Beyond the Reflection's Edge

Nathan set the bow on the strings. The timing had to be perfect. If he played too soon, a frightened passenger or an angry flight attendant might snatch his violin away. If he played too late, the dimensional window might not open in time … if it would at all.

  With long, easy strokes, he began the first measure of “Amazing Grace.” Years ago his mother had taught him the song, one of his first when he was barely more than a toddler, holding an eighth-size violin in his chubby hands. And as he played, quite badly, most likely, she played along and sang, her voice matching the composer’s passion.

  The plane jerked. Just as the nose tipped upward and the landing gear lifted off the ground, the engine flew up in front of the wing and zoomed past the window. A chorus of gasps spread across the field of seats like a gust of wind. Screams erupted. Hands latched onto armrests. A rumbling roar from the good engine on the right pounded through the cabin. The jet rattled, a bone-jarring shake that chattered teeth and jiggled loose skin on every white-knuckled passenger.

  Kelly cried out, “Nathaaaan! I don’t want to die! I’m not ready to die!”

  He stopped playing and grabbed her hand. “Don’t give up yet! Hang on! It’s the only way we can survive!”

  Strangling his fingers, she breathed rapid, heavy breaths. “Okay … Get a grip, Kelly … Get control of yourself.” Her breaths eased, long and quiet, but her hand stayed latched on to his.

  Nathan pulled away and continued playing, now with more passion than ever as he watched her still-terrified eyes. What could he do to help her?

  As they continued their upward lift, Kelly jumped, again shaking the mirror, but she bit her lip and hung on. The camera dangled in front of her, thumping her chest with every jolt. The plane rolled slowly to the left, much more steeply than it would for a turn. Screams again broke out all around as passengers tipped to the side, reaching, grabbing, clawing to stay upright.

  Kelly squeezed her eyes closed. Her face quaked as she stretched out her long, plaintive cry. “Nathan! Help me!”

  Leaning against the window, Nathan swept the bow through the end of a measure, grinding his teeth. What could he do to help? What could anyone do? The mirror displayed a sea of twisted, burning wreckage and dozens of bloody, charred, and dismembered bodies. Any second now, he and Kelly would join them.

  17

  NEW PERSPECTIVES

  As the jet shook even harder, more screams filled the cabin — calls to Jesus, cries for mercy and unintelligible wails. An overhead bin popped open, spilling a duffle bag and a canvas overnighter on top of two men across the aisle. The smell of burning fuel and rubber filled the cabin.

  With new panicked shouts bouncing all around, Kelly braced one hand on the seat in front of her and sang the first phrase of Nathan’s tune, her voice feeble and quiet. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” Every word rattled through her chattering teeth as she hung on to the mirror. During the second phrase, a woman joined in from behind as did a man somewhere to the side.

  The jet rolled to ninety degrees and flew sideways. The cabin lights flickered off, leaving only shafts of sunlight pouring through the windows. More bins flew open up and down the aisle, spilling suitcases and garment bags. Smoke billowed into the front of the cabin and spread toward them.

  The mirror blazed with fire, falling ash, and death. Still playing, Nathan glanced out the window. The tip of the wing sank, a mere thirty feet from a fatal brush with the ground.

  As Kelly and the others sang on, Nathan stopped playing and reached the end of his bow toward the reading light in the overhead console. Would it work? Or was the plane too crippled to deliver power to the lights? He caught a glimpse of the camera, swinging back and forth from Kelly’s strap. There was no way he could reach the shutter, and the flash probably wasn’t turned on. He strained to push the console button, fighting the horrible quaking of the wounded jet. Giving the bow a desperate shove, he hit the switch. In the dimness of the cabin, the light flashed on.

  The mirror reflected the weak beam, splitting it into multiple shafts. Two beams pierced Nathan and Kelly, while others zipped past them. Nathan grimaced. This time, the light seemed like a flaming sword, a hot laser that sizzled through his skin and burned deep in his chest.

