erhaps I had better explain about the mirror. I don’t know who I was when I was young. I remember that girl, and yet she is so foreign to me, so strange. She is wild and uncontained. Sometimes I think that the mirror changed me. Am I no longer me? Was she me? Was I invaded by a spirit, a consciousness on another plane? Did I look into the void of my own soul and somehow change it? Or did I simply grow up, grow old?
The other member of the Rowe household was a shorthaired gray cat named Montague. The day of the family’s arrival in their new home in Redlands, California, Montague was already in residence.
The rough stone building situated in the middle of a vast orange grove was not at all what Charlotte had in mind regarding a place to live. It was really nothing but rubble.
They rode out from the railway station in a ridiculous open carriage which insistently pointed out each rut and rock in the road. When they pulled up in front of the structure, Professor Rowe helped first Miriam and then Charlotte down from the carriage.
Charlotte kicked a large stone.
“This place,” said Miriam, breathing the air in deeply and glancing over at Charles Rowe. “This place has an atmosphere,” she said.
Professor Rowe was gazing up at the stone building with a self-satisfied look, as if he had built the place himself.
“If you look at the design of the place,” he said, “you can see the intricate knowledge in the details of the design. This place was built with a purpose.”
“It is glorious,” sighed Miriam.
“It’s hot,” said Charlotte.
“Now, Charlotte,” said Miriam. “Don’t be so narrow-minded!”
“Well, it is hot. Can I have an orange?”
“No,” said Professor Rowe. “The oranges are not technically ours.”
“Who will know?” asked Charlotte.
“Don’t talk back to your father. Come, let us go look inside.”
The family walked up to the front door of the tumble-down structure and into a dark, dank stone room.
They all paused at the entrance and looked about in a bit of dismay. “Well,” said Miriam, “we will soon make this place just like home.”
As Miriam strode into the room, the cat rushed down the stairwell, screeching. It darted under her feet. She screamed and jumped from foot to foot, losing her balance and landing on her bottom.
Professor Rowe stooped to help his wife up. Her screeching had turned to a howl.
“That cat!” she said. “That demon! Where did that creature come from?”
The cat was weaving in and out between Charlotte’s feet. Charlotte reached down and caressed its head.
Miriam was pointing at the cat. “Get that cat out of here!”
Charlotte looked at her mother. “This cat is my familiar,” she said.
Miriam’s arm fell down by degrees, until it rested at her side.
“What?”
“He was sent to me by Nanette. His name is Montague.”
“Oh.” Professor and Miriam Rowe stared at the cat.
“He will not bother you, Mother,” said Charlotte and picked up the cat.
Holding the cat in her arms, Charlotte looked around the room.
“Yes, we will get along here quite well.” She took the cat and went up the stairs to the top room of the tower. That room became, with no discussion, Charlotte’s room.
The room was, surprisingly, furnished. It contained a big, soft bed, a chest of drawers, and an enormous mirror on the wall across from the bed. Charlotte let go of the cat and flung herself on the bed. She sunk into the deep, soft mattress. Montague jumped up atop the dresser and began carefully examining his own reflection in the mirror.
“What are you doing over there?” asked Charlotte. “Come over to me. I have a piece of string.”
Because he was a feline and therefore contrary by nature, Montague did not respond.
“Come here,” said Charlotte again, petulantly.
She sat up on the bed and slapped her palms down noisily.
The cat in the mirror tilted its head to the side and meowed at her. She heard it.
Charlotte blinked.
Montague continued to stare into the mirror for a moment. Then he sat and commenced licking his paw. Charlotte looked at Montague and his mirror twin. Nothing odd happened.
She was just lying back down on the bed when the cat in the mirror laid down two full seconds before the cat on the dresser.
Charlotte walked over to the mirror and looked into it. She saw herself.
Charlotte awoke the next morning crumpled on the floor with a splitting headache.
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