main | table of contents The Reflecting Eye Copyright © 2003, S. Y. Affolee 14 Whispers When Verity arrived back at the archives, feeling numb from Greene’s attempted pass and wondering if her brain was already wrapped up in Aeneus’s aluminum foil, she dimly registered Bob putting on his coat and heading out. “Where are you going?” said Verity. His plump face squeezed together as if he had tasted something sour. “Emergency. I’m not sure if I’ll be back.” “Emergency?” she replied mechanically. “Is someone hurt?” “Someone might be,” Bob said cryptically. Then he left without so much of a good-bye. She looked up. Quinn was in his office staring at his computer, seemingly working and oblivious to the world. There was a small washroom in the archives. Verity went in and locked the door. In the harsh light, she stared at the familiar pale woman in the mirror above the wash basin. She didn’t appear very haggard and her badly chopped off hair was slowly growing out, but her mouth remained a firm unyielding line. She looked down at her hands. She didn’t really like her hands. She had always thought that the fingers were slightly shorter than they should be and not as slender. Her fingers were ringless. She wanted to feel anger, a spark, and echo, anything. She wanted to feel that brief heat that came when she was actively fighting off the attacker outside the restaurant on Dorsum Road. Not bothering to even look at her bandaged wrists let alone unwrapping them, she took out the small pen knife that she often carried with her. Unsheathing it, she placed the gleaming blade, flat side on her right palm. It felt cool like a shard of ice. She pressed downward slightly and from the tip came one drop of bright red blood. She could hardly feel the sting, but an image suddenly materialized in her mind. It was Gammell, his sharp gaze trained on her, silently asking what she was doing. “It’s none of your business,” she whispered harshly in the empty washroom. She took the blade away from her hand and turned on the faucet. “None of your damned business.” She washed her hands and wiped the blade down before putting it back into her pocket. She flushed the toilet, just for good measure and washed her hands again. She then unlocked the wash room door and stepped out to find that Quinn was now out of his office. He was placing a pile of books on one of the reading tables. Quinn turned to look at her. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” “I lost some sleep last night,” she said. “My next door neighbors like to play loud music.” In reality, her next door neighbors didn’t play any music at all. She had spent the previous night waiting at the hospital for a doctor to examine Gammell to see that he didn’t have a concussion. The doctor who ended up seeing them pronounced Gammell fit but had spied the bandages on her wrist. In the end, it was Gammell who had saved Verity from the doctor’s questions. “Too bad. You might want to look at soundproofing your walls.” “I’ll look into that. You don’t look so well yourself.” “You must have heard the argument I had with Bob.” “Only a little. I went to the cafeteria to have lunch.” “He thinks I slept with his wife.” Quinn started sorting the books into piles. “I think he left to either confront his wife or walk off his anger.” “Uh huh.” “His accusation isn’t true,” he continued. “I haven’t met his wife. I don’t even know what she looks like. I wouldn’t know his wife if I passed her on the street. I’m guessing his marital problems just spilled over and he had to take it out on me.” “That doesn’t sound sensible to let your private life into your work.” “Love isn’t supposed to be sensible.” He took up one of the smaller piles of books and started across the room to the shelves. Verity went back into her office and sat down at her computer and caught sight of the old mirror that Quinn dug up from the sub-basement the other day. It was sitting on the edge of her desk, a dark, tarnished lump. She had forgotten about it until now. The strange antique whispered quietly to her. There was writing on the back side of the thing—she was sure of it. Later, she promised herself. She turned back to the pile of documents that she was cataloguing and turned to the next one. The words swam in her eyes. Was it just her mind, or was the whispering from the mirror getting louder? Was she slowly going insane? Soon she would be blabbering about old telepathic mirrors just as Gammell ranted constantly about the others and Aeneus’s constant recommendations about clothes lining with aluminum foil. She adamantly ignored it and tried concentrating on the files. The imagined whispering became louder and louder until it became a roar. Verity wanted to shut her ears, to stuff them with cotton, to throw that object out of the office. “Verity?” Quinn’s voice suddenly startled her from her reverie. The whispering also miraculously stopped. “Yes?” “It’s time to close up. Are you staying late today?” “Oh, no. I’m glad you reminded me. Time seemed to have gotten away from me.” She saved her work and shut the computer down. Almost absent-mindedly, she tucked the old mirror into her coat pocket. The both of them locked up the archives and as they ventured out into the parking lot, Verity buttoned her coat closer to her neck. It was frigidly cold. And it was snowing. “I’m taking the day off tomorrow,” Quinn told her, his voice muffled against his scarf. “I was originally going to take the day off to do some Feasting Day preparations, but with Bob, well, maybe it’s for the best. If Bob doesn’t come back tomorrow, will you be all right by yourself?” “I’ll be all right. Everything has been slowing down at the institute the last couple of days. It’s not like a store.” “No, it’s not like a store.” Verity was about to turn to her car when Quinn started speaking again. She could feel the tips of her fingers getting colder. “Do you sometimes wonder if things aren’t quite right?” “What do you mean?” “This whole holiday season. Every time it starts up, I get this uneasy feeling that something is going wrong. Maybe it’s just Bob’s problems affecting me, but it happens every year.” “Some say it’s the weather,” said Verity. “The winter makes some people depressed.” “I don’t feel depressed. I feel edgy. This year, I think it’ll be better if I just stay home during the Unnamed Days and not go out.” “You’re probably stressed out. Don’t work too hard, Quinn, and get plenty of sleep. Good night.” “Good night. Don’t work too hard yourself either.” Verity turned on her car and sat there for a few minutes. The whispering had come back. She finally drove back home, her teeth on edge, her ears ringing. With each moment, the whispering became even more distinct. It was like listening to a foreign language. Finally inside her apartment which she had finished organizing from her move the day before, she rummaged in the bottom cabinets of her kitchen and pulled out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some oil polish she used for the metal furnishings that her uncle left behind, and a worn rag. She took out the old mirror with no reflecting surface and laid it face down on the dining table. After taking off her coat and draping over a chair, she poured a bit of the rubbing alcohol onto the back of the mirror and began rubbing. In a few minutes, the tarnish began to vanish revealing the brass underneath. She then started using a little polish and the mirror frame began to gleam. It was then that the whispering stopped for good. She could finally make out the etched writing on the back. The foreign letters curved at strange, oblique angles. It was of no writing that she had ever encountered before, but the very letters seemed ominous in their cryptic-ness. Verity wondered if she even wanted to know what it meant.