Chapter 3-1
307 Words
Chapter 3
Old Friends
The next morning dawned overcast and damp, autumn peeking around the next calendar page to give the world a raspberry. Penny awoke muzzy from her late-night meeting at the hollow.
“Get up, sleepyhead,” Susan shouted from below. “It’s almost noon, and you promised to help me with deliveries today.”
“I’m up,” Penny said, and made herself a liar by pulling her blanket over her head to block out the weak light shining in through her windows. She was close to drifting again when another voice roused her, hushed but much closer.
“Hey, Red.”
“I’m awake,” Penny blurted, and threw her covers off. Her first attempt at standing failed, and she plopped back down onto her bed.
The other voice in the room, coming from the mirror in the top drawer of her bedside table, giggled.
Penny pawed her drawer open and fumbled out her mirror. Zoe stared up at her from its flat surface.
“Is Susan home?”
“Hello to you too,” Penny said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Hello … is Susan home?”
“Yes,” Penny barked.
“Good!” Zoe’s grin widened. “Talk to you in a few.”
And then she was gone, and Penny was staring down at her own reflection. She watched it for a few seconds, curious to see if it would begin to act independently of her, as her reflection had started doing for the past couple of weeks. She turned her face left, right, moved it closer to the glass, then retreated a few inches. Her reflection seemed in lock step this morning, and that made her feel better. A lot of weird things had happened to her in the past year, but it seemed the one thing she just couldn’t cope with was a rebellious reflection.
Penny was about to put the mirror back in her bed stand when it blinked.
Suppressing a shudder, Penny put the mirror away and slammed the drawer closed.
- Writer
