Mirror, mirror

         Rebecca Knight has never stayed in one place for too long. Her mother would always move them from place to place, but Rebecca always thought it was because her mother never could hold a job for very long.

         Then they move to Pine Creek, a small town in Washington state with a population of only 1,253. And when it turns out that they'll be living in the creepy manor in the middle of the block, Rebecca is not thrilled. Leave it to her cheap mother to buy the house that looks like no one has lived in it since the 1950's. She is absolutely certain that it will be the worst summer yet.

         When Rebecca discovers the antique mirror in the attic, she gets curious. Without knowing it, Rebecca sets off a chain of events that would be impossible to stop. And it turns out that she might be the key to saving a world she just discovered actually exists other than in her favorite book.

Chapter one

         I never wanted to be a dimension jumper, I'd rather have a regular teenage life with regular teenage problems, like, does the hot guy in geometry like me, or what should I wear tomorrow.

         Being what I am is dangerous, it could get you killed in a million different nasty ways. Most of us don't even live to see twenty.

         If you're absolutely normal, like for sure, and you are reading this because you think it's fiction, that none of this is real, that none of it ever happened, great. Read on. I envy you with all my heart that you believe that none of what I'm about to tell you is true, because it is.

         But if you do recognize yourself I'm this book, stop reading now. If you feel like you find yourself in these pages, stop reading immediately, believe whatever lie your parents told you about your life. You might be one of us. And once you believe, then they will come looking for you. They'll sense it too, and then they will come for you.

         Don't say that I never warned you.

         o

         o

         o

         My name is Rebecca Knight.

         I'm fifteen years old. Until a few months ago, I was your average kid who just happened to move around a lot. We never stayed in one place for too long. Two months at the most. I considered my home to be my orange colored suitcase.

         You think that I am kidding? Ever since I could remember I've been moving place to place with my mother. I've never stayed in one place long enough to feel like calling it home. I have all I ever needed in my suitcase.

         I always hated the moving part of every trip. We'd either rent or buy an already furnished house or apartment. We'd move our belongings into the house or apartment, and I'd have to start all over again. New school, new house, new friends, new everything. And the worst part is that we always seemed to move after something weird or exciting happened.

         Like this one time we were living in Miami, and one day a strange man came to our house. I was only five, so being the outgoing nice child that I was, I answered the door.

         I had said, "Excuse me sir, but my mommy is busy right now getting me peanut butter from the store, and she doesn't like me talking to strangers."

         The man looked at me and spoke in a deep voice, "Rebecca, oh I never thought that I'd ever see you again."

         "Are you one of mommy's friends?" I wondered out loud.

         "Something like that."

         "I'll tell her you came by then." I moved to close the heavy door, when he stopped me. He handed me a leather bracelet with a symbol that looked like a leaf on it.

         "It'd be better if we just kept this our little secret." then the man left.

         Being the good little momma's girl I was, I told mother everything. She ordered me to throw away the bracelet that the strange man had given me, but I hadn't. the bracelet felt special, it made me feel special for some reason. That night I heard her speaking to someone in her room, she was yelling at them. I heard glass breaking and I rushed inside, but my mother was alone and standing in front of a broken mirror. Which is weird because my mother hates mirrors. The next day we moved to a small town in Georgia.

         Another time, we were living in Dallas and we were at the park. Some strange people in detective coats came up to my mom, they had a quick and heated conversation. I was on the slide, so I couldn't hear them over at the benches. She angrily got up and took us back home. We moved that night.

         But we should get back to the day that the action really began, the day we first moved to Pine Creek. The day my life changed forever.

         o

         o

         o

         I watched as the trees flashed by my window, too fast to make out much detail. I wished we were going slower, it seemed like mother always rushed to get to the next place. I never wanted to rush, if you went quickly through life you would miss all the pretty little things. If we had stayed in one place long enough, then maybe we would be happier and mother wouldn't be so rash in her decisions.

         I had liked our last home, a little apartment in Chicago. I had made friends there. I had a life back there, but of course we always had to move. We had stayed in Chicago longer than most places, two months. I had even finished the school year! I had thought that this was it, we were finally settling down.

