even easier than it had been in Mother Karen’s yard. I found myself standing in front of the red door in my childhood bedroom. Everything appeared to be exactly as I left it. I went to the mirror above my dresser and brushed the dust off the top of the frame. How would the magic work in here? Names mattered, after all, and I had Mother Karen’s name and her address.
I touched the glass and concentrated on visualizing the inside of Mother Karen’s office as it would appear from the vantage of the mirror. “I wish to speak to Karen Mercedes Sebastián, daughter of Magus Carlos Sebastián and Mistress Beatrice Brumecroft, of 776 Antrim Lane, Worthington, Ohio, 43085.”
I spoke an ancient word for “open.”
The mirror darkened, then began to clear. For just a moment I got a blurry view of Mother Karen’s office. Yes! Success!
And then the mirror went entirely black. A life-size medieval knight in full silvery Spanish plate armor rose in the frame.
“Begone, hellspawn!” the knight shouted, swinging his steel longsword at me. The blade thrust out of the mirror straight at my head. I managed to duck in time, snatching up my own sword from its place against the dresser, and parried his swing with a teeth-rattling clang.
The knight leaped through the mirror, knocking everything off my dresser, swinging at me wildly. He was quick, strong, and hard to parry.
“Can’t I just leave her a message?” I hollered at him as he knocked me backward onto the bed.
“Devils deserve no quarter!” He lifted his sword with both hands, preparing to skewer me to the mattress.
I saw a gap in the armor under his raised arms, and I jabbed upward. My blade sank deep into his armpit.
The knight snarled and disappeared in a puff of acrid blue mist.
I lay there on Buzz Lightyear’s quilted face, clutching the sword, panting for air, my heart pounding in my ears.
That’s one hell of a security spell, I thought. Mother Karen ain’t fooling around.
Once I’d regained my composure, I sat up and checked myself for injuries. Even sixty seconds of a sword fight can slice you up good if it doesn’t kill you outright. Karen’s knight had nicked the knuckles of my right hand, and I had a nasty defensive gash running along my left forearm. I went down the hall to the bathroom and patched myself up with some gauze and a roll of bandages I found in the medicine cabinet, then went back into my bedroom to try again. My only remaining option was to contact my father.
I touched the glass, imagining my father’s workshop as I had seen it before. “I want to speak to Magus Ian Shimmer.”
I spoke another ancient opening word. Nothing happened. Not even so much as a flicker in the mirror.
My heart sank. I needed more information, or I needed a pointer of some kind, and I didn’t have either one. Too bad I couldn’t have brought the card into the hellement with me. I didn’t even know if Ian Shimmer was his true name, and I certainly didn’t have his home address.
Then I had a little duh-moment epiphany: Shimmer was my biological father. Half my DNA was also his DNA. So wasn’t my own flesh and blood a kind of pointer to him?
I slipped my right index finger under the bandages covering the gash on my forearm and smeared a bit of sticky blood on the glass. Concentrated.
“I need to speak with my father. DvaaramuddhaaTaya!”
The mirror hazed, resolved. I was looking into my father’s workshop.
“Um, hello?” I called. “Are you there?”
I had almost said, “Are you there, Dad?” but the D-word stuck in my throat and refused to come out.
I heard the sound of flip-flops slapping across the wooden floor, and my father appeared, still dressed in his orange pants and patchwork jacket. He sat down in the wooden chair across from his mirror, looking at me with an expression of deep relief and concern.
“Jessie, I’m so glad you’ve been able to contact me again,” he said. “Are you in Cuchillo?”
His question surprised me. How did he know where we’d gone? And then I was surprised that I’d been surprised. After all, how had he known that I was in the backyard to receive the teddy bear message? My father kept an eye out, clearly.
“Yes, we’re at a liquor store just outside the city limits.”
“I see you’re mirroring from a hell. Is everyone all right?”
“We’re okay. Do you know what’s going on out here?”