Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

Author:Sean Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-01-15T09:44:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

alf the time dead people are nearly blind, groping around with underground eyes. Not AJ. She was watching me, amused, like a big sister having fun at my expense. She was wearing her little round glasses, of course, and a white haltertop, thin cotton held on by spaghetti straps. There were two bloodstains like roses on her shirt; a little one at her waist, and a larger one blooming between her small breasts.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten before opening them again. She was still there when I looked up.

I see you, DK.

I see you.

I see you.

I see you.

I couldn't look away from her. I thought of Hanlon lying awake in the middle of the night, mouth dry, heart pounding. People think ghosts must be like cartoons, like illusions. They aren't. When they're in the room, they're more real than you are.

My expression must have been pretty comical. AJ quirked a smile and let one eyebrow arch. Then she stepped back from the surface of the mirror. One deliberate step, slowly, holding my eyes.

"AJ?" I whispered. "Holy shit. What do you want?"

Watching me over her shoulder, she backed toward the bathroom door. I followed. Still holding my eyes, AJ walked past the edge of the mirror and disappeared.

I could breathe again. It hurt. I missed her.

Then she was back. She was deliberately standing at the edge of the mirror, looking over her shoulder at me. Slowly, this time, she stepped beyond the frame and disappeared. I followed her into the laundry room and stopped. No sign. Back in the bathroom, the mirror was empty-

I stepped out into the hallway. At the far end of the corridor, Aunt Patty kept a vanity with knick-knacks on its marble top, and above them a tall mirror. AJ was dwindling there, all but invisible in the dim light, walking with her back to the mirror as if she were heading into the living room.

I hurried after her.

The front foyer opened up to my right, imitation marble tiles and a front door with a cut-glass window in it, the glass carved and frosted to be opaque. As I tried to catch up, I could just see AJ's jumbled shadow pass erratically through the imitation crystal. Flashes of black hair and bloody cotton. She was heading for the dining room.

"Will?" Mom called from the table. "What was your favorite event from the family reunion?"

Truth: watching My Name is Trinity while absolutely incandescent on a double hit of Orange Sunshine LSD the last year I was bunked in with the rest of the cousins for the Kids Lock-In Night. I had kept the young 'uns enthralled with my non-stop patter on the Biblical symbolism of Mr. Eastwood's Really Big Gun.

"Watermelon-seed spitting contest," I said.

"Me too," Fonteyne said around a mouthful of cornbread.

Now AJ was a full-size reflection moving through the bay windows in the dining nook. She grinned at me.

"These last few reunions that Mabel Rae organized have been real nice, of course, but it seems like the same folks come every year.

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