         But Chicago was like every other place, we eventually moved on to another house, another job, another life.

         I drove my attention back to my book. I was reading an old book, one torn at the edges and the pages bent at odd angles. The title had long ago worn away from the cover, and the book seemed to start right at chapter one. I had found the book a couple years ago in the floorboards of the house we had been living in at the time. I had no idea why someone would forget about such a book. Old books held so many memories and were the ones that held the most wonder.

         When I had first found it, I had the sense to keep the book for my own. It had been quite peculiar for someone to hide a book in the floorboards of their house before moving, but what do I know about such things, I'm only a child in the eyes of the world.

         I had read the book a million times over the years, but I had never seemed to find the title. Besides the cover, it was like the author hadn't put in any identification of themselves. And it wasn't like the cover could tell me anything. The words had long ago worn away. I liked to think it was called something beautiful, something that would fit the book perfectly.

         I read about the strange world that the author had created, with magical creatures and magnificent kingdoms, people who journeyed throughout the dimensions and people who turned into animals. It described the characters and imaginary places like they were real. The story followed the life's of Janaya, a poor farm girl, and Draco, the young king, as they found each other, and love. But I never thought of it as a love story, more like a retelling of a fantastic tale.

         But look at me, I am getting off topic. Like always.

         By this time we had reached our new house, and I was definitely disappointed. We had been driving for hours, and mother had told me we were heading somewhere permanent this time. She told me this at almost every other move, but I had felt that this time was real. I might've been leaving the wonderful life that I had been given in Chicago behind, but I could start a better one here.

         Well, I thought that before I saw the wreck of a house we would be living in.

         It was a run down and old creepy looking mansion in the middle of a nice looking neighborhood. Mother had told me that the previous owners had died, and I could see why. This house was most likely haunted.

         "Mother, are you serious?" I look at her skeptically, referring to the broken down pile of wood in front of us.

         "What? It just needs a little fixing up."

         She walks up to the front porch and pats the front beam like it could be her new best friend. And to support my claim, the beam cracked and some old wood fell off. My mother startled back and I gave her a look.

         "My point exactly." I walk past her and into the huge manor, lugging my orange suitcase behind me.

         The front room was like you'd see in all the movies, right down to the hanging glass chandelier on the ceiling and the stairs that curved right up to the second floor. I turned back to my mother, who looked very pleased with herself as she glanced at the room.

         "How can we afford this?" I hadn't meant to be mean, but it was true. With my mother working odd jobs whenever she could, it was hard for us to get by. If this place was new, it would be worth far more than whatever my mother makes in a year.

         "Well, the real-estate lady was happy to sell this one at any price. It seemed that no one wanted to buy this old place." She smiled like she had won the lottery. "All it's going to take is a little fixing up to get this place running like new."

         I looked around again and turned my attention back to my mother. "So where's my room?"

         "Up on the second floor, third door to the right." She then went back outside to take in the rest of our already small luggage. We never took much with us when we moved, just clothes and necessary things. The houses we bought we already furnished when we got here.

         I made my way up the stairs, dragging my suitcase behind me. It didn't take long to find my room, the doors were all painted an ugly brown color, except for mine. Mine was a lovely light brown color. I walked in and was happy to see that my room was fairly new looking. The furniture wasn't covered in ugly white tarps like the rest of the house's furniture, which was a plus. My bed was queen size and it had a ton of pillows, just the way I liked it.

         "Finally, my own room." I say to myself while trying to find the closet. You see, me and my mother had never gotten the best of housing arrangements. They were usually one bedroom apartments. I either slept on the couch, or my blow up mattress in my mother's room.

         I unpacked my suitcase and organized all of my possessions. By the time I was done, I could smell dinner being cooked my mother. She should have asked me to help, I hated being a burden on her.

         I ran down the stairs and almost tripped on the carpet on the main floor. I walked calmly into the kitchen, following my nose. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was huge. It looked like a chef's heaven. Even most of the appliances and kitchen counter's were new and spotless. The last owners must've been more serious about their food than they were about anything else in the house.

