Chapter One

It calls to me, every day, the same door that I've told myself to never walk past. Sure, I've been in there countless of times, often entering when I think of my father, just sitting on his chair as I look at myself in that mirror, the mirror that took him from me. Sometimes I think my parents never wanted me to see the show that night, that they never wanted to watch his final trick. I call it a freak accident. People call it a horrible happening to one of the greatest magicians to ever live. My mother calls it a tragedy and forever feels guilty. It resembles pain. It resembles the loss of the man she loved, the loss of her husband, and the loss of her only child's father.

But every magician has that one trick that they know will threaten them, at least the greatest do. My father was one of the greats, no one yet pushing the limits he broke. His final trick was a wake up call to all the other magicians, one that made them only more realize the ricks that they all take. Perhaps to the world of magic, they take my father's story as one of a great magic who let his arrogance get to him and destroy the very name he had built for himself.

"Candice!"

Turning around, I find my mother in the doorway, home from a day of work. Her job was once to join my father on stage as she assisted him. Their story was one many loved to hear, how the magician fell for his assistant. After my father died so many years ago, my mother went back to college, gaining even a doctorate where she specialized in string theory from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sometimes I think she chose that major because of my father, because of what he did. Father was smarter than many, physics was something he would study and implement into his tricks, applying insane theories that he had learned from the future professors of my mother. Mother never cleaned up his desk, all the notes he left behind with different equations and intense mathematical projections all in black ink. Yet academia was not all he used, for there were sketches of unusual symbols that mother tried to get rid of.

My father never saw his biggest trick complete. I don't know where he went. Many said my father had tried to make a portal, others said it was some trick with the reflection of mirrors and he was just hiding from us. But I believe what my mother says, how my father is gone from this world. I know she means the afterlife, that he is gone.

Every Christmas my grandmother tells me how proud he would be of me, how he is looking down from the heavens and smiling at me. She tells me if my father was here, he would be smiling and telling me how well I have turned out to be.

"Yes?" I ask, hopping off my father's desk where he once planned out his final trick. My mother told me he planned on retiring from the field of magic after that show. At school people either tell me how sorry they are that I lost my father at such a young age, or I hear the gossip of how he was a failure. A few come to me, talking of my father with high regards as they too hope to be just as great as he was. Father helped make magic something more than just a performance on some talent show, but a world-wide sensation.

My father made magic become something so many wanted to see, something even more popular than what it had ever been.

When he was searching the world as he learned magic, he would do tricks to gain money just for a meal, he would do tricks for a ride. After a while the royalty from different countries would come to him, wanting to see his tricks. Soon, after ten years of searching the world, he married my mother and as four years passed, they had me, and their talents were known throughout the world.

"I know this is very sudden, Candice," my mother begins, but I already know what she will say. "I just booked a flight to Iceland for tomorrow." She does this very often. No, not for leisure, but for study. I know my mother is searching to understand my father's final trick, to try and see what happened to him.

"When will you come back?"

I ask that question every time, never giving up hope that she knows when she will be back, but she never knows. She once left me for three months when I was ten to be cared for by her best friend. I guess now she can afford to be gone longer than that, just because I recently graduated high school. Within seven weeks I'll be gone for college, allowing my mother the freedom to be gone and live to her own schedule. But that has never stopped her before. She's missed more than half of my birthdays, five Christmases, almost all my Thanksgivings, and even my graduation. But I still love her. She is still the woman that raised me in the absence of my father.

"I want to be home by next Wednesday," she replies. Six days to be gone. I have an equation that I use for her time estimates: take the number and multiple it by three. If she doesn't give you a day or date, that means she could be gone from two days to four months. "And then we will go and do some dorm shopping."

I already know I'll have to do all of that on my own. I even booked a flight to visit my college without her. She didn't come to scholarship night at the college when I got a small trophy for my full ride scholarship, she didn't even open the text of my prom dress when I sent her it.

I only know what it feels like to be alone, like a piece of my father that my mother tries to forget just as she sometimes tries to forget him. When he left to wherever he went, he took a piece of her with him, never to return it.

And I know she feels the same.

I know she loves me, but she loved and still loves my father. She is still searching for answers eleven years later. She is so determined that she has become an absent mom. Every week when she's gone I get a check in the mail for the weeks grocery money and that's about it. When I told her I was off to work one day, she had no idea that I had been working at a local business for several months.

"Okay," I reply, offering her a warm smile. "I'll look forward to it."

I already know she won't be there when I move into my dorm. But I know she's taught me one thing for sure, she's taught me to always be there for my family. She's taught me through her poor examples. Through her prime example of motherly qualities, I know the exact type of woman I want to become if I have children. Sure, no one is perfect when it comes to raising a family, but when you make no effort after your husband dies, it is selfish to not get over the past and try to do your best for your family. But she is family, even after all she has done, she is family and I still love her.

Mom goes off, leaving me alone to my thoughts in my father's office as she shuts the door. Once again, the darkness surrounds me as I look at that mirror. For so long I've wanted to see how it worked, how to operate the thing. Sometimes I daydream about to stepping into it and going wherever it takes me. Father's journal says it was to become a portal, but the only place it landed him was his grave. I've read through my father's journal time after time, the old book looking like Dr. Frankenstein's with all the sketches and graphs. My father was smart, a drop-out from Harvard who just wanted to see the world. He had gotten bored of studying for pre-law and wanted to show the world his tricks.

Sometimes I think there's some chant to operate this thing, other times I think it's a simple work of tools like a key or something.

