The Dickens Mirror by Ilsa J. Bick Read Free Book Online Page A

he’s such an interesting character; let’s torture him some more
.
    There’s a sudden crack, like the snap of a branch, and a jump of pain. Winking against the sting of salt, he stares at his hand, then at the mirror and the red splotch on that kid’s cheek.
Slapped myself
. He just
hit
himself! Had he meant to do that? Or did the crazy lady at the typewriter just put that in for kicks?
    Stop this, stop this!
Laughter gurgles in his chest, but he’s afraid to start, worried he won’t stop until he’s clawing out his eyes and eating them like gumdrops.
Get a grip
. He grits his teeth and welcomes the ache in his jaw. He tastes copper.
That’s real
. He tongues the small rip in his cheek.
I feel that. It hurts. I can taste my blood, and no one wrote that. I did that to myself
.
    Unlesss
 … Unless someone wrote that he ought to do it. Unless the crazy lady at the typewriter’s talking to her cat:
Oh, this is good, this is great, bwahahaha, go on, slap yourself. Take
that,
Tony
.
    Which might happen if he truly
isn’t
real.
    “This is crazy,” he says, and spits, the foamy red gob splatting like a squished mosquito. “Your mom is dying and you’re freaked, and that’s all. Hacker’s the one who’s only ink on crappy paper that you picked up from a drugstore.”
    But when did he buy this? He picks up the comic, listens to the rustle of paper.
That’s real. It’s got pages
. Flipping back to the table of contents—cheap, pulpy paper fanning past so that whatever’s printed there is a blur—he looks for the date. It’s there, solid and in black letters.
Okay, okay, this is good
. He says it out loud, feeling the words full and heavy and
real
in his mouth: “April. April, 1983.”
    Okay. Doesn’t matter if he can’t remember the exact date he tugged the comic from its rack. (Who pays attention to crap like that? No one.) But he’d done that in April, and now, it’s the week before Christmas. Which means December.
That’s right. Christmas happens in December, on …
He has to close his eyes and
think think think. Don’t freak don’t freak don’t freak
 …
    “The twenty-fifth!” he blurts. “Twenty-five. Thirty days have September, April, June, and November … Jesus.” In themirror, sweat pearls his reflection’s upper lip. “What’s the date, Tony?” he asks that other kid. “Come on, it’s not a trick question. What is
today
, right
now
?”
    The other kid doesn’t reply. His own head is blank, except for that same phrase:
    it’s the week before Christmas
.
    A slow shudder slithers the rungs of his spine.
Easy, take it easy. Think
. His gaze settles on the silvered plastic of his Sony transistor.
The radio
. He
snicks
it to life, thinking,
Yeah, there’s a DJ. He’ll tell me the weather and the time and the …
    And it’s still Michael Jackson.
3
    NO . HIS THROAT catches and knots.
It’s still … it’s … the song’s the sa—
    You try to screeeeam
. Michael holds the note an impressive four beats. Again. And then he goes on about terror … but, Jesus, Ol’ Michael doesn’t know the half of it.
    This is also when
he’d
 … tuned in?
Faded
in? Awakened in this bathroom, doing the same thing in the same exact way and sequence in a day he’s already been through over and over again and only
thinks
he’s living for the first time? Because someone cracked the book of his life and this is the page where they started? Or they’ve started from the very beginning, page one, chapter one—where and when
he’s
not—and now reached the point in the book where he—the character named
Tony
— finally shows up?
    Get out of here. Go to school. Just …
Slotting his toothbrush into Snoopy’s red roof, he turns like a little robot boy andreaches for the knob with stiff, robot-boy fingers.
    And then he pauses.
4
    SAY HE’S THE cat or a character or a boy or whatever the hell he is. The second he pushes from this bathroom—cracks this particular box or book—a