Number 667

Chapter Ten

Carrie swallowed nervously, clenching her fist and digging her short fingernails into her palm. The bus shook and rattled as it lumbered down the gravel road and shot bullets of gravel into the pine forest. Carrie and the old man with the long, dirty beard that was the bus driver were the only two breathing things on the path. After Carrie had a vision and a spasm in the middle of the school day, the principal hah had enough. Fortunately for Carrie, they had found distant relatives in Twistville that Carrie could stay with, rather than her parents. Carrie curled one stringy strand of carrot-colored hair around her finger. She had never met these relatives before but hopefully, hopefully, they would be better than her hateful parents.
"Here." The pudgy bus driver grunted as he stopped the creaky bus and it spat out a puff of black smoke. Carrie stepped out onto the asphalt, staring at the house towering over her. Walking reluctantly to the metal front door, she rapped three times with her knuckles. It took a moment and some shuffling around, but finally the door opened wide and a cheery woman with shiny black hair excalimed, "Carrie! Welcome. Come in, come in." Carrie walked in to the landing, padding up the steps to the living area. She sat down on the soft couch, the woman and another man, presumably the woman's husband, sitting down next to her. "So," said the woman. "We realize that your parents have not been exactly... Friendly. And they were okay with you staying with us?" Carrie nodded, peering down the hallway. She could see someone with narrowed eyes peering at her from a doorway, but she couldn't make out their face, the shadows were overtaking it.
The woman smiled. "Oh, that's just our daughter." Daughter? Carrie thought. She had thought that she would be the only child in this house. "Vivian, sweetie? Come greet our guest."
The girl stepped from the shadows, her black hair swying and her green eyes looking at Carrie with... What was it? Disgust? Then Carrie had to bite her lip to stop the scream.
It was that girl, the one from her vision. She had the same porcelain skin, the same perfect black hair, the same up-straight posture.
Vivian.
"Hello." Vivian said. "You're Carrie?" Though her eyes were still narrowed, her voice seemed sincere. Carrie got up, smoothed her wrinkled school clothes, and shook Vivian's outstretched hand. Vivian's eyes returned to normal as she turned, walking silently into the first bedroom of the hall, the one she had been peering out of. "And you will be staying in the room at the end of the hall. I suppose you don't have any possesions?" The man said, leading Carrie to her room. "No," she said, putting her hand on the unusually shiny doorknob. The splintered wood of the door reached out to her like bony fingers. Like the branches of the pine forest in her visions. "Oh," the man said, chuckling. "Sorry about that. The doir was brand-new when we got here. It's supposedly made from pine wood of Twills forest. Don't know why anyone would bother with that place though. Gives me the shivers. Well anyways, we can go get you some clothes later today. Until then, you can get settled." He turned away from Carrie, heading towards the kitchen.
Carrie swung open the door, not stepping into the room just yet. It was well furnished, with a fireplace, a twin bed, and a couple dressers, and it looked comfortable. There was a large mirror above one of the dressers, the long one, but it was covered in greasy smears and a thick layer of dust. Carrie supposed that she would clean it up later.
She stepped inside, and the door creaked slowly and qietly closed behind her. She thought nothing of it, it could have been a door that had problems staying open. She padded across the hardwood flooring to her bathroom, taking a yellow cotton washcloth and rinsing it under the cool water. She went back into her bedroom, swiping the washcloth over the mirror. She scrubbed it in circles, the squeak of the cloth over the glass audible. Then she took a clean, fluffy white towel and wiped the mirror dry, putting both the washcloth and the towel in the dirty laundry hamper next to her door.
As Carrie stared at herself in the mirror, she noticed that something was off. Not quite right. What was it? Then it hit her.
Carrie's hair had always been frizzy, jumping out of every attempt she had to tame it. But in the mirror, her hair was combed into a perfect braid. Just like...
Her reflection moved its hand to its mouth of its own accord, and Carrie could feel a warm hand pressing against her lips to silence her scream. "Hush," her reflection said. "Do you want them to hear?" She said this in a different voice than Carrie's, slightly more high-pitched, but overall the same. "I'm Carrie. Well, I'm Carrie Joshua. You're Carrie Pipper." Carrie backed away from the mirror, stuttering. "B-but I don't understand. How - why - what?!" Her reflection, - Josh, we'll call her - smiled warmly at Carrie and said, "You'll learn it all, in time. But first, it really wouldn't be fair if I did not tell you the whole story." She paused, looking at her feet. "When you were born, you were a... Type of reincarnation, of me. But instead of being me, your soul was split in half. You were you, and I was me, but since I'm a spirit..." She trailed off, looking at her feet again. "I can only talk to you through mirrors." Carrie said uncertainly. She sat down on her bed, her reflection doing the same. "But what I don't get is why you came back. What do you want? I mean, ghosts are stuck on Earth because they have unfinished business, right?" There was a moment of silence, and then Josh burst out laughing, saying in between laughs, "I'm not a ghost. That's just a petty human word. I'm a spirit, a soul, a character. And no, spirits can only stay on Earth because they will themselves to. And they can only do that if they're strong enough. But that's beside the point. The reason I came back was for... Jackson..." She smiled dreamily, looking off into space in a daydream. Her red braid swung to one side as she clasped her hands next to her cheek. "We were dating when the townspeople killed me. But as I burned, I heard him call to me and say that he would come back for me." Carrie looked at Josh skeptically.
"Sure you weren't just hearing things?"
"Yes."
"Sure he wasn't kidding?"
"Yes."
"Sure he was able to come back?"
"Yes!"
The spirit in the mirror had clenched fists, and she turned away from Carrie, crossing her arms. "When Jackson says something, he means it. Does the Puritan churchbell ring at noon?" She said, turning back to Carrie. "Uh... Yes?" Carrie said, shrugging. Josh grinned. "No matter. It was just a figure of speech. Anyway, I came back so that I could be with him. And I want you to do it."