The Ghost in the Mirror Read online

  They went out to the kitchen and set up the board for backgammon. Mrs. Zimmermann brought out her special chocolate-chip cookies and made iced tea. Soon the two of them were deep in a game. Whenever Jonathan played backgammon or checkers, he used foreign silver and gold coins for counters. Mrs. Zimmermann contented herself with plain old red and black wooden checkers. She and Rose Rita pushed these around on the game board for a while.

  After some minutes of biting her lip and keeping her eyes on the game, Rose Rita asked in a strained voice, “When are . . . when are you leaving, Mrs. Zimmermann?” She did not look up from the board.

  “The day after tomorrow,” said Mrs. Zimmermann calmly. “I have a few more concerns to wrap up around here, and then I’m off.”

  “Will you be away for very long?” Rose Rita asked.

  Mrs. Zimmermann moved one of her red men on the board. “Oh, for ten days or two weeks, probably. I’ll be home in time to greet Weird Beard and Lewis when they return in August.”

  “Weird Beard” was Mrs. Zimmermann’s pet name for Jonathan Barnavelt. When Mrs. Zimmermann used the nickname, it was a sign that she was in good spirits. Rose Rita felt her muscles grow tense, the way they always did when she wanted something very much and was afraid she could not have it. “Mrs . . . . Mrs. Zimmermann?” she said, in a faltering voice. “Can . . . can I go with you?”

  The question astonished Mrs. Zimmermann. She hardly knew what to say, and it took her a while to collect her thoughts. Finally, she raised her eyes, and her gaze met Rose Rita’s. It was clear that Mrs. Zimmermann wanted company—a companion who would go with her on the long and hazardous journey that lay ahead of her. “If your parents will give you permission,” Mrs. Zimmermann said slowly, “I’d love you to come along. But there may be dangers. It may be as bad as our trip to Cousin Oley’s farm last summer, when old Gert Bigger nearly turned me into a chicken for life and tried to put you under a death spell. To be fair, I have to warn you beforehand.”

  Now, some people are worrywarts. Lewis was one of these. He was afraid of practically everything, and even when life was going well, he would dream up nonexistent dangers to fret about. It was funny, in a way, because once or twice Lewis had faced real danger with courage. On the other hand, little everyday problems flustered and frightened him.

  However, Rose Rita was not like Lewis at all. She saw danger more as a possible adventure than a threat. Despite Mrs. Zimmermann’s warning, she remained unruffled. Her level gaze met Mrs. Zimmermann’s. “If there’s trouble,” she said quietly, “I’ll share it with you. I’m your friend, through thick and thin.”

  Mrs. Zimmermann smiled warmly. “To the bitter end! We’ll see the bad times out and the good times in. Shake on that, Rose Rita Poet,” she said. “Very well! I’ll pick you up at eight A.M. sharp the day after tomorrow. Have your bags packed and ready to go. Okay?”

  The next day Rose Rita went to work on her parents. It didn’t actually take much persuading. Mrs. Pottinger thought that Mrs. Zimmermann was a solid, reliable person. Oh, she acted a bit stern, but that was normal for a retired schoolteacher. Mrs. Zimmermann’s no-nonsense air reassured Rose Rita’s mother. She knew that her daughter would not do anything rash while under her supervision. And although Mr. Pottinger had been known to call Mrs. Zimmermann “the town screwball,” Rose Rita could win her father around with a little pleading.

  And besides, as Rose Rita reminded her mother, this little excursion to Pennsylvania would be educational. It also would help make up for the European trip that she had missed because of her accident. And she wouldn’t have to put much strain on her weak ankle. It would be a car trip out to Someplace, Pennsylvania, and back again.

  Rose Rita’s parents thought it over. After telephoning Mrs. Zimmermann for a short conference, they agreed to let her go. In a whirlwind of activity, Rose Rita got ready.

  So, the day after that, Rose Rita stood waiting on her front porch with her black valise when Bessie, Mrs. Zimmermann’s green 1950 Plymouth, rolled up to the curb.

  “Hi, Rose Rita!” called Mrs. Zimmermann, waving from the open car window. “Are you ready to plunge off into the wilds of Pennsylvania with me?”

