Toddler
A Mirror, Mirror fanfiction
Part Two
~1995~
"Royce!" Tama waved at the boy driving his newly replaced remote-control truck around under the porch light, signalling him with a pointed tilt of the head.
"Hey, Tama!" he said, too loudly, as he dashed across the porch and leaned over the side. "What's up? Have you seen Jo? Mum and Dad are–"
"Be quiet for a second," Tama hissed, glancing anxiously over Royce's shoulder to make sure the Tiegan parents hadn't heard their son shouting his name and come to the door. "We've got a problem and we need your help."
"Oh yeah? So, what's happening?"
"It'll take too long to explain everything now" – Royce opened his mouth to say he had time, but Tama shook his head cutting him off preemptively – "we just need you to distract your parents so Jo can sneak Nicholas up to her room."
Royce made a face.
"Not like that." Tama took off his baseball cap and hit Royce with it. "Shut up."
"I didn't say anything!" he protested.
"Just distract them!"
"How?"
"I don't know – any way you want." He threw his hands up in frustration. "Just come up with something, all right?"
Royce considered a moment. "Right-o."
~1995~
Oh-oh-oh-oh...
Catherine looked up from the paper she was grading (although worry over Jo's present whereabouts had left her reading the same sentence five times, and she still wasn't sure if the kid had gotten the answer correct or not), brow furrowed. "Really, Andrew?"
Andrew came in from the other room – the cordless phone still in his hand. "It's not me, Cat."
Everybody was kung fu fighting (hoo, huh)!
She blinked at him. "Then, where–?"
Her husband was peeling back the curtain and peering outside, onto the lawn, where Royce had apparently set up a boombox and was swinging around in the dark in slow motion, kicking at the air and saying "Yaaah!" between lines of the blaring song.
Catherine came up behind him. "Why is he out there? He's supposed to be upstairs doing his homework."
Andrew checked his watch. "The neighbours are going to phone the police."
Royce's "yaah"s and kicks had devolved into a kind of awkward breakdance. After a few seconds of this, apparently having run out of impromptu moves, he just started spinning in a circle repeatedly with his arms spread out. Finally, he stopped and grasped his still-whirling head. The whole back yard tilted, pitching up and down like he was balanced on a pair of high stilts and was about to fall off. "Whoa."
"Or an insane asylum," muttered Catherine.
"Nah; he doesn't look crazy, just nauseated."
"I meant for me."
~1995~
Seeing her parents at the window, watching Royce with twin bemused expressions, Jo scooped up small Nicholas and, whispering, "We need to be really, really quiet now, okay?" speed-walked for the front door, rushing inside.
She had exactly half a minute to make it to the landing before Andrew decided to go outside and drag Royce back in. When she made it to her bedroom and set Nick down at the window-seat, where he started playing with a Texta she'd left there earlier, she sank against the wall, too exhausted and relieved even to care that her three-year-old boyfriend was scribbling on it.
"You know what? You're cute like this, when you're not headbutting people or crying," Jo sighed; "but I really hope we find a way to get you back to normal."
The trouble was, without a recent photograph, she had no idea where to even start.
~1995~
Dragging him into the house by the arm, ignoring his protests that his boombox was left out on the lawn for anybody who wanted it to steal, Andrew demanded to know exactly how stupid Royce thought he was.
"You're covering up for your sister, aren't you?"
"N-n-no," spluttered Royce. "Of course not." His dad was brilliant – all three of him. He forced a smile – a smile which only succeeded in making him look even more guilty. "I was just trying to express myself."
"Spinning in a circle repeatedly while violating every noise curfew in the neighbourhood is not expressing yourself, Royce – now where's Jo?"
"In her room." At least Royce didn't have to lie about that. "Where else would she be?"
They'd been waiting for her to come home since this afternoon, and now Royce just casually remarked she was in her room? As if she'd been there all evening? There was something going on here, and Andrew demanded to know what it was.
