The Mirror, the Glass and the Candle

mY brother

What about black girl?

Roman

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The Mirror, the Glass and the Candle
Gabriella Sullivan

   I stood in front of the mirror, thinking myself to be a fool. The lit candle I held in my hand was the only light, the rest of the room cast in shadows. I was in my bedroom, holding in one hand a tall, clear pint glass that I usually used for beer, and a white candle, about as big around as my thumb and as long as a pencil.
   I read about this ritual online. I had never believed in anything so ridiculous before. I was never one for fantasy, for ghost stories or superstitions, but here I was, staring into the mirror. The flicker of the candlelight cast my features in gold and shadows.
   Carefully, so as not to burn myself, I lowered the candle into the glass. The white wax was dripping down, sticking the bottom of the canoe to the glass. I had already accepted that this glass would never be used again. That was fine with me, as long as it worked. As long as I could say that I had tried.
   My brother, Sebastian, had died almost six months ago. He had shot himself with his own firearm. We thought he was fine. When he came home, dressed in his green uniform, wearing the same rigid haircut they were all made to wear, he had been smiling and laughing. He had hugged me and told me he loved me. Why didn't he tell anyone that he wasn't okay? He was a year older than me, and he knew everything about everything. I didn't. I needed Sebastian. I missed him. And I just wanted to know why.
   That was the last thing about people struggling in that moment. Sometimes those people forgot what happened to the rest of us who had to keep on living. At first, I blamed Sebastian. I had called him selfish and an asshole. Then I blamed the Marines and said it was their fault he was fighting in this old man's war. Then I blamed the government, and every president we had ever had. After a while, I started to blame myself for never asking him if he was okay. I never had checked on him. Whose fault was it, really? Was it mine? Our mother's? I needed to know. But most importantly, I wanted to see him.
   The last time I had tried a ritual like this, two months before, I had made a small fire in the pit of my backyard, I had burned a bit of Sebastian's belongings, and had said a small prayer. Something had gone wrong, and instead of Sebastian, a creature made of smoke had appeared in the flames, towering and black. It disappeared the moment I extinguished the flames, though it had taken several hours to calm my racing heart.
   I stood in front of the mirror, trying my hardest not to think about that creature, and I said his name.
   "Sebastian."
   The image of the mirror shimmered and changed. I was no longer looking at myself. The glass and candle nearly fell out of my hands. I sucked in a breath.
   "Riley?"
   It was him.
   He was in the mirror, staring at me, still dressed in his uniform. His dark brown eyes shone in the candlelight, his skin still deeply tanned from a year in the Middle East. Behind him there was nothing—only pitch-black darkness.
   "Sebastian?"
   Tears welled in my eyes. My voice was lost in my throat. A thousand words came to my mind, but they were lost. I stared at him, my mouth agape.
   "What the hell are you doing?"
   "I..." I faltered. I wanted to press my fingertips to the glass, to touch him. "I wanted to see you."
   "You can't do this, Riley. It's dangerous to conjure up the dead. You don't know what you're going to pull out of the spirit realm."
   I remembered the creature made of smoke that had appeared in the fire pit. "I miss you."
   "I'm sorry." He looked away.
   "Sebastian..." I pressed my lips together, hesitating. "Why did you do it?"
   He was looking at me. My hands were trembling, causing the candlelight to waver this way and that. The flickering yellow light seemed to ruminate him just as it did me.
   "I don't want to talk about it."
   "But you never did talk about it." My mouth tasted like salt and metal.
   "I made a mistake."
   "It's been really hard without you."
   "I'm sorry about that, Riley. I really am. You have to focus on finishing school. You can't worry about me anymore."
   "Was it my fault?" I asked.
   "It wasn't anyone's fault. It was my fault."
   "Did you... did you get into Heaven?" One of the first fears that had clambered into my mind after the shock of Sebastian's suicide was that he was not able to get into Heaven. I could still recall my old priest scaring us as children, telling us that if you kill yourself, God could not forgive you.
   Sebastian smiled at me. His eyes were sad. "Everything's fine. Go back to bed. Don't tell anyone about this. You can never, ever do this again, do you understand?"
   I nodded my head at him.
   "Focus on your schoolwork, please. Work on your art. Get your degree and keep moving forward. Don't stew in my mistakes."
   "Why didn't you ever go to therapy?"
   Sebastian frowned. He looked away for a moment before returning his gaze to me. "I was afraid of losing my job. The Marines know every time you see a doctor or a shrink or even get your eyes checked. I didn't want them to think I was losing it."
   "But..."
   "I know," he said, agreeing with me before I could even get the words out. "Please, promise me you'll focus on yourself from now on. Not me."
   "I will."
   "I have to go now. I'm glad I got to see you, but you have to never do this again. Next time it might not be me who shows up."
   "I understand."
   "I love you, Riley."
   "I love you, too, Sebastian."
   The image shimmered, and my brother was gone. I blew out the candle and stood there alone in the darkness.

