Isn't silence meant to be golden?

That's what they say. They? Who knows? But silence is, supposedly, as golden as Jason's fleece. Or the egg laid by Aesop's goose. Or the Grimm Brothers' goose itself.

Is it, though?

If you have a hectic life, full of frantic frolics (try saying that five times fast when drunk), silence can be golden, diamond, or more precious than either. If you're the parent of equally frantic children, that lack of noise can be terrifying. If you're communicating with the dead, and text counts as sound, its absence can be... well. What was it? Scary? Perhaps. Concerning? Definitely.

Cassidy was getting used to the gaps in Amy's comments. She would stop, yes, because she was tired. Her lack of development because of the stagnation from no interaction was draining. She'd admitted that. She also held back because of offence or, he assumed, contemplation.

It was infuriating, though. He was talking to a dead girl! Didn't she owe him a response when he spoke to her?

No. She owed him nothing. His presence may well have awoken her in the first place. She could have been happy in her stasis, and it was he who owed her. An apology, for instance.

She could still sack off this making him wait. What was the point? Was it for effect? Well, great. It was effective, initially. Now, it was annoying. OK, it was annoying from the off. He was being generous.

"Do you remember what happened?" he prompted.

She wanted to speak to him as much as the other way around, right?

Yes.

I remember everything.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

No.

I don't.

That was understandable, though not the answer he wanted. If she corroborated Jazz's story, then it would prove she was who she said she was. He would, finally and fully, believe her. Believe in her.

"I just want to help," he said.

With what?

"With... you. Your situation. I dunno. With whatever you need help with."

But why?

Why would you want to help me?

"You were a friend of my sister's. She said..." It was his turn to pause, the information he was about to divulge embarrassing him. "Apparently, I had a crush on you."

You did?

On me?

"Yes. I don't really remember myself. It's her words, not mine."

The emoji face appeared. The mouth was a horizontal line of ambiguity. As Cass watched, the edges of the line moved upwards into a smile, then another line separated from the first, producing an open, grinning mouth. The animation continued, creating an obvious image of laughter.

Oh, so damned funny. Bloody hilarious.

"I don't know why you're laughing," he said sulkily. "She might have been just taking the piss."

No, she's not.

I knew at the time.

It was adorable.

"Adorable? Fuck off!"

His petulance wasn't real, or not completely. Even though he had no recollection of having any feelings for Amy, the thought that his younger self liked her was adorable in a way. Stomach churningly so, as it may be.

Aw, is Cass Cass getting upset?

Does Cass Cass want a hug?

Cass Cass? Why did that name sound familiar...?

"Cass Cass?"

Yes.

I used to call you that.

It made you smile.

Made Jazz feel like puking!

Cassidy laughed out loud. He didn't recall much about Amy at all, but liked the fact she'd had what amounted to a pet name for him. He wished he'd have known. It would have made the child he had been ecstatic.

The mood had been lightened, thankfully. He resigned himself to not having that conversation with her and decided it was probably for the best. Why drag up such a painful time for her? It was his morbid curiosity driving him, not the desire to be helpful. To be a friend. Not that the two were excluded by his inquisitiveness. He wanted to be both of them. He just couldn't help wanting to know what she remembered. How she felt.

A line from one of his favourite films, Beetlejuice, popped into his head. When Lydia's family is holding the séance to bring ghosts Barbara and Adam back to life, the girl tries to stop the proceedings. Her father refuses, saying 'They can't feel a thing."

Did he have the same preconception skulking at the back of his mind? He didn't think so. He was more understanding than that, surely. A person didn't always understand their motivations, however. Sometimes, a person did something for no reason they could identify. Identifying that aspect of oneself was the beginnings of a cleansing, wasn't it?

Sigh. He possibly wasn't as nice as he thought.

"Well, anything that made her nauseous is fine by me," he said.

I was murdered.

Ah.

Erm...

OK...!

She did like to chuck in those grenades, didn't she? She was playing with him, he realised. She did want to talk to him. To tell him. She just wasn't going to make it easy or appear too eager. That was fine. Now he knew she was going to open up, he didn't need to push. Or get irritated.

"Jazz said."

What else did she tell you?

"They found your body. Did you know that?"

No.

My body.

Me.

They found me.

The lipstick ants swirled as Amy struggled with the information. Cass had hoped she would be aware of the circumstances surrounding her death, including the recovery of her body. How could she, though? She was dead. She could have been trapped here, in this mirror, since her murder and everything afterwards could be a complete unknown to her.

Trapped here. If her spirit was unable to leave the mirror, could that mean this was where she was killed? He was living in a murder house? What if the killer was still...

Shut the fuck up, man!

As sickening as that sounded, and it did, he wasn't the one who'd had their life ripped from them. Amy had. She was the victim, not him. He had to keep that in mind. He could dwell on the history of his home another time, and decide if it made a difference. He had no idea, at that moment, if it would or not. He was reeling from the unexpected revelation, of course. He had to push it to one side and concentrate on Amy. Not only for her sake, either. Dwelling on the horrors from his own perspective would solve nothing.

They'd found her, yes. Amy. Not just a body, or even just her body. It was her. Whether the part of her he was now speaking to was present in the discarded bin bag or not, it was still Amy.

Cassidy was aware that some people believed you were not your physical presence, but rather the consciousness within. Mind. Spirit. Id. To a certain extent, he'd held similar views himself. We were more than our parts. Burial and cremation were ways of disposing of our corporeal parts. It was too simple. Too easy. Something as wondrous as life could not be so effortlessly cast aside. Being more than our parts did not preclude the fact we were also those parts themselves. As a whole. Body and mind. Physical and metaphysical.

So, Amy was there in the mirror. She had also been there, in that ditch, wrapped in those black rubbish sacks.

And she didn't know.

"Yes, they did."

Where?

He could make it up. Tell her something less harrowing, if describing murder could be that. It seemed she was aware of the violence involved, just not the details. Any story could be presented as the truth, and Amy would have no idea. He couldn't do it. There was the chance she could find out, but that wasn't preventing him. She deserved the facts. Honesty.

"In a ditch," he said. "I'm sorry. You were wrapped in bin bags."

Thank you.

You could have lied.

I need the truth.

Wow. Had she read his mind? That was too close!

"That's what I thought. You should know what happened. I'd want to."

He would indeed, so hoped whoever met his ghost didn't choose deceit, as he almost had.

"Do you know what happened? Do you know who did it?"

Yes.

"Which part? What or who?"

What.

And who.

https://youtu.be/wmXrbifXbkA

I hope you're enjoying MirrorMirror! I'm aiming to update every Wednesday, so keep an eye out. If I miss one, give me a nudge!