Royce did his best to deflect, inventing two allegedly dire trips to the toilet – only for his impatient dad to wait outside the door, arms crossed – and a desperate need for a drink of water from the sink (because that ruse had worked so well the last time...), but finally he cracked and admitted Tama told him Jo was sneaking Nicholas up to her room.
As a family, the Tiegans didn't really have strict rules about what friends their kids could have in their bedrooms – Tama went in and out on the daily like it was nothing – but at this hour, after being missing all day, for them to be so secretive about it, Andrew felt he had to play the heavy dad for once and put his foot down.
No way. His teenage daughter was not smuggling a boy into this house for the night – not if he had anything to say about it.
Bounding up the stairs to Jo's room, Andrew flung open the door. "Jo, I'm sorry, but we've got to have a talk about you bringing–" He saw Nicholas, who lifted one pudgy hand to wave at him, and stopped mid-sentence. "Well – uh. Right then. Never mind."
Jo looked at small Nicholas. "Wow. He took that way better than I thought he was gonna."
A moment later, the door opened again. Andrew stuck his head in, a trifle sheepish. "Just so I'm clear...?" He pointed at the toddler. "That is Nicholas?"
"Yeah – it was my fault, but the mirror...it..." She gave a weary shrug. "Tama and I are going to change him back – we just..." Her voice quivered. "Just don't know how to do that yet."
"I see," said Andrew, though he wasn't entirely sure he did. "Well, I'd keep him away from Catherine as much as possible, if I were you – your mother'll probably try to adopt him and raise him as our own."
Small Nicholas actually grinned at this – slowly, almost like his older self – as though he understood.
"Now this is getting freaky," muttered Jo.
"You know, Jo, a phone call, earlier, to let us know you were all right–"
"What was I gonna say, dad?" she protested. "'Running late, I accidentally turned the Tsar of Russia into a kindergartener; I'll bring back milk'?"
"Fair enough."
"I'm sorry I made you worry," she whispered, after a second.
Andrew bent forward and lightly pressed his head against his daughter's forgivingly. "Do you need anything before I go?"
"Nah – I'm okay" – she explained Nicholas already ate at Louisa's – "just tell Royce thanks heaps for dobbing me in."
"Go easy on your brother," chuckled Andrew, straightening and turning to go. "Subterfuge has never been his strongest asset."
"Jojo?" Small Nicholas tugged at her jumper sleeve. "I need water closet."
Two red blotches spread across her tan cheeks. "Dad, hang on – wait!"
He paused in the doorway.
She bit her lip and winced. "Can you take him to the toilet?"
~1995~
Andrew paled slightly when he came out of the bathroom, small Nicholas following, to find Catherine standing by the door, tapping her foot and demanding to know exactly how stupid her husband thought she was.
Clearly the three of them – Andrew, Royce, and Jo – were hiding something from her.
She softened when – Andrew stepping side – she saw the toddler behind him. Clearing her throat, "Whose baby is that?"
"Well... You remember our daughter's friend, Nicholas? Apparently, he shrunk, the last time he came through the mirror."
Catherine studied him. "What's he got on?"
"I don't know." Andrew hadn't really paid attention to what Nicholas was wearing. "Some sort of dress, I think."
"Whatever it is," she said, no-nonsense, "it looks like he's been sweating in it all day. You can't put him to bed in that." She gripped one of his hands and led him back into the bathroom. To Andrew, she sighed, "Get me one of Royce's T-shirts, a washcloth, and a spare comb, please."
"Coming right up, chief."
Jo stuck her head out of her bedroom – worried, since they'd been gone so long – just as her dad was returning with the requested items.
"Mum saw him," she realised, dismal.
"She saw him all right." He nodded. "Cheer up. Look on the bright side. At least he'll be clean."
And possibly your new little brother, Jo thought, feeling slightly queasy. Her mind barely even let her go there, it was that uncomfortable. "She knows we're changing him back, right?"
"Andrew?" her mother's voice called from the bathroom. "What's this filthy rag doing tied to his hand? Oh, you poor thing, that looks nasty – Andrew, while you're at it, be sure to bring some antiseptic as well."
