Page 54 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

It was Esther’s old room that Cecily moved toward. She cracked the door tentatively, as if someone might be sleeping inside, then she pushed it open more fully and stepped in with Joanna on her heels. It was even colder in the room than it had been on the landing, and the chill made everything seem dreary in a way that might have been cozy in warmth. Kurt Cobain stared down at them from over boxes of ordinary books, Abe’s old clothes, broken furniture Joanna meant to someday repair.

Cecily skimmed the room with her eyes, one hand light on her collarbone as if she wanted to press a hand to her heart but was holding back.

“There used to be something else in that corner,” said Cecily.

Joanna looked at the corner by the closet, now taken up by a small set of drawers filled with crafting and sewing supplies. “Can you give me a little more to go on?”

“No.”

Joanna racked her memory, visualizing the room as it had been when it was Esther’s. “The mirror?”

Cecily said, “Where is it?”

In answer, Joanna crossed the room and opened the door to the closet. Inside, the huge mirror shone a faceful of winter light back out at them and Cecily let out a sound of relief that was almost a groan. When she spoke again her voice was agitated, as if the sight had spurred her into new urgency.

“I need a piece of paper and a pen,” she said.

There was notebook paper in the set of drawers and Joanna found an ancient blue gel pen that somehow still worked. She passed both to her mother, her movements jerky with a tension Cecily mirrored as she took them.

Cecily leaned the paper on the top of a taller dresser. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration and once or twice she stopped to reread before continuing, and Joanna held herself still rather than crowding her mother’s space to see what she was writing. When Cecily finished, however, Joanna held out her hand.

She could see her mother’s hesitation, her reluctance, but she handed over the piece of paper.

The words were nonsensical, two bullet-pointed paragraphs; Joanna read them twice without understanding.

I don’t know if you’re still there, or if this comes too late. You can see why I am reaching out. Please find a way to tell me you have this under control or tell me what I can do.

It is time to break my side of our agreement. As soon as you get this message—if you get this message—please end it.

—C.

“What is this?” Joanna asked.

Cecily, predictably, said nothing. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and removed a stiff piece of paper. Joanna registered pink sky, square font. Esther’s Antarctic postcard.

“I need your knife now,” said Cecily.

Joanna considered refusing until she received a clear answer, except she was by this point fairly certain her refusal would bring not more answers, but fewer. Time was running out and she wanted to see what Cecily planned to do next. She handed her mother the knife, handle first, and with a quick jab, Cecily reopened the cut she’d used earlier to draw blood barriers to keep Joanna in her living room. She smeared bright red onto the corner of the postcard and onto the note she’d written and folded the postcard into the piece of notebook paper like a loose envelope.

Then she closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. “I don’t evenknow if this will work anymore,” she said. “It’s been ten years since I last used it.”

Joanna said nothing. Cecily was speaking to herself, her gaze inward and focused. As Joanna watched she reached forward and pressed her bloody thumb to the mirror: a print at the top, on both sides, at the bottom.

Joanna was watching closely as Cecily did this, but it was not her eyes that registered any change. It was her other sense, the ear-within-an-ear, that felt the shift. Everything was quiet and then it wasn’t, not quite. A hum, low and slow, building in Joanna’s head. The sound of a spell surging into place—and with no book in sight. It was a spell that was somehow already ongoing, a spell in progress that needed blood not to activate but to reactivate.

Quickly Cecily reached out and held the note-folded postcard against the mirror. Only it was notagainstthe mirror, because the mirror offered no resistance. The glass shivered and parted like water for a stone, and like a stone, the note and postcard sank in and were swallowed.

Joanna’s hand clamped around her mother’s wrist as soon as she registered what was happening, but she was too slow, and it was too late. Cecily’s hand was already empty. Frantically, Joanna reached out to wipe away her mother’s blood from the glass, even though she knew full well that the stains, though still wet, would budge for no one except Cecily.

“Stop it, sweetpea,” Cecily said. Her face was calm, all the urgency drained from her posture; she’d done what she had come to do.

“What did you do?” Joanna said. Her voice came out tremulous. “Who’s on the other side of that mirror?”

For clearly there was somebody, there had to be: a nameless figure who’d been crouched behind glass in this closet for god knew how long, waiting to be activated. Goosebumps spread across her arms.

Cecily took Joanna’s face in her hands and after a reflexive twitch away, Joanna stilled and let her mother stare her in the eye. Even now, the touch of her mother’s cool hands on Joanna’s hot, agitated cheeks comforted her.

“Nothing can come back through the mirror,” Cecily said. “Your wards will prevent it. I can only pass things through.”

---