass Walls

Chapter 2

I shut the door behind me.
"Explain." Libby says.
I sit on my bed. "You know how he gets with the mirrors right?"
She nods.
"Well there was one cover falling down earlier and ever since then he's been distant. He completely ignored me earlier when I was trying to talk to him."

"Not this again," she says. "But why'd he get so mad? He never gets that upset."
I sigh.

"I don't know." I stop for a second to think. "Maybe it's because, I don't know, the covers have been falling down a lot more lately. I don't even know how, we use duct tape to hold those up." She gives me a bizarre look.
"Let's not talk about it anymore" I say. She shrugs.
***
"Bye Libs!" I wave to her as she gets in her bright red car. As soon as I shut the door I turn to see dad. Guess he's been standing there a while.
"We got a project to do." he says.
A project? He sees I'm confused so he explains. "We're moving all the mirrors to the basement."

"What? Why?"
Why would he want to do that? "There's a whole bunch of junk down there." I point out.

"We'll find room." he says, "Now let's get moving."
We walk upstairs.
"Now, I'm laying down some rules. Mirrors stay covered at all costs while you take them down to the basement. And by God if you break a mirror..." The warning in his voice makes me uneasy.
I start in the hallway with the mirror I fixed yesterday. Carefully, I take it off the wall. The pillowcase makes it slippery so I carry it tightly.
Dad slips by me with a rectangular mirror. "Come on, follow me."

I follow him to the basement door, trying to keep my grip on the oval mirror. The frame around this thing made it heavy. He opens the door and I follow him down the stairs. It's so dark I can barely see. The stairs creak terribly and the wood is so old I can feel it bend under my feet. I've only been in the basement once or twice. I wait on the steps until dad turns the light on. My eyes adjust to the light and I walk down the rest of the stairs. Walls of boxes fill the room. They've collected years worth of dust. There's also an old freezer down here but it broke recently. The dust makes my nose itch and I hold in a sneeze so I don't drop the mirror.
       Dad looks around trying to find a place for all this stuff we're about to add to this jumbled collection. He walks towards the back and navigates through all the boxes. "Here" he says, gently leaning the mirror against the wall. I follow him back and the musty smell only gets worse. I set the mirror next to the other one.
"Two down a lot more to go." I say.

We carry down about five more mirrors. The house is huge and kind of old so all these mirrors were here when we moved in.
"We'll get the rest tomorrow. There's a few more and then there's that big one in that room upstairs." dad says.
I nod and look around the room. What the hell is in all these boxes? Whatever, it's not important right now. I go back up the stairs. I'm really worried about dad. This is crazy! He's getting more paranoid. No, no it's probably nothing. At least the mirror checks won't exist anymore. I waited to see if he'd leave the basement. It's been five minutes...six....seven...eight..nine. Somethings up. I creep carefully down the stairs hoping they don't creak horrendously and give me away. I hold my breath until my foot touches concrete.

The boxes are piled high enough for me to hide behind. Making my way towards the back of the room I hear something. Soft sobs coming from the corner. I peek around the boxes and see him crouched down on the floor staring straight ahead at the covered glass.
I quickly move back behind the boxes after realizing I've been staring for too long. I can't hear the words exactly but I hear whispering. Is he talking to himself? Lots of people talk to themselves but with how he's been acting it seems abnormal. The room is almost silent and I'm straining to hear what he's saying. He stops talking and there's a long pause. That's my cue to leave.

I scramble around trying not to trip over something. His footsteps are coming at me. The dirt on the floor is causing too much noise because my foot is sliding around. The grainy noise of dirt irritates me and before I know it, the stairs are before me. I dash up them and go into the living room. I'm trying to steady my breathing so he won't think something's up.

When he comes in the room I'm sitting on the blue couch casually. It takes a moment for him to evaluate me. I think he knows.
"Don't go down there again. After we move the rest down there it's permanently off limits."

"Why?" I ask.
Tears are still visible on his face and it was obvious he had tried to wipe them away.
"Because I said so. I don't want you getting hurt or snooping around. Got it?"

"Ok, I won't." I say. He leaves without another word.