"Your guess is as good as mine, kiddo."
~1995~
When her parents returned small Nicholas, his curls (which Jo barely noticed had gotten tangled) were brushed out, making his long hair look even longer, and he was wearing a T-shirt – several sizes too big for him, but serving as a decent substitute for the dress-like clothes he was used to – with a dinosaur on it.
The makeshift bedsheet bandage she'd tied around his hand was gone, replaced by a jumbo bandaid and a folded piece of gauze.
He was so happy to see Jo again, he ran to her and hugged her knees. It was as if he'd been afraid Andrew and Catherine had taken him away from her. Probably, he'd been more than a little frightened by the fact they'd messed with his hand, even though they were kind, re-bandaging it for him; his condition was supposed to be a secret, after all.
Obviously, the poor kid was beat – it had been a long day for him. He'd stopped exhibiting the boundless energy he'd been showing since his transformation. If anything, he looked as if he might fall asleep standing up, half-leaning against Jo's calf, if they didn't put him to bed in the next two minutes.
Catherine turned down the daisy-patterned coverlet on Jo's bed as Andrew reached over and hoisted the exhausted kid up onto it.
"We'll talk in the morning, darling," said Catherine, nodding to Jo. "If you or Nicholas need anything, we're right across the landing." She patted her daughter's arm. "Try and get some rest."
As she and Andrew left them, closing the door gently as they exited, Catherine bit down hard on her lower lip, shoulders shaking.
"It's really not funny," Andrew whispered, though he was repressing a smile, too.
"No," she struggled to gasp out. "You're right. I know it isn't. It's very serious. And I'll be a proper adult about it tomorrow, I promise." Her hand went to her mouth, eyes darting nervously at the door, as if afraid her daughter could still hear them. "But did you see her face?"
"Poor Jo," grinned Andrew. "This has been tough on her."
"He's three," wheezed Catherine, reaching up and pushing back her fringe.
"I know."
"How long do you think she'd give us the surly silent treatment for if we enrol him in kindergarten here?"
"Cat–"
"Relax, I'm not actually going to do it. I know he isn't ours." Then, she repeated, "Poor Jo."
On the other side of the door, rather than listening to them, Jo lay down across the top of the coverlet and watched Nick's tiny chest go up and down in his sleep beside her.
~1995~
Jo didn't remember falling asleep, but she knew she must have, at some point, when she woke, almost in a start, drawing in an anxious breath, with small Nicholas pressed against her side.
The light in her bedroom was completely changed – she guessed it was hours later.
Her jolting awake hadn't disturbed Nicholas, who slept on with an eerie quietness. It would have been more reassuring, somehow, if he snored, or talked in his sleep, or even breathed more loudly; he was so still. Then again, maybe if you were like him – if you had joints that could swell uncontrollably and keep you up all night crying and screaming, even though you were almost too young to understand why you had to feel so much pain – on nights when nothing hurt, you did sleep like a rock.
Maybe that was only natural.
Jo couldn't fall back asleep, though.
Reaching over, she did what she had wanted to do all of yesterday – she stroked his long hair.
Then, immediately feeling silly, hot with embarrassment without knowing why, she pulled her hand back and – sitting up, nudging him over just a little so that he was curled against the bulk of a pillow instead of her – got up to switch on the light.
Sitting on the bed again, she looked at the torn encyclopedia page, indecisive.
She couldn't leave Nick as a three-year-old.
If they didn't find another photograph...
If there wasn't one...
Not anywhere...
Not here, and not in 1919, either...
Nicholas would want her to at least try to make him a teenager again, wouldn't he? Even if he was thirteen instead of sixteen?
I could deal with being the older one in our relationship, she thought – if the difference was only a single measly year.
Still, she cringed at the idea of robbing him of two whole years of his life. There had to be another way – there just had to!
At her side, something shuffled, shifting the mattress. Small Nicholas was waking up. Sitting upright, he peered over her shoulder at the paper. He didn't recognise himself, but when he noticed the picture of his family, he smiled wide, all milk teeth. He knew them.
