Page 3 of The Other Side of the Mirror

Grinning, I rolled my eyes despite her not being able to see it. I could practically picture the knowing look on her face as she said, “I’m glad you’re trying, Eva. It’s about time.”

* * *

The night was cool and crisp, the last vestiges of summer fading into the darkness of fall. The evergreens towered behind Quinn’s family home, something unsettling whispering in the breeze as I walked up her winding driveway.

For the past few days, I couldn’t shake the suffocating sensation that someone was following me. No one was ever there when I looked, despite a repeated shiver of awareness that had me double checking every shadowy corner. But something made me pause in Quinn’s entryway, and I darted a look over my shoulder as I once again felt those eyes on me. I started to shake my head to dispel the unsettling sensation when I saw something glinting in the darkness.

A coyote with pale eyes was staring at me from the tree line. I froze in shock, and it cocked its head to the side, as if assessing me. I turned and knocked loudly on Quinn’s large wooden door, trying to ignore the creeping feeling low in my spine. When I looked back again, the coyote was gone.

I took a long, deep breath of crisp evening air, still feeling horribly vulnerable. Letting it out slowly, I looked up at the darkening sky to find a silver-scythe moon glowing over the treetops. The darkness beckoned me like always as I watched the stars shine brightly in the cloudless expanse.

When I was little, I was fascinated by the night sky. My mother had noticed, then taught me the names of the sprawling constellations that twinkled overhead as we curled under a blanket on my parents’ balcony. Before our stargazing spot had become only charred remains.

I took another long breath, studying the black velvet night above me, imagining the darkness filling my lungs. Somehow, my lingering loss didn’t feel quite so overwhelming when the night sky was clear and endless enough to make even my worst moment feel insignificant.

Raising a hand, I traced a distinctiveW-shape formed by five bright stars…Cassiopeia, I mouthed silently. I had loved learning the names of each constellation and the stories behind them; the more thrilling, the better. Sometimes I still longed for more adventure than I could imagine, instead of the endless repetition of everyday life. Dark forests, open skies, and a shiver of danger…

Danger?I shook my head to dispel the fanciful notion.You’ve had more than enough danger for a lifetime.

Ever since I lost my family, I seemed to find more and more dangerous hobbies. The thrill of them had the ability to take me away from my grief, if only for the moment I plunged through the air while skydiving or summited a perilous hike like I had today. I resolved not to tell Quinn anything else about that. Her growing concern about ‘recklessly putting my life at risk,’ as she reproachfully called it, would only get worse. Especially if she knew how lost I had been in those craggy peaks before I stumbled upon the right trail home.

The door swung open, jolting me from my thoughts. Quinn stood there, her light-brown, natural curls perfectly styled to stick out in every direction, and her big, amber eyes accented with swooping eyeliner. Her tight lavender crop top showed off a strip of her tawny stomach over her high-waisted jeans.

Quinn grinned at the look on my face. “Were you planning to come in? Or did you want to stand there all night?”

I shrugged off my jacket as I walked through the door, touching a dent in the wood on the way in. “Just admiring my handywork.”

“Ah, the great staircase slide,” Quinn murmured appreciatively. “I still don’t understand how your mattress almost made it outside the door.”

“You’re just jealous of my enviable aerodynamics.”

Quinn’s house was something out of a Halloween movie—winding staircases, wooden panels, and a shuttered tower at the top. The grand staircase in the foyer had been the source of endless mattress slide battles long before I had moved in. When her parents took me in after the fire, Quinn had happily shared her room as we had during so many sleepovers, even though there were plenty of others. I had been too sad and scared not to want someone close by, and she had stayed with me on those days I couldn’t manage to get out of bed—her soft breathing soothing me to sleep even after another nightmare.

Her parents had died slightly over a year later in a plane crash. I had barely started working through my own loss when I had supported Quinn through hers. Losing my surrogate family had been yet another blow, though at least Quinn and I had been old enough to live without adult supervision by then. Quinn’s mother Amirah had been full of ever-present laughter, her skin a deeper brown than her daughter’s, her natural hair usually braided back in tight rows. Her husband Alwin was pale, bald, and a head higher than the women of his family, with a wide smile perpetually on his face.

The shared grief had bound Quinn and me together as sisters more than blood ever could.

Despite her own loss, Quinn somehow remained open and kind, always the life of the party. Tonight’s event wouldn’t be out of place for her home—a gaggle of “our” friends who I only knew through her, plus some wine, early season pumpkin beers, and hopefully nottoomuch ribbing from Quinn about my love life.

Clay hadn’t gotten back to me about joining, despite our texts before my hike, and I couldn’t tell if it was worse that he wouldn’t be there after saying he would, or better that I didn’t have to deal with introductions. There might be something about him that felt familiar, but I doubted he would be the one to break down the walls I had so carefully built around myself. Though suddenly I was annoyed he hadn’t even attempted to try before deciding to ghost me.

I hesitated in the entryway, as though I could take that knock back and avoid the rigmarole.

“No Clay?” Quinn asked coyly, reading my thoughts.

“I haven’t heard from him,” I said, frowning. “We were texting earlier. Maybe something came up?”

“His loss.” She shrugged, leading me toward the living room. “You’re the first one here, so might as well get comfortable. Happy 24th, by the way.”

I tried to ignore my pang of grief as I thought of the twin who should be celebrating the same number of years on this earth. My anger and frustration at the answers I would never get about this night seven long years ago.

From the sadness dimming Quinn’s eyes, I knew she was thinking of my brother too.

“And you thought I would be late.” Forcing a smile, I placed a slightly crunched box of cookies down on the counter.

Quinn burst out laughing. “Did those get squashed on the bike ride over or…”

I gave her a halfhearted glare. “If I didn’t buy the smooshed ones, no one would, and then they’d never have a home.”

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