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THE PRETENDER is owned by MTM and other guys. This written for fun and not profit, and no infringement of copyright is intended. Please forgive.

Summary: It’s Halloween at the Parker residence. Decades before the present time. Or is it?



CHEVAL GLASS

by R.Schultz



At first I thought it was my enemy. He’s been inside my home before, so it wouldn’t be anything new. A shadow went by the space under the stairs, but there was no one. The thought of ghosts on Halloween was entirely too pat, which was why I decided to ignore it. If Mr. Parker or one of his sociopathological friends wanted to play games, I couldn’t stop them. It felt eerie, though.



In the bathroom I felt caresses on my neck and cheek. A whisper, another, in my ear. Fingers almost combing through my long hair. A sigh as if an arm brushing against a door. Skin against my bedspreads. Softness. Insistent. Demanding. Begging. Unheard words. This was going beyond weird.



I had... Much to do. No time to play games with whoever was causing this. It was Halloween. I had a very special duty.



I thought the voice said it loved me. It needed me. It cried for me. But every time I turned around, there was nothing there. No truth, only more lies feeding from my senses to my brain.



In the downstairs mirror there were two of me, and despite the bright light it was impossible to see which one was me. Long print dress, blue cloth coat with a fox-fur on the collar, skirt not going past the middle of my thighs, the smell of cigarette smoke. An exquisite pain as the figure in the mirror tried to hold on to the other figure. Which one was ghost I knew only because I was petrified. It was the stranger, the distant mirror image of me, trying to grasp me. Each clawing, tearing, rending causing pain without blood or marks.



I was haunted. This must be a joke, or a fantasy. But I gasped each time spectral hands tried to force me close to her. The other me. A ghost, almost able to touch. A phantom, almost able to cry to me of it’s pain. A terror which fade from my memory in the years to come, or even the hours.



I am strong. I will be stronger. I have a mission. Many missions. I will let nothing stop me. Too many depend on me.



Including the child by my side.



“Mama,” she complained, “you’re holding me way too too tight.”



A quick look upwards. “Did I do something wrong, Mommy?”



Kisses, a tickle touch of the ear, my own future in my arms, kissing her. The saying I recall is that one feels someone walking on their grave. The feeling is that this ghost wants to....help. Not to hurt, or scare, or prophesize. To hold and save.



Is that tears I see on that spectral me? Whatever odd clothes she might wear it is me standing alongside myself.



My daughter points at the one of us and then at the other. She is deeply confused. “Mommy? Which one is you? Do you have a sister, Mommy? Where is she? I can’t see her except in the mirror.”



The figure caresses my daughter with a light only love can give, she has a golden edge to herself as she caresses us with a quivering hand. Only Saint’s are supposed to have that sort of unearthly beauty and edge to them.



“Are you home?” It was Smitty, I recognized her voice, her own children fighting over who already had the most wealth. I looked back and it was just the two of us again. No more ghosts. The mirror was just painted glass again.



In minutes we were all walking to the station wagon out front. My daughter already dashing headlong and taking one of the back seats. Smitty had already mentioned I looked like I had seen a ghost. If only I dared tell her how correct she was. I am going blinky. I wasn’t going to tell her.



I noticed Smitty’s two girls comparing something which seemed all bright pastels and primary colors.



“Pokamoona,” Lee said. “No, you gotta pronounce it Poekeena-moon,” Shirley insisted.



“What is that?” I asked. They looked surprised. “There musta been a hundred of the things in that dish on your porch, and we thought you could tell us what it is,” Lee insisted.



“What dish?” I asked. Shirley raced back, going all the way up to the door, looking around. If she was pulling a prank she was quite convincing.



“See? There’s these little candies inside,” Lee showed me, tearing open one of the packages. Trust children to find candy wherever you go. I could see a dozen packets at least in the bottom of Lee’s bag. I had put no dish of anything on the porch. Squirrels would steal them all if I had.



“P-O-K-E-M-O-N. What the hell is that?”



“Watch your mouth around the children,”I reminded Smitty.



She looked at me. I knew immediately I was going to get it.



“You know, Miss Holy Mouth Mrs. Catherine Parker, I seem to recall a word or two you had to say when you found that Rat...”



“Mouse.”



“...that Mouse having hisself a nibble on your frankfurters week before last. And your little MISS Parker teaching them to my girls....”



“Okay, okay, sorry. I’d still like to know where that dish of candy went to?



“Why?”



“My daughter is going to throw a fit if she doesn’t get any of those pokealong candy packets before the night is over.”



I looked back at the house, another chill going up my spine. The ghost was back.



In the foyer a figure once more clouded the surface, or the depths, of the mirror. Indecently short skirt, red blouse half open, tracks of tears on her face.



A hand....for a moment....thrust out of the mirror. Now that a hole had been punched in the line of reality the glass represented, you could hear the voice of the ghost in the mirror.



There was all the pain of a world in that single word.



“Mama?”


end









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