  The mirror view, still a landscape of carnage, swelled. Wincing in pain, Kelly released it, but it stayed upright on Nathan’s lap, expanding in every direction, even in depth as it seemed to absorb his legs and reach out toward Kelly’s. In seconds, Nathan felt his entire body sliding into the mirror’s grip. He looked back, still able to see through the window. The wingtip struck the ground, sending the jet into a wild tumble. Kelly’s body flung forward, throwing her into Nathan and forcing both of them into the mirror’s grasp.

  Holding out his violin to keep it safe, Nathan rolled to a stop in an open field. The jet cartwheeled only a few feet above his head, and the nose section knifed into the ground about fifty yards away digging a rut before breaking away from the fuselage. The rest of the body slammed down and smashed a hangar in a thunderous explosion of horrible thuds, cracks, and squeals as its momentum swept an avalanche of destruction across the field.

  Metal tore from metal. Fire gushed into the sky in an enormous billowing cloud of orange. Heat rushed past Nathan in a rolling wave, singeing his skin and whipping his hair upright. The mirror, still in his lap, radiated warmth through his pant legs.

  Kelly grabbed his arm and buried her face in his sleeve, screaming, “Nathan! They’re dead! They’re all dead!”

  Someone jumped past them and dashed toward the wreck-age, then another limped by supported by a cane. Nathan looked around, counting. Two, three, four … at least four other people sat or stood around in horror while two hurried into the crash zone. Grabbing the mirror and still clutching the violin, Nathan rose and staggered toward the burning wreckage. Kelly stumbled along beside him, each leg wobbly and weak.

  In the midst of crackling fires and sizzling metal, sirens wailed their approach. The two men who charged ahead had stopped and now just stood and surveyed the field of hopelessness. Burning body parts lay strewn in a swath of superheated fires. No one could save them now.

  One of the men dropped to his knees. Clutching his thinning gray hair with both hands, he shouted into the rising vapors. “I knew this would happen! Why didn’t I stop it?”

  Nathan sidestepped toward him. When he drew close, he recognized the tear-streaked face of the author they had met in the terminal building. His cane lay at his side.

  “I saw the crash in my dreams!” the author continued. “I should have done something!”

  The first man joined them, a short, stocky man with a full beard and weary gray eyes. “I dreamed about it, too,” he whispered to Nathan. “Did you?”

  Nathan glanced at the mirror, now tucked under his arm, but he couldn’t feel it. All sensation had drained away. His limbs, his body, even his face and hands felt completely numb. Staring at the devastation, he could barely find strength to speak. “Yeah. I saw it. I think …”

  The man scanned the other survivors. “I think we all did.”

  Nathan looked back at them — a young woman in seventies-style green pants standing petrified as she watched the fires churn, a middle-aged woman in a navy blue business suit weeping as she talked to Kelly, and a young couple sitting together in a sobbing huddle. “I think I know what you mean.”

  The man extended his hand. “Name’s John, but my friends call me Jack.”

  Nathan shook his hand, hot and sweaty, but carrying a pleasant grip. “I’m Nathan.”

  Jack wagged his head back and forth. “I suppose we should have said something. Maybe if all of us had spoken up, they might have listened.”

  As fire engines roared close and a helicopter beat its blades overhead, Nathan turned back to Kelly. She held the camera in her hands, the strap still around her neck as she snapped a picture of the crash scene. The flash lit up, though it didn’t seem as bright as usual in the mid-afternoon su
n. As she lowered the camera, her voice matched her teary, anguished eyes. “One of the survivors asked me to take some pictures for her. I hope it’s okay.”

  Nathan glanced at a business card in her hand. “Sure. I guess it won’t hurt anything, but I don’t see how you’re going to get the pictures to her.”

  She picked up the violin case and opened it, nodding toward the saddle pack at her feet. “I found them near where we landed.”

  Nathan methodically laid the violin and bow inside, closed the lid, and snapped the latches. He stuffed the case and mirror into the bag and snatched it up. “Let’s walk. The terminal’s not far.” Staring hard at the airport buildings, he strode toward them, not wanting to look back as he listened to the turmoil in his wake — blaring sirens, shouting rescue workers, and sizzling fires. Every sound made him wince inside, a dissonant song of death, a “Dance Macabre” performed on the strings of demonic violins. And he hadn’t been able to prevent it.