---

 

My Brother
​Phillip Fralin

   I finish sharpening my knife, set it down on the table and lean back in my chair. I wince as several tiny splinters dig into my back. The table I'm sitting at is covered in splinters and the wood is rotten. I turn my attention to the cabinets on the wall. They're filled with—or covered in—mold, moss and other nondescript fungi. Not even an ounce of food. The floor is barely there. There are massive holes, leaving behind only support beams, and even those looked ready to give way at any moment. Finally, I stare at the fridge and, for just a second, I honestly consider opening it to see if there are any scraps in there, but common sense returns to me. I shake. my head. This place served us well, but I have to get out of here soon.
   Then, from upstairs, a long groan. I get out of my chair and turn to the stairs. You still fighting?
   It comes again, this time sounding less like the agony of a human and more like the wailing of an animal.
   I sigh. I knew I was kidding myself.
   I walk up the stairs, deliberately going slow, hoping for another sound. A sickly cough, or even more moans of pain. Anything to tell me that he was still there. I don't want to have to see for myself.
   But it doesn't come. Dead silence. The cold reality of the events of last night—events that I had spend all morning praying to have just been nothing more than a nightmare—finally settle in. I bite back tears as I reach the top of the stairs and step into the very first room on the left. My brother is sitting across the room, hunched over, his back against the wall, completely still. I walk over to him. He reacts to my footsteps, feebly raising his head as I crouch down to meet his eye level.
   "You're finally gone?" I ask.
   His eyes are glossed over; his irises had gone almost completely white and looked as though they were adrift in a pool of blood. They dart all around the room, trying to focus on anything other than his own sibling.
   Just the other day, his skin was bright and full of life. Now it was a sickly gray—chafing and flakey—deteriorating before my very eyes.
   He let out another moan and I could see his teeth, chipped and disfigured on account of him gnashing them for most of the night. Every time he moves his mouth, the cracks on his lips spread and they ooze even more discolored liquid.
   Finally, his eyes—those hideous damn eyes—focus on me. He reaches out his hand and makes several pathetic attempts to grab at me. His hand is peeling, with black fingernails.
   Slowly shaking my head, I take my brother's hand into my own. He tries to pull me closer to him, but I don't budge. I squeeze it tight, feeling his brittle bones crack and dig into more areas of his rotting flesh. His hand was cold and damp, yet still chafed my own hand as they rub together.
   I let go, and my brother grabs at me again, but I only stare at him. We stay like this for several more minutes before, finally, he lets his hand fall, resting on a wooden pike. The same wooden pike I used to impale him the night before, pinning him to this very spot.
   Despite the protests of my heart, my mind plays back last night's events. My brother, shoving his assailant away, before giving me that vibrant, lovely smile of his. It looked close but he handled it like he always does. I smiled back at him and gave him a thumbs-up. He finished the creature off and, turning back to me, his smile wavered. His eyes started to twitch. Then he pounced on me.
   The scene replays in my head and my vision clouds as tears fill my eyes. We sit like that for a few more minutes, until he finally lets out one last throaty gasp, letting his head hang to the side.
   "You idiot," I sob. "Why didn't you just tell me it got you? We could have..."
​   My voice trails off as the voice of reason in my head berates me for my sentimentality.

