Reflections - a YA story
Reflections
By, C. Heidi Drew
Lucy is lonely and bored this Easter weekend, though she knows by her mother's rule that, "It is not allowed to say bored in this household!" Her best friend, Ruth has gone away for Easter and Lucy lives too far out in the country from anyone else she might like to see, unfortunately that would be nobody, she thinks. She has a brother and sister but they are much older than she is and though they are home this holiday, they are not around often and they are "very busy with important things like their studies and friends." (and lovers.)
Lying on her bed, Lucy looks around her room. Her mother has suggested that she could paint her room any color she wants now that she is almost a teenager. She considers what color she might choose; currently it is a boring flat white. She thinks how fun it would be to turn the room upside down and walk on the ceiling. The obstacles are alluring. Her older brother, David had once suggested to her that she take a mirror and walk around the house with it pointed at the ceiling. At the time, Lucy thought he was just trying to get her to go away from him and leave him alone because he was on the phone with some girl. Now, she had to admit to herself that, at the time – last Thanksgiving, she had been whining to everyone in the house that she was bored. That's when her mother banned that word from the house. Family gatherings were not very interesting. Maybe Dave's idea was a good one.
Lucy walks over to her dresser and picks up her ivory mirror that Grandma Alison had given her for her eleventh birthday. She thought it was such a dull gift and even complained to her mother that it was blotchy, spotted in places with missing silver behind the beveled glass reflection.
"Oh, Lucy." her mother, admonished her, "Don't be ungrateful. In a few years you will be looking in that mirror for hours on end."
Looking down into the mirror at her face, she wonders why. Then she looks beyond her head's reflection to the ceiling and starts to try to make her way around her bedroom. It is tricky and she finds herself bumping into the furniture in her modest bedroom so she heads out to the hallway. Her legs are not really long enough to surmount the doorway from this ceiling view because the ceilings in her house are high and the doorways not so much. She realizes that she doesn't really have to climb over the door jam that she sees in the mirror and so she just keeps walking right through it. On the other side of the doorway beyond her face, an image of a man's face in concentration appears. It's as if he is focused on a computer screen and keyboarding, not really looking at her.
Then he stops working and calls out, "This isn't working!"
"Yes it is, just keep going with it." A female voice calls from down the hall in the kitchen.
Lucy decides that she wants to see who is that voice because she doesn't recognize the man she sees in the mirror or screen as the case may be. It is easy to make her way down the hall as long as her hands are confined to holding the mirror since there isn't any furniture or beams in the hallway. Her house is a farmhouse style house that goes backwards from where her bedroom is in the front. The walls are covered with family photos and there are other doors to other rooms but the kitchen is at the very back and all she has to do is walk straight to it.
In the kitchen she finds a woman cleaning up and preparing to make a meal. She doesn't recognize this woman, either. On the counter next to her is a laptop computer at which she keeps glancing. There is probably a recipe on it which she is intending to follow.
"Email to me what you've written so far." She calls back down the hallway and adds, "If you want suggestions."
"How's the cake coming along, angel?" He calls.
"Very funny; it is an angel food cake not me and you can't have any unless you finish your writing, you devil," she calls back smiling. Then she cracks an egg in the big yellow mixing bowl.
Lucy wants to look at this lady's computer screen but at any angle that she tilts her mirror she can't quite see it. She decides to make her way back down the hall to observe the man who is writing. She wonders, what is he writing; the recipe the lady is cooking?
When Lucy returns through the kitchen door she doesn't find herself in the familiar hallway to her bedroom but in a large room. She bumps into the furniture because she doesn't know what to expect. She can't figure out which room in her house this could be. When she turns to walk away from it she bumps into what feels like a rolling desk chair. It moves out of her way a bit as she feels her body rolling it along. She decides to put the mirror down and get reoriented.
Lucy finds herself back in the corridor to her bedroom and there are no new people around at all. In the kitchen her older sister, Laura is making a lemon meringue pie and her mother is washing dishes. Her mom looks over at her when she enters the room with the mirror in her hand and says, "See, I told you that mirror would be your favorite gift someday."
"I'm not looking at myself; I'm looking at the ceiling," Lucy informs her mother.
"Where did you get that crazy idea?"