         I could see that she was cooking oven food. It had been a tradition for us to eat easy to cook oven food, like mini pizza rolls or chicken nuggets, on the first day we spent in a house. We would eventually unpack everything the next day and start having real meals, but we were both too tired on the first day to actually cook.

         "So," I say, plopping onto the counter, which always seemed to annoy my mother. She'd always tell me to get down and be the lady that I was born to be. I never got the reference, or whatever it was she was secretly trying to tell me. "Where did we move this time?"

         "Pine Creek, it's a small town in Washington state. I think you'll like it here." It was also tradition for me to find out where we are after we got here.

         "Population?"

         "Soon to be 1,253."

         "Ugh, there's probably no other teenagers here." I wine. She laughs at me as I continue. "It's probably some town full of old people and weirdo's."

         "C'mon, it can't be that bad. Tomorrow after we finish cleaning this place up, you should go out to town and meet some of these nonexistent teenagers." My mother turns to open the oven as it beeps.

         "Oh, I bet it will be horrible, the only other fifteen year old will be some crazy kid who believes in faeries or something." I pretend to be shattered by the fake realization. She seems a little hurt, but then she turns back to her normal composure so fast that I must've imagined it.

         "Hmm, and what about me? Do you want your mother to have to befriend some old ladies who only  play bingo to pass the time?" That's the thing I love about my mother, she acted just like a teenager.

         "Maybe." I mumble as she playfully slaps my arm.

         "If you keep saying things like that, you'll end up an orphan on the steps of the nearest church." She jokes around with me.

         "Ahh, no. It's too late for that, mother. You seem to be stuck with me till the day you die." She over dramatically sighs and we both chuckle.

         "Don't worry Rebecca. You'll make some friends here, like always. Watch this be your best Summer yet." She smiles and helps me get a plate of food.

         I thought about all of the places we had lived in since I was little. It took some time to remember them all nowadays. I remember the short time we had lived in a hotel in Albuquerque when I was ten because mother was a maid there. We moved after there was a fire that burned down half of the building. I also remembered the little apartment we had in New York city when I was thirteen. We moved after a teacher at my school went missing. I used to think that maybe my mother was a criminal on the run, but she was way too nice and helpful for that.

         "Yeah, maybe this time will be different."

Chapter two 

         "Wake up Rebecca." Mother tries to wake me up. I'm still in a half asleep state, so I groan and roll over.

         "Go away." I manage to croak.          

         "Oh no you don't." Mother grabs my blanket and soon I feel the cold air around me. Ugh. I hated mornings. I laid there, stubborn and shivering like an idiot.

         I open my eyes and accept defeat, mother stands there, staring me down. I get out of bed and stand on the warm fur carpet that covers the floor of my new bedroom. I stare her down as best as I could with my heavy and sleepy eyes.

         "C'mon, it's cleaning day! We have too much to do and too little time." And with that she walked out the door, leaving me to find an outfit for today.

         I was fully awake by this time and I walked towards the drawers that held my clothes in them. I dressed in an old T-shirt and my old ripped jean shorts. It was my cleaning day outfit. You see, cleaning day was the day after we moved, when we put away the rest of our belongings and moved furniture and things. This was my least favorite part of moving.

         I walk down stairs and start to help my mother out, unpacking some boxes from our old SUV. We didn't have many boxes, only seven medium sized ones. They were enough to hold our kitchen materials, blankets, bedspreads, an old lamp that mother insisted that we always took whenever we moved, and food that we had left from our last house.

         "Rebecca, I want you to go around the upstairs and dust everything off. We don't want a dusty house now do we?" Mother told me after we finished taking the boxes to the inside of the house.

         "Okay."

         I take the duster that we had acquired two moves ago from the box labeled 'cleaning supplies' and make my way to the second floor. From what I'd seen of the outside of the house, we must've had a third floor or an extremely large attic space. I'd end up having to clean that part of the house eventually, so I might as well start now.

         I take my speakers from my room and plug in my phone, I might as well listen to music as I clean too. I started to work on the hallway as 5 seconds of summer blares out of the speakers. I smile and sing along as I dust the ancient frames hanging in the hall.

         Two hours later and the entire second floor had been dusted and the carpets vacuumed. I had discovered in the last room a hatch in the ceiling. I guessed that there must've been an attic, not a third floor.

