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Title: Reflection Of Love
Author: Pattyanne
snapkik@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: None of the BtVS
characters belong to me.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Summary: AU. Buffy discovers a mirror
in her attic. The same mirror that was
owned by William Cathcart over a
hundred years ago. But who is the
young man she sees in the mirror, and
why are they able to communicate?





Part one...


The house she had once been so happy in was
unbearably lonely now.

Buffy had lived in this house for almost fifteen
years. She'd come to live with her grandmother when
the small plane her father had been piloting crashed
into the ocean, killing him, her mother, and her younger
sister.

Nana was the only family she had left. At the age of
almost seventy-six, she'd been in wonderful health. Ac-
tive in her church and highly opinionated about certain
social issues, almost to the point of militancy, the old
lady had been referred to as 'feisty' by the people who
knew and loved her, and 'slightly off her rocker' by
those who only saw her eccentricities.

Now, she was alone. Her grandmother was resting in
peace at Roseland Memorial Park, the victim of a sudden
and massive coronary that had shocked her physician of
almost twenty-five years.

Wandering around the house, decked out in a black dress
she would never wear again, Buffy puttered. Putting things
that had been moved around during the reception back into
their proper places, carrying plates out to the kitchen and
scraping uneaten food into the trash, erasing messages of
sympathy from the answering machine...and stopping every
now and then to sit down and cry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


It was her house now, Nana's attorney had informed
her solemnly. Even though she'd moved out of it almost
two years ago, and she should never have done that,
should never have left Nana alone. Had she been here,
maybe she could have prevented the heart attack.

She should have been the one keeping the garden
in check...doing the grocery shopping...walking the
elderly terrier that was now lying on Nana's bed,
whimpering softly in an agony of grief that all of Buffy's
gentle attentions couldn't assuage...and climbing those
damned three flights of stairs to fetch the spectacles
Nana had left in the attic.

The last letter she had received from her grandmother
had been mainly about that very attic. The old lady
hadn't stepped one small slippered foot across it's
threshold in more years than she could remember, but
she'd been searching for a box filled with cards and
letters she'd received from her dear Maxwell during the
war. Once she had begun looking, the attic and all it's
treasures from the past had drawn her back time and
time again.

The attic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her heels clicked hollowly on the wooden floor
as she climbed that endless staircase.

The door squealed when it was nudged open,
sounding as though it was in pain.

The only natural light came from a small, stained
glass window at the far end of the room, the side
facing the street. Dust motes danced in the
crimson and sapphire rainbows the sun produced
as it penetrated the window.

It was surprisingly neat up here. Nana had made it
sound as though the room was a cluttered minefield
that she had to wade through cautiously. She must
have been making some serious headway, because
there were nicely stacked boxes against the walls,
leaving a large clear space in the middle of the hardwood
floor. Various odds and ends of furniture were draped with
dropcloths. There were old dressmakers dummies,
a Victrola, a broken crystal radio set up, and racks
of vintage clothing.

Behind one of those stacks of boxes, there was a
large object covered by a heavy moving blanket. Curious,
Buffy pulled it away from the wall and lifted one edge
of the blanket.

It was a mirror. One of the old fashioned, free standing
kind that was taller than she was. Oval in shape, with
an intricately carved dark walnut frame surrounding the
glass, it swung around on a hinge, and there was another
piece of mirrored glass backing it.

She dropped the blanket onto the floor and examined the
mirror more closely. She was by no means an expert
when it came to such things, but she could tell just by
looking at it that it was very old. The quality of
it's craftsmanship was something rarely found in the
present world of snap together particle board furniture
and futons.

Plus, the thing weighed a ton.

As she stared at her face in the mirror, appalled at how
tired and pale she looked, a sudden ripple of the reflective
surface caught her eye.

She blinked hard, and the glass smoothed out again.

Curious. She was obviously in need of a full nights
sleep.

Draping the blanket back over the mirror, she left
the attic.


TBC.....
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