Metamorphosis Read Online Free PDF Page B

still in the doorway, the source of the light still hidden from him. The bed was made, the room absolutely silent. He stepped inside, looking across the foot of the bed at the wall, where there hung an ornate mirror, framed in gold leaf. The source of the light, not a reflection, lay somewhere within the mirror…
    Leave
, he told himself, knowing abruptly that there was nothing in this house that he would be happy to find, although that had been true when he had driven into the neighborhood two hours ago. He stepped farther into the room, clutching the paperweight, the mirror reflecting the edge of the bed and the bureau beside the closet door, which, he realized, stood open a couple of inches, so that he could see the clothing hanging inside. He couldn’t force himself to look back at the actual door, but moved forward to see further into the mirror, the view of the room expanding. He stopped when he saw the side of the woman’s face as she turned toward him, the mirror quickly reflecting only the back of her head so that he couldn’t see her face at all, and he realized that she must be looking at him or through him, as if she sensed that he had entered the room. His own image in the mirror was simply a shadow.
    He darted a glance downward at the empty bed, then behind him at the tightly shut closet door. The rain was letting up, and it occurred to him that the thunder had ceased some time ago, the storm passing away. The light in the mirror began to wane even as the thought came into his head, and in a sudden panic that it would flicker out and leave him in darkness, he stepped forward, looking straight into the mirror.
    Beside the woman, sitting on the edge of the bed, was the reflected image of Michael’s father, his face drawn, his eyes half shut. He raised his head now, as if to say something to the woman, but looked past her in Michael’s direction, recognition, shame and bewilderment coming into his face. He opened his mouth as if to speak, perhaps to explain himself, but Michael heard nothing but the rush of blood in his own ears as he hurled the heavy paperweight into the mirror.
    The darkness was abrupt, the light having gone out of the broken mirror, and the night outside silent but for the sound of rain dripping from the eaves and bushes. Michael groped his way out of the dark room and down the hallway without looking back, pushing the window open, climbing through, and shutting it carefully behind him. He crossed the street and locked the door to his parents’ house without going back in, walked to the curb, and got into his car, where he sat breathing heavily for a moment, compelling himself to focus on the unfamiliar instrument panel and the steering wheel. He started the car, switched on the headlights, and pulled away, looking straight ahead, realizing that he had left the light on inside the house, the mail on the chair. He signaled carefully at the corner despite the street’s being empty, deciding not to go back.
    Two blocks away, when he pulled into freeway traffic, the tires humming on the wet asphalt, his cell phone rang. He looked down at the display and read off the number, realizing in a confused flood of relief and regret that it was the nursing home calling.

Haunted places: An Afterword
     
    [by James P. Blaylock]
    T HESE STORIES CAME to be written under curious circumstances—a strange sort of harmonic convergence that’s unlikely to reoccur. Their existence involves, in a roundabout way, one of the coolest things that has happened to me in my writing and teaching careers, both of which have been going along happily for thirty-some years now. Eight years ago, when my son Danny graduated from the Orange County High School of the Arts, I was full of the predictable spirit of celebration, but I was equally full of a nostalgia for good things coming to an end, and in a rash moment I pointed out to Ralph Opacic, the Executive Director of the school, that what the school needed was a