He pointed at his father. "Papa. That's papa."
Jo's heart hurt: he was looking at her questioningly now. It was as if he was saying this was fun, staying with her, and these other nice people, but when was his father coming to get him?
What could she say? She knew she could never bring herself to tell this little boy with the bulging blue eyes and hopeful cherubic grin his father wasn't ever coming for him because – in 1919, on the other side of the mirror – he was lying in a mineshaft rotting away, unrecognisable thanks to the acid the Bolsheviks poured over the body, and that – now, seventy-six years later – his bones still hadn't had a proper burial, were in fact laid out a metal slap in some laboratory.
Even without saying a word, her expression must have tipped him off – he was a surprisingly perceptive little kid. His big eyes grew suddenly smaller and brimmed over with tears, and while she nervously waited for him to start howling, what he did hurt even worse. Nick didn't make a sound; he simply squirmed closer to her, lifted her arm over his shoulders, and sat like that, pressed tightly against her, tears streaming down his gone-red face, until he fell back asleep.
It didn't feel right, for a child his age, to cry himself to sleep so quietly, not for any reason.
She was relieved, when he woke again after the sun was up and Andrew was knocking for her to get up, that he seemed not to remember; he didn't ask about his father or the rest of his family, not again, and – tucking the page safely into her backpack until she could make up her mind whether to use it or not – she hoped he thought it had just been a bad dream.
~1995~
Catherine made them all waffles for breakfast. Jo was less surprised than she thought she should have been that Royce's placemat was somehow stickier than Nick's when they'd finished and Andrew was gathering the plates to wash up.
When her dad had cleared her place, and she'd raised her eyebrows at Royce for eating messier than a literal three-year-old, getting his stuck-out tongue in return, Jo pulled back her chair and went to pick up Small Nicholas.
"Tama phoned," she explained to her parents; "we're going over to Alex's to ask if Nick was in any of the Polaroids she was taking last week at the arcade." It was a long shot, doubtful at best, but they weren't sure where else to go from here. "He was in there for a couple minutes that day, waiting for me and Tama... I introduced them, so we thought, maybe–" She stopped. "Hey, watch it, you!"
Small Nicholas had shoved his hand down the front of her jumper – again – because she'd put on the chain strung with his signet ring out of habit when she got dressed.
"You," she said, half-teasingly, hoisting him a little higher, "are getting way too comfortable grabbing me there." And here she'd thought the Tsarevich was meant to be a gentleman, silly her. "Show a little restraint, mate."
"That isn't what you said to him last week," chortled Royce. "Heh." He patted one of Nick's chubby little legs. "Isn't that right, little dude?"
Jo's tan cheeks flushed red-hot. "Royce!" God, right in front of their parents, too! "You don't know what you're talking about, okay?" She was going to kill him. Just as soon as this nightmare was over. For now, she had to focus.
Andrew's brow lowered, and Jo wished for several agonising seconds she could just choke on her own spit and die, but he straightened it after an awkward minute or so ticked by, the usually barely discernable kitchen clock having gone absolutely deafening, asking if she wanted to leave Nick with him and Catherine for the rest of the morning, so she didn't have to drag the kid all the way to Alex's with her.
It sounded like a good idea – Jo's arms were already feeling tired from holding him up, and it would be a relief not to spend every second of their time at Alex's distracted by the constant fear small Nicholas would injure himself the second she was distracted and start a bleeding episode (it was no wonder, really, his poor, desperate mother went bonkers and invited Rasputin into the imperial palace; Jo had barely been looking after this kid for twenty-four hours and the thought of anything happening to him – how easily it could – made her feel like she was having a nervous breakdown, like someone had their hand on her throat, squeezing hard, and she couldn't breathe); but unfortunately it the same as when she'd tried to leave him with Louisa – he insisted on 'going with Jojo'.
He made such a fuss over it, in fact, that – after she finally gave in and walked off with him to wait for Tama out front – Jo could hear her mum telling her dad, cute as he was, the boy was in dire need of having some boundaries set on his behaviour, haemophilia or no haemophilia.
