fiction by avery timmons

The Other Side

Evangeline couldn’t look away from that mirror.

Maybe it was the placement of it—how it sat to the right of the counter where the hostess stood, who was always smiling as she greeted customers. It was pushed so far back that it looked, at first glance, like another part of the dining room. But upon looking closer, Eva realized that it wasn’t another blonde girl staring back and that it was simply her reflection.

There was still something about it that piqued her curiosity, that kept her glancing at it out of the corner of her eye, even as she turned back to the conversation that she hadn’t even been paying attention to in the first place. Her friends were all laughing, none of them noticing that she wasn’t laughing along.

Except for one.

“You okay?” Anabelle nudged Eva’s shoulder with hers. Eva offered her friend what she hoped was a convincing, reassuring smile before glancing back over at the mirror. It was at the end of what was almost a short hallway, the right wall blank and painted a dark gray, the left holding two doors with a little sign jutting out from the wall above them that read restrooms.

“I’m just gonna go to the bathroom,” Eva murmured, not waiting for a response or lack thereof from Anabelle before getting up from the table. She walked the short distance and stopped in front of the women’s restroom door, resting her hand flat on the wood, ready to push the door open. But she turned and gazed into the mirror, at her now-much-closer reflection.

She wasn’t sure if she was seeing things, but her eyes in her reflection seemed darker than usual. She stared at herself for a minute, until a voice broke her out of her thoughts. “Either go in or get out of the way, hon.”

Startled, she sidestepped away from the door, her hand dropping to her side. She watched as a short, older lady gave her a half-concerned, half-annoyed look before shuffling past Eva into the restroom, letting the door bang shut behind her. Eva turned, realizing that she was now even closer to the mirror.

It was probably just the lighting, she decided. There wasn’t any direct overhead lighting in the small hallway, it was only dimly lit by the light flooding in from the dining room. Of course her eyes would appear darker in bad lighting like this.

Eva’s eyes left her reflection, her heart skipping a beat in surprise when she locked eyes with Anabelle’s reflection. Anabelle had twisted around, arms folded on the back of her chair, watching Eva intensely. Eva whipped around, but Anabelle was facing the rest of their friends, laughing and completely caught up in the conversation.

Eva shook it off, turning back to face the mirror. In the reflection, Anabelle was turned back around, just as she had been in real life, the back of her head facing Eva and her long, wavy, dark brown hair swaying as she tossed her head back and laughed.

There was an odd feeling within Eva, as if something—or someone—was beckoning her from within the mirror.

Don’t be silly, she thought to herself, it’s a mirror. That’s your reflection and everyone else’s reflection. There’s nothing more to it. Turn around, go back to your seat, and forget about it.

But it wasn’t that easy.

Would she look like an idiot, reaching out to touch the mirror as if she had never seen her reflection before in her life? Definitely.

But she had to make sure.

After one last glance around to make sure nobody was looking, she reached out, preparing herself to press her fingertips against the cool glass.

But all that doubt left her mind as soon as the glass didn’t stop her hand. Instead, Eva’s hand sunk through the mirror as if it were nothing but a shimmering pool of water, waves rippling across the surface, disrupting the reflection of the scenery and people behind her. Her breath hitched in shock as she tore her hand away, wiping it on the left thigh of her faded jeans. But there was nothing on her hand to indicate that she had just stuck it through a mirror—or what she had thought was a mirror.

Eva decided she must be hallucinating as she made her way into the bathroom, the old woman on her way out. They bumped shoulders, but Eva couldn’t manage anything but a barely audible “sorry” as she stumbled into the nearest stall, locking the door behind her and sinking to the cold tile floor, pulling her knees up to her chest.

She had expected to be wrong. She had wanted to be wrong, and to have the confirmation that she was overthinking things, as she usually was.

But that wasn’t the case this time. As much as she wanted to blame it on lack of sleep or something similar, she could still feel her hand going through the mirror, the texture that surrounded her hand not sharp and glass like as she had expected, but instead, soft and silky and welcoming, pulling her in as if whatever lay behind had been waiting for her.

And maybe it had.

It wasn’t that Eva didn’t believe in magic if that’s what this could be called. There were plenty of unexplainable occurrences in the world, but never did she think that she would experience any of them—especially not something like this. Especially since she didn’t even know what this was, and she wouldn’t find out if she continued to sit in here.

