Chapter 147: 147 Reflections and Refractions

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147: Reflections and Refractions 147: Reflections and Refractions Mishka moved through the hotel lobby like a sleepwalker, her mind racing ahead to the garden, to the impossible image on her phone.

Hotel guests and staff passed her in a blur of faces and voices that seemed to come from far away.

Her heart beat an unsteady rhythm against her ribs as she pushed through the ornate glass doors to the outside.

The garden was quiet in the late afternoon sun, shadows lengthening across manicured lawns and carefully arranged stone.

The koi pond glittered with orange and white flashes as fish moved beneath the surface.

Just as in the photo, the light struck the water at an angle that created familiar patterns—echoes of the disk’s symbols dancing across the rippling surface.

But there was no one waiting by the pond.

No Catherine.

No mysterious woman in white.

Just empty benches and the occasional flutter of fallen leaves.

“Mom?” Mishka called softly, feeling foolish and desperate in equal measure.

A slight breeze stirred the cherry trees, sending petals spiraling down to land on the pond’s surface.

The koi scattered, then regrouped in a new formation that seemed almost deliberate.

Mishka took out her phone and looked at the photo again.

It hadn’t changed—her mother still stood by the water’s edge, her face serene, one hand extended as if in invitation.

Mishka walked to the exact spot shown in the image, turning slowly to match the angle.

“I’m here,” she said to the empty air.

“Whatever game this is, I’m playing.”

The surface of the pond stilled suddenly, the koi freezing in place.

In the perfect mirror of the water, Mishka saw her reflection—and beside it, her mother’s.

She spun around, but there was still no one there.

When she looked back at the water, both reflections remained.

Impossible physics, impossible presence.

“Mom?” she whispered again.

The reflection of Catherine smiled, lips moving to form words that made no sound.

Mishka knelt at the pond’s edge, leaning closer.

“I can’t hear you.”

The water rippled as Catherine’s reflection reached out, her fingers breaking the surface from below, extending upward into the air above the pond.

Drops of water clung to her hand and arm as it emerged, catching the light like tiny prisms.

Mishka stared, transfixed by the impossibility of it.

Catherine’s arm continued to reach upward from beneath the water’s surface, followed by her shoulder, then her head—but not as a person breaking through from underwater.

Rather, like someone stepping through a mirror, the water parting around her form as she emerged from a world on the other side of the reflection.

When Catherine stood fully before her, water running from her clothes that were somehow not wet, Mishka could only whisper, “How?”

“Frequency resonance,” Catherine said, her voice exactly as Mishka remembered it.

“The boundary is thinnest where you’ve already crossed it once.”

“Last night,” Mishka said.

“When I rejected the entity.”

Catherine nodded.

“You closed that door, yes.

But in doing so, you opened others.” She gestured at the space between them.

“Smaller doors.

More selective ones.”

Mishka’s scientific mind struggled against what her eyes were telling her.

“Are you real?

Or are you like that thing that wore your face?”

“A fair question.” Catherine’s smile was sad.

“I’m as real as I can be in this world.

Which is to say, not entirely.” She reached out and took Mishka’s hand.

Her touch was cool and solid, but with a strange quality—like touching someone through thin silk.

“Where have you been?

Everyone thought you were dead.”

“Not dead.

Displaced.” Catherine looked around the garden, her eyes catching on details as if seeing them for the first time.

“The network was always more than just technology, Mishka.

It was a map to spaces between spaces.

When the prototype malfunctioned that day in the lab, I didn’t die.

I fell through.”

“Through to where?”

“A place that exists in the harmonics between frequencies.

A place where nothing is fixed, where everything is potential.” Catherine’s expression grew distant.

“It’s beautiful there, in its way.

And dangerous.”

A noise from the hotel made Mishka glance back.

When she turned again, her mother had moved several steps away, her form slightly less substantial.

“We don’t have much time,” Catherine said urgently.

“This connection is tenuous.

I need you to understand what’s happening.”

“The convergence.”

“Yes.

But not the way Myrtle thinks, not the way even Nathaniel understands it.” Catherine’s eyes locked with Mishka’s.

“It’s not an invasion, sweetheart.

It’s an evolution.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The frequencies that connect our world—they’re alive, Mishka.

Conscious in a way we have no framework to comprehend.

The network we built didn’t create connections; it revealed ones that were always there.”

