Forty-four
Joyce appeared and blocked his way when he turned back to the
cabin. She stood between him and his son. "Either you listen to us, or
David dies."
"You're one of David's old horror movies brought to
live," John said bitterly. “Under other circumstances, you’d be funny.”
"Kiki needs your help."
He glanced back toward the water's edge. Kiki
had collapsed face down into the mud. He hadn’t heard her fall.
"Don't let her suffocate," Joyce said.
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
John backtracked, dropped to his knees, and rolled
the woman onto her back. A bubble of muddy water came out her nose. She
barely breathed. Her skin felt like ice.
"She is dying," Joyce said. "Marlene may be able to
heal her. She needs your help to do so."
John rejected the plea in a heartbeat. "Don't play
stupid games with me."
"The mirror can repair her injuries. We sense it is
within the realm of possibility to return her physically to your world.
The attempt must be made."
"What injuries?"
"A lethal overdose of medication. Kiki wants to
die."
John gazed down at the pale body and thought about
what Joyce was asking. He couldn't picture himself feeding the helpless
woman to the mirror. "It's obscene. I won't do it."
He gently slapped at Kiki’s ice cold cheek,
calculating her chances for survival if he radioed Gene for a paramedic
team. A chopper with pontoons could set down on the water at their
doorstep. He had no idea whether or not one was available.
John looked up at the apparition. "Why is Marlene
doing this?"
"Because she needs to be able to heal. You cannot
function without your hand, and David is dying. Marlene has no place in
this world without you. She must try to heal you both.”
"So, Kiki is our guinea pig, to see if it can be
done.” John tried and failed to hold back his loathing and outrage.
"Kiki has nothing to lose.
She did this to herself. With us, she will at
least survive."
John was torn between a feeble hope born of utter
despair and giving in to madness without end.
"Give Kiki to us, John."
He shook his head furiously. "Marlene could have
walked Kiki directly to the mirror. Why are you making me do this?”
"Kiki was intended as a gift of hope to you. A
conditional gift. The condition is a simple one. You must believe that
those taken by the mirror are still alive.”
"A gift? You're talking about a living sacrifice!"
John opened one of Kiki's eyelids with a forefinger,
and then the other. Her pupils were uneven and dilated, her heart beat
irregularly, and her respiration was dangerously shallow.
"She is a child, John. Please don’t let her die.”
It was Marlene's disembodied voice that spoke now.
"She has been robbed of her life. All the years
that remained to her have been destroyed. All of the happiness possible
to her has been wasted."
And death was no choice at all. John understood that
all too well.
Without further argument, he hauled the limp body
from the ground with his one good hand and ducked a shoulder beneath her
arm. Slick with mud, Kiki twice slipped from his shoulders before he
found the right balance. He then made his way up the slope to where Gene
had discarded the sphere. He found in its place a large pool of
reflectivity and an image of fast-moving clouds in a deep blue sky.
Nothing was said as he squatted alongside the mirror
and let the body slip from his shoulders. It was like dropping her
through a hole in the ground. With a stab of guilt, he watched her vanish
from sight.
The red silk dress surfaced.
John waited.
Joyce spoke several minutes later, her voice a
whisper.
"We have failed."
"Why?" he said blandly. "Why did you fail?"
"We were unable to isolation her. She became a part
of us and we cannot give her up."
An image snapped into focus before him. John rose
slowly to his feet, awestruck by the now radiant beauty of the young Asian
girl. Her red satin dress glimmered like fire in the gathering light.
"But we discovered in the attempt that it is possible to give a part of
ourselves back to your world," Kiki said in a soft, lightly accented
voice. "Watch the mirror and see for yourself."
John glanced down at the mirror. A moth emerged. It
paused on the surface of the mirror, flexed its wings, and then fluttered
into the warming morning air. The mirror then morphed back into the shape
of the black sphere.
John scoffed. "A moth? That's it?"
"Your living sacrifice," Kiki said. "We had to give
up a part of our very soul to prove to you that we spoke the truth."
John could almost, but not quite believe.
“We only ask for your understanding,” Kiki said.
"If I stick my hand in the mirror, can you fix it?"
"The mirror makes structural repairs of all specimens
it takes, John. The repairs are made on the level of pure information.
It would repair your hand. It would repair David's heart. But we need to
be able to release you after the mirror has accepted you as a
specimen. That is far more difficult.”
John held back a surge of haunting desire, the
desperate wish that it could be so. His hand, and then David’s heart. A
startling thought occurred to him, a profoundly haunting notion.
He spoke without looking up at Kiki. "Can Marlene
return to the world in that manner?"
Kiki hesitated before answering. "We have genetic
records of the patterns of all the specimens the mirror has taken. We
have no record of Marlene's pattern. She cannot be returned to flesh she
did not possess."
"Then my wife is dead," John said. "A simulation
can't take her place.”
"You don't understand."
"Do we disagree on what it means to be dead?" John
said with a touch of exasperation.
"To be dead or alive is a matter of reference in
time, John."
"I've had enough of the metaphysics," John said
softly. "It doesn't help."
Kiki vanished.
John wondered if this was the way he wanted it. It
wasn't, but neither did he have any choice but to accept it.
The mirror had failed.
