XV
The girl in the mirror
Manchester
Children's orphanage
1775
Rose opens the door to the city's orphanage. It swings inwards with a loud creak and Rose is instantly met with a strong damp smell, very similar to the house where Horace, Penny and Phillip stayed in. She steps onto a thick but torn carpet with a very Georgian style design with a mixture of red and dark blue colours. The rug is part of the small reception and at the back of the room beside large double doors is a small desk. A female sits behind the desk looking rather displeased. She has her head bowed as she scribbles something on a piece of paper. Rose can see nothing more than the woman's dark brown hair that is pinned back into a tight bun at the top of her head.
"I do not know you, nor do I want to," the woman at the desk says without even looking up. "I hope this visit will be quick."
Rose closes the door behind her. Already she is not getting off on a good start.
"Excuse me," Rose starts in a small voice as she carefully walks across the rug. "I am Jackie Orman, a friend to Horace Bellingham. I am here to pay his children a visit. They were taken here two days ago I believe."
The woman does not raise her head. "You will have to book an appointment."
"My butler has already seen to that." Rose says in more of a clearer, confident tone.
The woman behind the desk eventually looks up at Rose to see that her appearance is rather of a respectable rich woman living in the city. Rose wears a lilac coloured dress with lace fringing around the collar. She wears a very Marie Antoinette style feather hat that sits on top of her perfectly combed blonde hair.
With a small moan, the woman then turns to a large black book at the side of the desk and pulls it open. The cover lands on the desk with a loud thump and Rose jumps slightly. The lady runs her finger along the page until she finds Jackie Orman's name.
"You may see them." The woman behind the desk announces dully before turning back to her page of notes.
Rose pauses for a moment and clears her throat. "Could you show me the way? I would very much appreciate it, ma'am."
"Sure." The woman says and continues to scribble away.
Rose lets out a little breath as she waits patiently for the woman get out of her seat. Rose then quietly pokes at the fake beauty spot she has stuck just above her top lip. She isn't even too sure herself if that is still in fashion in the late eighteenth century. But she quickly makes up her mind and pulls it off before chucking it on the floor, turning the move very swiftly into batting off invisible dust off her shoulder, just in case the woman becomes suspicious.
But the woman behind the desk is still scribbling away and makes no notion of whether or not she is going to stand up and show Rose the way.
"Excuse me; are you going to show me the way?" Rose asks.
"No." The woman replies dully.
Rose frowns. "I don't understand, miss. You said that you would show me the way."
"I believe I did not, Miss Orman," The woman leans back in her seat and looks at Rose, wagging her pencil between two fingers. "You asked me if I could show you the way and I can. I am very capable of doing such a thing. But you never asked me if I would. And I will not."
Rose looks at the woman hard before turning away and walking through the double doors herself in a strop, thinking how it doesn't take much to be a decent human being. But Rose only rolls her eyes at the woman's lazy and rude manner, yet now she walks away from the reception she seems rather pleased herself to be out of her presence.
Rose walks down a long dark hallway with many different doors on either side. The corridor eventually leads to the bottom of a spiral stairwell. Standing at the bottom of the stairwell, Rose looks up and finds that there are many floors above to explore. It will probably take her the whole day to find Penny and Philip but she refuses to give up.
Rose wonders around the orphanage for an hour, climbing the stairs, looking into the playrooms and peering through each and every open door yet for a while Penny and Phillip are not amongst the children. But on the third floor, Rose peers her head around one of the doors and finds Penny and Phillip together in their bedroom.
Phillip is sitting at the end of his bed, looking sadly down at the floor as he swings he legs to and fro. Penny stands by the small window and looks out to the city.
Rose opens the door a little further and steps into the room. This immediately grabs Phillip's attention and his face brightens with delight.
"Rose!" He calls enthusiastically as he jumps off the bed. "Penny, it's Miss Tyler! She has come to save us!" Phillip runs across the bedroom and hugs onto Rose tightly. He wraps his arms tightly around her hips and rests his head on her lower stomach.
Rose is surprised at this sudden gesture from Phillip who seemed so cautious of her when they first met. But now he clings onto her as if his life depends on it. Rose doesn't know how to react for a moment but she soon relaxes before gently placing her hand on top of Phillip's dark hair. She then looks across the room to Penny who looks at her, untrusting. Penny has taken a step away from the window but she still has a hand clutching tightly onto the window frame.
Rose pulls away from Phillip and crouches down to the floor so that she is down to his height. She looks into Phillip's eyes as she speaks to him. "Now I want you to listen to me clearly and take note of everything I say. I'm going to get you out of here. I'm not going to let them take you to London. You'll be staying here where in this city it's safe."
"And how are you going to do that?" Penny asks harshly.
"Just listen to me because I have a plan that is going to be followed," Rose snaps before turning back to look at Phillip's troubled face. "There are these statues that are tormenting the city. The weeping angels I like to call them because when you see them they'll look like they're crying on first account. But they are not statues. They look like they are but they are only in disguise. They're creatures from another world and they have come here to play with time. They have taken my friends and we're all in danger if we can't fix it. The lady sitting at the desk downstairs does not observe everything that's around her so she won't notice for a long while that you're both no longer here," Rose plays with the collar to Phillip's shirt. "My friend has a twin brother and his house will be our safe zone. You will be looked after properly." Rose thinks about taking them to the Tardis knowing that that really is the safe zone, but it is too risky to let them see it.
