Grey Eyes In Silver
GREY EYES IN SILVER
By Mark Knight
Copyright © 2012 by Mark Knight
All Rights Reserved.
GREY EYES IN SILVER
“Honey, come look at this...”
Penny made sure ten-month-old Luke was secure in his baby seat before emerging from the back of the car. Saturday morning was always the day of the Big Shop at the local way-too-big supermarket, and they both had the routine down pat. Get up early, check the shopping list, insert Junior in car, and then go. Usually, that’s all there was to it. But here was something different. Roy had seen something odd. She knew that before she even saw what it was.
“What is it?”
He pointed towards the skips. “There...”
Penny looked. Leaning up against one of the skips that had so dutifully served their apartment block for the past five years was a perfectly good mirror. Almost square, about four feet by three, and framed in solid natural mahogany.
“Who’s throwing that out?” she wondered aloud.
“One of the neighbours.” He grinned mischievously at his wife. “Easy pickings!”
Penny’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not saying we take it, are you?”
“It’s not as if it’s stealing! I mean, they threw it out. And look at it – it’s perfect. Anyway, who keeps saying that we need a nice big mirror in the bedroom...?”
Something for nothing, Penny thought to herself. That’s why he wants to take it – because it’s something for nothing! Roy was never big on vanity.
She sighed. A new mirror. It would be nice...
“All right,” she relented. “But late tonight, when no one is looking.”
* * *
It took almost all of their Sunday but they finally found the perfect place for the mirror. As it turned out, the bedroom wasn’t the best place. Their new looking glass just wasn’t the right shape for that particular room. A bedroom needs a full length mirror, Penny pointed out (hint, hint).
“Oh, yes,” breathed Roy, standing back. “It’s perfect!”
Indeed, the living room had needed something bright and new, and the new mirror over the mantle did the job. It made the room look bigger, and reflected light into even the most bashful of corners.
“It’s not going to bring us bad luck, is it?” said Pen.
Roy’s brow furrowed. “Only if you chuck the iron at it. Why do you say that, anyway? Because we took it?”
“It’s just...a feeling I have.”
“Oh, that.”
She tossed him an annoyed look. “You know I have these...intuitions. Call it whatever you want. Sixth sense.”
“How many times do I have to keep saying this, Pen – we didn’t steal it. Think of it like this: we gave it a good home.”
So it’s a puppy now, she thought.
Roy and Penny woke upon a Sunday morning so bright and cheery that they could have placed an order for it. The new mirror shot the early light around the living room illuminating things shiny and dusty alike. Still in her robe, Pen stood in front of the mirror with her mug of de-caf and admired the lovely new mirror. Or was it her reflection she was admiring? She smiled to herself. How Zen for so early in the morning!
“See?” said Roy, joining her with his own mug of full roast. “It was a fantastic idea. Just look at you.” He gazed upon her reflected face. “You look happier than I’ve seen you in ages.”
“It’s just a stupid mirror...”
He laughed. “I’ve never known a woman to regard any mirror as ‘stupid’!”
“Well, in any case, you look happy too. Very happy.”
He planted a kiss on her cheek. “That’s ‘cause it’s Sunday. We have nothing to do but relax.”
And it was at that precise moment that the baby started bawling in his crib.
Pen let her forehead fall gently upon her husband’s. “Too good to last. Will you so to him or shall I?”
“I’ll go,” he volunteered chivalrously, heading for the hall. “It sounds to me like he had another nightmare. I’m telling you, Pen, we have to see a doctor about this.”
“About nightmares?” she called after him. But no response.
After about a minute Roy appeared again, their howling son in arms. “Here he is,” he announced. “Our little bundle of joy.”
Pen stroked the child’s sweaty head. “Hey, sweetheart,” she said soothingly. “Did you have a bad dream again? Look – look at what we have...”
Taking her son in to her arms, she held him in front of the mirror.
Immediately the boy stopped crying.
“Who is that?” she asked him in a high-pitched voice. “Who is that in the mirror?”
As the child looked, a little smile spread across his face.
“Hey,” said Roy, smiling and folding his arms. “That’s cheered him up.”
Penny abruptly gasped. Whirling, she clamped her eyes upon the easy chair in the corner.
“Pen?” said Roy. “What’s the matter?”
For a breathless moment she couldn’t speak. She just continued to stare at the chair.
“I saw,” she began, “...I saw a woman sitting there.”
“In the easy chair? What woman?”
“An old woman. She was sitting up straight, hands folded in her lap, and smiling. Smiling at me.”
Roy was grateful that their son was not old enough to understand, or he would have become angry with her. What she was saying was, of course, absurd.
“It’s those Stephen King books you read at night,” came Roy’s diagnosis. “It’s affecting you. You’re seeing things.”
She glared at him. “I saw her, Roy. I didn’t imagine it.”
“Luke didn’t see anything...”
“I know he didn’t!” Or did he? Her son didn’t normally grin upon seeing his reflection. Had he seen the old woman too?
She didn’t have time for this. Fighting in front of their son was a thing of the past, when she had endured week after week of sickness following Luke’s birth.
“Maybe we’ve both been thinking too much about mirrors lately,” Roy postulated. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”