---

 

What About Black Girl?
​Kayla Donaldson

   Sometimes, I think the perspective of a Black girl is the most disregarded—it doesn't exist in America. The perspective of a Black girl in an underdeveloped neighborhood with an abusive stepfather and a mother of drug abuse, or the perspective of a Black girl in a predominantly white education system. She's automatically an outcast to her environment and the people around her. She goes unnoticed but people can't keep their eyes off of her because of how "interesting" she is. While everyone else attempts to read her and stamp a label of how "aggressive" and "ghetto" she seems, she tries to figure out why what she sees isn't what they see.
   When she looks at the world, she wonder why the girl sitting next to her, with blonde hair and hazel eyes, has a life so much easier than she does. The girl alongside her is born with a golden spoon in her mouth, strong white bones for athleticism, a social life beyond both her parents, and the word "accepted" imprinted onto her hands. She lacks ignorance in good finances, literature studies, and learns how to drive a car at fifteen years young. Her high school days are a simple Fujifilm picture of her, and her fellow white friends all dress in black thigh-high homecoming gowns, gathered and smiling at the same house she's lived in for ten years. White boys in their beige khakis and sky blue button-ups, holding the girls' waists from behind. While Black boy athletes stand at the edge of the group, almost cropped out of the photo, but they still feel apart. Companionship finds this girl oh so well as she finds easy living.
   Black girl's high school days is an iPhone photo of her posing in front of a school bathroom mirror with pink colored hair, shorter than the tip of her ears, and an Odd Future tee, but no one's in the picture but her and the white walls of the bathroom. Outside of this photo, she walks solo and ignorant to good finances, literature studies, and doesn't learn how to drive until nineteen years old. She's had a few acquaintances who have grown envious of her mindset and the way she carrier herself but never experiences companionship. Black girl doesn't limit herself to a group or standard, but she becomes limited to what's accessible to her.
   It's time for real life, and she feels frightened more than settled. People killing girls that look like her and degrading women who appear darker than her. She strikes one as being unattractive to the men surrounding her because the blonde-haired girl seems to be the new fruit of the crop. Sexualized beyond her control, fetishized by her wide hips and big lips; the same hips and lips the blonde baby asked her white doctor for. But what is her answer when the blonde-haired girl asks, "Why don't they see you? Why is it so hard for you?"
   All she can proceed with is the difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy, where Black girl would have an identical "accepted" imprint on her hand and privilege as the white girl sitting next to her, but yet feels threatened by the same girl with the same advantages. Envy, where the Black girl doesn't possess any of these "innate blessings" like the white girl sitting next to her does. She's the second choice or not chosen at all, tolerated or endured hatred daily, and everyone else around her creates the life she lives based on how they feel about her. She has no control; her soul doesn't exist. 

---

 

