The TIME MIRROR

By CLARK SOUTH

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Pale moonlight spilled through the window and over the wedding gifts that crowded the little room.

"And this mirror, darling?" Mark Carter asked. "Who sent it?"

A sudden flicker of worry flashed across Elaine Duchard's lovely face. She bit her lower lip nervously. Pretended to inspect a great silver punchbowl that stood on a nearby table.

"Who did you say sent the mirror?" her sweetheart repeated.

Still another moment of taut hesitation. At last:

"It's from Adrian Vance, Mark."

"Adrian Vance!"

Mark spat the name as if it were an epithet.

"Sshhh! Not so loud!" A pause. "He's an old friend, dear. I can't forbid him to send us a present. After all he's just trying to be polite."

The man's brown eyes were smouldering. "Those were fine company manners he showed off the night you told him you were going to marry me instead of him!"

Then, savagely:

"I should have knocked out a mouthful of that damned antique dealer's teeth right then! Of all the gall—threatening you; saying you'd regret turning him down—"

Again the girl silenced him.

"Adrian always expected to marry me," she reminded. "My refusal broke him up terribly. He was disappointed. Angry. So he said a lot of things he didn't really mean. Now he's trying to make up for it."

"I still don't like that damned Vance! He's just the kind of snake who'd figure out a way to get revenge. Something hideous—"

Elaine laid her hand gently across her fiance's mouth.

"You're acting jealous, Mark, and there's no need to," she said softly. "You won. Remember? I'm marrying you tomorrow!"

Mark's hands stole around her slim, supple waist and drew her to him. Her thinly-clad body was warm and fragrant in his arms.

"I guess I keep forgetting," he said huskily. "Part of me still can't quite seem to believe it's true. That we're going to be together always."

The girl's ripe lips curved in a little smile. Slender fingers caressed her sweetheart's tanned cheek.

"You can believe it now, Mark," she whispered. "I'm yours. All yours. Forever."

And then, ever so gently, she drew his head down. Their lips met. Clung with young love's ardor.

At last Mark straightened. He drew a deep breath.

"You'd better go to bed now, dear," he advised. "Tomorrow's going to be a hard day."

Another pause. Then a wry smile crossed his lips.

"Besides, your father might not understand why you're wandering around the house with me in the middle of the night, even though we are going to be married tomorrow. That outfit you're wearing is subject to a lot of misinterpretation."

Elaine matched his smile with one of her own. She smoothed the diaphanous, curve-revealing negligee that displayed her charms to such advantage.

"Oh, he'd understand, all right," she retorted. "Only I'm afraid he'd understand a lot of things that aren't true." She gave vent to a dolorous sigh that the merriment sparkling in her blue eyes denied. "Father's all French, you know. He's quick to understand situations where young ladies appear en deshabille."

They turned to go. But again the Vance mirror caught Mark's eye.

"Strange-looking affair, isn't it?" he commented.

Elaine nodded. Drawing a comb from some place of concealment about her, she seated herself on a bench before the glass.

A unique creation, that mirror. Circular and fully three feet in diameter, it now stood propped on top of a boudoir table. At first glance its surface somehow gave an impression of queer, concentric waves rippling through it. Yet the reflections it threw back were true; perfect.

The frame was just as paradoxical. It looked as if it once had been garishly ornate. Now, however, age had transmuted gaudiness to an indefinable antique charm.

"Isn't it lovely?" breathed Elaine. She drew the comb through her hair. Watched the mirror and the moonlight transform its golden beauty to a rippling cascade of silver. Mark stared, fascinated, over her shoulder.

"The moonlight's beautiful tonight, Mark!" the girl murmured. "It makes my hair dance in the glass like the waves of the sea." Her voice faded to nothingness. Her eyes were half-closed.

"Your hair is always beautiful, Elaine," her lover whispered, "and it's no lovelier than all the rest of you, every inch." A moment's hesitation. "But we've got to get to bed, darling. There'll be so much running around tomorrow—"

"Mark!"

Shock was in that sudden exclamation. Shock, and a little lilt of panic. It burst from Elaine's half-parted lips like the thunk of a bullet slamming into a hardwood board.

The man jerked to attention. Caught the girl's smooth shoulders in his big hands.

"Elaine! What is it?"

"Look! The mirror!"

"The mirror?" Mark Carter's puzzled brown eyes sought the gleaming surface of the glass. "What—?"

"The reflection! Look!"

Mark stared. Went suddenly tense in stark amazement, eyes wide.

For there, gazing back at him out of the mirror, was a new Elaine. An Elaine who stood beside a great black coach, the like of which had never rolled American highways.

There in the mirror was an image that was NOT a reflection!

This woman's face was Elaine's. Yet there the resemblance ended. The filmy negligee of his own fiancee was replaced by the rich warmth of a scarlet satin gown and endless yards of white lace ruffles. The creamy skin of his own Elaine's bare arms came back as covered with long white gloves to above the elbows. A perky little hat, of scarlet satin to match the dress, and topped with a huge aigrette plume, rode proudly upon the elaborate coiffure of golden hair.

Nor was it only in superficials that the reflection differed.

The other woman had a character all her own, too. It showed in the tilt of her head, the way she stood, the expression on her lovely face.

But most of all it showed in her eyes.

Proud eyes, they were, and intelligent. They looked into Mark's own brown orbs calmly and without flinching. And they were not the eyes of his sweetheart. No. There was an indefinable something lurking deep in their cool blue depths that differentiated the reflection from Elaine. That made the woman in the glass another personality. Similar in many ways, yes. Fundamentally the same kind of person, yes.

But not Elaine.

Still Mark stared, mouth agape.

A feeling was growing within him. A strange conviction that he recognized this other Elaine.

"I've seen her before, some place!" he muttered half-aloud.

And then Elaine was speaking again.

"What is it, Mark? What's happened? Why does that mirror reflect back another woman?" The girl's voice carried a little quaver of bewilderment; of fear, almost. Her whole body trembled as if a chill were running through her.

Her voice jerked Mark from his paralysis. He turned sharply. His eyes probed into every corner of the moonlit room, seeking vainly for some clue to account for this impossible phenomenon—

"Mark, I'm afraid!"

Even in the dim light of the little chamber the man could see the color drain from his sweetheart's face as she spoke.

"I've got the most awful feeling down inside of me, Mark. As if that woman was in another world, and as if she was pulling me away from you and into it. My