The Woman in the Mirror

“Was it me, or was that waiter hitting on you?” joked Rachel Kingsley to her best friend and birthday-girl Elizabeth Patterson as they walked into the well-established Patterson residence.

Liz blushed, “He was just being nice; it was my birthday.”

Katy Marshall, the last of the cheerleader-trio, finished off her yogurt. “Oh no girlfriend, he was totally hitting on you.”

“Except he’s like a Wildcat… totally a ‘no’,” remarked Liz. The Eastern Randolph Wildcats were the long-running rivals of the Union Pines Vikings – a rivalry that could never be broken.

“And you know he’s a Wildcat how?” asked Rachel, suspecting that a violation had occurred.

“He’s their quarterback; I kept my eyes opened at the game last night, but I didn’t touch.”

Katy sighed and fell onto Liz’s bed. “So now what?” The room was empty of any party entertainment.

“Where’s the cake and ice cream?” joked Rachel.

“Erik was supposed to pick that up… but of course, failure. He was probably playing some video game.” Liz and her friends rolled their eyes at her twin brother’s incompetence.

“Is he here?” she asked.

“No, he’s working on his car at Bob’s Shop.”

“That junk heap place… at least he’s not here to stare at me.” Katy sighed in relief and propped her head up on a pillow. “So really, now what?”

“Well,” Liz drug out the word with reluctance, “there is this one thing I read about… you conjure this spirit that will grant you three wishes, any three wishes. That’s one for each of us.”

Katy and Rachel exchanged looks. “Do you mean witchcraft? Liz, we don’t do that.”

“I know! But think about it! We could wish our way out of this hellhole; c’mon, Cameron, North Carolina, population not even two-hundred, not even on a state map. We have to go to every other town around here to get something, and the most famous people from here are two wrestlers? I can’t stand it!”

Katy nodded solemnly, “I would hate to die without leaving Cameron.” She glanced at her friends. “Let’s do it!”

“Okay, we’ll do it in my parents’ bathroom…” Liz started but was interrupted by Rachel.

“Bathroom?”

“It involves mirrors, so bathroom! And a candle… I’ll get the candle and meet you in the bathroom.” With that, Liz left the room while Katy and Rachel descended the stairs and into the master bath of the Patterson home.

There the two waited nervously. “What will you wish for?” Katy asked Rachel.

“To not die painfully. You know, like those CSI shows, and how they’re butchered or boiling in a bathtub of hot water. It’s really gross and disgusting, and I don’t want to be dead and bloated.”

“Yeah,” Katy agreed, shuddering at the images in her mind.

Soon, Liz reappeared hold a candle and a lighter. “When we chant, we hold hands, spin counterclockwise three times, and chant a new line each time, in sync. I believe in Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary come to me, Bloody Mary I got your baby. Got it?”

“I got your baby? What happened to her?” asked Rachel, becoming jittery by the second.

“Well, the story goes that a hundred years ago, a butcher named Daniel Worth along with his wife Mary owned this little butcher shop in New York City. As several residents of the couples’ neighborhood began to disappear, police researched and found that Daniel had butchered humans, such as new immigrants: Jews and Italians and all that, to sell at his store. The young baby of the Worths was taken from the family, and in anger Mary butchered her own husband. Mary was tried and hanged, but her neck didn’t break and she died of suffocation.”

“That’s horrible,” moaned Rachel. “Won’t she be a little pissed? Why would she grant wishes?”

“Only to girls… she likes girls, hate men,” assured Liz.

“Are you sure?” asked Katy, holding her arms protectively around her waist.

“Trust me.” Liz put the lit candle in the center of the floor and turned off the lights. The girls took each others’ hands and began to slowly spin around the candle.

“I believe in Bloody Mary.” The room seemed to grow a little darker, the very air thinning.

“Bloody Mary come to me.” The air was so thin that the girls felt their throats closing, and the words were hard to croak out.

“Bloody Mary I got your baby!” The air became breathable again, like a fresh gust of air sweeping deep into their lungs. The room became illuminated; the candle burned brighter than before. Then, nothing happened.

“Did we do something wrong?” whispered Rachel, her knees trembling to the point of almost buckling. She was gasping for the clean, fresh air.

“Sh!” silenced Liz. “You hear that?”