  Rose Rita grinned. This was the old devil-may-care, jaunty Mrs. Zimmermann. The apprehensive, anxious air was gone—everything would be all right. As her mother waved good-bye to her from the porch, Rose Rita stuffed her bag into the humped trunk of Mrs. Zimmermann’s car. She climbed in beside Mrs. Zimmermann and noticed a large, flat, rectangular package braced on the backseat. It was wrapped in brown paper and packing tape. “What’s that?” Rose Rita asked.

  “All in good time,” Mrs. Zimmermann responded. “Ready? We’re off!” In a cloud of exhaust smoke they roared away.

  All that July day they drove slowly through southern Michigan and into a corner of Ohio. Mrs. Zimmermann explained that she was in no real hurry. They would just enjoy the trip as they went along, and so they took their time.

  They ate at little roadside cafes and hamburger stands, and they spent nights in the most unlikely-looking tourist cabins Mrs. Zimmermann could find. Although Mrs. Zimmermann’s magic was mostly gone, her witchy sixth sense was still working, because they always found the accommodations good and the food tasty. Some nights they stayed up late listening to Detroit Tiger baseball games on the radio while Mrs. Zimmermann played solitaire.

  A couple of times when they unpacked for the night, Rose Rita asked Mrs. Zimmermann about the mysterious package. Mrs. Zimmermann always smiled and winked. “You’ll know when it’s time” was all she would say. She insisted on handling the wrapped package herself, and she always put it up on the highest shelf in the cabin. Then in the morning she would take it out to the Plymouth without ever letting Rose Rita so much as touch it. Mrs. Zimmermann’s mysterious teasing exasperated Rose Rita in a happy sort of way. It was a little like having Christmas packages wrapped and lying in plain sight, with no shaking allowed.

  Finally they came to the Cumberland Mountains in Pennsylvania. The Cumberlands are low mountains, covered with trees. Engineers have blasted long tunnels through them, and the tunnels are lined with whirring fans that suck out the exhaust smoke of the cars and trucks roaring through. The tunnels are lighted, of course, which makes them less spooky. Still, Rose Rita was always happy when she saw the glimmering crescent of light at the far end. It meant that another cavern in the mountains was almost past.

  The scenery around them began to change. They had been passing farms the whole way, but the farms of Ohio were like the ones in Michigan. Most of them grew corn and wheat, and tractors hummed out in the fields. The barns were red and steep roofed, and on their sides they bore painted advertisments for things like Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco. Once they reached the Cumberland Mountains of Pennsylvania, they drove past smaller farms with huge red barns that often had odd bright-colored decorations painted on their sides. These were usually circles, and in the circles were teardrops, five-pointed stars, hearts, flowers, or staring eyes. Mrs. Zimmermann explained that these were hex signs.

  Some Pennsylvania farmers were superstitious. Barns with seven hex signs painted on their sides supposedly warded off bad luck, like lightning or fire, and the evil spells of witches. Rose Rita wanted to know more. When they stopped for the night, she asked Mrs. Zimmermann to tell her about the farmers and their beliefs.

  It was the fourth evening of their trip. Rose Rita and Mrs. Zimmermann were staying at Deutschmacher’s Motel in the middle of the Cumberland Mountains. It was a starry night, and the mountains were great, dark, shadowy shapes on all sides. As they sat on the screened porch of their cabin, Mrs. Zimmermann talked about the Pennsylvania Dutch. “Don’t let the name fool you,” she said. “They are really Germans.”

  “Then why are they called Dutch?” Rose Rita asked, knowing that Mrs. Zimmermann expected the question.

  “The mistake occurred more than two centuries ago,” Mrs. Zimmermann explained. “Lots of German settlers came to Pennsylvania because i
t offered religious tolerance. They knew that much, although they didn’t know any English. The non-German frontiersmen knew only that their neighbors spoke a language they couldn’t understand. They misinterpreted the word Deutsch, which means “German.” The best that English tongues could do with such a strange word was Dutch, and so that is what they called the Germans. Anyway, the mistake stuck, and people call them the Pennsylvania Dutch to this day. They have their own folkways and superstitions and beliefs, like most close-knit groups. You’ll meet a few of them before this trip is over.”