Mishka thought of the patterns she’d seen at the fashion show, the synchronized movements of strangers in the audience.

“The thing that came through—”

“Was a glimpse.

A fragment.

The equivalent of a fingertip testing water temperature.” Catherine’s form flickered slightly, like a television with poor reception.

“But now they know you’re here.

They know what you can do.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“You can sing both songs, Mishka.

Exist in both frequencies simultaneously.

Bridge worlds not through technology, but through yourself.” Pride and fear mingled in Catherine’s voice.

“That’s why I had to protect you.

Why I left the recording, why I gave Nathaniel the disk.”

“Dad doesn’t know, does he?

About where you really are?”

Catherine shook her head.

“I tried to tell him in the beginning, but…

it hurt him too much to hope.

Myrtle decided I was dead, and it was easier for him to believe her.”

“And now?

Can’t you come back properly?

Now that I’ve opened these doors?”

“It’s not that simple.” Catherine glanced at the pond.

“The world on this side has rules—physics, linear time.

I’ve been beyond those rules for too long.

I can visit, but I can’t stay.”

Mishka felt tears threatening.

“Then what was the point of contacting me?”

“To warn you.

And to help you prepare.” Catherine’s expression hardened.

“What came through yesterday was just the beginning.

But what comes next won’t announce itself with dramatic gestures.

It’s already here, moving through the connections, taking the shape of things—and people—you trust.”

Mishka thought of her father’s too-perfect smile, the slight lag in his responses.

“Dad,” she whispered.

“Something’s wrong with Dad.”

“Not just him.

The frequencies are learning, adapting.

Taking impressions of people like trying on clothes.” Catherine’s form flickered again, more dramatically this time.

“You need to find the original source—the hub where these connections are being channeled.”

“How?

Where do I even start?”

“The recording and the disk are keys.

Together, they form a map.” Catherine reached out, her fingers barely maintaining substance as they brushed Mishka’s cheek.

“Trust Bruce.

His wolf nature makes him harder to imitate.

And Nathaniel—his kind have been walking between worlds for centuries.”

“What about Myrtle?

Can I trust her?”

Catherine’s expression grew complicated.

“My mother-in-law has her own agenda.

She always has.

She’ll protect you, but her methods…” She trailed off, looking toward the hotel.

“Someone’s coming.”

Mishka heard footsteps on the garden path.

When she turned to look, she saw Bruce approaching, his face tight with concern.

“Mishka?

You disappeared from the afterparty.

Everyone’s looking for—” He stopped, his eyes widening as he caught sight of Catherine.

When Mishka turned back, her mother’s form was rapidly dissolving, like mist under hot sun.

“The songs intersect at midnight,” Catherine said, her voice fading.

“Come to water.

I’ll find you there.”

And then she was gone, leaving only ripples across the surface of the pond.

Bruce stood frozen on the path, his expression a mixture of shock and disbelief.

“Was that—?”

“Yes,” Mishka said simply.

“How is that possible?”

“It’s a long story.” Mishka moved toward him, studying his face carefully.

“Bruce, I need to ask you something important, and I need you to answer without thinking about it.

What did I sing to you the first time we officially met?”

Bruce’s brow furrowed in confusion, but he answered immediately: “‘Fly Me to the Moon.’ It was a different rendition.”

Relief washed through her.

The entity that had been wearing her father’s face would have given a perfect answer, not the truth.

“Thank god it’s really you,” she whispered, stepping into his arms.

“What’s going on?” he asked, holding her tight.

“First that thing with your mother’s face at the venue, then you disappearing, and now—”

“I’ll explain everything, but not here.” She pulled back, glancing around the garden.

“We need to find Nathaniel.

And we need to be careful who else we talk to.”

“Your father’s looking for you.

And Myrtle.

They seemed worried.”

“They might look like my father and Myrtle,” Mishka said carefully, “but I don’t think that’s who they are anymore.”

Bruce’s eyes flashed yellow for an instant, the wolf stirring beneath his human exterior.

“Tell me what we’re dealing with.

What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to help me find the point where the frequencies converge.

Where the songs intersect.” Mishka took his hand, leading him away from the pond and the hotel.

“And I need to do it before midnight.”

Behind them, the koi resumed their synchronized swimming, forming patterns that would have been familiar to anyone who had seen Nathaniel’s disk.

Patterns that spelled out, in an alphabet older than human language:

“The door is open.

The singer walks between.

The change has begun.