A mounting wail seemed to come from the mirror, followed by the rumbling of faucets turning on. Blasts of red water poured into the bathtub, sinks, and showers, overflowing and covering the floor with a thin layer of – “Oh my God! That’s blood!” shrieked Katy who attempted to raise her shoes from the sticky, coppery substance.

Rachel began screaming hysterically as random scars appeared on her face and arms. “What’s happening to me?” she cried and began scratching the already bleeding wounds.

“Stop it Rachel! You’re making it worse” cried Liz, trying to yell over the piercing wail and tugging at her friend’s sleeve to snap her out of her trance.

Katy froze in terror as her eyes landed on the bathroom mirror. Bodiless heads of people unknown surrounded their reflections, and those reflections soon morphed into something much worse – a gray, loose-skinned body with blood spattered white hair, yellow teeth and claws, and bulging red eyes: Bloody Mary. In her apron she carried a blood-soaked cleaver and a butcher’s knife, and around her neck she carried a torn hanging-noose. “Liz…Liz…” whispered Katy frantically as the demonic phantom slowly floated toward the girls with her fangs bared and her claws outstretched. “Liz!” she grabbed her friend and pulled her toward the door, leaving Rachel doubled over, grasping at her rope-burned throat. As Liz and Katy reached the door, Bloody Mary reached Rachel, ruthlessly clawing at her face, knocking her to the ground…

Liz and Katy were down the stairs and out the door before they saw anymore.

“She was chopped into pieces and tossed into the bathtub,” Liz whispered, holding her head in her hands.

“Is that why it’s closed casket?” asked Erik. For him, inappropriate humor was his security blanket. If he laughed at a funeral it was because he was trying not to cry. Men do not cry in Carolina.

“Shut up Erik! It’s not funny! It’s my fault she’s dead!” she yelled and turned away from him.

Katy moved her eyes from the freshly dug grave in Memorial Park Cemetery to Erik as he asked his next question. “What do you mean it’s your fault?”

“We summoned Bloody Mary,” Katy replied – her voice cold and monotone.

“Bloody Mary? Are you crazy?” screamed Erik. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I was told she granted wishes to girls. How was I to know?”

“Maybe by the name Bloody Mary?”

Katy scowled at the one boy who had had a crush on her since middle school. “None of us knew Liz; we were stupid,” she reassured her friend.

“Come on, we got to get away from here. I’m in the mood for Chinese… Chinese good?” Erik interrupted, grabbing his sister’s arm and leading her to the black 1970 Pontiac GTO they had come in.

“Whatever,” she mumbled in response. The three loaded into the car and drove the twenty minute trip to Carthage in total silence except for the radio.

At Peking Wok, Katy excused herself from the despondent table and went to the restroom. “What have we done?” she asked herself in the mirror. “We’ve unleashed a monster.” A lone woman walked out of the stall and gave Katy a strange look as she walked by. “Yeah, what are you looking at?” she snapped, and the woman froze as she turned to respond.

Katy’s head instinctively turned to follow the woman’s frozen stare and screamed as the terrible nightmare came tearing forward. Before the demoness could escape, Katy punched the mirror breaking it into a thousand infinitesimal pieces.

“What…” gasped the woman, but she was on the floor before she could finish the question.

Katy retracted her bloodied hand from the mirror and cradled it against her stomach. “Lady? Lady?” she asked. “Oh God… Hey! Somebody call 911!” she bellowed as she stormed through the door and into the restaurant. “There’s a woman in here that passed out!”

The waiters and cooks in the back began to make a racket as they ran in dismay to the restroom in order to check on the woman and called for an ambulance. Katy was distracted when Erik and Liz rushed to her. “What happened? Why are you bleeding?”

“She came at me, in the bathroom, so I punched the mirror so she couldn’t get through,” Katy was panting heavily as the blood from her wrist covered her white shirt.

“It worked?” asked Erik, taking out a do-rag from his pocket and gingerly wrapping the wrist.

“I’m still alive.” She flinched at the pain as he worked.

“She’s dead!” shouted one of the workers from the restroom. “What did you do to her? What happened?” The roar from the crowd was mutinous, and everyone stared at Katy like she was the murderer.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” whispered Liz. They rushed out of the restaurant to the neighboring pharmacy and doctored her hand.

“How’s the hand doing?” asked Moore Hardy, Katy’s boyfriend and captain of the Viking’s football team. Katy was driving down Union Church Road toward their high school with one hand, the other bandaged to the point of uselessness.

