The Mirror Read Online Free PDF

death do you part?"
    Now? The minister stared at her. Shay unglued Brandy's dry tongue from the roof of her mouth and . . .
    "She does," John McCabe said with finality.
    Sophie McCabe folded her daughter's day dress, placed it in the trunk beside the embroidered sheets and pillowcases and dragged the trunk out of the closet.
    Brandy sat on the cedar chest, staring at the bronze mirror, an odd unbecoming slouch to her shoulders. Sophie'd grown up and married in more robust times, when talk was freer, manners less strict and formal. A new century, great conveniences, wonderful inventions . . . but still . . . Brandy's girlhood had been so much more sheltered than her own.
    Her daughter'd been perfectly normal until a couple of years ago, bright and pretty, her father's darling. Sophie began to notice a change in Brandy about the time she'd refused to marry young Trevors. John had overlooked the occasional bouts of strange behavior since then. Until he'd decided Brandy was pretending to be touched to avoid marriage to Mr. Strock.
    Boulder had noticed it early, however. There'd been no more offers for Brandy's hand until Corbin Strock.
    He seemed a quiet, severe sort of man, Sophie mused. Would he treat his new wife well? He could have rented a carriage to pick up his bride, but he'd come in a buckboard, of all things. There'd been no look of softness on his face for Brandy. What kind of a future would she have with him? Still... it would hardly be a future at all without a husband.
    Brandy startled Sophie out of her reverie by jumping up and pounding on the glass of the mirror.
    "Brandy, what is wrong?" Sophie took hold of her daughter's arms from behind and tried to drag her away. "Stop this."
    Finally she forced herself between the girl and the mirror. "I wish I could understand you."
    Her daughter stared at her blankly.
    "Come along. Mr. Strock will be waiting." Sophie hesitated in the doorway and looked back at the mirror. The wretched thing had come into the house about the time Sophie'd noticed the beginning of her daughter's unusual behavior. Could a mirror . . . ? No. And it'd been in the attic until yesterday. John brought it home as a wedding present and then in anger at Brandy's refusal to marry two years ago banished it to the attic. A mirror, no matter how ugly, was just that--a mirror.
    "Your new hat is downstairs. Nora's pressing the ribbons." Sophie put an encouraging arm around Brandy's shoulders and led her from the room. If her daughter were becoming gradually deranged, should she marry at all? What of any children? Sophie hoped they were doing right by Brandy. Not that it was much use trying to oppose John. . . .
    Shay, drained of fight and even fear, walked down the stairs beside Sophie.
    "Your father and Elton will bring your trunk. Here's your hat." She took a wide-brimmed bonnet with awful cloth flowers and a veil from Nora and tied it under Brandy's chin.
    "Trunk? Am I going somewhere?"
    "Of course. You're going to live with your husband. Don't be a silly goose and don't embarrass your father. He won't stand for much more."
    Numbly Shay digested the obvious, remembering how badly she'd wanted to leave the Gingerbread House when she was herself. But now this house was the only familiar thing this world had to offer . . . and the mirror. She clung to Brandy's mother, sending the bonnet askew. "I can't leave here."
    "We've forgotten your bag. I'll get it." Sophie disengaged herself and walked back up the stairs as if Shay hadn't spoken.
    Shay wandered into the dining room. Tingles like the bubbles in a Coke zinged under her skin, making her shiver in the heat. The mix-up in time happened here. Could the process be reversed if she left the house?
    The dining-room table was the same, the room less crowded than Rachael would decorate it.
    There was probably little use in protesting. Even Sophie was losing patience with her.
    She leaned down to gulp air from an open window. Dust coated the bottoms of lacy