Young Writers Society

6. A Renewed Promise

My eyes flew open as I gasped. I jerked up into a sitting position so fast the room begun to spin around me.

“Oh!” I put a hand to my forehead, trying to relieve the sudden pounding there.

What the hell had happened? What was that? The little girl running up her staircase chased by her overweight maid; followed by the horror of her nearly falling to her death. My heart had almost stopped when she lurched forwards, threatening to become nothing more than a messy smear on the floor. My pulse began to quicken just at the thought of it. Had the girl been Alonsa when she was younger? The maid had called her that. If it had been her, why had she shown it to me? What was the significance of her nearly falling over the banister? Had she been telling me how accident-prone she was? Had she died in a similar way? Or maybe she’d died by falling over it again, but that time hadn’t been saved by one of the servants.

Ouch.

As ways to go went, that was pretty painful. I found myself desperately hoping she hadn’t died like that. It was a terrifying, prolonged death. I’d rather die in my sleep or something; then I wouldn’t know death was spiralling towards me.

I winced, and then found myself wondering why I was so morbidly thinking of my death. Well, I guess that’s what talking to long-dead spirits did to you.

Perhaps it would have been better if I’d actually been going mad.

Why had Alonsa been so angry when she’d come to me? It had hurt when she had dug her nails into my flesh, but when I looked I saw no marks or anything. No little half-moon indents, not even any red marks. As if it had all been a dream.

A bad dream.

That was when I realised it’d gone silent. I looked quickly at my iPod and saw I’d reached the end of the album I’d been listening to. I pulled out my earphones as there was no point in leaving them in when I wasn’t listening to anything. Besides, after that dream I was no longer in the mood for any of my songs.

I needed to speak with her. I had questions. Millions of questions. She’d said something about appearing in reflective surfaces, hadn’t she? And she’d suddenly been in the bathroom mirror yesterday – when I’d been awake.

Would she appear to me again – if I called her?

How unimpressive my full-length mirror seemed. A sheet of clear glass, framed by a simple wooden frame. I remembered that hot summer’s day in the garden when Dad helped me paint it white. I remembered slapping on loads of paint, accidentally painting the glass more than the frame. Dad said something to me and I looked up at him, smiling; white paint on my nose.

Amazing that a simple object could stir so many emotions, that it could resemble so much. And I didn’t mean a window into a spiritual world; I meant those happy days Dad and I had spent together. Days where I hadn’t been Amelia the average student, Amelia the annoying younger sister, Amelia the last hope. To Dad I’d been Amelia the princess. His treasured little girl.

I would never have those days again.

I slipped off my bed and slowly made my way to the mirror. The top end of my bed was pushed up against the wall, so the bottom faced my slightly ajar door. On either side of my door was my looming wardrobe and my slightly hidden mirror. My reflection stared back at me. My face was like stone; mouth closed, eyes steely. Ready for battle. Ready to know more.

I stared a challenge into that smooth, unflawed surface. Equally, my mirror taunted me with the image of my pale face, a slight dusting of light brown freckles scattered across it like the fragments of my family. My grey eyes seemed huge in this face, framed by lashes which huddled together like grief-stricken relatives. My limp hair was as brown as the bark of an oak tree. An oak tree.

My hand flew to my mouth to stifle the sob which nearly escaped. Tears pooled in my eyes like puddles of rainwater. I forced myself to keep staring. To notice the clumps of my fringe dangling in my eyes. I needed to get my fringe cut again; it was growing too long. It needed to be orderly and contained; it cannot be anything else because it would upset those around it. Those who were already so fragile…

I watched my mouth as I spoke. Saw my lips part and twist, forming words. Those two strands of pale pink. They could press against each other as hard as they could, yet they could never become one. They could never be whole. It was impossible; they were separated by a cavernous hole of black. That gaping crack could never be defeated, hidden. It was always there.

“Alonsa?”

My voice, no more than a painful croak, shattered the silence in the room like the glass in a windscreen.

“Alonsa?”

I didn’t try again; I was concentrating too hard on keeping my breathing normal, my chest from rising and falling so quickly. The tears from leaking.

Please, be there…

It was not Alonsa’s face I was hoping to see in my mirror. Not Alonsa I longed to speak with.

I sunk down to the floor, my legs suddenly too tired to hold me up anymore. Why do the things you always count on let you down? Abandon you? Another cruel joke of Fate, perhaps? Or is that just how things will always be? Why ever bother getting close to people, become attached to them, when you know at some point they’ll have to leave you?

A tear broke free and stroked my cheek like a cool, wet finger. There, there, don’t worry. We’re here. We’re always here.

Why get close to these strangers when you know they will leave? When you know the only thing you will have left are your tears.