Dead Voices

Brian was staring at Coco, and the horror in his voice wasn’t faked when he said, “Coco, what are you doing?”

“I just don’t want to be scared anymore,” said Coco. “If we go through the mirror, we’ll just sleep on a bed, just like the other ghost children. They’re not scared. Like Ollie.” She waved at the mirror, saw Brian catch sight of Ollie and bite his lip so hard it bled. “We won’t be scared when we’re sleeping.”

“I won’t!” snapped Brian. “I won’t go through the mirror! You can’t make me!”

Seth said, “I fear that you will find that I can. After all, that was the price of losing.”

“Don’t be scared,” said Coco. “Soon we won’t be scared at all.” She gave Brian a long look. She couldn’t say trust me, but she tried to let her eyes say it for her.

Seth said a single word that made the air smell like rotten eggs, and the mirror rippled once.

It was open.

Coco, heart beating rabbit-fast, crossed the room, put both her hands on the mirror, stepped forward, and found herself in a moonlit mirror world.

Behind her, she heard Seth say, “Your turn,” to Brian.

But Coco wasn’t even paying attention to Seth anymore. Because she had her eye on three things. One was Ollie herself, lying asleep in the bed directly across from her.

Another was the oil lamp, lying abandoned.

The third was Mother Hemlock, standing there waiting for her. Coco seized the blanket off Ollie’s bed and flung it over Mother Hemlock’s head, winning herself a few seconds. “Ollie!” she screamed. “Olivia Adler, you have to wake up!”

The sound of her friend’s voice answering made her weak with relief.

“Coco?” Ollie’s voice filled with horror. “I can’t see you. You—no—you can’t be here?”

Coco didn’t answer. She had dived for the oil lamp under Ollie’s bed. There was a little oil in the chamber. “Ollie, your matches, right now,” Coco snapped.

Ollie, without another word, dug into her pocket, grabbed a matchbook, and, with trembling hands, lit one. Her eyes were still frozen shut; she was working by touch. Coco brought her the lamp, and the wick kindled just as Mother Hemlock’s hand descended.

Coco whipped around, holding the lamp, just as she saw fire bloom in the mirror on the other side. The lamps were connected. She had been right.

And now there was fire on both sides of the mirror.

Mother Hemlock recoiled from the flames. But Coco’s blood went cold, because she saw Seth reaching for the lamp, obviously meaning to put it out on the other side. His mouth twisted; he’d seen what Coco was trying to do.

Mother Hemlock was coming for her; Coco shoved the burning lamp in her face; she cringed away.

“Brian!” she shouted, praying that Brian could hear. “Keep the fire going!”

Brian was a very practical person. But in this case, maybe desperation or the long, terrible night made him too quick to decide what to do. Rather than risk Seth smothering the lamp, he set the curtains on fire.

The curtains on the ghost side of the mirror went up too, sending living, golden light across rows and rows of dead faces. Coco, figuring that she couldn’t make things worse, threw down her own lamp so that it spilled oil over the floor and set fire to it.

Well, she thought, giddy with rage, terror, alarm, and exhaustion, I really hate this lodge. And now we have fires on both sides of the mirror.

“Come on,” she said to Ollie. “Time to go.”

Ollie looked confused. Meltwater was running like tears down her face. “Where is Gretel?” she said. “What about the bones?”

“No time to explain!” yelled Coco. Fire was already roaring all around them. She grabbed her friend’s hand and ran full-speed at the mirror.

Either I’m right, Coco thought, or we’re trapped forever in a burning building.

They slammed into the glass.

And through it. Brian was already red-eyed from the smoke. “How?”