Accidentally Pregnant with the Horror Boss novel · Chapter 27 of 32

Chapter 27: Night Ninety-Nine

We split up.

Penny took the nursery and the dollhouse. The boy took the attic. Ambrose took the walls, knocking on every panel with his knuckles and calling her name.

The cook and the gardener took the kitchen and the cellar.

The father from Mirror Night got up off the bottom stair, wiped his face, and said, "I'll take the ballroom."

I stood in the great hall and made myself think.

The house had gone flat and gray around me. No creaks. No warm spots.

It was like standing inside a stopped clock.

Where does a mean kid put something he took?

Somewhere he knows. Somewhere that's his.

I went up the stairs to the east wing as fast as my stomach let me.

Every door in the green hall stood open.

All but one.

The linen closet. The one that had melted into the wallpaper on night seven.

It was a plain white door now, shut tight. Kyle's time-out.

I put my hand on the knob. It turned.

Inside, the shelves of sheets were pushed to one side.

The little cot was gone.

In its place stood a tall oval mirror on a wooden stand, the kind that tilts.

It was wrapped in bedsheets and tied up with belts, three of them, buckled tight.

The glass was facing the wall.

I heard it then.

A tiny sound, from behind the sheets. A hiccup.

"Ambrose!" I screamed. "East wing! Linen closet!"

I tore at the first buckle.

My fingers were shaking so hard I broke a nail. I didn't care.

The second. The third.

I dragged the sheets off and turned the mirror around on its stand.

I saw myself first. Bun falling down, cardigan open over the bump, face blotchy.

Then the glass went silver behind me, deep, like a long hall going away forever.

Far down that hall, very small, there was a white nightgown.

Mouse was sitting on the silver floor with her knees pulled up and her face in them.

She didn't have her rabbit.

"Mouse!"

She didn't look up. She couldn't hear me.

Ambrose came through the closet door so fast he hit the frame.

He saw the mirror and stopped dead.

"The oldest rule," he said hoarsely. "Whoever looks belongs to the house. She is the house. It folded her up inside itself."

"How do I get her out?"

"I don't know. I can't touch it. It's Mirror Night glass."

I took off my glasses.

I folded them and put them in my cardigan pocket.

The world went to blur. The silver hall went soft and bright.

The mirrors can't take the bride. He'd told me that on night seven.

I put my hand flat on the glass.

It was cold. Then it wasn't glass at all. It was putting my hand into a bucket of ice water.

My arm went in to the elbow.

"Daisy," Ambrose said. "Daisy, be careful."

"Hello, Mouse," I said, into the silver. Not loud. My normal voice. "I'm back."

Nothing.

"Hello, Mouse. I came back. I always come back. That's the deal."

Far away, the little white blur lifted its head.

"Your hall brought me," I said. "It's on my side. Come on, baby. Grab on."

The blur got up.

It ran.

It got bigger and bigger, running down the silver, nightgown flying.

A small cold hand slammed into mine and held on so hard my fingers popped.

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