The MirrorMasters

Chapter 12

My eyes flew open as a vivid dream ended, leaving me wondering whether it had been just a dream. No, it had been too vivid, and inside I knew my instinct was right. It had actually happened.

On the night of the anniversary, the woman who resembled me had done some sort of ritual using a crystal, the same orb I had seen glowing in the mirror that night. Now the crystal was imprisoning all the spirits, and worse, Jenny was bound to it because of that ritual in the cemetery. Those nightmarish images were real.

Wide awake now, I had no intentions of going back to sleep. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed, knowing that I had to help them, that I had to retrieve that crystal — likely one of the seven I needed.

"The Soul crystal," I whispered. Yes, that made sense. Which other one would bind spirits to it?

Gazing into the large mirror atop my dresser, I focused on the location of the Soul crystal. After a few moments of quiet reflection, I watched as a familiar image rippled into view. With a similar bone structure to mine, and the same blond waves and slim build, the woman was unmistakable as the one I had seen before. Hands on her hips, she — my birth sister — stood in the spartan, all white-and-metal lab room at the Forensic Research Institute, the same room that held the key while I'd mirror-gazed with Kara and Jenny. My heart skipped a beat.

"Oh, no. She's going for the key!"

How could the woman know about the key, or the fact that I'd been searching for it? Pushing that thought aside to hold the image of the lab room in the mirror, I concentrated on holding that image as clearly as possible: a wide room — longer than it was deep — with windows that stretched from floor to ceiling along the outside wall, a long, low metal table in the center of the room, and shelves full of testing equipment.

As I watched, my birth sister staggered back, crying out in rage. She appeared drained and weakened, needing to lean against a nearby wall for support. Slowly, I stood and approached the mirror, never taking my eyes off the image within. With no time left for doubts about how I was going to get the crystal, or to even plan what I would do once I got there, I rushed to my dresser, climbed onto it, and kneeled. Then I reached out and touched the mirror. As before, the glass became a shimmery iridescent liquid and parted to become a doorway. I pushed myself through to the other side. A sterile, antiseptic smell stung my nostrils the second I stepped into the Forensic Research Institute.

"Why have you come here?" a sharp voice demanded from behind me.

I whirled to face the woman, my back now against the outer windows. We stood across the table from each other in a dim room, eyeing each other in wary tension. My gaze drifted to the key, held in a glass jar on the table. In the darkness, lit only by pale moonlight filtering through the windows and a single fluorescent bulb, the key began to glow with a pale white light.

"I came for the Soul crystal and the key." My voice, slower and more deliberate than that of the other woman, carried well inside this room. Drawing myself up to my full height, still several inches shorter than the woman standing before me, I reached my hand out, palm up. Wary, hopeful, I took a tentative step forward, then another, more determined one. "Please. They're the only chance of stopping the disasters on that other world."

"You do realize they have hidden cameras here," the woman said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. That nose sloped in the same way as mine. Those high cheekbones with a smattering of freckles were just like mine, too. "You'll be caught. But then, perhaps it won't matter. I wanted to spare you, Leah. Under the circumstances, I don't think that's possible."

"How do you know my name? I don't even know yours," I said, cautiously edging closer. Her words had chilled me straight to the core. Whatever protection my own crystal offered, I could only hope it would suffice to get me safely through this.