  She went on to talk about Pennsylvania Dutch witch beliefs, about hexerei, or evil magic. Hex witches, male and female, often put enemies under curses, and sometimes the curses killed the victims. Mrs. Zimmermann explained that the first witch trial in Pennsylvania had occurred in 1683, when a Philadelphia court found a woman named Margaret Mattson not guilty of being a hex witch. The most recent one, she said, had taken place just two years ago, in 1949.

  She chatted away for most of an hour. These days, that was a long speech for Mrs. Zimmermann. Rose Rita was comforted by her friend’s display of useless knowledge, but later that evening she began again to feel anxious. Toward ten o’clock Mrs. Zimmermann started acting odd again. The mirrors in the tourist cabin appeared to fascinate her, and she peered into them as if she expected to see secrets hidden there. And more and more her eyes had that faraway look, as if she were seeing faces or landscapes or shapes that no one else could see.

  Tonight they were playing chess, but it wasn’t much fun, because Mrs. Zimmermann kept making stupid mistakes. In one game she gave her queen away for no reason at all. In another she conceded because she was two pawns and a knight behind. Usually Mrs. Zimmermann would fight to the bitter end, but tonight her playing was listless and mechanical. And every now and then a noise outside would startle her, and she would get up and rush out onto the front steps of the cabin. After looking wildly in all directions, she would come back, cough in an embarrassed way, and start playing chess again.

  These strange actions frightened Rose Rita, and more than ever she began to feel that something bad was going to happen. But whatever this something was, it remained hidden to her. Mrs. Zimmermann simply shrugged off all her questions. Rose Rita had to sit and wait.

  The next morning the two travelers had a big Penn Dutch breakfast in the motel’s dining room: pancakes and syrup and fat German sausages. Mrs. Zimmermann paid the bill. Then the two of them threw their bags into the car, Mrs. Zimmermann carefully replaced the mysterious package, and they were on the road again. They rambled slowly from one small town to another. In the afternoon Mrs. Zimmermann found a baseball game on the car radio. The Boston Red Sox were playing the Cleveland Indians. Every time the car went through a tunnel, the sound faded out, and there were a lot of tunnels. Rose Rita didn’t like them at all. She could not keep her mind on the game, even though it was an exciting one. The teams were tied 4–4, and the hard-fought contest went on and on through extra innings. Finally, in the sixteenth inning, Boston loaded the bases. Just as Clyde Vollmer came up to bat for the Sox, another tunnel loomed ahead. This one looked darker and more sinister than the rest. The painted sign over the stone arch said that the tunnel was one and one tenth miles long. To Rose Rita the entrance of the tunnel was forbidding—it might as well have been the yawning mouth of a tomb. She felt a tight knot in her stomach as Mrs. Zimmermann steered the car in with a weird smile on her face. The radio lost the signal, and the sound whispered away to static. On they drove, as the exhaust fans whirred overhead and the fluorescent lights pointed the way.

  Finally a glimmering light showed in the distance, and Rose Rita began to breathe more easily. Then, as they got closer to the other end of the tunnel, she began to realize that something was wrong—very wrong. The light was too bright and too white to be the ordinary sunlight of an ordinary July day. And then they burst out into a landscape of winter.

  Icicles hung from all the trees, and heavy snow covered all the mountains. The Plymouth crunched into a snowbank that was surely knee-deep. In a long, shivering jolt the car stopped dead still. With terror clutching her heart, Rose Rita looked behind her.

  Running along the cliff base, and stretching out before them, was a glittering, slippery, snow-covered track. It wound down the hillside ahead. It looked unpaved and was far too narrow to be called a road. Worst of all, the tunnel behind them had completely disappeared. There was only the forbidding, pitted stone face of the cliff. It was solid and unbroken, as if the tunnel had never existed at all.

  They were marooned in a strange enchanted world, a world that Rose Rita could not understand, a world where she instinctively felt that anything might happen.

  CHAPTER THREE

  With the Plymouth’s hood embedded in the snowbank, the engine sputtered and died, and for a few seconds all was silent. At a loss for words, Rose Rita looked around again at a landscape that was unquestionably pretty, but that was completely out of place. The day was hazy bright. The sun shone wanly through a high, icy layer of cloud, and the light reflected off the icicles and the drifts of snow. Then Mrs. Zimmermann said briskly, “Well, I certainly didn’t expect this! I only hope my poor car has survived the shock of going tobogganing.”

