“And one of his friends asked him what he meant, so the Bates boy started to tell him,
then stopped. He looked at the mirror very closely, pushing right up to the red velvet guard-rope around the case — then he looked behind him as if what he had seen had been the reflection of someone — of someone in black — standing at his shoulder. ‘It looked like a man,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t see the face. It’s gone now.’ And that was all.”
“Go on,” Spangler said. “You’re itching to tell me it was the Reaper — I believe that is the common explanation, isn’t it? That occasional chosen people see the Reaper’s image in the glass?
Get it out of your system, man. The National Enquirer would love it! Tell me about the horrific consequences and defy me to explain it. Was he later hit by a car? Did he jump out of a window?
What?”
Mr. Carlin chuckled a forlorn little chuckle. “You should know better, Spangler. Haven’t
you told me twice that you are… ah… conversant with the history of the Delver glass. There were no horrific consequences. There never have been. That’s why the Delver glass isn’t Sunday-supplementized like the Koh-i-noor Diamond or the curse on King Tut’s tomb. It’s mundane
compared to those. You think I’m a fool, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Spangler said. “Can we go up now?”
“Certainly,” Mr. Carlin said passionately. He climbed the ladder and pushed the trapdoor.
There was a clickety-clackety-bump as it was drawn up into the shadows by a counterweight,
and then Mr. Carlin disappeared into the shadows. Spangler followed. The blind Adonis stared
unknowingly after them.
The gable room was explosively hot, lit only by one cobwebby, many-angled window
that filtered the hard outside light into a dirty milky glow. The looking-glass was propped at an angle to the light, catching most of it and reflecting a pearly patch onto the far wall. It had been bolted securely into a wooden frame. Mr. Carlin was not looking at it. Quite studiously not
looking at it.
“You haven’t even put a dustcloth over it,” Spangler said, visibly angered for the first time.
“I think of it as an eye,” Mr. Carlin said. His voice was still drained, perfectly empty. “If it’s left open, always open, perhaps it will go blind.”
Spangler paid no attention. He took off his jacket, folded the buttons carefully in, and
with infinite gentleness he wiped the dust from the convex surface of the glass itself. Then he
stood back and looked at it.
It was genuine. There was no doubt about it, never had been, really. It was a perfect
example of Delver’s particular genius. The cluttered room behind him, his own reflection,
Carlin’s half-turned figure — they were all clear, sharp, almost three-dimensional. The faint
magnifying effect of the glass gave everything a slightly curved effect that added an almost
fourth-dimensional distortion. It was —
His thought broke off, and he felt another wave of anger.
“Carlin.”
Carlin said nothing.
“Carlin, you damned fool, I thought you said that girl didn’t harm the mirror!”
No answer.
Spangler stared at him icily in the glass. “There is a piece of friction tape in the upper
left-hand corner. Did she crack it? For God’s sake, man, speak up!”
“You’re seeing the Reaper,” Carlin said. His voice was deadly and without passion.
“There’s no friction tape on the mirror. Put your hand over it… dear God.”
Spangler wrapped the upper sleeve of his coat carefully around his hand, reached out, and
pressed it gently against the mirror. “You see? Nothing supernatural. It’s gone. My hand covers it.”
“Covers it? Can you feel the tape? Why don’t you pull it off?”
Spangler took his hand away carefully and looked into the glass. Everything in it seemed
a little more distorted; the room’s odd angles seemed to yaw crazily as if on the verge of sliding off into some unseen eternity. There was no dark spot in the mirror. It was flawless. He felt a
sudden unhealthy dread rise in him and despised himself for feeling it.
“It looked like him, didn’t it?” Mr. Carlin asked. Hi face was very pale, and he was