She found it in her to push herself up, using the toilet paper holder as leverage before exiting the stall. She took a quick glance in the small, rectangular mirror that was positioned over the single sink—this one was actually made of glass—to make sure she didn’t appear as shell-shocked as she felt before deciding to head back to the table. After all, she had been gone a little long and didn’t want anyone to start to worry.

Eva argued with herself in her head as she walked back to the table, and she ended up deciding to leave it alone. It could be dangerous, and it could also be magnificent, but no matter what it was, it was like nothing Eva had ever experienced before in her life, and that alone helped her to decide that she should stay away.

But even before she slid back into her seat, she realized that Anabelle was missing. Her glass of water was half empty, condensation causing droplets to slide down the sides, and her plate of sushi and chopsticks untouched. “Where’s Ana?” 

The redheaded girl sitting across the table from Eva—one of Anabelle’s friends, Lexi—glanced up from trying to figure out how to correctly hold her chopsticks.

“Bathroom. She just left, too. You didn’t run into her?”

But before Eva could figure out what to say, and whether or not to admit that no, she didn’t run into Anabelle, Lexi had already turned back to the conversation.

Eva looked down at her plate of sushi, her stomach twisting so badly that she couldn’t even bring herself to pick up her own chopsticks. Instead, she reached for her full glass of water, sipping it carefully, just so that she had something to do while the others talked on and on. She glanced back over to the mirror without thinking and choked on her water when she realized what she was seeing in it.

She started coughing, tears blurring her vision as she hacked loudly into the crook of her elbow. She pushed herself up from her seat, feeling the rest of the girls’—and probably the entire restaurant’s—eyes on her as she hurried back to the bathroom. Coughs racked her body as she tried to recover so that she could assess what she had seen.

She stood over the sink, bracing herself by clutching either side of it so tightly that her knuckles turned white. She took slow, deep breaths, but there was a tight, aching feeling in her chest, even when she’d taken enough breaths to slow her heart rate. She raised her eyes slowly to look at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was what she saw in that other damned mirror, only moments before—Anabelle in the chair next to Eva’s reflection, looking straight out of the mirror and into the real Eva’s eyes, beckoning her towards the mirror with both hands.

Did Anabelle know that there was something strange about this place? Is that why she had suggested all of the girls meet here for dinner tonight? And now, was she trying to show Eva whatever secret she was holding?

And if Anabelle was in there, where was her reflection?

Once Eva rubbed her eyes, wiped her damp cheeks, and took a few more breaths to steady herself, she decided now was a better time than any. If Anabelle had gone in there and found it safe enough to invite Eva in with her, and if Anabelle had something to show her, then Eva would oblige. After all, they grew up together and even decided to go to the same college. She was practically a sister to Eva at this point—someone she trusted with her life. 

Once Eva gathered up the courage, she left the bathroom, and stopped in front of the mirror. There was Anabelle in the reflection, seated in her chair at the table, laughing with the other girls, as if she wasn’t missing and was seated at the table behind Eva.

But what Eva didn’t think twice about, too concerned with Anabelle now to think much of anything else, was that her own reflection wasn’t staring back at her.

When she reached out her hand again, she didn’t jerk back at the sensation when her hand was pulled through. And this time, she stepped forward, her foot sinking through, the mirror rippling as she continued to inch forward, her entire body being engulfed by the mirror. She felt as if she was being squeezed through one of those inflatable tunnels that she’d been through at haunted houses, and for a split second, her chest tightened in sharp panic as it became suffocating. But that feeling resided the next second, when her feet hit hard, solid ground again, and cold familiar air hit the exposed skin of her face and arms. A little too cold, maybe, because she felt the hair starting to raise on her arms, which she crossed over her chest.

Eva opened her eyes and looked at her surroundings. She was in the restaurant still, only, instead of facing the mirror, her back was now towards it. But the two doors were still to her right, with the little wooden sign reading restrooms hanging above them. And down the small hall, the counter was still to her right, the black-clad hostess grabbing menus from a shelf under the counter for an awaiting couple, only she wasn’t smiling anymore.

And there, only a few steps further past the counter was her table. The girls were in deep conversation, a seemingly serious one, too, considering their faces were blank with emotion. None of them even glanced in Eva’s direction as she slowly stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the back of Anabelle’s head, who was seated with her hands in her lap, her plate of sushi still untouched, but her glass of water full now.

