Book Tour: Mirror World Publishing’s From Here to There, Volume 2…

I sit with Michael again in the evening, but I can see he doesn’t want me here. He is fidgeting, pulling on his blanket so hard that a seam rips. I catch his hot little hand – who knows when and whether there will be more blankets in the Box, and winter is coming – but he pushes me away fretfully. I finally give up and leave him alone, only to realize it is still early. The sun has slid behind the Wall, but the sky is of that pearly transparent pink that separates full light and darkness like a long indrawn breath. I promise myself not to send Michael to bed so early in the future. He is not a baby anymore. To make up for what might seem like a punishment to him, I go into the kitchen and set up a plate of cookies and a jam jar on the table, so he can have a treat first thing in the morning.

I step into the shadowy garden against my better judgement, breathing in the cool, earthy evening air. The berry bushes have been cemented into a tangled mass by the dimming light. The gnarly apple and plum trees stand out in spiky silhouettes against the sky. The twilight is full of unspoken menace, waiting for me to turn my back so the monsters can crawl out of their hidey-holes and spring at me.

The monsters are real, but haven’t they always been? Haven’t people always been afraid of the dark?

I lock the door, go back into the kitchen, make myself a cup of tea, and sit at the table, staring at the fading rectangle of the window. I know I need to draw the curtains, but I procrastinate, challenging the night.

Are Ruth and Melissa right? Are we in Purgatory, being punished for our sins by some perverse deity?

No, I won’t accept this. Every beat of my heart tells me I am alive. Locked up in some unfathomable prison, beset by invisible monsters, fed and watered like an animal in a zoo – but alive.

For how long?