         When I was finally able to reach the hanging down string from the hatch, I pulled it down. In one of our old houses there had been a similar contraption to reach the attic. When the dust cleared, there was wooden steps that led up to the attic above me. I took my duster and I climbed up the rotting and creaking stairs. When I emerged at the top I wasn't very surprised to find that the room had almost no furniture. Less for me to dust I suppose.

         I could barely hear my music from up here. I wish I brought the speakers up, but it's too late for that now. I sigh and start to take off all the white sheets covering the furniture. Surprisingly, the attic wasn't dusty at all. I took the sheet off the last object and stood in awe.

         There was an antique and beautiful mirror in front of me. It had to have been at least two hundred years old. The frame was painted gold and encrusted with designs. I wondered why anyone would just leave it up here to rot, it was truly gorgeous. I stared into it and was shocked. Somehow the mirror just made me look, different. My features that I prided myself on showed up more defined, it was incredible. And the way the light from the windows shined on my hair made it look, well, pretty.

         "Wow." I said out loud. I chuckled slightly to myself, I was staring in a mirror and admiring myself like some self centered and snobbish girl.

         I saw something move in the mirror. I turned, but nothing seemed to have moved. I must've imagined it. I looked back at the mirror and felt the sudden urge to touch the mirror. I know, weird right? I almost got to it, when I heard mother.

         "Rebecca!" My mother yells from downstairs.

         I sigh and take one last long look into the mirror. If only I could keep this in my room, but there were two reasons I couldn't. One was that I probably couldn't carry the thing down the attic stairs and not break something in the process. Reason number two was that mother absolutely hated mirrors. I always thought that she was just a little self conscious about her appearance, but she was beautiful so it never fit.

         "Coming!" I yell down to mother, gathering up the duster and walking down the attic stairs. I closed the trap door and make my way to the living room, which was where I last saw my mother working.

         "Oh, Rebecca!" She exclaims like she had thought I was kidnapped or something. Lately she had been doing that more and more often.

         "Yes?" I question.

         "Well I thought that since it was lunch time and you were probably finished with dusting the upstairs, that you might want to go into town and eat lunch there. You were just telling me last night about wanting to meet some new friends."

         "Okay, which way is 'downtown'" I air quoted downtown because we had been in a small town like this one before, the main shops and businesses were always in the center of town, like a mini downtown. But it was nothing like the downtowns of the bigger cities that we had lived in.

         "Turn right at the sidewalk and keep walking straight from there." She explains to me.

         "Okay, thanks." I say, picking up my purse, book, and phone on my way out the door. It was unusually hot outside for Summer in the northern U.S. It felt like we were still in Texas like we were last Summer. Word of advice: don't move to Texas in the middle of Summer, it might kill you.

         I walked down the sidewalk and let my thoughts wander. I thought about the characters in my book, what would happen to them if there was ever a sequel. I had a feeling that the bad guy would emerge again, giving the heroes a new quest. I know I must look like an idiot right now, I brought my book on a walk into downtown. But if we are being honest, I am a bit of a nerd. I read books whenever I could, even at home. We could barely afford cable at most of our previous houses, so I kept boredom at bay by reading whatever was handy.

         I finally made it to the main square after five minutes of walking in a straight line from my house. This town was really tiny. I walked for another minute until I reached a small diner. I always had a soft spot for small businesses like diners.

         I heard the little bell at the top of the door ding as I walked in. I next saw the sign next to the first set of tables, one of those chalkboard signs that you could erase. It had only two words in very pretty cursive lettering on it in pink chalk, Seat Yourself.

         I followed the sign directions and found a booth that had a view of the street. I sat still until a nice looking blonde woman came up to me with the biggest smile I had ever seen plastered onto her face.

         "Good afternoon! Welcome to Patty's diner. Here's your menu." She hands me a plastered menu with Patty's diner on the top in huge lettering, "What can I get you to drink?"

         "Umm" I look for the drinks section, but fail to find it. "What sodas do you have?"

         "Coke, diet coke, sprite, Dr. Pepper, diet Dr, Pepper, Pepsi, Lemonade, pink Lemonade, Orange Fanta-" I stopped her right there.

