"You need to rest, sir. It'll be dawn in a few hours and you've been ill."
"I couldn't sleep if I tried."
"Dr. Walkerton left a sleeping draught and I've had it prepared for you. You'll not do your daughter a bit of good by becoming ill again," Mrs. Abernathy said resolutely.
The sounds of them ascending the stairs followed.
"I think we had better take the main stairs this time," Hope whispered after a moment.
"Mrs. Abernathy will use the back stairs on the way back down, as will the maid getting my father's sleeping draught."
Ryan nodded. They crept up the grand staircase and down the shadowed hallway to Hope's room without incident. When Hope closed the door silently behind them they stood in pitch blackness. He heard Hope fumbling by the mantel and soon a flame hissed and flared. She approached him carrying a single taper, her face looking unusually pale and sober in the flickering light.
"We still keep candles and lanterns about. The electricity is wonderful, but it tends to go out easily, especially in storms. Sometimes it seems like the electricity functions only half the time, but we're quite used to it, so fond are we of the modern conveniences of—"
Ryan reached out and grasped her shoulders, hearing the anguish in her shaking voice as she rambled on about undependable electricity. Her eyes rose to meet his and Ryan saw they glistened with tears.
"What's wrong, honey?"
"I—I don't want you to go, Ryan," she whispered miserably.
SEVENTEEN
Ryan studied her face for a long moment. "I'm not parting from you yet, Hope. There's something I need to explain to you. Something important."
They both started slightly when they heard a thumping noise down the hallway.
"The maid must have dropped something," Hope whispered. "You don't think they'll be able to see the candle, do you?"
Ryan shook his head but used his hand to mute the light, anyway.
"Let's look at the mirror and then I need to talk with you about something.
"It's always this clear?" Ryan asked a moment later as he peered into the gilt mirror.
"Clear?" Hope asked, confused.
"In my time, it's grown foggy. But as we began to see one another, to touch, the fog dissipated. Just before I stepped through into the Sweet Lash, the mirror had gone clear in my time as well," he murmured. He experimentally pushed his hand to the surface. Sure enough, he experienced the unusual but increasingly familiar sensation that he could only describe with words as tactile possibility, like touching a myriad of different potential realities.
"That's so strange," Hope mused. "I wonder .. ."
"What?" he asked when her voice faded.
"According to my father, the man who lived here before us was a very unusual gentleman. His name was Mortimer P. Chase. He built this house. He was quite an idiosyncratic gentleman and was involved in the spiritualist movement. Some called him a magician. He disappeared without a trace several decades ago, leaving no heirs for an apparently vast fortune."
"Are you saying this mirror belonged to Mortimer P. Chase?"
Hope looked puzzled. "To be honest with you, I'm not sure. We moved into this house when I was eight years old. This wardrobe and mirror have been in my room since then, but—now that I think on it—I don't recall it being in my old bedroom on Washington Street."
"I don't know if we'll ever understand the mechanics of how it works, but at this point I wouldn't argue with the idea that it's a magic mirror. God knows I'd believe in stranger things at this point. But there's something more important for us to talk about at the moment, Hope."
He drew her over to an object in front of the fireplace that slowly resolved into a sofa the closer they got with the candle.
"Sit down," he urged. He tore off the constricting coat he wore before he sat down next to her. It felt as if he would burst out of the garment if he took a deep breath and he wanted to be comfortable for this difficult conversation with Hope.
Once he settled next to her on the couch he met her gaze. "I want you to come with me, Hope ... to my time. Through the mirror."
For a moment she didn't speak, just staring at him as though frozen.