Getting up, I walk towards the mirror once again. There a certain area that I always inspect, one with a small hole placed on the center of the frame, surrounded by a small engraving of letters that look ancient. Whatever this is, I deduced long ago that it was some part of importance. Leaning my head against the mirror, I stare at a reflection of myself, the dark brown locks that hit my mid-back, a set of dull brown eyes, fair skin, and the image of a girl who has never known what family truly feel like. I know that when my father was still around, that my mother and him tried to be there for everything I did. From every ballet recital to every small T-ball game I did.

Closing my eyes, I let out a deep breath, pushing off the mirror as I take in the rest of the office. Just as father left it, his desk covered in just his journal and two old pens from college, the curtains shut from the massive window, and items he used in performances covered in sheets. My dad worked years on this mirror, letting the others gain dusk. I remember fractions of my childhood when he was around, how he would work through the night to spend time with me during the day, how he always smiled when he saw me. It's been so long that I only remember what he looks like through pictures, but that smile he had, I shall always remember that part of him.

As I take a seat back on the chair, I open his journal. Looking at the pages as I flip them quickly, just as I flip the last page, I raise an eyebrow.

That's new. A small envelope, one with silver ink upon the opening, one of the ancient writing my father would study. Frantically I open the envelope, finding it to be a bit heavier than a letter from someone. Tearing apart the envelope, I only raise an eyebrow as a brass and rusting key falls onto my lap.

What? How did this get here?

Mom was just in this journal this morning, copying down some pictures onto her own journal. She said she was going to take the journal with her. Taking the key, I walk up to the mirror, looking at the hole. I push the key at the hole, only for it to be jammed midway. Nope, not the key. Hell, anybody could see this is not the key. This one looks like a house key while the hole in the mirror is circular. Way to go Candice.

Sighing, I shove the key into my pocket, looking back to the envelope. Something is important about this key though, how mom had it isolated in an envelope in dad's journal. She needs this or something like that.

That's when I decide to do something I'll never know if will harm my mother's journey tomorrow. Taking from one of my dad's drawers, an old key to his closet, grabbing an envelope as I place it in. Looking back at the original envelope, I take the same silver own from dad's desk, copying the ancient design correctly. The pluses of being an art student and even wanting to major in it. Then again, it could just be simple shape recognition a seven-year-old could match.

Placing the other envelope back in the journal, I keep the real key in my pocket, looking around. I've searched this office from head to toe, and I know there is no secret keyhole at all. Believe me, I've searched countless times. The only things in this house with keyholes are the doors, one massive chest in the living room for blankets, and mom's jewelry box that dad gave her.

That's it. That's got to be it! I run out of the room as my heart rate picks up quickly as I head up the stairs and into the massive master bedroom. How we were able to keep my childhood house still surprises me, but dad made quite the income with his job. Hell, the house was custom made just because of his work.

I hear mom downstairs, watching something on Netflix. Opening her room door, I find the modern yet homey room clean. There's one luggage by her bed, stuffed full of clothes you'd see on a dinosaur dig in the movies from the hat to boots. What is she digging for? I have no clue. I know dad did much of his beginning research in Iceland and she is following his every step.

Heading to the dresser in her huge closet, I find the jewelry box, handmade from Thailand, and with roses painted on the sides. The keyhole is slim, right in the middle. Grabbing the box, I recall all the times mom has opened it. I've never seen what it inside, but I remember her pulling out so many jewelry items from rubies to diamonds, from bronze to platinum.

As I take the key out, I take in a deep breath, hoping this works. Geronimo, it does work indeed, the key sliding in easily as I let out a deep breath.

Inside are multiple pieces of expensive jewelry my father gave her every chance he had to celebrate something. My eyes move across every piece, and that's when I see it, a necklace, one with a silver cylinder on the end. This would fit right into the hole. I take the necklace, closing her jewelry box, and dash out of the room. Running down the wooden stairs, I take a sharp left and head right back into the office.

Securing the door behind me, I can hear my mother calling my name. I must see if this will work.

My hands begin to shake as my mother knocks on the door, asking what is going on. Taking out the key, my fingers scuffle to get a decent grip on the key as they shake. Just as I hold it up to the hole, I shut my eyes, trying to calm down.

"Candice!"

I push it through, hearing it lock. It worked.

Opening my eyes, I see the mirror, but it's different this time. This time my reflection is different, this time my skin is black and my hair white. What the...

I look at my own body, at my skin, the light color, my brown locks. Is this just an effect of the mirror? It must be.

Reaching out to touch my reflection, I only gasp as my finger goes through.

"Candice, leave that damn mirror alone, don't you dare do anything!" Mom shouts, kicking and banging at the door. Dad made the door strong for a reason, dad made sure no one who threatened him could easily get in. "You have no idea what you are messing with here, your father barely knew when he tried. Please."

I retrieve my finger, looking back to dad's journal. I seize it, tucking it under my arm as I look back to my reflection.

"Candice! Don't you dare! I've already lost your father and I cannot lose you," she screams, sobs beginning as she tries to pick the lock.

"But you have mom!" I shout back, feeling my eyes brim with tears. "You lost me when you forgot that you were supposed to care for me."

Just as the doors fly open, I do what I once saw my father do: I step through.

Wind rushes around me, a feeling like I am being sucked into an endless pool of water, and a darkness comes closer, consuming me like I am miniscule to its size. As the endless abyss before me has engulfed me whole and I cannot even seen the tips of my fingers, I fall into the darkness, my eyes softly closing as I let out a final breath.