         "Orange Fanta, please."

         The lady walks off to go get me my drink. I take the extra time to look around at the diners occupants. There was an elderly couple in the corner booth, and some families scattered around. It was overall more full than I would expect it to be at noon. The waitress came back shortly with my drink and left me to keep looking over the menu.

         I was distracted when the bell on the door dinged. I looked over my shoulder and saw two arguing teenagers, a blonde boy and a redhead girl who was significantly shorter than the boy.

         "-But even Aunt Rosie agrees with me." The girl says with conviction.

         "Aunt Rosie is a crazy old cat lady, she doesn't count."

         "Well fine, but you know it's true. We all have known it's true since we were able to process thoughts as babies. It's common knowledge."

         "But you can't know for sure-"

         The boy was cutoff when he noticed me staring. I quickly looked away and back at my menu. That was awkward.

         "So you must be the new girl in town."

         I looked up and my own hazel eyes were met with two pairs of green ones. The boy and the girl who were arguing had sat on the other side of the booth. I sat, shocked, for a moment before regaining some courage back.

         "Umm, Yeah."

         "My name is Charlie and this is Jordan." The girl, Charlie introduced herself to me. The blonde guy, Jordan waved.

         "I'm Rebecca." They stare at each other for a while, like they were having some sort of internal conversation. Then Charlie looked me straight in the eye.

         "You live in the old manor on Main street, right?"

         "Yes . . ."

         "Is it haunted?" Charlie looked intrigued while Jordan just looked annoyed.

         "I don't think so."

         "Hah! I told you Charlie!" Jordan screams in triumph. The diner people all looked at him like he was crazy. Soon after the waitress from before came up to my table, I assumed to get Jordan's and Charlie's orders.

         "What would you children like today?"

         "Just the usual. Rebecca?" He motioned for me to make my order.

         "Uhh, the chicken fried steak please." After that our waitress took up my menu and left to give our orders to the cook.

         "So, where are you going to school when the school season starts?" Charlie tried to make conversation.

         "We only have one high school, dumbo. Of course she's going to Pine Creek high." Jordan says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

         "Well, me and my mother move around a lot. We might not be here when the school season starts." Charlie looks sad for a second, while Jordan's expression had barely changed from neutral.

         "Well then we must hang out for as long as we can while you are still here. The only other kids our age that aren't a pain to be around are out on vacation for the rest of the Summer. You are an answer to my prayers Rebecca." Charlie exclaims. I had a feeling that she was one of those happy-go-lucky girls.

         "Don't you guys have each other to hang out with? I mean - aren't you guys dating or something?" They looked at me for a second and then burst out laughing.

         "Oh god no! He's repulsive!" Charlie bursts out, still laughing her head off.

         "Hey! I'm not that repulsive!" Jordan pushes her almost off the booth.

         "No, he's my twin brother. We look nothing alike by the way." Charlie states. I probably would have never guessed that they were even related until she said that.

         "That means I'm free if you want to go somewhere sometime." Jordan winks at me.

         "Hey! No flirting with my new friend!" Charlie scolds him. I wondered why I hadn't seen it earlier, the two acted just like siblings.

         "Don't worry, I won't be going anywhere with Jordan anytime soon." I reassured Charlie. She looked pleased at my decision. Jordan faked being hurt, very over dramatically might I add.

         I saw the waitress coming with our food, so I moved to take my book off the table. Jordan looked at the book and his eyes grew wide. He nudged Charlie and they looked at the book with surprised expressions.

         "What you reading?" Charlie asks, I could tell that they were trying to play off their earlier surprised reactions to the book. They were hiding something.

         "Oh, it's just a book I found in the floorboards of a house I was living in a couple of years ago. I think we were in Idaho somewhere."

         "Can I see it?" Jordan put his hand out and I was a little reluctant to give it to him. For some reason I felt over protective of this silly thing. I had owned it for years, it was like giving someone a secret part of me that no one has ever seen. Even with all my thoughts of being selfish and rude to my new friend, I gave it to him. He opened it and scanned through a couple of pages. He stopped at the page that I had bookmarked with my bracelet. His face turned rock hard and he looked up.