Jo would never have said so, but – deep down – she agreed with Catherine. Small Nicholas was the sort of child you wanted to spoil, even if you didn't know he was sick – his natural charm was disarming – however, if not for a moment or two when he calmed down and she really could see glimpses of him in there, she couldn't help wondering, plenty baffled, how the Nick she knew came from him.
It made her sad to think suffering and loss had made him what he'd been before the mirror changed him back. All little kids could be bratty, though. She and Royce hadn't been angels.
If things had been different for Nicholas, Jo felt sure he still would have turned out kind.
All the same, for that to happen, someone would have had to be firm with him, someone would have had to find it in them to tell him no and put their foot down. And endure the tantrum that would inevitably follow without batting an eyelash.
Jo didn't envy them, whoever they would have been; she couldn't even summon enough willpower to tell him he wasn't coming to Alex's with her.
~1995~
Alex was thrilled when Tama and Jo showed up, rushing to the door and yelling to her parents that it was her friends from school. When she noticed Nicholas, holding onto Jo's hand, she grinned.
Where had this cute little guy come from?
Neither Tama nor Jo had managed, yet, to explain the mirror to Alex – or even to Mia and Jesse, for that matter – though they'd introduced her to Nicholas during one of his visits; now, Jo was feeling faintly hopeful she wouldn't have to waste the morning doing so, not if Alex didn't recognise the toddler version of Nick.
Of course, she could always tell them he was Nick's little brother or cousin or whatever. She just hadn't thought that far ahead, and maybe – if they were lucky – she didn't have to.
"You mean...?" she checked. "You don't see the resemblance?"
Alex glanced from Jo to small Nicholas. "Oh." She blinked. "Is he... Is he, like, your long-lost little brother or something?" She lowered her voice. "From your birth family?"
"Yeah, right," Tama said sarcastically; "that's Jo's brother – and their father was a kaleidoscope. Makes perfect sense. Get real, Alex."
To be fair, Nick looked even less like he was related to Jo than Royce did, but she elbowed Tama in the gut with her free hand anyway. He didn't have to take his frustration out on Alex. "Look, never mind that now."
"Oof," groaned Tama.
His tiny fist jammed in his mouth, sucking on his knuckles, small Nicholas regarded Tama hunched over and scowling with a cool flicker of his blue eyes before tugging at Jo's arm. It was boring, just standing here next to a potted houseplant. Weren't they done yet? Couldn't they go someplace where they could play? A park or a room with toys in it?
"We need a favour," Jo continued, tightening her grasp on Nick's other hand so he didn't run off or start kicking at the plants. "Can we see those Polaroids you took at the arcade last week? It's hard to explain, but this really is an emergency."
Alex – after a quick dash upstairs to her bedroom – brought out a battered shoebox almost overflowing with Polaroids, including the pictures she'd taken at the arcade, but although Jo checked over every single one eagerly, Nicholas didn't appear to be in any.
There was a blurry arm in the corner near the white frame of one she thought might be his, only who was to say if that would do any good? Maybe the stupid mirror would just turn Nick into a giant sentient arm, or into another boy entirely – if it turned out not to be his after all.
Groaning, she covered her face with her hands.
"Rough luck, but, hey, think about it this way, Jo," whispered Tama, leaning close to her ear so Alex wouldn't overhear. "Nick's still Nick – he's just...smaller... Travel sized. You can probably fit him in your luggage now."
"Shut up, Tama," she hissed through her teeth, splaying her fingers and glaring at him through them.
Seeing her friend's distress, though she didn't understand it, Alex came over and touched Jo on the arm. "You know, I think Jesse had a camera with him that day, too – if that helps."
Jo's heart leaped. "Jesse was taking photos, too?"
"Yeah – mostly of Mia, though."
Tama and Jo exchanged a glance. It had to be worth a try.
Jesse's place next, then.
Suddenly, Nicholas let out a piercing shriek.