  Kelly’s voice seeped into the flow of sounds. “Are you all right?”

  “How could I be all right?” He winced again. His words had come out harsh, like a stabbing dagger.

  Her cool fingers slid into his free hand. “It’s not your fault.”

  He grasped them gratefully. “I know.” But that was all he could say. Death loomed over his mind like a shadow — dark, empty, and icy cold. And now he had to go to a funeral — his parents’ funeral.

  After following an access road that led them to the front of the terminal building, they found the motorcycles where they had left them, leaning on their stands with the helmets still in place. Cars had parked in every lane, halting the flow of traffic. People milled all around. Their conversations buzzed, word-less in Nathan’s ears. A few uniformed men and women hurried from place to place, some barking into walkie-talkies, but Simon was nowhere in sight.

  Nathan slipped on his helmet, attached the bag to one of the cycles, and dug out the keys. “Here,” he said, tossing one set to Kelly. “Can’t afford to wait for him.”

  She caught the keys and mounted the other bike. With her helmet already on and her dirty beige slacks and blue polo shirt rippling across her body in the breeze, she looked like a mosaic of misplaced pieces, a muscular choir girl mounting a wild mustang, a true hell’s angel.

  As he straddled the seat, he nodded at her. “We’d better not travel together. Just stay close enough behind to keep me in sight.”

  “Why?”

  “Word’s going to get out that we survived. I said something about the engine to the gate clerk, so, if they think I had anything to do with the crash, they’ll try to hunt us down, but they’ll be looking for two teenagers traveling together.”

  She gave him a thumbs up. “Got it.”

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of dollar bills. “For tolls,” he said, stuffing them into her hand.

  Tightening his grip on the handlebars, Nathan started the motorcycle and weaved through the lanes of parked vehicles. When he approached the front, he reached a row of airport security cars. Apparently they had intentionally blocked the access road to halt the flow of traffic.

  Nathan eyed the officer in a driver’s seat as he passed by. As if in reply the car’s siren squawked a brief note. When Kelly’s bike scooted by the officer rolled down his window and shouted over the motorcycles’ rumble. “Stop! Pull over to the sidewalk!”

  Giving the engine a shot of gas, Kelly raced away. Nathan roared after her, keeping watch in his rearview mirror. The blue lights on the police car flashed to life, and its siren howled as it gave chase.

  Kelly slowed down. When Nathan caught up, she shouted. “Ever done any dirt biking?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Get ready!”

  As they passed a merge lane for cars entering their road from an upcoming overpass, she slowed even further. When the officer zoomed closer, she turned into the grass, spun a one-eighty and headed into the entry curve in the wrong direction.

  Nathan swung around and tore after her. As cars blared their horns and knifed out of the way he checked his mirror, barely catching a glimpse of the patrol car skidding to a halt back on the main road.

  When they reached the feeder highway Kelly crossed the pavement and hugged the right-hand side of the road, roaring across the overpass in the wrong direction. Again, Nathan followed. When she found a narrow gap in the guard rail that lined the center of the median, she angled her motorcycle through it and kept going, this time in the same direction as the cars already speeding along. Keeping close behind, Nathan looked back. No one followed.

  After cruising far enough to get out of sight of the officer, Kelly pulled into a restaurant lot and parked behind the building. She cut her engine off and slumped her shoulders.

  Nathan slammed on the brakes and skidded to her side. “You okay?” he asked as he shut down his bike.

  She nodded. “Just worn out. You?”

  “Same.” He looked around the vacant lot. The restaurant was either closed or out of business.

  A wailing police car screamed past, then another. He peeked around the corner. A third cruiser came by at a much slower speed. An officer looked their way, scanning the front parking lot.

  Nathan pulled back. “We’d better cut through some side roads and get out of here.”