         "It's very interesting." He handed it back to me, being very careful with it I might add. Charlie was being almost as weird as him. They kept giving me looks that hinted that they feared me for some reason. All I showed them was a book. Were they that repulsed by a book?

         Soon we started to fill our mouths with delicious food and the conversation turned friendly again. We kept talking and I figured that they happened to be complete opposites. We got along very well, if you didn't count the weird thing where they would occasionally give me weird looks. I finally left when two hours had passed by, my mother get's worried when I'm out alone for too long without her.

         I made my way out the door, waving at Charlie and Jordan before I left. They waved too, and then headed towards the other side of town.

         I thought about the weird encounter I just had. The twins seemed nice, but what was it with them and my book. It was like after they saw what I was reading that they were scared of me. Where they scared of nerds or something? And why were they fighting about whether my new house was haunted? It didn't look that scary. But even with all of that, I had made new friends.

         Maybe this town had something to offer me after all.

         

Chapter 3

         I finally finished washing the dishes, after spending most of my time trying to wash off a nasty stain on one of the plates. Mother liked to be old fashion about that, we didn't own a dishwasher. We washed all the dishes by hand. She told me that it was supposed to teach me self discipline or something, but I thought she was just too lazy to do them herself, or get out of the house and buy a dishwasher.

         I was alone in the house today, mother was out looking for a job in town. I always thought it had been my fault she had never been able to hold a job. A single mother with no college degree can't find to many high paying jobs. She always told me that she went travelling after she finished high school, never had the time to get a college degree.

         I hoped that she also made some new friends here. She really needed to go out and hang out with someone her own age. Hanging around me can have some slight defaults.

         My mother was a nice woman. She was a little taller than me and had my hazel eyes. We didn't look much alike, except for the eyes. She was blonde, while my hair was more auburn. She had a skinny figure, while I was more curvy. She was also adventurous, while I preferred to stay inside reading a good book. She was practically blind, while my vision was almost perfect. We were complete opposites, but we got along well.

         She would always tell me that I was a spitting image of my father. We had the same messy and thick auburn hair. We were both intelligent and practical, and we both shared a very over active imagination. She never told me who my father was, just that he died before I was born. I like to imagine that he had been a kind man, a man of mercy and reason. I also liked to believe that if he was still alive that he would love my mother like she was the world to him. I still see the sparkle in her eye when she talks about him.

         I also hoped that one day she would meet somebody to love again. Everybody needed love in their life. But so far she has never met another guy. She would tell me that he had been a good man at one time. It made me wonder what he had been like, but I never asked. Mother got uncomfortable when I talked about him.

         I always felt that it had been my fault that she had never gone out with a guy since I was born. I felt like she was afraid to leave me alone, that she'd end up leaving me one day. She had that fear, she didn't want me be left alone. I never asked why she had the fear of leaving me alone for too long, but I assumed that it had something to do with why we kept moving from place to place. Sometimes I felt like she was running from her past, running from something that happened to her.

         I sighed aloud and decided to go upstairs, it was getting boring just staring out the window. I made my way to my new room, which was a lot more comfortable than the couch in the formal living room. The thing was old and ragged.

         I sat on the bed for a while, reading a my favorite book for the billionth time in the past years. I finished it after an hour of reading. I was bored again. I hadn't brought any books from my former house, only what fit in my suitcase. I got a strange feeling in my stomach and had a sudden idea.

         I wanted to see the old mirror in the attic again.

         I knew it was probably nothing, but the mirror felt special. I also couldn't shake that feeling that something about that mirror was weird. Why would someone keep it in an attic? It belonged somewhere as special as I felt it was.

         I probably sound like an idiot. Talking about a mirror like it was a prize piece of art. I do that a lot. I can talk on and on about anything.

         I walked down the hallway, the lights flickering just a little. Did I mention that there was a huge thunderstorm raging outside? I bet mom five dollars before she left that the house would fall apart during the storm. I think that maybe just the lights and electricity in the house might stop working, the storm wasn't strong enough to rip the house apart.