"What about daddy?" Phillip asks in a mumbling voice.
Rose pauses a moment. "We are going to find him. I am sure that he did not board the ship that sank a couple of days ago. And I suspect that because Nathaniel Davidson has suddenly disappeared too," Rose breathes out deeply. "So this is what I want the both of you to do. Before the end of the day I want you both to pack your belongings and wait for me in the playroom when everyone is in bed. We'll come and collect you and take you to the safe house. You'll be staying with us until we bring your daddy back."
Phillip turns his head to look at his older sister who is still scowling at Rose. Penny then turns her attention to Phillip and to Rose it looks like they are somehow contacting each other in a way that Rose cannot see. But she does notice that they both look pensive.
"You don't think this will work." She says.
"It will not work," Penny hisses. "Children never get out of this orphanage. Once they get taken in they never come back out."
"That's because they'll take you to a hospital in London."
"No," Penny says abruptly. "It is because none of the children make it there alive."
The ball drops and dread runs through Rose's body.
"What?" Rose manages to say before looking back to Phillip.
"Can you save us? Save us from the girl in the bathroom?" Phillip mumbles.
Only minutes go by before Rose finds herself walking down the dark corridors of the orphanage. Penny and Phillip remain in their bedroom together, too afraid to go anywhere else on their own. Rose picks up her little clutch bag and holds it close to her as she leaves their bedroom.
The corridor suddenly seems ghostly and every footstep seems louder than normal. The bathroom, in which this mysterious girl has supposedly been seen, is through a black wooden door right at the end of the corridor.
The corridor seems colder and darker than it was the first time Rose walked down. But the black door at the end stays exactly where it is as she slowly makes her way towards it.
Rose can smell a mixture of oak, rust and urine as she stands just outside the black door.
The door is shiny and looks almost new whereas the rest of the building looks old and rather worn down. But as she presses her ear to the door, she hears nothing else but the sound of the water dripping from a tap.
It is at times like this when Rose wishes that she has the Doctor's sonic screwdriver or Terry's handheld device with her. If she did then she would easily be able to scan the door to see if there is any alien lifeforms in the bathroom.
But more than anything she wishes that the Doctor could be there by her side. She has been brave enough to work against aliens on her own before in the past but this seems more ghostly and paranormal rather than alien.
Rose takes hold of the door knob and turns it.
It clicks loudly and the door slowly swings inwards with a long and loud creak. Rose's heart pounds in her chest as the door makes view of the bathroom.
But there is no one there.
The bathroom is empty.
It is only filled with a long wooden bench connected to the wall on the other side of the bathroom. Rose can just about see four holes on top of the box which are used as the toilet.
Rose steps onto the dry tiles and slowly peers around the back of the door. There is nothing but a row of sinks and her own reflection in the large, dirty mirrors.
There is no one else in the bathroom with her.
Immediately Rose relaxes, thinking that the idea of the girl in the bathroom probably has been a practical joke children do on each other to make everyone scared. Knowing how scared Phillip is about the Devil, she knows that he would be scared of such a story.
Rose releases the door and lets it shut with another loud creak, shutting her away from the rest of the orphanage. The door swings quickly this time as it closes.
Rose places her clutch bag on top of one of the sinks and starts to examine the bathroom herself, just to be sure that everything is okay and that she has no problem getting Penny and Phillip to safety. She also makes a mental note to herself to ask Max if he will be okay with the children staying there with him until Horace comes back.
As she gets down on her hands and knees, having to make do with studying the room with her own observations without a sonic screwdriver, Rose tries to ignore the voice in her head telling her that Horace Bellingham is most definitely dead. But she refuses believe it. Not now since Nathaniel Davidson has suddenly disappeared too.
Rose finds there is nothing wrong with the bathroom. Everything is human. Nothing strange and nothing alien. All is as it should be.
She is also thankful that it is a very Georgian bathroom and not out of time like some parts of the city seems to be. It is damp and smells heavily of urine. She knows that it needs a good deep clean.
Rose scrambles to her feet and walks back to the sinks.
Turning on the hot tap, she lets it run a little, waiting for it to go warm before washing her hands. But her skin only touches cold water. It doesn't feel like it is going to start warming up any time soon. However this doesn't bother Rose too much. Did they even have hot running water in these days?
She scrubs off the dirt on her hands and picks at her fingernails. There are no towels to dry her hands. Rose just turns off the tap and shakes the water off.
Rose looks at her reflection in the dirty mirror and cannot help but say so herself that she looks good in the Georgian dress and feather hat. She smiles at her own reflection.
But that is when she sees it.
Just in the corner of her eyes, something on the floor behind her, curled in the ball by the wall.
Rose halts for a long moment as she looks at the girl sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Her head is bowed and her messy black hair covers her face. Her arms are skinny and grey, almost stone like.