“It’s okay, just a little soap-wet floor accident at Peking Wok.” She hated lying, but how could she tell the best all-around guy at school that she had unleashed a murdering demon?

“You should sue for physical and mental trauma,” he joked. His dashing good looks made Katy smile even through all the pain.

“Yeah right, where’s a good lawyer in this neck of the woods?” Her bandaged hand tempted to display the trees on either side of the road but it was undoable.

“Fayetteville?” he quickly replied. They always had to rely on Fayetteville, or at most Raleigh.

“Screw it.” Katy checked in the rearview mirror to make a lane change and screamed. The demon stood on the other side causing Katy to tear frantically at the reflection; Moore attempted to grab the steering wheel as the car swerved over the road, and Katy tried to yank the mirror off its holder, but it was to no avail. The Grand Prix smashed into a tree and the young quarterback went through the window shield while Katy’s face disappeared in the airbag.

“Miss? Miss? Are you okay?”

Katy slowly opened her eyes to a paramedic with a flashlight shining in her eyes. “What happened?” she moaned, cradling her head with her uninjured hand.

“You ran off the road and hit the Old Oak; you’re lucky to survive.” The paramedic put the flashlight back into his bag, took her uninjured hand from her head, and commenced taking her pulse.

“Moore! What happened to Moore?” she shouted, but she knew. The body bag was being loaded into the back of an ambulance in the near distance.

“Your friend didn’t make it ma’am,” he replied soothingly, but it had a subtle tone of coldness; he had seen plenty of deaths before.

Blood-stained tears trickled down her cheek as she crawled out of the car. “I have to go…” she whispered. “I have to tell his parents…” The scene was too surreal for her. It was bad enough that Rachel had died. Then woman at Peking Wok who had died of fright, while a complete stranger, troubled her. But now Moore?

“We’re calling his parents… where do you need to go?”

“216 Cranes Creek Road…” That was the Hardy residence, and the paramedic knew it.

“Ma’am, I believe you should go home. Can you give me an address? We’ll send you home.” No matter how soothing the voice was, nothing could calm Katy down. She was on the verge of hysteria.

“What if she’s there?” Katy shrieked. “She could be waiting on me!” Her bloodied hand grabbed the paramedic’s shirt tightly, and for once the man seemed frightened.

“Who?” he tentatively asked, his hand slowly reaching for Katy’s wrist.

“Mary! Mary Worth! She killed Rachel!”

He successively wrenched himself free of Katy’s strong grasp and backed away a few paces. He viewed her with genuine concern and signaled for the assistance of an officer and another medic. “I’m sure she did… an address ma’am…”

“410 Swallowtail Lane,” she reluctantly said, her head hanging down at an awkward angle.

“Thank you,” his voice resolute and happy to have the crazed girl off his hands. They helped her into an ambulance where she was taken to her house.

“Becca?” Katy called as she entered the empty house, the white and orange ambulance driving away behind her. “Thorpe? Thorpe, you here boy?” A bark from the living room answered her and was followed by a colossal German Shepherd galloping to meet her in the foyer. “Hey there boy… let’s call Liz.” Katy pulled out her cellphone and pressed her ‘1’ on speed dial. Soon it was answered by a voice she was not expecting: Erik’s. “Erik? Where’s Liz? Why do you have her phone?” Katy was fearing the worst, and the drugs they had given her in the ambulance were fighting to take control and send her to Cloud Nine.

“She’s in Sanford at church talking with the pastor; I think it will do her good. What’s wrong?” Even over the phone Erik could sense the awkward change in Katy’s usually perky voice.

“Moore’s dead… Mary came at me while I was driving, and we hit a tree… he’s dead Erik, he’s dead, he’s dead…” Tears began flowing as she dropped to the corner of the house’s foyer.

“Where are you?”

“Home,” she sighed.

“I’m coming over.”

“No… it’s alright…” She attempted to stand again, but landed even harder than the first time.

“No, I’m coming.” He hung up the phone and within minutes he was on her doorstep, followed by her sister Becca. “Everything okay since we’ve talked?” Erik asked.

Katy was still scrunched in the corner with her arms around Thorpe’s shaggy neck. “Yeah, yeah, fine, fine…” she was barely conscience and her eyes kept rolling backwards.