  He swung his motorcycle around and headed away from the highway. They pushed their bikes up a gravel embankment and over a set of railroad tracks. Once across, they ran down the other side and onto a residential street. Now hidden from the main highway by the railroad berm, he turned back toward the airport. “If we head that way, we’ll eventually get to Interstate 88. Since we were last seen heading north, they should concentrate on that side of town.”

  She started her engine and nodded. “I’m right behind you.”

  “Remember. Not too close.”

  She nodded again.

  After meandering through the neighborhood, Nathan located a ramp to the main highway and headed west, careful to stay just under the speed limit. In his rearview mirror, he spotted Kelly merging into the right lane, falling behind a little farther every few seconds.

  He zipped along, keeping an eye on her as she hung back about a half-mile or so. Letting out a sigh, he shook his head. She was an incredible combination of female charm, sharp wits, and ice-water coolness. Most girls would’ve scrunched into a fetal curl and cried like a baby, but even locked inside a doomed jet already falling from the sky she never lost her head. She even sang the song! Amazing!

  He glanced at a ring on his finger, a covenant band of gold his parents had given him when he turned thirteen. His father’s words still rang clearly in his mind as large hands pushed the ring over his knuckle.

  In some ways this is a gift for your future wife. It will remind you to cherish her even before you ever meet, to keep your body and mind pure so that on your wedding day, when you meld together into one flesh, hers will be the only skin you ever touch with intimacy. Her lips will be the first yours ever meet in tender passion and the last when one of you goes to meet our Savior. Yes, this is a gift for her, yet for you as well, for when you present yourself to her as a holy vessel, you will feel God’s pleasure, for you will have no memories of past loves, no scars from romantic wounds that never fully healed, and your union will never be haunted by the ghost of a past lover who now rests in the bosom of another.

  Nathan looked at Kelly now just a smudge in his mirror. As her reflection shrank even further, he enlarged her form in his mind, giving shape to her body and imagining her without a helmet, her sunlit hair flowing in the wind behind her familiar face. He focused on her eyes, sad and lost.

  He let out a heavy sigh. What about her scars? What about the ghosts from her past? If the two of them ever joined as one, could she forget about those phantoms? Could he forget them?

  He sighed again and searched for her in the mirror, but she had gone beyond the reflection’s edge. Twisting his neck, he looked back. There she was, still foll
owing his lead. But she was so far away … so very far away.

  18

  A NEW KEY

  Nathan set the motorcycle’s kickstand and unzipped the saddle pack. He glanced around at the broken trees and scattered branches. No sign of Dr. Simon.

  After parking her bike next to Nathan’s, Kelly shuffled through the debris toward the tri-fold mirror. In the reflection, the Earth Blue scene had disappeared. Now it showed only the same mangled forest that surrounded them.

  Nathan pulled his violin case from the bag and fumbled with the clasps.

  Kelly grasped his hand. “Nathan, you’re trembling.”

  He looked down at his shaking fingers. “Yeah. I guess I am.” Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm his nerves. He’d never be able to play the “Carmen Fantasy” unless he relaxed. He flipped up the latches and withdrew his mother’s violin. He didn’t remember much of the piece, so the dimension had to open in a hurry.

  As he laid the bow over the strings, Kelly gave him a firm nod. “You can do this.”

  Feeling more at ease, he set his feet and watched himself in the mirror. Then, after starting with a short mid-range stroke, his fingers immediately flew across the neck and ended the run with a sweet high note. After another quick mid-range stroke, he played a rapid run from the high to the low registers, then moved to a slower, sweet melody that lasted about fifteen seconds. He paused and stared at the mirror. Nothing. Still just his own image gawking back at him, his shirt tail hanging out on one side and his dirty hair locked in a rigid windswept pose.

  “I … I can’t remember any more.”

  She clutched the camera tightly. “You have to remember. We don’t have any choice.”

  “I know. I know.” He took in a deep breath and began again, playing the same notes, but, after a long pause, he lowered the bow. “It’s no use, I —”

  “Nathan!” She stared at his Quattro mirror, wide-eyed. “Look!” As she turned it toward him, she broke into a wide smile.