Jo turned in a hurry to look at him, half terrified she'd find him hurt, bleeding out all over Alex's parents' carpet, or contorted with his arm ballooning up to about a million times its right size, only for him – smiling sweetly, once he'd got her attention – to announce, rather imperiously, he was hungry.
"We just had brekkie," Jo protested. "My mum made us waffles, remember?"
But she checked her watch while she spoke, and it was almost time for lunch. They'd been here at Alex's, sorting through pictures, longer than she'd thought. Luckily, she had her allowance; it should be enough for a hot dog or a couple slices of pizza somewhere within walking distance.
Tama offered to rush over to Jesse's and meet up with them after, hopefully with a current photograph of Nicholas.
~1995~
Propping her elbows up on the tabletop edge, her chin resting in her palms, Jo tried to remind herself there were worst first dates – probably.
She could be seated across from somebody utterly repulsive.
And if this were last week, she would've been thrilled to be out grabbing a slice of pizza with Nick.
Except, when she'd imagined a moment like this then, she definitely hadn't envisioned him being the size of a Munchkin, having a vocabulary that (when he was cranky from hunger) mostly just consisted of saying "Nyet!" over and over to anything she suggested before it even came out of her mouth, and blowing bubbles in his chocolate milk...
Considering the kid at the next table over from theirs – a spiky-haired five-year-old with a sour look on his scrunched-up face – was in the process of picking his nose and then wiping his fingers on his pepperoni, small Nicholas did seem like an angel in comparison.
"You know what? You can blow all the chockie bubbles you want," she sighed. "You're a damn good kid."
"Hey, Tiegan!"
Jo let her hands drop down to the table with a miserable thunk as she glanced exasperatedly over her shoulder.
Jade.
Of course it had to be Jade Coigley.
She groaned.
"Doing a bit of babysitting, are we?"
"Rack off, Jade – I'm not in the mood."
But she was already bouncing up to the table with her reptilian smirk plastered on.
Small Nicholas stopped blowing bubbles and looked hard at Jade. He sensed Jo didn't like her – and anyone Jojo didn't like, he didn't like.
"What, couldn't get a real date?"
Jo pressed her lips together and twisted them. She wasn't going to say anything. This wasn't the time to get into it with Jade. She had to focus. "Come on, Alyosha – let's go – we're gonna wait for Tama outside."
"Ooh, is Tama's dad giving you and your little boyfriend a lift home?"
Little boyfriend? Jo's lips parted, the upper one curling into a sneer. She prepared to say something snappish and biting, then realised, with another groan of aggravation, it wasn't worth it; technically Jade wasn't wrong.
For once, Jade didn't know how – by complete accident – right she actually was.
And that was just too bloody weird to contemplate.
In a flash, small Nicholas vanished under the table, and before she could stop him, had bitten Jade on the leg.
"Ahhh!" shouted Jade, jackknifing forward and crying like she'd just been attacked by Jaws in the middle of the ocean instead of nipped by a toddler at a pizza place.
When she finally got him back out from underneath the table, Jo struggled against laughter – small Nicholas had a look on his face like a cat that smells something foul. "Bleh," he said at last.
"You shouldn't bite Jade," Jo told him, ignoring the fact that Jade was nodding and whimpering her agreement as she added, "she's clearly poisonous."
Jade started crying again, threatening to tell her mother.
Small Nicholas stuck out his tongue at her while Jo dragged him away, hurriedly pulling him towards the doors. For some reason, standing out there, waiting for Tama, she couldn't stop smiling; she'd have to find a way of thanking Nick for this, someday.
Because, no matter how long she lived, she was certain she was never going to forget the horrified look on Jade's face when his little teeth had sunk into her baby-oiled leg.
~1995~
The good news was Jesse might have a picture of Nick. He had taken one of him standing next to Jo near a pinball machine that day Jo introduced him to Alex. The bad news was, he didn't know for sure, because he hadn't had the film developed yet.