Thirteen-year-old Becca knelt next to her sister, “What happened Katy?”

Erik put his hand on her shoulder, “She was just in a car crash; Moore’s… he’s gone…”

With that, Katy burst into tears again, and Becca hugged her tight. “It’s okay Katy; everything will be okay.”

“No, it won’t! The beast is out! We’re all damned!”

With that the door slammed shut and the shudders on the window closed. The lights in the house went out and the ominous wail rose again. “What’s happening?” shrieked Becca.

“She’s here,” came Katy’s cold reply.

Erik jerked her up by her shoulders and thrust his own shoulder into the door in an attempt to break it down. “Damn it! Come on!” He dragged Katy by the arm into the living room with Becca and Thorpe close behind.

“Going so soon?”

The three looked up to see the spectral image of Bloody Mary hovering on the chandelier high above them. Erik quickly reached into his side pocket and whipped out his switchblade, but this only caused the demoness to laugh.

“You think that mortal weapon will work on me?”

Erik grabbed a nearby end table and chunked it at the large patio window. “Go!” he screamed at Becca. She grabbed her sister and ran through the hole he made. Erik followed them.

“Come on Thorpe!” shouted Katy as her sister dragged her from the house, but the dog was wildly barking at Mary.

Becca glanced back, and Katy had to cover her sister’s eyes as the ghost swept down and dissevered their family pet.

“Where are we going?” Katy finally panted out to Erik.

“Somewhere without reflections.”

“And where’s that? You’re house? That’s where it all started!”

“I’m thinking the woods… there’s nothing there… we’ll head out past Cranes Creek Road…”

Katy bit her lip but said nothing; that was Moore’s road.

“What… what was that thing?” asked Becca.

“Bloody Mary,” answered Erik as he led the girls through backyards to the woods.

“As in the myth you tell to little elementary kids to scare them?”

“Obviously it’s not a myth,” answered Katy. “She doesn’t answer wishes.”

“Wishes? People are dying because you wanted wishes?” Becca screamed.

They stopped while they waited for a car to pass. “I have to get out of this town Becca… I want to go somewhere… New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Sydney Australia even! Not Cameron, North Carolina!” The car passed and they crossed into the woods.

“So, Rachel is dead because you want to see the world? Moore is dead because you want to move to New York? My dog just got butchered because you needed to move on?” Becca yelled.

“Shut up Becca!” yelled Katy, tears streaming down her face. “I feel awful, okay?” The tears flowed freely because her uninjured hand was in Becca’s firm grasp.

Erik paused with his fingers on his temples. “Do you hear that?”

Katy closed her eyes. “The wail… there is not a single mirror out here… where the hell is she coming from?”

He turned to face her when the creature exploded from the large tear on her cheek. Katy screamed and fell onto the ground as Mary rushed at Becca. The young girl attempted to run, but tripped over an above-ground root. Erik pulled Katy away further in the woods as before her eyes her own sister was ripped to shreds.

“How stupid can I be?” whispered Katy as she and Erik sat under an oak tree deep in the woods, her face whipped free of any tears. “Why would I risk it over something so selfish?”

“You weren’t the only one…” He had to keep her from crying otherwise he was a goner. Bloody Mary was keeping Katy alive for a reason he was unsure of, except for the enjoyment of torturing a normally good-natured cheerleader.

“But I’m totally self-centered!” she put her head on his shoulder. “I’m such a prick.”

“You’re not a prick… and don’t start crying… no spit, no tears, no water whatsoever!” he over exaggerated everything with hand gestures.

She smiled at his enthusiasm. “How do we get rid of her?”

Erik leaned his head on hers without answering. “We’ll find out in due time,” he whispered.

“You sound like you’re holding something back.” Did Erik know something she did not?

He leaned forward to look her in the face. “I’m not, except the urge to…”

She grinned, “Kiss me?”

“Yeah.” He had to grin back, whether it was the drugs making her delusional or his plan to make her forget everything was working, he did not know nor care because there were no tears.

“How long have you had a crush on me?”

“You stole my heart when Eddie Veder was King…” he attempted to sing the Bowling for Soup song.

She laughed. “Want to know a confession? I love Bowling for Soup.”

“What? Jaret Reddick invading your Ryan Cabrera world?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” She kissed Erik’s cheek. “Thanks for everything.”

He grinned. “It’s all good… so what else would you have wished for?”