         I made it to the attic door. I pulled down the stairs and waited for the dust to clear. After the dust cleared, I climbed up the rickety old steps. I found myself in the same old attic that I had been in yesterday. For some reason I had expected something to be different.

         Look at that, I'm losing my mind as well.

         I quietly glided to the mirror. I stood in front of it and just stared. I feel stupid. Why in the world did I think looking at an antique mirror was less boring than sitting in my bedroom? I was about to get up, when I saw a flicker of movement through the mirror. Now I'm really going crazy, aren't I?

         Then the extraordinary happened. A boy came into view inside the mirror. He had dark hair that looked very messy. His eyes were a brilliant color of blue. He walked right next to me. I looked to my side, but there was no one there. What is happening?

         "W-who are y-you?" It felt strange asking a figment of my imagination what he was doing inside my mirror.

         "Wait, you can see me?" The boy looked surprised. Maybe that wasn't the best question.

         "Yes, what are you doing in my mirror?" The boy looked surprised again. I had regained my confidence. If it was a figment of my imagination, then why hasn't he disappeared?

         "You can see me?" The boy asks again. Can he not hear me?

         "Yes, we've established that. Now what are you doing in my mirror?" The boy, still confused, gave me a puzzled look.

         "What are you doing in my mirror?"

         "What do you mean? I'm not in a mirror. I'm in my attic. You're the funny boy in my mirror." I must be going crazy. That was the only plausible cause for this hallucination.

         "No, I'm in my attic." This didn't make any sense at all.

         "Why are you wearing that?" I couldn't help but become curious about this strange boy. Of course, I should be freaking out right now - I mean - there is a boy in my mirror wearing clothes that look like they came from medieval times.

         "These are my clothes. What are you wearing?" I looked at my t-shirt and running shorts. They were comfy and I wasn't planning on going anywhere today anyway.

         "My clothes." I crossed my arms and stared at the boy with my best death stare. Maybe I can scare the strange boy in my mirror away.

         "That's not going to work on me, my father is the master of the death stare." God, this boy was so frustrating. Look at me, I'm frustrated over someone who can't obviously be real. It couldn't be possible.

         "Why can I see you? You were surprised earlier that I could see you." I decided that I was going crazy anyway, I might as well talk to the man in my mirror.

         "Well, I was just as surprised to see you. It's not every day that you see a girl in your mirror."

         "Well, I could say the same about you, strange mirror boy."

         "I have a name you know." He gave me a look that suggested that he didn't like my nickname for him. It looked like I had annoyed him a little.

         "So do I."

         "I'm Ashton."

         "Oh that's an awesome name. I'm Rebecca." It felt awkward telling him my name, he wasn't even real, was he?

         "Well, Rebecca, we need to get you out of my mirror before my father comes to check on me."

         "No. We need to get you out of my mirror." I was going to win this argument with Ashton, I wasn't crazy, he was in my attic.

         "Wait a second, are you a dimension jumper?" He looked proud to think of that, while I on the other hand thought I was going even more crazy.

         "A what?"

         "A dimension jumper. I bet you are, aren't you. How else can you see me? This is so cool, I thought all you guys went extinct."

         "Excuse me? I'm human, as in I doubt I can be a dimension jumper. Your just crazy." This guy was absolutely crazy. I was absolutely crazy.

         "Wait, you're in that dimension?"

         "Well, I'm on earth. If that counts for anything." I was getting a little confused.

         "You're that girl. Your her. Only she owns that." He pointed to my bracelet. He was really freaking out now. Maybe I should've smashed the mirror when I had the chance.

         "I'm who?"

         "Oh, don't worry. This will stay between us. I won't tell anyone that I met you. Your secret is safe with me." Was this boy on drugs or something?

         "What secret? I'm just a regular teenage girl." I didn't like that this guy thought he knew me. That made me uncomfortable.

         "Oh, you don't know, do you?"

         "Know what?" This time he was really getting on my nerves. He should just tell me what he knows, I wasn't comfortable with him knowing anything more about me than my name. if you ever found a strange boy in your mirror, would you tell him everything about you?

         "Did your mother never tell you?" How does he know my mother?

         "Tell me what?"

