A short story by Katrina Hart to celebrate Halloween

To celebrate Halloween this year, I’m sharing a special (and rather creepy!) story written by my good friend, Katrina Hart. Katrina is the author of the brilliant fantasy novel, Finding Destiny, which is available from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Finding-Destiny-Katrina-Hart-ebook/dp/B00U1WUFSE/ . You can visit her blog https://katrinamarie25.wordpress.com/ to read more about Finding Destiny and all of Katrina’s other writerly activities. Follow her on Twitter: @KatrinaHart2015 and like her author page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Katrina-Hart-1785712648319624/

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The Memories of Home…

Looking Through the Mirror of Life.

By Katrina Hart

Monica-The Reflection of Life’s Mistakes.

Monica screamed at her bruised reflection in the kitchen window as her husband leaned over her shoulder to wash her blood off his hands. She turned so her small body was pressed close to his, and waited until he turned off the tap and moved so they were face to face. She had decided she would not stand for this again. She knew this wasn’t her home anymore.

‘Darling, you shouldn’t push me so, then we wouldn’t fight,’ her husband Sam whispered in her ear as he stepped away from her shaking body and picked up the fallen chair before sitting on it.

Monica wanted to say something; she wanted to scream for real and believe that this would never happen again. But the laughter in the mirror that was covered with a pink sheet against the wall stopped her. She heard the song that her mother used to sing flood the room.  She began to sing:

‘When Mummy’s little girl cry, Mummy’s comes to sing her a lullaby. When Mummy’s little girl loses her way, Mummy shines the light home. When Mummy’s little girl cry, Mummy comes to sing her a lullaby.’  The words felt like they had taken over her body and filled her brain with a sense of being home. She reached for the mirror and began to drag it out of the room. She didn’t look back to see if Sam followed her as she hurried up the stairs pulling the mirror into her bedroom, locking the door behind herself. Then she flopped onto her bed panting for breath.

Monica lay for the longest time remembering Sam, how at the beginning he had made her heart whole again. He had been a nurse caring for a patient in the next bed to her mother’s. She remembered looking over through her tears as her mother’s doctor had told her, her mother had shut her out of her failing memory. Monica remembered gripping her mother’s shoulders, shaking her, begging her ‘not to let go and leave her.’ Sam had come over to her and taken her out of the room, he had promised her ‘things would be okay.’

After that day she had come to see how truly alone she was apart from Sam. Her sisters were too selfish to care about anything apart from their own needs.

Sam had been her hero. He was a tall, handsome man, with the bluest eyes she had ever seen. He would buy her flowers and tell her things like ‘I’ll never leave you,’ ‘I love you’ while she cried out her worries over never being recognised by her mother again and her fears that she would be alone in the world. Never really belonging anywhere.

Then he changed. He lost his temper over silly things, until he couldn’t control himself. It was like some beast had taken him over and Monica was his prey. Monica could still hear the giggle in the mirror as she drifted into a deep sleep.

****

Monica- When one reflection freezes the other moves.

Monica woke hours later to the moon shining through the window. She felt lighter as she found a note slipped under the door. She debated if she should leave the safety of her room and face Sam or stay a little longer. The note read… When my little girl cries painful tears, Mummy slay the monster my little girl fears.  Monica dropped the note as the red blood like ink dripped onto the floor. She ran back to her bed and sat legs crossed, the tips of her toes dug into her soft quilt as she gripped hold of the sides of the pink sheet that covered the mirror.  She remembered that this mirror had been in every place inside her mother’s home.

This mirror reflected her mother singing in the kitchen, and moved when her cat had pawed its reflective glass, and helped her mother be sure her tear-filled eyes were not red anymore before she greeted her husband.

Now she mouthed, ‘When my little girl cries, Mummy brings her home safe.’

Monica was ready to go home to the memory she was promised this mirror could take her to, and she would never have to leave. She remembered her mother telling her as she made her take the mirror with her before she got really ill.

Monica yanked the cover off the mirror and blinked at her reflection. She was seven years old again with two pink ribbons in her black hair. Her seven year self waved at the mirror before she moved towards Mother, who was baking a chocolate cake and singing her favourite song blasting out from the radio.

Monica’s heart pounded as she reached for the safety of that kitchen. Of her seven year old self. Her palm slipped through the glass like she was a ghost passing from one phase to another. She could hear laughter as her body went through the glass. And all her troubles left her mind as her feet touched the kitchen floor.

Monica looked down and realised she was seven again. She ran to her mother who turned and gave her the warmest smile that filled her heart with such happiness that she let out a childish giggle. Her mother winked at her as she picked up Daddy’s hammer that had blood dripping off the end and walked to the mirror, smashing it into so many pieces. Monica breathed a sigh of relief, now there was no way back for either of them. Then Monica’s mother turned to her and held out her hand. ‘My girl, you know you’ll always have a home with me.’ Monica smiled up at her mother and she knew she had found her home, where her heart belonged.

The End

Happy Halloween everyone!