  Rose Rita stared at her friend in wonder. Didn’t Mrs. Zimmermann see what a mess they were in? Already the air inside the car felt chilly. The modern paved highway they had been driving on had vanished, and in its place was a country lane, narrow and unpaved and coated with ice. Yet Mrs. Zimmermann made a joke of their accident. She sounded as unconcerned as if they had only taken a wrong turn or if the car had blown a tire. Maybe Mrs. Zimmermann had really gone out of her mind. Rose Rita felt frightened, but she wasn’t the sort of person who usually panicked. For some reason Mrs. Zimmermann’s little jest really irritated her. She cried out, “Mrs. Zimmermann, this is weird. It’s scary, not some kind of funny story! Get us out of here!”

  After one startled glance Mrs. Zimmermann gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder and a reassuring smile, although it looked forced and strained. “Come on, Rose Rita. You’ve seen me fool around with magic enough to take in stride something as minor as an unscheduled change of weather. I’ll admit that finding a tunnel into the middle of winter isn’t an ordinary, everyday occurrence, but then neither is this an ordinary, everyday trip. We’re out looking for magic. Let me set Bessie to rights, and then I’ll explain what I think has happened to us.”

  She carefully started the Plymouth’s engine and then eased the car into reverse. As the engine raced, the wheels spun with a high whirring noise and the car rocked back and forth, but the hood did not budge from the snowbank. “Hmpf!” said Mrs. Zimmermann. “We need more traction. Let’s see what we can do.” They got out of the car. Mrs. Zimmermann stooped low to look at the rear wheels. Then she pointed to the side of the road, where piles of dead tree branches lay in a tangle under the shelter of the roadside firs. “Let’s get some of those and shove them under the rear tires. I once saw Jonathan get his antique car out of a similar predicament that way.”

  Already Rose Rita was shivering, and her teeth chattered from the cold, but being active helped her warm up a little. She trotted back and forth, helping Mrs. Zimmermann drag two dozen small branches across the road. Then they jammed the branches under the rear tires. Mrs. Zimmermann nodded and said, “That ought to do it. Let’s try again now.”

  The car felt warm after the icy chill outside. Mrs. Zimmermann started the engine and again put the car into reverse, but this time she was careful to apply the gas gradually. Bessie slowly began to move, crunching over the dead wood with a loud crackling sound. Once the car had moved over the branches, it hesitated for a moment. Rose Rita caught her breath. She was afraid the car would slip back down the hill. Then the rear tires got a better grip on the icy surface and pulled them back onto the lane as a few clumps of snow fell from the fenders, front bumper, and grille.

  “Very good,” Mrs. Zimmermann said, sounding r
elieved. “Now we have to get to the bottom of the hill in one piece. And I think we’ll turn on the heater too.” The path in front of them led downward, not very steeply, but it wound as it descended the hill. The Plymouth edged forward slowly, and they passed the flattened black tree branches and the gouge in the snowbank that the hood had made. The engine was already warm and the heater began to blow toasty air against their legs. With a little sigh of contentment Mrs. Zimmermann said, “There! Now let’s see if we can get to civilization, and once we’re safe, I’ll tell you where and when we are.”

  “When we are?” Rose Rita asked. The phrase did not exactly throw her, because she had read about time travel before, in H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. She immediately grasped what Mrs. Zimmermann was implying, although she could not believe it. “You mean we’re in a different year?”

  “Do you think this is 1951?” Mrs. Zimmermann said tensely as she tried to guide the automobile down the icy hillside. She had a little frown of concentration on her face, and her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. The Plymouth had picked up speed. Then all at once it began to swerve in an unpleasant way. As the tires slipped, Mrs. Zimmermann spun the wheel first one way and then the other, and then she said, “Whoops—hold on!”

  The car had gone into a downhill skid. Bessie slipped right off the left side of the lane with a tooth-rattling bounce and kept going. It felt like a ride on the Alpine Adventure, the roller-coaster that came to the New Zebedee athletic fields with the Capharnaum County Agricultural Fair every fall. Rose Rita didn’t quite close her eyes as the car plowed into a dense, snowheaped clump of rhododendron with a scrape of branches on metal. Abruptly they plunged from thin wintry sunlight into spooky, silent darkness as the car skidded into the very center of the thicket. For a second time the engine coughed, clattered, and died.