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Prologue, continued
Chailyn was standing about ten feet inside, facing a large, ornate, oval full length mirror. Mara couldn't recall ever having seen the mirror before. She exhaled quietly, though, calling herself stupid. "Chay, what are you doing, kid? Come over here." Chailyn didn't answer. Mara took another step into the attic and a icy gust of wind smacked her across the face. She gasped, audibly this time. "Go back." A voice whispered. "Chay?" Mara asked, just as another blast of wind hit her, "why should I go back?" But Chailyn did not answer. Instead the girl turned around to face Mara, her blue eyes flashed and a small somehow mocking smile slid across her face. "Go back," Chailyn whispered, but it wasn't Chailyn's voice. Another icy blast pushed at Mara and for a moment she saw the smile falter on Chailyn's face, the innocence of her eyes flickered back, but then the smile grew wider than before, and Mara thought she must have imagined the momentary change. Chailyn turned again to face the mirror. The body of the six year old flickered like a tv station that was out of range, then seemed to fade, and then she was gone. Mara screamed. A clap of thunder sounded inside the attic and a wind that belonged in an antarctic blizzard slapped into Mara and threw her out of the attic. The door slammed and the dead bolt on the door turned as she watched.
"Chailyn!" She yelled. She tried to reopen the door, but the dead bolt would not unlock. Mara pounded on the door. It didn't budge. She turned on her heel, something was happening, and she didn't understand what. Mara pulled in a breath to call for her mother, and let in out in a scream. Lying before her, in the pale yellow walled room was Chailyn's body, covered in blood and bite marks. Bloody paw prints led out of the door. Mara ran to her sister's side, tears streaming out of her widened eyes. As she reached to feel for a pulse the girl sat up and gave Mara the same small mocking smile from the attic. "I told you to go back," she whispered, and then the girl fell back, limp and lifeless. Mara tried to scream, but vomit was choking up in her throat at the same time. Everything went black.
* * * * * *
Mara awoke slowly to a dull throb in her head. She lay quietly for a moment before she opened her eyes, trying to make sense of the images hovering in her mind. Something about Chay, and something about Juji, and something about a mirror. And the attic-- holy shit! Her eyes flew open and she instantly regretted it. Bright white light flooded her head and made the dull throb explode into a sharp stabbing pain. She might have cried out, but she couldn't hear well enough to tell. For a moment Mara squeezed her eyes shut again, wishing away the pain. When it didn't fade, she cautiously opened them to a squint. Above her was a fluorescent light, though it was not turned on. The light, then, was coming from another source. She warily turned her head to the left and recoiled. A large curtained window took up most of an empty white wall. The blinds were drawn, but a enough light was glaring through them to make Mara certain it had to be either very early or very late in the day, depending which was the building was facing. In any case, the sun was heartlessly illuminating the rest of the room, which consisted of the bed Mara was laying on, a small table with potted plant resting on it, and two stiff wooden chairs cornered toward the bed. It looked frighteningly like a hospital room. In fact, Mara was sure that that was exactly what it was. She took a deep breath. That meant two things: one, that a significant amount of time had past from when she'd seen her little sister both vanish and die within minutes, and, two, that everyone else now knew exactly how Chailyn was doing. . .and Mara didn't.
As though her waking had sent a signal straight down the hospital hallway, two voices spoke outside, and a door (or what Mara assumed was a door anyway, as she couldn't see anything from her pained laying position) creaked open. Mara tried to speak, but only a dry croak came out of her mouth. Her tongue felt as though it was swollen to the size of a melon. Her croak must have alerted her newly awaked state, though, because the door finished it's creak and slammed loudly in a heartbeat. A face suddenly swam into view above Mara. It was her mother. She looked extremely sleep deprived, her normally neat hair falling in messy tendrils about her face, and large purple bags sagging beneath her eyes.
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