         "Oh, this is worse than I thought." Well no duh, there's a crazy strange boy in my mirror who claims to know secrets about me that I don't even know. This was officially the strangest day ever.

         "Of course it is. It always is." I mutter to myself. Why is it in every book or movie that the situation always turns out to be worse than anyone thought it would be?

         "Meet me again at sundown. At this same mirror."

         "Don't you mean at like 9;30?"

         "Yes, you measure time a little differently there." This boy was definitely on drugs.

         "Okay, I'll just pretend I didn't hear that." I mutter again.

         I walked slowly away from the mirror. I turned around and the boy was already gone. This day is very strange indeed. I climbed down the steps and closed the trap door behind me. I walked down the hallway, still in shock. I had found a boy in my mirror.

         I was too lost in my thoughts to notice that someone was in front of me. I bump into them and almost fall to the ground. I look up and see mother.

         "Oh, sorry honey, I didn't see you there."

         "Oh, yeah. Haha, I didn't see you there. I better be going, I need to go do something in my room alone." I nervously tell her, heading to my room and closing the door shut.

         I must've been going crazy, that was the only thing that made sense. I would definitely not be going back to that mirror anytime soon. Going back and seeing the Ashton again would mean admitting to myself that I was crazy. I didn't want to be crazy, crazy people went to mental institutions, and I would not fare well in one of those places.

         I thought about the strange encounter, he said that he knew my secret and he wouldn't tell anyone. He was in my freaking mirror for Christ's sake! He even called me a dimension jumper. Though I could've sworn that I've heard of that phrase before. It was on the tip of my tongue, and then I remembered. I leaped across my bed and grabbed my book, the old one with no title. I flipped to the second chapter.

         Now, here's the thing. Don't ever befriend a dimension jumper. They might be nice and friendly on the outside, but they've been to places we've never heard of. They can go to other dimensions through mirrors. You see, there are three dimensions in this universe, Earth, the Underworld, and our dimension, Erdia. They can travel freely between all of them. I haven't met one before, but I have heard the tales. My poor brother, Alexander, has met one though. You might say he has fallen for the poor soul. I wish I could warn her to stay away from him. My brother has never been the kindest of fellows.

         No way. How did the boy know about my book? This thing was old, and I doubt he was the one who hid it in that old house. Why would he call me something out of a book? The book only ever mentions them a couple times anyway. The young king's brother ends up falling for the dimension jumper, but she runs away when Alexander turns evil. The main character's own brother turns into the villain. The book also mentions that the girl had been pregnant before she left, which the King's brother doesn't find out until after she left.

         I never really thought of them as something worth noting. At the end of the book the evil brother swears vengeance on the good King because he had known what had happened to the girl, but never told him. It was a strange book, I know. The book was interesting though, I used to like to think that it was real.

         But how did Ashton know about my book? The only way to find out would be to go to the mirror tonight. I had an internal battle with myself, either go back to the mirror and get some answers, or be a normal teenage girl again and forget the mirror existed.

         My choice was obvious. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was telling myself not to go, that I'd be better off pretending that it never happened. But when was the last time someone ever listened to the voice of reason in their head? The adventurer or hero of the book always took the chance and took a leap of faith, and I wasn't going to miss out on the chance either.

         I was going to the mirror tonight, and I was going to get some real answers.

         

Chapter 4

         I walked down the hallway with a heart full of fear. I had no idea what tonight had in hold for me, but according to every science fiction book ever, Something extraordinary would happen tonight.

         I had ate dinner with my mother without bursting out what had happened earlier that day. For some reason I didn't want to tell her what had happened. When Ashton had told me that my mother had kept something secret from me, it convinced me that I shouldn't tell her about the encounter. I knew my mother, and I knew that we told each other everything. If she had kept a secret so big that she hadn't told me and a boy in my mirror even thought it was important, then I knew she wouldn't tell me. The only way to get sufficient answers was to ask Ashton, otherwise known as the strange boy in my mirror who knew everything about me.

         I made it to the trap door and felt a flicker of doubt. What if it wasn't real? What if none of it happened? What if I'm actually going crazy? I pushed the doubt and fear aside, for once I would get some answers.

         I opened the trap door, and pulled the stairs down.