As if Anabelle felt Eva’s eyes on her, she turned around, her lips immediately curving upwards into a smile.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, not hesitating to stand up from the table, pushing her chair in before approaching Eva. She hooked her arm through Eva’s, pulling the blonde closer to her side. Eva’s eyes searched Anabelle’s face as if the answer would be written there, but there was nothing unusual about Annabelle’s bright smile and warm gentle brown eyes.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Anabelle continued, as Eva found herself too confused to say anything. “Took you long enough. This is cool, isn’t it? I haven’t figured out exactly what it is, but—” Anabelle pointed, and Eva followed her finger to find her pointing back at the mirror. 

Eva found herself straightening up, almost defensively, when she saw what Anabelle was trying to get her to notice: that their reflections were missing. “I have figured out that while it looks the same, we are on the other side of the mirror. People don’t react to you here like they would over there. Here, watch.”

She dragged Eva over to the table, where she reached over to Lexi, carefully picking up a strand of her long, red hair from her back between her index finger and thumb before giving it a hard tug. Hard enough to the point where anyone would have shouted out in pain, but Lexi gave no indication that she even knew Anabelle and Eva were standing behind her. She continued paying attention to the other girls, still deep in unintelligible conversation.

Eva looked over her shoulder, back towards the mirror. She couldn’t help but remember that, unlike everyone else, there was only one Anabelle. At first, there had been two, when the one in the mirror had been staring at Eva.

So where did the second one go?

“We can do anything!” Anabelle exclaimed, reaching out to grab Eva’s hand once again, breaking the blonde out of her thoughts. “Why stay in this restaurant if we’re free to do whatever we want? As long as everywhere else is like this, that is.”

Eva shook her head, standing her ground firmly, even as Anabelle tried to tug her in yet another direction—this time, towards the glass door that would lead them out into the now dark outside, and something about that made Eva uneasy. She eyed shadows curling in the corners, behind the counter, at the feet of all the customers under the tables, and especially, by the mirror. She wasn’t quite sure if she was imagining it or not, but now that she’d been in here, gotten a look around, and got Anabelle back, she was ready to go back across the mirror. The unresponsiveness of the others was unsettling, and she couldn’t quite fathom how Anabelle seemed so enthralled by it. The mirror was suddenly less appealing to Eva now that she was on the other side, and she didn’t think she could spend much longer in here. . . wherever it was, exactly.

“We should really go back,” Eva said, slowly, as she looked slightly upward into Anabelle’s brown eyes. They seemed a shade darker than usual, though she suspected that was probably just the poor lighting, just as she had experienced earlier.

“Aw, already?” Anabelle's lips curved downwards in a small, disappointed frown, but the next second, it was gone. “That’s okay. After all, now that we know, we can come back at any time.”

“Yeah,” Eva said absentmindedly, her focus fixed on getting out of this place, back to their food and friends, who may or may not have noticed that they were missing. But just as Eva stopped in front of the mirror, removing her hand from Anabelle’s wrist so that she could reach out towards the mirror, she heard something from behind her that sounded like a girl’s scream. A heart-stopping, terrified scream. But it was just distant enough that she wasn’t sure where it was coming from, and while she couldn’t count on anyone else to react, Anabelle’s lack of reaction made Eva doubt that she had heard anything. Maybe this place was just messing with her head.

Regardless, she still had to ask.

“Ana, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Eva held Anabelle’s gaze for a few seconds longer before turning back to the mirror. She could still hear the scream ringing in her ears, but once she left this place with Anabelle, it wouldn’t be her problem anymore. 

Anabelle didn’t seem worried about any of it. She just wrapped her fingers around Eva’s wrist and tugged downwards on it to get her attention.

“C’mon, Eves. Lead the way.”

She quickly nodded at Anabelle before stepping through the mirror, Anabelle following close behind, her hand still wrapped around Eva’s wrist. Eva held her breath as the suffocating feeling swept over her once more, the mirror pressing on her chest, down on her shoulders, and every other inch of her, until finally, she and Anabelle stepped out on the other side.