Rose most definitely is not alone in the bathroom.
In fright, she quickly spins around to look at the wall opposite.
There is nothing there. It is just the open space of the bathroom.
Rose grips onto the sink tighter as she turns to look at the mirror again. The girl is still there, sitting in the corner of the bathroom behind her. That's when Rose notices that the floor in the reflection is wet. Water is everywhere as if there has been a blockage and the sinks overfilled.
Rose only glances down at her own feet.
The tiles are dry. There is no water.
Rose sucks in a short, sharp breath and looks back up to the mirror. She jumps in fright at her own reflection, for the grey girl with the long black hair, still in the far corner of the bathroom is now standing up.
The girl wears a long white night dress that looks too big for her. Her black hair is long, hip-length and dead straight. It is greasy and looks more like straw. The girl's head is still bowed, but Rose can just about make out a fringe that covers her eyes.
"Who are you?" Rose asks as she looks directly at the girl in the mirror. "Who are you?" Rose whispers again when the girl does not answer.
The girl slowly starts to lift her head and Rose's breathing becomes rapid with fear and anxiety.
The girl's face is grey like the rest of her body and it looks like there are evident cracks in her cheeks as if her skin is broken china.
The girl is blind. Her eyes glisten with white. She moves her head slowly from side to side.
Rose can feel that although the girl is blind, she is still able to see her. The girl moves her head to one side and her black hair falls to reveal her mouth that has been sewn shut with black string.
Rose clenches her fists and realises that it is no use talking to the reflection of a girl whose mouth has been sewn shut. She knows that it is only a spirit. The girl does not look alive.
She continues to watch the reflection of the girl who only looks back at her.
However, Rose cannot shake off the feeling that there is something directly behind her, just over her shoulder, but the reflection shows nothing but the girl.
She suddenly feels a strong shiver run down her spine and in an instant Rose turns around frantically and takes hold of her clutch bag.
Yet there is nothing there.
Not the girl. Not anything that seems ghostly. Just an empty bathroom.
She is alone in the bathroom but not in the mirror.
Rose tries to catch her breath, calm down and slow down her breathing to its normal pace. She looks across the empty bathroom to the corner where the grey girl is standing in the reflection as she tries to analyse the situation.
Was the girl in this orphanage before? Did she die in this exact bathroom and her spirit remains in the mirror? And why is her mouth sewn shut? The girl in the mirror only looks no older than fifteen years. Rose knows that she has to go into more research about the orphanage to see if there are any ghost stories about a girl in the mirror.
But somehow it makes no link to the Devil or the weeping angels.
Perhaps this is just an unnecessary obstacle that she has to remove herself from immediately.
There is too much going on at the same time and all Rose wants to do is bring back the Doctor and Terry and get away from this time frame as far as possible. But she knows it will not work out. She has got herself tangled in a specific historical event that is being meddled with and she understands that if she just leaves without stopping the angels, her future will be different, and probably not for the better.
Rose opens her clutch bag and rummages through the many different heavy objects she hides at the bottom. Just like the Tardis and Terry's skirt pockets, all of Rose's bags are bigger on the inside and she is able to carry anything with her without feeling the heavy weight of it. She chooses to keep in the time period by picking up the clutch bag that matches her dress, just to fend off any unwanted looks and questions.
Rose finds a spare small hammer at the bottom and pulls it out. She studies the hammer for a moment before turning around to face the mirrors again.
The girl in the mirror now stands right beside her, looking straight at her.
Rose jumps immediately and holds onto her breath as she freezes in utter terror for a long moment. She watches the girl as the girl studies her, turning her head slowly from side to side.
Rose's body trembles as the girl slowly raises her claw like hand.
But before the girl can do anything, Rose takes one swing with the hammer and smashes it into the mirror.
The mirror comes crashing down on the tiled floor in a million different pieces.
The girl in the mirror disappears.
Rose picks up the first big piece of shattered glass and shoves it in her clutch bag before running straight out of the bathroom as fast as she can.
Her throat is dry and she has trouble breathing. But she does not stop.
Rose skids to a halt at Penny and Phillip's bedroom who are still standing in the exact same spot as they were when she left them. They look at her, seeing the fear shown across Rose's face. Her eyes are wide with panic.
"Pack your bags," Rose orders. "I'm getting you out of here now!"
Penny and Phillip do not argue before they start packing.
Phillip pulls out their bag from under his bed and Penny stomps around the room, picking up their possessions. The moment they are done, Rose takes hold of their bags and orders them to run.
Penny and Phillip do so. Phillip takes hold of his sister's hand and runs along with her, silent tears streaming down his face. Rose runs behind them, desperate to get out.
"Did you see her?" Phillip calls back to Rose as they run down the black iron staircase. "Did you see the girl?"
"Shut up, Phillip and keep running!" Penny tugs at her brother's arm and they run faster.
It is a miracle that they did not pass any of the owners in the orphanage. They flee the building without getting caught.
But even on the street they keep running.
Penny leads the way as if she knows the way back to Max's house.