"That could take ages!" Jo cried. "And we don't even know if it'll come out!" Not to mention, dragging small Nicholas all the way to a one-hour photograph developer, when he was already sagging and drooping like he might fall asleep right there on the pavement, seemed impractical at best. "I guess I could carry him – if he does fall asleep." Her arms were going to be so sore...
Tama rolled his eyes. "Well, it's the only shot we've got." Then, "But, hey, if you don't want to come along – maybe I should take Louisa."
Jo's brow lifted – that wasn't a bad idea, actually.
Tama really was a genius.
~1919~
After going back through the mirror at school, Jo had crept, with a half-asleep Nicholas in her arms, over to the Iredales' house and tucked the exhausted kid into Louisa's bed for a nap, where he curled up against the lacy pillow immediately and passed out.
Louisa's pale cheeks turned pink when Jo told her Tama asked if she'd like to come along to develop the photographs.
She wanted to go, of course, but – opening her bedroom door a crack – she peered anxiously across the landing, at the stairs. "We'll be all right if Mama comes in here – she won't toss you or Nicholas out – but if Mrs. Whitelaw comes looking for me... Well..." She winced apologetically. "She's still upset about Nicholas eating her plum jam."
"Don't worry about it, I can handle that Whitelaw bag," Jo said encouragingly. "Go with Tama – have fun."
"All right," Louisa replied cautiously. "I'll try to come back as quickly as I can, with the photograph."
"Yeah," teased Jo, "no staying out late with your boyfriend."
"Jo!"
"Sorry – couldn't help it."
"Yes. Well." There was a sparkle of mischief in Louisa's eye, as she motioned from the little lump on the bed and then back to Jo. "You're one to talk."
~1995~
Louisa was just finishing up an ice cream cone when Tama and Jesse came out with the pictures in their white-and-green paper envelope. She felt like an hour had never passed so very quickly in her life!
"And they really developed them all in only sixty minutes?" she marvelled as Tama broke the seal and began flipping through them, handing the unwanted ones – almost all of them just Mia making various funny faces – back to Jesse, who waited with his hand outstretched.
"Yep," said Tama, still shuffling through with bated breath.
"That's unreal." To Louisa, photographs were something that had to be carefully coaxed out in a tray in a darkroom before being hung to dry and treated so they could be safely exposed to light without spoiling.
"I've got it!" cried Tama, triumphant, when his thumb finally landed on a photograph of Jo and Nick.
"It came out perfect!" breathed Louisa, relieved, standing on her toes to look over his shoulder. "It isn't blurry or anything. This could work!" She grabbed his hand and tossed away the small sugar-cone tip left from her ice cream, chucking it into the nearest rubbish bin. "Come on, let's bring it back to Jo." This whole toddler debacle was almost over! "She's going to be so pleased."
~1919~
When Louisa came rushing into her bedroom, having tried – and largely failed – not to run on the stairs (she'd be in for it if Mrs. Whitelaw heard her scampering feet) and threw herself in the door, so excited to tell Jo it was all going to be all right.
Small Nicholas had woken up from his nap, and Jo – for lack of another way to keep the kid occupied while they waited – set him on Louisa's old rocking horse, which he seemed to enjoy immensely.
Maybe, she thought, he was pretending he was on his father's estate, riding a real pony. She wondered if, with his condition, he'd been allowed to do that at this age.
"Louisa!" Jo scrambled over, wiping her clammy hands on the borrowed pinafore. "How'd it go?"
She pulled the photograph from her own pinafore pocket. "See for yourself."
Jo grinned at the image of sixteen-year-old Nicholas smiling back at her from the photograph; she really missed him. "Bonzer!"
"He seems to have made himself right at home," Louisa remarked, arms folded, noticing him rocking back and forth on the wooden horse like he didn't have another care in the world.
Jo paled slightly. She'd forgotten they were above Joshua Iredale's study. "They can't hear him downstairs, can they?"
She shook her head. "I don't believe so – I didn't hear him when I came in."