“We were only going to do one wish each, but I would probably wish for Kelly Clarkson’s voice. I love singing, but I don’t have the skill. What would be your wishes?”

“Have enough luck to get me to LA, and to have a date to prom.”

“Oh,” she blushed, “I think I can help you with one of those.”

“And if I practice the guitar a little more, I could help you with your first wish.”

An awkward moment of silence passed, but it was broken by Katy. “What do you fear most?”

He shook his head. “It’s weird… I’m not going to say.”

“Are you afraid of bunnies? There’s really people that are.”

“No… it’s, um, to kill someone I love.” He stared at his hands, holding back the blushing.

Katy went mute. “I guess I don’t fear that ‘cause I’ve already done it…”

“You didn’t kill them,” Erik quickly interrupted, sensing oncoming tears. “She did. It’s not by your hand; I mean literally kill someone, by my hand.”

“Why would you fear that?” Katy was confused.

“Things happen.”

“Well, mine’s to die without leaving Carolina, but I guess that’s obvious.” She stood. “Come on; we should go check on Liz.” He stood, took her hand, and led her to his house.

“Hey Katy.”

Katy looked up from her book on ancient superstitions and curses to see Erik standing from across the table. “I’m surprised you’re here… especially speaking to me.”

“I don’t blame you for what happened. It was Liz’s idea to conjure Mary.” He threw his backpack on one of the school’s old library tables.

“I can’t get the image of her mangled body hanging from the ceiling fan out of my head… and the cops called it a suicide, but we know better…” She buried her head in her hands. “And this damn book doesn’t have a single answer to our problem.”

Erik shrugged his shoulders. “I’m going out to LA this weekend, first class ticket. But…” he took in a deep breath and stared at her book, “… I can always exchange it for two coach tickets.”

Katy smiled. “We could just run from her. It’s like she’s trapped in Cameron, and we’re not, anymore.” The cheerleader jumped up and grabbed her bag. “Let’s celebrate.” He followed her into the empty main hallway and to the double doors. “They’re locked,” she tried the doors again, and then Erik tried, but the doors were locked. “That’s weird. I bet the gym doors are open; coaches usually stay late.”

Before they could reach the gyms, the portentous wail began. “The trophy cases,” whispered Erik. While they ran past the long row of cases, Mary’s image ran alongside them, still in the reflection, and when she reached the end, the ghost simply leapt out and followed them. Erik attempted to throw his heavy backpack at the glass doors, but it harmlessly bounced off the safety glass. “It comes to it at last,” he whispered. “She has us.”

Katy turned to him with pleading eyes. “Erik…”

Bloody Mary slowly crept closer to the two.

“Katy, I love you,” his words rushed out. Quickly, he grabbed and kissed her passionately. But a look of pain was in both eyes as they pulled apart.

His hand held his reliable switchblade covered in Katy’s blood; her hands held the hole in her stomach that the blade had made. “Why?” she whispered.

Mary let out a banshee scream and shuddered and spun until she was nothing more than ash and smoke, but Katy was already down before her enemy, and her greatest fear proved true and her greatest wish lost forever.

Kathryn Emily Marshall

November 15, 1986 – October 19, 2004

Her soul will ride the wind, from mountains to the sea,

Her soul sings, and will sing forever.

Erik stood silently in the breeze of Memorial Park Cemetery with a solemn face, in front of him was a girl he loved, and she had died by his hand. Down the lane laid his own sister, hung by the butcher, and beyond her lay Rachel. A woman, simply known to him as Debra White from Peking Wok, lay somewhere in the ground, here or in Fayetteville, he knew not where. His arch rival Moore Hardy lay the opposite direction of his sister, buried with the herd of Hardy’s that populated the region. Next to his right foot was the body of Becca Marshall, whom he never knew well and somewhere in the air was the ashes of the dog Thorpe. All of this for a wish. Materialism and selfishness lead to the death of so many.

“I’m sorry Katy. It was the only way to break the curse. The conjurers had to die; that’s why she killed those around you and not you. And I couldn’t just let her torture you. I love you too much.” He knelt down and scooped some of the fresh soil into a jar. “I’ll take this to LA; you’ll see the Pacific.” With that, he turned and left, missing the image in the brightly polished tombstone: a gray, loose-skinned body with blood spattered white hair, yellow teeth and claws, and bulging red eyes.