Avon Fantasy Reader No. 9 — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

_ dry and fissured, formed the ribs of the roof. Resting on the floor, and tipped _ against these beams in one corner, stood a thick pile of screens and windows. At the very back of the pile, however, leaned an object of a different sort. It seemed to be a large, heavy pane of glass, a mirror. Nicholas patiently dragged the screens and windows aside in order to get at the mirror. It must be a very special mirror or it would not have been so well concealed. With the last of the frames removed, he felt a pang of disappointment. A coat of black paint covered the entire face of the mirror. Nicholas remembered that a can of black paint, partly used, and a brush caked with black paint lay in another part of the attic. Some previous occu- pant, then, had taken pains to render the mirror useless. Why? It would have been much simpler to shatter the glass. Why had someone avoided _ breaking the mirror, but at the same time destroyed its value? __ Here was mystery, adventure, beckoning him. He went back to the _ workbench and picked out a chisel. The chisel had an almost blunt edge, but it served well enough for scraping the paint off the mirror. The black coating cracked away in tiny flakes. At the end of an hour’s hard work, he had cleaned an area somewhat larger than his two hands. He toiled for another hour before his arms grew tired. A feeling of excitement had come over him, for this was, indeed, a magic mirror. He knew that already by the surface he had exposed, now as big around as a plate. _ The mirror, as all mirrors should, reflected an image. But that image was ~ not Nicholas, nor any object in the attic, nor any part of the attic! He could not make out more. He could not determine the true nature of the image. He had only a ae ees glimpse of a portion of that imprisoned reflection. Weary from his a ae in a state of high anxiety, Nicholas pulled a couple of screens over to hide the mirror. 3 He tiptoed downstairs. When he heard Papa Khevi stomping around in the pawnshop, he felt better, but unrelieved. In the attic lay the road to the dark heart of mystery, or the shining eyes of fortune, if the door was not barred to him. He tossed through a restless night, and re in the hours of morning, his fancy gripped by the lure of the mirror. He put himself at the feet of Papa Khevi until he was brusquely told to go behave himself. Nicholas pat- tered from the display room in an agony of apprehension lest the attic door be locked. The door swung open. ieee Khevi had evidently forgotten about it. With luck, providing Nicholas was cautious, he might be able to keep the door open for a long time. There was no reason for the attic to be used, now _ that Papa Khevi had eucca it over or stored the bric-a-brac that he had _ removed from a 123 COMICOOOKS.E©