Category: Action/Thriller Publisher: Up At Midnight
ISBN-10: 0990958957
Type: Fiction
Pages: 510
Copyright: February 7, 2017
ISBN-13: 9780990958956
The Wrong Side of the Mirror is the 12th in the Savannah Stories series.
Savannah buys a unique mirror and soon discovers it’s no normal antique.The rare double-sided mirror transports people to the past and the future.Her trips into tomorrow reveal disaster looms closer than she thinks.
After each visit she tries to change the future only to encounter more trial and surprises for her and her family.
Fiddling with fate proves trickier than she imagined because, like chess, every move alters the ultimate result.
Will the mirror’s predictions come true or can Savannah successfully fine tune their futures?
Excerpt
“It’s beautiful.” My older sister Georgia ran her hand along the antique mirror’s frame, inspecting it for flaws as if a thoroughbred horse stood before her, not a piece of old furniture.
In my opinion beautiful was overkill. I considered it unique but far from beautiful.
“Sturdy,” she continued, still feeling it up. “Good craftsmanship.”
We’d originally made the trip to the antique store for Georgia to scout out Chippendale entry tables. She found what she wanted pretty quick but that was my sister. When she set her mind to a task, it got done. No dilly-dallying for Georgia because she knew what she wanted. Me? Not so much. I’d hem and haw over things a while. I hated making big decisions (and antiques were astronomical ones for me) and I required time to sort out whether the purchase met my needs. Kinda like the mirror. I found it tucked in a dimly lit corner like a castoff. It was unusual. Old as Methuselah, showed a few dents, and the mirror looked wonky in places – but it appealed to me for some reason.
When Georgia saw me hanging around the large cheval mirror, she hot-footed it over to give an opinion. An opinion that was, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Some folks might say it would scare day into night. Others might call it just weird looking. It seemed my sister and I regarded the mirror with equal intrigue and semi-equal mind-sets.
I traced the carved wooden frame, noticing the smooth finish. It still retained a mostly glossy surface with few areas of wear, those being near the adjustment knobs on either side. Neither Georgia nor I could pinpoint the type of wood – Georgia bet on cherry and I thought rosewood. The owner of the antique store was no help. Minutes earlier he offered what little he knew. The mirror had been found “up north” in an elderly lady’s home after she passed away. He did confirm the mirror’s rarity by saying that particular company (which had no name except a strange symbol) produced the most sought after mirrors – then and now – and that a double-sided unit was almost “impossible to find anymore”. He appraised the age to two hundred years old “or more” with emphasis on “more”.
Georgia leaned closer, “Are you going to buy it?”
I breathed in the musty smell of old furniture and memories, trying to imagine the vast history of his antique offerings. One generation bequeathed such intricate pieces of craftsmanship to the next and so on and so forth. Even fought over them, I’d bet. Held grudges over them. But probably not that mirror, I guessed. Oh, no doubt it sat comfortably in many different houses, some parlors, bedrooms or hallways for two hundred years, looking as pretty as it possibly could. Its life spanned Samuel Morse’s telegraph to today’s iPhones. The horse and buggy to driverless cars. The Kittyhawk to the moon landing and International Space Station. Like I said. Methuselah. The cultural value of such a piece would outweigh its semi-homeliness, right?
I ran my hand along the frame again, wondering why the artisan chose an intertwining vine design for the frame. It was interesting, no doubt, but would it fit in with our bedroom décor? Probably not. “I don’t know. It’s not the right color wood for the bedroom and,” I whispered back, “it’s gotta cost a small fortune. I mean, two hundred years old?”
“But it’s in excellent shape. Well, except the reflection of the mirror on this side.” Unfortunately Georgia was correct. The mirror’s reflection left a lot to be desired. It was cloudy and somewhat warped in places. The dresser at home had a nice clear mirror that made me appear a bit chubbier but was a far cry from the little fun-house experience this thing gave a person. Plus, I swore the thing made me look older. Not by much but still older than my dreaded thirty-nine. Thirty-nine years old was bad enough to endure without a mirror adding years to a woman. Sheesh. “I don’t need it,” I said, stepping toward a display case of cameos.
My sister lingered around the mirror. The wonky reflection on the full length cheval detracted from the urge to own it, not to mention the store owner’s probable asking price.
“Try the other side,” the owner suggested to Georgia. “It’s in better shape.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Georgia loosen the knobs on either side of the frame then swivel the mirror to the back side. “Savannah,” she gasped, “look.”
Please don’t make me want it anymore than I do. I needed it like I needed a second nose – but I wanted it like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
After a mental eye roll I headed back to Georgia and the mirror, “Listen, sis, I can’t afford this thing even if I wanted it – which I don’t.” Which you certainly do and that fella at the counter knows it too. The older man in khakis, brown checked shirt and caramel colored sweater vest had been eyeballing me since I migrated to the mirror. After a few minutes of appraising its condition and asking two simple questions, he pegged me as a sucker. First, the mirror looked too new to be two hundred years old. Second, it wasn’t unheard of for me to inspect things without actually purchasing them. Third, I hated people staring at me and he’d done nothing short of give me a terminal case of the heebies since I showed interest in the cloudy old mirror. I needed to go home and clean house, yet here I stood surrounded with mahogany, oak and maple pieces from the Victorian age and a dozen antique clocks ticking and playing their chorus of chimes announcing two o’clock.
“Look at it,” my sister beckoned. “This side is much clearer.”
I turned to the mirror that showcased me and Georgia standing together. The frown faded from my features. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“We look good, don’t we?” Georgia giggled, nudging me with her elbow. “Dare I say younger?”
Georgia joked about it but our reflections did appear younger than normal. Not a whole lot but those nasty little eye lines trenching a fraction deeper every year disappeared when I looked at myself. The tiny crow’s feet trying to channel between my brows smoothed to flawless skin. And Georgia? She lost about five to eight years – not that she ever really showed her age. She still looked like our mama (and a thirty-something, brown-not-red-haired Rita Hayworth) despite being forty-five.
“I’ll buy this thing if you don’t,” Georgia promised. “Just for an ego boost when I stare into it.”
It was inexplicable. It embarrassed me to fawn over my reflection but damn, I hadn’t looked this good in years. The harsh truth became obvious when the skeptic in me emerged, “Georgia, this is a trick mirror, it has to be. Like the fun-house stuff at the carnival.”
Georgia turned sideways, sucked in her gut that was barely there anyway and chuckled at me in the mirror, “I don’t care what it is. Anything that can make me look this good I’ll take it.”
First, let me congratulate you on 12 novels in the Savannah series. And a large addition at 510 pages. I recently completed a trilogy and found that I had run out of ideas for that series.
Time travel is a very common device these days. But it is a good way to get into historical fiction, and I believe that's the way you are heading with this novel. Of course, if Savannah changes history, the whole future changes, a common theme for this device.
Crowley County Series, Novels 4-6
An uplifting series with romance, mystery and suspense.
Join the people of Crowleyville as they face the challenges of small town life while struggling to welcome an influx of newcomers.