Roman
​Gabriella Sullivan

   I always swore I would do anything for my children, but looking at Roman beside me, his warm hand resting in mine, I was begging to doubt that promise.
   The labor pains I suffered to bring him into the world should have been the first sign that he would be difficult. I was sent home twice by my doctor, who insisted that the baby was not coming any time soon. After four days of labor, Roman arrived.
   His eyes had been a blackish blue for the first few months of his life, but with time the blue color gave way to amber. His eyes were the same strange yellowish color I had seen on cats. They turned golden in sunlight. My husband had sworn his eyes were brown, but they weren't. They were gold.
   Growing up, Roman had been a different child. He was smarter than most children his age, reading books several levels above his own, excelling in all his classes, and becoming so bored with school that I often received phone calls about him sleeping in class. When I Brough it up to him, Roman didn't seem to care. He would casually shrug his shoulders and give me that devilish smile of his and say, "Mom, they're not teaching me anything I didn't already know."
   Roman had been seventeen and my husband had been thirty-nine years old when he was shot in his own vehicle at a stoplight. A street camera had shown a man on a motorcycle, but he was unidentifiable in black leather and a reflective helmet. Roman had gone silent when the police came knocking on the door. He had stayed by my side, one arm around my shoulders while I mourned through the night.
   Two weeks after his father's death, our dog Cherub died, obviously poisoned. I found Cherub in the backyard, his body trail and thin and his muzzle covered in vomit. Roman seemed to hardly notice that Cherub was gone, and when I mentioned it to him, he wore a cool and plain expression. Darkness had flickered behind his eyes and I thought little of it. But when I took the garbage out that week, I saw the empty boxes of rat poison in the trash. I had never mentioned it to him. Roman was mourning. He was acting out. I could not bring myself to punish him for it.
   When Roman went to college, he met a girl named Serenity. She had been beautiful, and Roman had obsessed over her. Every time he called she was all he could talk about. She was very short with black eyebrows, thick eyelashes, and brown skin. She had an adorable laugh. She was very kind and intelligent, and was an excellent cook.
 After they had graduated, at twenty-two years old, Roman had asked her to marry him and she had accepted. I met Serenity's parents, and together we threw them an extravagant engagement party that we could not afford. Money had just not been an object for us at that time. We were thrilled to see our children so happy.
   Roman and Serenity had been engaged for eighteen months. During those eighteen months, Serenity had been seeing doctors about her depression. She had lost weight and become lethargic. She was no longer answering calls, and was sleeping nearly twelve hours a day. Eventually, just a month before the wedding date, Serenity had committed suicide. Roman called me as soon as he found out, his voice on the phone as unwavering and calm as if her were telling he was ordering a pizza for dinner that night.
   I watched as her mother tried her hardest to give a proper eulogy. Her black hair was streaked with grey and her dark eyes shimmered with tears. Roman was sitting beside me, his face cool and expressionless, the same way it had been when his father had died. "A pillar of strength," Serenity's mother had called him. His hand was warm in mine. When he looked at me, I saw something dark flicker behind those golden eyes, behind his tragically beautiful face. The same look he had given me when Cherub died.
   My chest tightened at the look. Was he trying to tell me something or was I imagining it? Surely he would not kill his own fiancée, I told myself. Roman could never hurt Serenity.
   Never.
   After Serenity's funeral, Roman invited me to his house.  It was small and quaint with a garage that he kept closed.
   I sat in the living room with him, looking at the photographs of him and Serenity hanging on the walls. Even though she had been fighting depression, she seemed so happy. Her dark eyes were lit up with excitement in all the photos of her.
   "How are you handling everything?" I asked him. Roman took a seat on the couch beside me and clasped his hands together. They were tanned, bronzed from sunlight.
   "Fine," he said. He was smiling, and shadows lurked behind his eyes. Something malicious hid in his gaze. My stomach flipped. I told myself I was imagining things.
   "Ever since your father died, I know you've handled death differently than most."
   "Wait." He lowered his eyebrows at me. "How do you think Dad died?"
   "He was killed by someone. A stranger."
   I look at him. "What do you-"
   "You know I did it."
   My mouth went dry. I tasted metal. "Roman-"
   "You've always known, Mom."
   I was nonplussed. I stared at him, my watering eyes giving me away. I swallowed a lump growing in my throat.
   "You knew about Cherub, didn't you?"
   I nodded. Any words I had to say were lost in my throat, dissolving in my mouth like cotton candy before I could speak.
   "Come with me."
   Roman stood. I followed him, moving mechanically, unable to control my body. I was trembling, my hands turned to ice.
   He led me outside, a small remote control in his hand. It was a clicker for the garage door. I stood in the driveway, my arms crossed over my chest. Roman clicked the button and the white-painted door rose with a groan. My throat was sore and my eyes stung with tears. My ears were filled with the sound of blood rushing as the door rose and revealed a motorcycle parked inside.
   The same motorcycle that I had seen in the street-camera video of my husband being shot.
   Roman smiled at me with a shrug of his shoulders, the same way he had done when he was a child telling me that he was too smart for school.
   "Roman-"
   "Do you know how easy it is to get a depression diagnosis? A little lethargy here and there, headaches, losing weight." He smiled. "Unfortunately for her, the doctor never realized that what she was actually suffering from was carbon monoxide poisoning."
   "Why would you-"
   He cut me off, wrapping one arm around me and pulling me close. He kissed my forehead. "You'd do anything for me, right, Mom?"
   I sucked in a breath. His arm was warm around me. My eyes were locked onto the motorcycle—the same motorcycle I had seen in my nightmares over and over for the last six years.
​   "Don't tell anyone. Okay?"