"We used to do that all the time," Laura answers her mother's question and remarks to Lucy, "Oh, what a clever way for Dave to get rid of you!"
"What's he doing working on his computer?" Mom asks.
"He said he was going out to meet some girl." Lucy informs them.
"Why don't you go play with your crayons and coloring books?" Lucy ignores Laura's condescending attitude toward her interests and leaves the room. She holds the mirror up to the ceiling again and sure enough, there she is in the big room with two desks back to back that disappeared when she turns the mirror away from the ceiling. They are on the ceiling according to her mirror but gravity is not pulling anything toward her.
The man stops keyboarding and rubs his chin. He appears to be reading what is on his computer screen. As she tries to make her way over to read over his shoulder he suddenly calls out again, "I don't know where to go from here."
The lady in the kitchen calls back, "Just keep going. Imagine yourself in her world." This freaks Lucy out a bit. How could she be watching this and actually be in her own house that is so different from what she is seeing in the mirror? Who are these people, anyway?
She decides to go for a walk. She goes back to her room to get her jacket. It's a late Easter this year but it is still cool jacket weather.
"I'm going out. When should I be back for desert?" she asks her mother who is now sponging down the stove.
"You could help Laura with her pie." Lucy's mother suggests.
"She'll just wreck it" Laura asserts then tries to lighten up so her mother won't scold her. "You know what they say about too many cooks…"
"Go ahead, darling," Her mother tells Lucy. "I'm sure there will be pie left over whenever you get back."
Outside, Lucy feels much better. Maybe she was daydreaming when she was looking in that hand mirror. The fresh air and sunshine gives her a lot more energy than in that house full of boring adults. Lucy hadn't realized that there are so many flowers out. She decides to pick some wild flowers that she could sketch with her new water soluble colored pencils. Contrary to Laura's suggestion, she is not using crayons in a coloring book anymore. Lucy considers, how would Laura know I am working in colored pencils and watercolors now, she hasn't been home since Christmas? Then Lucy realizes that Laura couldn't possibly provoke her now that she's out there in the great outdoors. She feels so much freer outside than she thinks Laura is feeling inside - trying to prove her maturity by baking a pie.
Taking in the freedom of nature, meandering through the fields, Lucy spots a honey bee on the ground. She stops and studies it and notices it isn't moving. Before touching it she decides to see what it does if she tries moving it with a leaf - nothing. It must be dead. Lucy wants to pick it up and bring it home. Maybe she could draw it but it is so fragile and she has no way to carry it home. She tries using a firm leaf like a pancake turner to scoop it up. Success! She gently cups it in her hand then realizes she can carry it in her hooded sweatshirt pass-through front pocket.
As Lucy is walking and working out her carrying system she almost steps in a huge puddle. Just before she steps, she looks down, catching a reflected image. It is the man and the woman with the partner desks joyfully working away. They pause and look at each other. Lucy feels the breeze picking up and a leaf blows into the puddle rippling the image into abstraction. As it settles down, a large reflection of a seagull obscures the mirrored image of the concentrating couple. Lucy hears a buzzing coming from her front pouch pocket and it begins to flutter. She looks at her sweatshirt pocket then back at the puddle. Now the puddle is further away and she can barely make out the evidence of the couple. It's as if she's floating away. She looks around and sees blue the color of sky everywhere. This is the color she wants to paint her bedroom. The blue changes to a misty white then spots of blue again. What she sees below her is no longer a puddle but a much darker greenish blue with flecks of white and navy blue patches or shadows. It resembles white caps on a far away ocean. There are flashes of bright light bouncing off this body of water. Then there is only what Lucy can describe as the sensation of a pop, like a bubble and suddenly she is no longer having the sensation of floating or flying.
Lucy's weight is on her back and she is looking up at flat white space. She tastes a sweet honey like flavor in her mouth. There is a knock on her door and Laura enters announcing, "David's home and desert is ready."
Laura checks her pocket and the bee is still there. She gently scoops it out and places it on her desk under a glass she keeps there for drinking water when she's drawing, painting or working on homework. She glances at herself in her hand mirror, brushes her hair, then goes to join her family for desert.
posted by Heidi Drew at 1:14 PM
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