Into A Dream

What a Book

Tilly poke her ponytailed head into my room, "Al, do you have your box ready? Daddy wants to know."

"Almost," I said, looking between two hoodies before choosing one to donate. She plopped down on the end of my bed and watched me. Glancing at her for a moment then back at the box, I cleared my throat, awkwardly.

After throwing in a couple of shirts I handed her the box, "Jeez," She said taking the box, with a laugh. "You really filled this box up,"

Shrugging, I added another shirt that I wasn't sure about. "I just had somethings that I needed to get rid of."

Tilly paused at the doorway, "Al?" She turned around, a questioning look on her face, and pulled her hand from the box. She held up an old copy of the book Journey to the Center of Earth. "Wasn't this aunt Alice's book?"

Chewing on my bottom lip I nodded, guilt starting to settle in. Tilly raised an eyebrow at me then set the book down on my desk and left. Sighing I picked the book up, I had read it a million times, done countless projects on it, hoping to figure some secret message in it. A reason as to why my mother had left me this book and nothing else.

Stress and frustration from the last couple of weeks had started to root next to the guilt. An involuntary groan escaped when I sat at the edge of my bed as I ran my fingers threw my hair. I couldn't help but feel as though I had imagined everything that happened the past couple weeks, having episodes again as I use to when I was younger, and then the thought of being put in an asylum occurred to me.

What a nightmare.

I need to be in control. Falling back on my bed, the sound of the others in the house seemed to multiple every passing moment, louder and louder. Deafening. Standing up, trying to shake the noise out of my head, I had forgotten that I placed the book on my lap and it crashed onto the floor.

A page stuck out of the book, curious, I bent down and pulled it out. I had been through that book a million times, there is no way, in a million years, that I had missed something in it. Not something like this anyways.

Unfolding the paper, it revealed an odd sketch of a mirror. The mirror was separated into three panes with something laced threw the center one then sealed in each end with wooden panels which were etched with something. On one side of the mirror was a butterfly and on the other was a caterpillar. There was notes scribbled around each side of the diagram, none that I could read however, that seemed to explain it. How to works, perhaps.

Dropping the paper, I rubbed my face with my hands, sure that I had just pulled out a page of the book and imagined the drawling. Insanity knocking at the back door. Stay in control, I warned myself.

After a moment I headed downstairs, determined that all I needed was some fresh air to clear my mind.

Once downstairs I saw Uncle Austin and Gus loading the car with all the things for the annual thrift shop drop off that the school does. Aunt Lorna was standing over the kitchen counter, finalizing some details on a few last-minute projects, I assume.

"You're home early," I remarked as I opened the back sliding door and stuck my head out. I could hear her laugh quietly and shake her head, turning towards her I saw that she was smiling at me. "What?"

Aunt Lorna shook her head again, "You're just like your mom, always loves being in the sun and letting the air conditioning out."

"Wait, air conditioning was around when you were younger?" I joked, laughing she threw a piece of paper at me, playfully cursing me.

"Always been a brat," She rolled her crystal eyes, the eyes her and mom shared. Uncle Austin walked into the kitchen, he was wearing his favorite sports jersey, his close-cropped hair brushed back from his face.

"Shut the door, this isn't a barn." He barked at me then turned towards Aunt Lorna. "Babe, that mirror in the basement, did you want us to take it to the school?"

"It was my sisters, I don't have much use for it anymore but maybe Al would want it." They both turned to me. However, I was staring hard at the floor, trying to figure out if I had heard them correctly.

"Alistair?" My Aunt said more stern, breaking my trance, "Why don't you go down into the basement and check the mirror out? It's not in that bad of shape."

Nodding, I headed downstairs, my heart throbbing in my ear and my legs weak. Flipping the light switch on and I entered the basement. Apart from a pool table, a few chairs, and a number of storage boxes, it was relatively empty.

As I walked over towards the remaining storage boxes, I noticed a door propped open. Has that always been there? Glancing around the door I saw the mirror. A stand-up mirror that was etched with designs along the dark wooden edge, it seemed harmlessly plain enough. To reassure myself I glanced into the mirror and found myself staring back.

A seventeen-year-old with pale blonde hair, eyes that matched his aunt and mother's, with freckles that didn't exist in my family. My aunt always said that they were the only thing I must have inherited from my dad because I was a spitting image of my mother. She never knew who my dad was, she just knew that mom returned with me, after being away for months. She never asked.

After deciding to keep the mirror I turned to head upstairs when I heard a strange noise, almost like a flutter but lighter. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes and focused hard, pushing everything else out. I've worked too hard to go insane now, not right before college, not before asking Kitty on a date, not before starting my life.

I'm not sure how long I stood there with my eyes squeezed shut but when I opened them and turned around back to the mirror everything was the same. The mirror still sat there, my image staring back at me. The boxes still littered the floor. I could still hear my family talking and moving around upstairs. I was in control again.

Letting out a sigh of relief I turned to head upstairs, but as I turned a butterfly flew at my face causing me to stumble back. My heel hit something, which I soon realized to be the mirror base. But there was no mirror to catch my fall.

Instead, I fell.

Down...

Down...

Down...