Page 63 of Mirrors of the Past

‘Laurie.’ She shook her head. ‘If Viola keeps popping in to see me, it makes sense that he came to see you. But he’s my crush. I’m actually jealous.’

Ryan blinked and looked at her in astonishment. He realised, though, that she had actually been joking. He felt himself relax a little. ‘You’re welcome to him.’

Tegan sat down on the bottom step. Cautiously, he sat next to her, the hatbox between them. ‘So, what else is in there?’ she asked after a moment. ‘And more to the point are we safe to look?’

‘Like I said. Some old costumes that would look good in the display. Next to blown-up pictures of the photos they relate to. And a random old hand mirror.’

‘A hand mirror. I think they used to play games at Halloween with mirrors, you know. I did it myself when I was a kid.’

‘You know more about it than me then.’

‘Hmm. Can I see it, at all?’

It was an odd sort of request. They’d just been chased by ghosts and she wanted to look at a mirror.

And not actually leave Pencradoc and whatever might be floating around in that ballroom? What if it followed them?

But Tegan didn’t seem open to the fact this was an option, and Ryan didn’t dare question the wisdom of that request. He understood perfectly that sometimes distraction was the best thing to do. And he would just have to pray the ghosts would remain where they’d left them . . .

‘Sure.’ He tried not to think about that odd mist, and opened the hatbox, the photo album looking innocuous now, then handed her the mirror.

‘Thanks.’ She took it and held it up in front of her. The lights had been dimmed in the hallway for closing time and it was quite dark by now outside, being the beginning of October, but from somewhere up the stairs it seemed, a shaft of light glinted off the glass surface and reflected back on her face. For a moment, Tegan looked unlike herself and Ryan felt a shiver of unease.

‘Tegan?’ he asked. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ She lowered the mirror and looked at him. ‘I can see I’m getting a spot on my chin, but beyond that . . .’ She shrugged. ‘They used to walk up the stairs backwards with these things, you know. Supposed to show you the person you’re going to marry. And there was candlelight. Usually.’

‘Gotta love a bit of folklore,’ he said wryly. ‘If you don’t mind contravening health-and-safety guidelines.’

‘It would have been fun, though.’ She stood up and again he got that flash of someone else’s face overlaying hers. ‘Look. Just like this.’

And before he could stop her, she held the mirror up in front of her face again and began to walk carefully backwards up the stairs, her gaze fixed on the mirror.

‘Tegan, I don’t think—’

But she held up her other hand as if to silence him and continued to walk. Her eyes definitely didn’t look like Tegan’s eyes and Ryan started to panic a little.

‘Tegan, that’s dangerous. Look, if you fall, it’s your own fault. I’m not picking you up off the floor . . .’

Then a couple of things happened at once.

Obviously, because she was being ridiculously stubborn and carrying out a stupid manoeuvre, she stumbled, but at the same time she stumbled, she yelled out in surprise, ‘You! What are you doing behind me?’

And then, seemingly, she missed her footing while trying to recover from the stumble and ended up in a tangled, tripping heap that slithered down the stairs.

Ryan flew up the steps two at a time and managed to catch her before she actually fell properly and ended up on the floor. Her weight and momentum had them both stumbling down the last few stairs, but finally he managed to set her on her feet again at the bottom.

He had never been this close to her before, even if they’d held hands briefly a few minutes ago. That was completely different to holding her around her waist, somehow pulling her a little closer as she looked up at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes asking so many questions. He felt her hands settle on his shoulders, almost pulling him down to meet her.

He was, he suddenly realised, way too close for comfort. But even so, he found himself tilting his head down towards her, looking in her eyes, wondering exactly what it would be like to kiss her, wondering exactly why he’d left it so long . . .

Then he blinked and dragged himself back to reality. He took his hands away from her waist, forced himself to paste a scowl on his face and said, ‘I told you so. You could have broken your neck.’

Tegan seemed to come back to life at the same time. Quickly, she moved her hands from his shoulders and shifted her footing so she was planted more squarely on the floor.

‘What I don’t understand, then,’ she said, with another touch of that sparkiness, ‘is, if it was so dangerous and unadvisable, how or why you snuck up behind me and got yourself right there at the top of the stairs! And then looked in my mirror! You must have known it would startle me!’

‘Exactly!’ said Ryan. ‘I know it would have been dangerous, if I had done a trick like that. But I promise you. I didn’t. I’ve been right here, all the time. Ready to catch you if you bloody fell down the stairs!’