The Candy Shop War
Page 45

“Welcome to Wonderland,” Trevor said.
“Is your flashlight on?” Nate asked.
“Yep,” Trevor said. “I don’t think light shines here.”
“We can see the mirrors,” Nate said. “Light has to be reaching our eyes.”
“Sure, but it doesn’t brighten anything—not us, not the ground, not even the emptiness.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to shine on,” Nate said. “We’re reflections now, which sort of means we’re nothing.”
“You saw me wave, right?” Trevor said.
“Sure. But look, I put my arm right next to the mirror, and absolutely no light hits it. I bet reflections are only visible from outside a mirror.”
Trevor reached out and touched Nate’s arm. “At least I can feel you. And I can see your outline when you’re in front of the mirror.”
“Touch the ground,” Nate suggested.
Trevor crouched and ran his hand over the hard, smooth surface. “It’s like glass.”
“It certainly isn’t dirt or asphalt,” Nate said. “Nothing is quite real here, not the ground, not even the cold.”
“Isn’t the cold weird?” Trevor agreed. “You feel it, but it doesn’t really get to you, it doesn’t penetrate.”
“That’s what I mean,” Nate said. “Nothing here is real. We better get going. I can see how people could get lost in here.”
“If we walk directly away from this mirror, we should be inside the candy shop in about twenty steps,” Trevor said. He placed his hand against the mirror, which from his current perspective looked like a window. “Let me test something.” He gradually pushed harder and harder. “The mirror won’t budge.”
“I’m telling you, I think we’re close to being nothing in here,” Nate said. “We may be just about the only things in here that can think or move or talk or make a silhouette. It creeps me out.”
They started taking hesitant steps away from the mirror. “If it’s dark inside the candy shop, we may have a hard time spotting the way in.”
“We’ll find the mirror,” Nate assured him. “It has to be brighter than total blackness!”
“I keep thinking I’m going to run into something,” Trevor said.
“There’s nothing to run into! No walls, no objects, just ground.”
“What if I run into the back side of a mirror?” Trevor wondered.
“I guess that’s possible,” Nate said.
They continued forward. Trevor could not shake the worry that he might whack his face against something in the darkness, but it kept not happening. He paused and looked back at the mirror through which they had entered. “I think we’re inside the candy shop by now,” he said.
Nate gave no answer. “Nate?” Trevor asked. “Nate?” he repeated more urgently.
Nate exhaled loudly. “Sorry,” he said. “Try holding your breath. You never run out of air. It seems like you will, but the point where you actually need to take another breath never comes.”
Trevor held his breath. Nate was right, it felt normal at first, like his oxygen was running out and soon he would need to exhale and gulp down fresh air. But the moment of true desperation never came. “It’s like if we didn’t have the habit, we wouldn’t need to breathe at all.”
“Find your pulse,” Nate said.
Trevor felt his wrist, sliding his fingers around, searching for that spot a bit off-center where the pulse was strong. He could not find it. He tried his neck instead, where it was usually easier to find his heartbeat, again to no avail. Finally he pressed his hand against his chest. Nothing. “No pulse?”
“No pulse,” Nate confirmed. “Our hearts don’t need to beat, we breathe only out of habit . . . no wonder Mrs. White said we could get trapped in here forever.”
“This is definitely not the place I want to spend forever,” Trevor said.
“Window shopping until the end of time,” Nate said. “Roaming from mirror to mirror like a ghost.”
They were talking fairly quietly, but Trevor lowered his voice even more. “You don’t think our voices are carrying through the mirrors, do you?”
“I doubt it,” Nate whispered. “But we should probably be careful, just in case.”
Trevor spotted a less black circle floating in the darkness at about the height of his waist. “Do you see that?” Trevor asked.
“What?”
“Over here. Follow my voice.”
“Oh, genius, good eyes, that has to be it.”
Leaning over the circle, about the size of a medium pizza, Trevor could faintly discern the white and black checkered pattern of the candy shop floor. He could also make out some chrome table legs and chair legs. Trevor placed a hand on the circle. “Feels solid. How should we go through?”
“Stand on it,” Nate recommended. “Then you’ll land on your feet instead of on your head.”
“Think it will hold me?”
“I think we’re nothing right now. It will hold nothing.”
“Come help me balance,” Trevor said. Laying a hand on Nate’s shoulder, he got one knee up onto the circle, then lifted his opposite foot, and in a moment he was standing on the dim disk. “Should I go for it?”
“You didn’t see any sign of anybody?”
“Just our moms trying to break in and steal fudge,” Trevor said.
Nate chuckled.
“It looked quiet and dark,” Trevor continued. “I think the only light was trickling in through the windows from the street.”
“Then go for it,” Nate said.
Trevor pulled a mint from his pocket and put it in his mouth. The circle became elastic, like he was on a trampoline. Biting down, he instantly dropped through the circle to the tile floor. Raising his arms over his head, Trevor ducked down, worming the rest of himself through the round opening. There was not much room to spare, but he fit. He scooted out of the way so Nate could drop through.
Trevor had almost forgotten that he was holding his flashlight, until he saw it actually penetrating the darkness of the candy shop. The beam landed on a withered old man wearing a long feathered headdress, making Trevor feel a brief surge of panic before he recognized the figure as the wooden Indian. He switched the light off.
Sneakers slapped down against the tile floor as Nate dropped through the mirror. To Trevor it looked like a moment from a magic show—a pair of legs wearing jeans sticking out from the bottom of the table with nothing visible above it. It would make a pretty good stage trick.