Eva breathed a sigh of relief, but soon realized, even as she followed Anabelle back to their table, that something still didn’t feel right. She still felt that chill from the other side lingering on her skin as if it had attached itself to her in a way. As she sat down, offering a smile to Lexi and the other girls and reassuring them that she was fine after the water incident, she glanced back towards the mirror. Her reflection was back, sitting in the same seat, staring back at her as if it really was nothing but a reflection. But Anabelle’s was still missing, the chair next to Eva’s reflection empty.

She couldn’t wrap her head around it. As the minutes ticked by, as her friends started to finish their sushi and complain about being full, Eva started to convince herself that it hadn’t happened. Maybe she had just drifted off into a daydream, trying to entertain herself because she couldn’t relate to the conversations the other girls were having.

But if it wasn’t real, why would Anabelle’s reflection be missing?

Eva forced herself to look away from the mirror and to try and focus on the conversation being had, which Anabelle was completely involved in as if nothing had happened.

So Eva decided that she, too, would pretend like nothing had happened. Things were usually easier that way.

*

When they left the restaurant that evening, Eva didn’t even glance in the direction of the mirror. She vowed to push it out of her mind entirely, including the chill that seemed to never leave her body days after their dinner and the way that Anabelle seemed slightly different. Darker almost, as if spending time on the other side of the mirror had changed her bright spirit ever so slightly.

Until one night, Eva found herself—almost involuntarily—heading back to the restaurant, but this time, alone. She had tried to distract herself by doing homework, reading, cleaning, anything, but nothing had successfully lessened the pull that she felt in the pit of her stomach, begging her to return to the restaurant, to that mirror, just as it had drawn her in that first day.

So, she obliged, but mostly simply due to the fear that the desire to go back would never go away if she continued to try to ignore it.

She didn’t know what to expect. She placed an order for carryout once she arrived, and after being told the wait time, she made a beeline for the bathroom, pushing open the heavy wooden door without even a glance towards the mirror.

As she locked herself in the same stall as last time, she sank to the floor once again, pulling her knees up to her chest as she leaned her head back against the stall door, everything cool and solid and grounding under her touch, which was exactly what she needed before she stepped foot through that mirror again.

But what was she doing here? She knew there was something not right about that mirror, considering the chill that’d buried its way deep inside of her. So why couldn’t she just stay away? After all, Anabelle, while she seemed changed, too, was able to stay away. Even though she had been the one who was excited about the possibilities of the other side of the mirror, she seemed able to ignore it.

So why couldn’t Eva?

While sitting on that cold, white tile floor, Eva vowed this would be the last time. She would give in to the pull once more and would never come back here again, no matter what.

After giving herself a pep talk under her breath, Eva pushed herself up off the floor and exited the bathroom without even so much as a glance at the small, rectangular mirror above the sink. She pushed the bathroom door open with purpose, nearly knocking out a toddler and her mother on the way, and strode towards the mirror. While her reflection was gone once again, she noticed something that made her blood run cold, colder than it already felt: Anabelle, running towards her, her normally perfectly styled hair frizzy and sticking up in places as if she had just rolled out of bed, fear present in her wide, brown eyes.

Eva didn’t bother looking over her shoulder to see if this was Anabelle’s reflection or if she was really running up behind Eva. She didn’t even bother to brace herself for the feeling of stepping through the mirror, or to check to see if anyone was looking; she just did it, her eyes fixed on Anabelle, her own panic building in her chest.

“Eva, you have to go, you have to take me with you,” Anabelle said, rushing towards Eva and grabbing her forearms, her eyes dark and wild with terror. Eva froze as Anabelle shook her, her fingernails digging into Eva’s skin.

“Did you hear me? We have to leave. That—that other person, that other me, isn’t me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not human, none of these things in here are. There’s another you, and she held me hostage while you were in here last so that I couldn’t warn you, but I escaped, and I think that other me has plans to hurt you or something, I don’t know, but you have to help me. You have to—” 

“Eva.”

The voice didn’t come from Anabelle standing in front of Eva, still gripping her arms with all her strength as if she was worried she’d leave her. Eva tore her eyes away from this terrified Anabelle’s face and looked over her own shoulder, only to see another Anabelle, standing on the other side of the mirror, her expression much calmer, though the urgency in her eyes was what Eva suspected her own looked like.

“Eva,” said Anabelle still holding on to Eva, warning in her tone, but Eva ignored her and continued to stare at the Anabelle on the other side of the mirror.

