Page 9 of Grotesque
I obviously hadn’t secured the coverings as well as I thought I had, and they had come loose. That was all. I was halfway through fixing the one over the mirror in the hallway when I heard the snap of a sheet from up above.
I turned slowly to face the bottom of the stairs.
My heart thumped painfully at the same moment chills burst across my skin. I hadn’t been afraid until that moment, thinking it was some silly fluke that two sheets had slipped off the mirrors, but that sound of a third ripping free was no coincidence. Material doesn’t snap like that when it falls. Someone would have had to yank it free for it to make that sort of noise.
If ghosts weren’t real, then that meant someone very human was in the house with me. How long had the house been vacant before the attorneys reached out to us? Had it been vacant at all? Maybe there was a maid living here? It would explain why the house was so well kept. But wouldn’t someone have mentioned that? Surely, they would have introduced themselves.
The greeting on the back of my tongue died as I hovered at the base of the stairs. Nothing good ever happens to the person who goes investigating strange noises. I needed to know, though. I needed to see for myself that the sheet had been taken off and that I wasn’t the only person in here.
I crept up the steps until I could see the mirror cresting the landing. I let out a deep sigh of relief. It was still covered.
Encouraged, I made my way up to the top and scoured the rooms. There was nothing to see. No other mirrors uncovered. Whatever I had heard must have been a twisted joke of my imagination.
Until another sound reached me. It wasn’t the same this time, rather, it was the sound of fluttering. Like wings against glass.
I carefully approached the landing mirror, my eyes locked on its covering.
It shifted slightly. Like something was trapped beneath it.
I stood frozen, transfixed. Until the sound came again. The whispering and tapping.
The sheet fluttered, the fabric reaching towards me like long fingers. Almost without thinking, I reached back, my fingers grazing the material. I kept reaching, farther, farther, until I couldn’t deny it.
I was pushing the materialthroughthe mirror, not against it.
In my panic I snatched the fabric down. I jumped at the sight of my own reflection, then covered my mouth as I started to laugh. I was simply looking back at myself… just as I should have been.
And then I saw what had caused the disturbance behind the sheet.
Moths. Three of them perched on the surface of the mirror, their wings spread wide. Death’s-head hawkmoths to be exact.
I took a cautious step closer. The vivid yellow and black of their wings stood out against the soft glow of the lamplight. The skulls decorating their backs stared back at me as if in warning as I traced my fingers in the air above them. My mouth felt as though it were filled with sawdust as I touched the fingertips of my other hand to the tattoo on my thigh.
Death’s-heads were not native to the Americas. So, what the hell were three of them doing in the house? Had Macky been collecting them? Breeding them somehow?
As far as I knew my grandmother hadn’t been a pet person so I found it highly unlikely she would have been a bug person.
I turned, trying to decide on how or where I would put them if I collected them. Maybe I could put them in one of the back rooms. The downstairs bathroom seemed best, it was smaller, and it would be easier to catch them again when I figured out what to do next.
Another sound pulled me reluctantly away and into a bedroom. My heartbeat quickened as I pulled the sheet covering the vanity mirror to the side. It slid slowly to the ground as I took a step back.
More death’s-heads. Six. No, seven.
I was moving before I heard the next flutter of wings. I wasn’t thinking. The rules didn’t even cross my mind as I pulled the sheets away from the mirrors. How could I? When with each reveal there were more moths. More eyeless sockets staring back at me. It didn’t dawn on me until much later, when I was facing my reflection in my bedroom, that the moths were only on the mirrors, and nowhere else in the house. I touched the glass before me, but it remained firm.
I had drunk too much. This was some drunken stupor I was currently in.
My nails dug into the ink on my thigh. Death’s-heads were often associated with rebirth or the afterlife. I’d gotten the tattoo to symbolize my fresh start.
But they were also associated with, and best known for, being a sign of death. They were a bad omen.
A terrible, awful feeling slunk into the room. It was in the house, now that the mirrors were uncovered. Whatever had been watching me was here.
Chills rushed across my skin as I swallowed the unnecessary terror. I was being ridiculous. There was a perfectly good explanation for the moths. There had to be.
I reached out to the glass again. Still, it remained firm under my touch. I slid my finger down to one of the moths. Its small legs tickled my fingertip when I pulled it away.
I didn’t sleep that night. Not when there were so many mirrors to uncover. So many moths to count.
