Read The Haunted Heart: Winter for Free Online

had a smudge of dust across his left
cheekbone and his dark hair looked wilder than ever. Next to him, I
looked hollow eyed and a little on the spectral side. The feeble
rays of sunset cast a bloody tint over us and the surrounding
room.
    From the bedroom, I could hear the cuckoo
clock. I opened my mouth to make a joke and then remembered that it
wasn’t Alan with me.
    It was strange and unsettling how for a few
seconds I could forget that he was gone, that I was never going to
turn and speak to him, laugh with him again. Recollection always
came with a sickening jolt, like grabbing onto a live wire.
    “Something wrong?” Kirk asked.
    I shook my head, pointed at the next room.
“Be right back.”
    I found a stack of stale-smelling sheets in
the linen cupboard and grabbed a flat one, returning to the front
room and Kirk. “We can cover the mirror with this.” I draped a
yellowed flat sheet over the mirror. I wasn’t sure if it was an
improvement or not. There was something a little too shroud-like
about that large pale square.
    “You take the base, I’ll take the top,” Kirk
said, resting his large, square hands on each side of the arched
top of the frame. Both ends of the frame were heavy and ornately
carved with foliate scrolls and trelliswork. The upper frame
consisted of almost a foot of arched cresting centered by a flower
vase on a lambrequin and flanked by roses and angels.
    I stooped, grabbed the bottom of the frame,
and lifted. It was even heavier than I expected. Spots danced in
front of my eyes.
    “Got it?”
    I grunted assent.
    We lugged it out of the room, maneuvering it
on its side to get it through the doorway, and then tottered
slowly, slowly down the staircase with it.
    Halfway down the stairway, Kirk signaled for
a halt. We carefully lowered the mirror and leaned it against the
railing.
    “Jesus Christ, that’s one heavy mother,”
Kirk swore.
    “Yeah.” And he was carrying the heavy end.
“Maybe we could try sliding it down the steps?”
    “You want to risk seven years bad luck with
this thing?”
    “We’d have to hang onto it, but maybe we
could guide it down to the next flight?”
    “Maybe we could ride it like a sled.”
    I grimaced.
    We both looked down to the windows on the
ground floor. My mouth dried as I saw the deepening twilight.
    “I think this will be faster in the long
run,” Kirk said. He nodded at the mirror. “Her petticoat is
showing.”
    The sheet had started to slip and I snatched
it up, draping it once more over the curved top. It was probably
childish, but I had a growing dread of what might be happening
beneath the sheet. In all likelihood nothing was happening, but I
couldn’t be sure. I had a — probably superstitious — dread that now
we knew about the mirror, our awareness would give the ghost
strength.
    We wrestled the mirror back up again and
staggered unsteadily with it down the next stretch of stairs to the
lower landing. There we wiped our sweaty hands and faces,
readjusted our grips, and hurriedly lugged it the final leg to the
ground floor. By then the twilight had melted into the darkness.
Dark shadows thrust out in weird angles from the corners, slicing
across the dusty floorboards.
    The muscles of my shoulders and back were
knotted with strain as we trundled our load across the hall. There
were knots in my stomach too, but those came from escalating
anxiety.
    “We’ve still got to get this thing down to
the basement.”
    “I know.” Kirk was grim.
    We started down the basement stairs. Kirk
took the lead again, this time facing front gripping the sides of
the frame to steady himself. The term “steady” was relative. I was
pretty sure we were both going to plunge to our deaths. And while I
wasn’t particularly afraid for my own life, I didn’t want to be the
cause of Kirk’s demise. I hung onto the mirror with all my strength
and we stumbled down the last span of steps.
    Despite the fact that the basement was
colder than a meat locker, we