“Eva,” the other, calmer, Anabelle repeated. “She’s trying to trick you. Trust me. You saw how people are different in there yourself, right? Well, some are bad. Some will try to hurt you, and she’s trying to get you to stay so that she can—” 

“It’s not true!” The Anabelle closest to Eva exclaimed desperately, her fingers digging further into Eva’s arms, pain shooting through Eva from how hard she was gripping her. “Eva, listen to me. She—it’s lying to you, it’s trying to trick you. You have to help me get out, and you have to put it back in here and seal the mirror or whatever the hell that is to make sure it doesn’t escape. Eva, please.”

“Eva, she’s right about that, but you have to make sure she doesn’t escape,” the other Anabelle called from behind Eva. “I’ve done my research over the last few days, but kept it to myself because I didn’t want to scare you. But I know what to do to fix this for good. To make sure that neither of us ever wants to come back here—for good.”

So Anabelle did feel the pull, just like Eva did. She’d just handled it better—which was to be expected.

With the Anabelles on either side of her, each of them trying to talk over each other and tell her different things, one frantic and one calm, Eva squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block them out so that she could think clearly and make a decision.

Anabelle was normally calm in hectic situations, which was one of the things Eva loved about her. She was always able to keep her head and make a well-thought-out plan.

And this Anabelle holding on to Eva, digging her fingernails tighter and tighter into Eva’s arm, had said she was being held hostage, yet she ran at Eva this time when Eva arrived. Why couldn’t she have just run out of the mirror? Why was she stopping Eva like this, trying to convince her the other Anabelle was evil, instead of just escaping herself? If she was truly human, like Eva, she’d just be able to walk in and out of the mirror like Eva had done before, wouldn’t she?

And sure, Anabelle had been acting a little odd ever since that one night, but so had Eva. They were both shocked by the fact that such a thing existed and so it only made sense that Anabelle had researched it, to try and wrap her head around it, especially since she was feeling the pull, too.

After another minute of listening to one Anabelle’s desperate begging in front of her, and the other Anabelle’s calmer, yet still urgent advice to think about what she was doing, Eva opened her eyes, having made her decision. She raised her chin and looked Anabelle in the eyes as she pried her vice grip from her forearms.

“No,” Anabelle begged. Eva knew she had to hurry, to keep one step ahead of her so that she couldn’t get a hold of her again and trap her in here. The Anabelle on the other side of the mirror was nodding encouragingly, holding out her hand and telling Eva to hurry. Eva passed through the mirror, time seeming to slow for a minute before bursting out on the other side, stumbling into Anabelle’s outstretched arms as she heard a terrible scream—just like that other day.

Maybe that Anabelle had screamed that other day to try and lure Eva and the real Anabelle to her, to keep them as hostages. That would make sense, Eva told herself, trying to justify it all, even though she was partly concerned that she was going crazy, or that this was some nightmare that she’d be waking up from any minute now.

“Go get your food,” Anabelle murmured to Eva, releasing her from her arms. “I’ll take care of this. I know a spell that should work. I Googled it.” She offered Eva a nervous, yet reassuring smile.

Eva decided not to question it because quite frankly, she just wanted it to be over. She wanted to never come back to this restaurant, she decided, as the hostess handed her a white, plastic to-go bag that contained her food. She didn’t care how good the sushi was, or how comfortable the restaurant felt with its low lighting and wooden décor. She was done.

She felt Anabelle loop her arm through hers only a moment later and heard her say, “Let’s get the hell out of here,” as the two girls started towards the glass doors that would lead them out into the dark, nighttime air. A sense of relief washed over Eva along with the air, though there was still a lingering chill within her that she hoped would go away with time.

In fact, Eva was so focused on getting out of the restaurant and far, far away from that mirror that she didn’t notice the shadows curling in the darkest corners of the restaurant or in the cracks of the sidewalk, even after they exited.

And as Anabelle clutched Eva tighter, her fingers squeezing Eva’s arm in a way that Eva took as reassurance, considering they had just escaped a potentially disastrous, life-threatening situation, Eva especially didn’t notice the triumphant, deadly smile that played on Anabelle’s lips.

Avery Timmons is a recent graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in creative writing. She's been reading and writing all her life, but has a special love for fantasy and YA. Her work can be found in Outrageous Fortune and Fterota Logia, and she is currently working on her first novel.