"Good. Anyway, come on, you." Jo hoisted him up, despite his protests of Nyet! and, balancing him on her hip, used her other hand to show him the photograph. "Look what we've got."
She thought she saw a flicker of recognition in his little eyes this time. "That's right, that's–"
"Jojo!" He sounded so pleased with himself.
She'd been about to say you, of course, but she could give him this one. "Yeah, that's right, me." Rolling her eyes, "Isn't it great? Let's go."
Louisa waved to him.
He waved back, swinging his pudgy hand in the air. "Goodbye, Wheeza."
~1919~
Tama was waiting for her, sitting on Nick's bed. "Don't forget to rip yourself out – we wouldn't want the mirror to get confused and turn Nicholas into you next."
Setting small Nicholas down on the floor, Jo carefully tore the photograph down the middle, placing the half with her image on it on the table beside a chessboard. The half with Nicholas, she wedged firmly into the wooden frame of the mirror.
"Good luck – hope it works this time." Tama gave her a thumbs up. "I'll be right behind you."
"Jojo," said small Nicholas, tugging on the bottom of her skirt. "Up."
Forgetting what Tama had warned her about last time, that if it worked Nicholas was going to be a lot heavier on the other side, she picked him up before sticking her hand into the mirror and taking in a long, deep breath.
~1995~
A moment later they were tumbling into the supply room in a tangled heap.
Jo lost her balance and landed on her back on the dusty wooden floor. Cringing, she slowly opened to her eyes, to see Nick – sixteen again – on top of her, blinking down bewilderedly.
"What happened?" The last thing he could remember was visiting that funny, dark, beeping-noise place the people in this time called an arcade and meeting Jo's friends...
Rather than answer him, Jo let out a squeal of pure happiness and locked her arms around his neck. "You're back!"
"I wasn't aware I had gone."
Tama appeared behind them. "I feel like I'm interrupting something. You guys okay?"
Nick turned slightly red in the face and scrambled to his feet, bending over to help Jo up off the floor behind him.
"Precisely where was I?" Nick's brow lowered suspiciously. "Where have I been?"
Taking up the printed paper, which he found on the floor, the image of child-Nicholas now returned to it, Tama wordlessly handed it to him.
"I don't understand." His blue eyes bulged. "That's me." In 1907.
"No kidding," muttered Tama.
"Yes, I was a charming little chap then, wasn't I?"
"Oh, simply adorable," mumbled Jo, folding her arms across her middle, suddenly feeling extremely sticky and prickly in Louisa's clothes. "A real scream."
Tama stuck his pinky finger into his ear. "And we mean that literally."
As it started to dawn on him, Nicholas was getting a bit madder, brow sinking even lower. He looked at Jo, his expression bordering on accusatory. "What did you do?"
~1919~
With the curtains open and the full moon shining into his room, Nicholas couldn't sleep.
Part of him wished he remembered his adventure with Jo over the last day or so, as it certainly sounded interesting, while a larger part was relieved that he didn't.
The thought of Jo cleaning his nose and preventing him from running into traffic like a parental figure was mortifying.
He pulled a blanket tight around his shoulders and sat down in the chair by the table, the moonlight casting strange black shadows under the white chessmen.
That was when he noticed the abandoned half of a torn photograph.
Jo.
He looked at the picture for a long time before he allowed his gaze to drift to the mirror.
The moon seemed to be casting a sort of silver-tinged shadow on it, too.
~1995~
"There's no need to break down my door!" called Andrew, as he stumbled out from the living room, making his way to answer the front door. Bleary-eyed and slightly cramped from having spent all evening bent over his typewriter, so absorbed in his writing he hadn't even touched the glass of wine Cat left out for him, he wondered if whoever it was realised it was almost midnight. This had better be important. "I'm coming!"
The urgent knock petered off politely as the porch light flicked on. Standing there, when Andrew opened the door, was Nicholas. "Hello."
"Hi." Tsar of Russia or not, someone had to teach this boy the concept of reasonable visiting hours! "Listen, kid," he sighed, "do you have any idea–"
"I want to stay."
~finis~