A House Without Mirrors Read Online Free Page B

ghost?
    “Signe?” I whispered back. “Is that you?”
    The outline of the little figure took a step forward and trod straight into a moonbeam. The face was almost as pale as her white nightgown, and if it hadn’t been for the smile Signe could easily have been a ghost.
    “Come on,” she said, reaching her hand out to me. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
    I turned my head and saw that the radio alarm showed 03.48.
    “It’s the middle of the night, Signe,” I whispered. “Can’t it wait until—”
    “It’s a secret,” Signe interrupted. “You mustn’t tell Erland. Nor Dad either.”
    She still sounded weird, just like she had at dinner. Like a completely different child. This Signe didn’t seem in the slightest bit afraid. When I reached out my hand to stroke her face, she grabbed hold of my index finger.
    “Come on, get up!” she said again, pulling me from the bed. “I’ll show you where I was hiding.”
    I sighed and placed my feet on the floor.
    Signe was still holding on to my finger as we tiptoed down the corridor outside my room. Henrietta’s house was even quieter at night than during the day, and the thick carpet under our feet absorbed every sound. You probably could have stomped up and down without anyone hearing.
    “Have you been to sleep at all, Signe?” I yawned. “Sometimes it helps if you read a book.”
    Signe looked up at me, surprised, and giggled.
    “But I can’t read, can I!”
    That was true, of course. I felt dense and stupid, and I couldn’t work out where we were going. It wasn’t until Signe stopped in the octagonal room where I’d found her after the game of hide-and-seek that I began to wake up. The room looked the same as it had that afternoon. The same empty floor and piles of cardboard boxes and bags of clothes, the same wardrobe doors.
    “So you were in here after all,” I said. “Were you hiding behind the boxes?”
    Signe giggled again and shook her head.
    “In the wardrobe,” she said. “The one with all the mirrors.”
    I blinked until I could see her quite clearly.
    “What do you mean, mirrors?” I said. “You know there are no mirrors in this house.”
    “No, ’cause they’re all in the wardrobe,” she said, pointing towards the middle door. “Someone has put them all in there.”
    It didn’t sound like the kind of thing you’d make up. At least not the kind of thing a five-year-old would make up. I walked across the cold floorboards, and suddenly I saw it: in the wardrobe door, which had been locked, there was now a key.
    “Did you take the key, Signe?” I said, trying to sound stern. “You mustn’t do that. It’s dangerous, you may get yourself locked in and—”
    “I didn’t take it!” Signe said. “She gave it to me, she did!”
    Her little face looked angry and something in her eyes told me that she was telling the truth. Perhaps Kajsa or Wilma had really given her the key to play with. I stroked her tousled hair.
    “All right, but you must never lock it from the inside,” I said with a yawn. “Can we go back to bed now? I’ll tuck you in, if you like.”
    Signe’s face turned smooth and childlike again. She looked disappointed.
    “But you have to go inside!” she said. “You can’t see anything out here, can you?”
    I sighed and looked at my empty wrist. My watch was back on the bedside table.
    “Just a quick look, then.”
    Signe beamed and tiptoed up to the door. She didn’t touch the key, but watched in anticipation as I turned it in the lock.
    “Open it,” she whispered eagerly. “Open the door, Thomasine!”
    I pulled open the wardrobe door, and the first thing I saw was that somebody was in there. The skin on my back instantly grew prickly with fear.
    A moment later I realized who the stranger in the wardrobe was.
    It was myself. Or rather, an image of myself, lit by moonlight from the window and reflected in the dark glass of a mirror.
    “Shit,” I giggled. “Shit, that scared me!”
    Signe