mukuro/chrome one-shot [part 2]
It wasn’t until a couple hours before Kyoko’s party that Chrome dared to go up into the attic again. She was going to ask the cook if she could wear a dress that didn’t match her mother’s when she was once again confronted by the haunting rope ladder and the rustling of gray sheets. She was at first filled with dread-it was no dream-there truly was a mirror up there that played tricks. But she had persuaded herself that the face was her own and maybe, the mirror was magic in the way that it had played with light. She had heard of such funhouse mirrors from the cook. The idea made her curious. She would like to spend time with a warped image of herself, stick her tongue out maybe. She would have to be quick.
Determined and unafraid, she climbed the ladder once more and moved to the mirror. The grey sheet had been replaced and she pulled it back fully expecting the see the other, hidden face float smoky over the frame of her own. But there it was, clear, elevated above and its eyes locked into hers. Chrome couldn’t move. She wanted to replace the cloth, but all she could do was meet the reflection of the boy. It was definitely a boy. It wasn’t her.
“So we meet. What is your name, little girl?” The voice had a metallic echo and sounded much older than a normal little boy’s voice would. Chrome stuttered a little bit before she could reply coherently.
“Ch-chrome-chan. May I ask yours?” she answered.
“You may call me Mukuro, though I’ve many names.”
“Oh….” Chrome’s theory was lost. They had different names.
“Mukuro?” She looked up at him in awe. “M-may I ask, why you look so much like me?”
“You mean to say ‘why do I look so much like you, Mukuro?’ Ah, I believe it to be a mystery even to me.” His disembodied head bobbed down to her height and studied her as if she was his own reflection. Chrome blushed.
“Do not be so nervous, it is nothing but my own vanity that I look upon you.” He smirked. “Seeing you makes me very curious. You could be my reflection if you weren’t a girl. It is better you are not me though. Two of me would be quite unbearable.”
“To be a boy in the mirror?”
“Is that what this cage is? I’ve never looked in a mirror from where I am now,” he chuckled. “Is it a nice mirror? I imagine it to look very feminine.”
“It is carved with fairies and flowers, and very pretty birds,” Chrome informed helpfully. “I think it’s a very, very nice mirror. I can’t see a lot of the details because it’s so dark, but I’m sure there are other animals on it too.”
“You can’t see clearly? How about now?” Suddenly, a light peeked over the horizon and cast orange light into the attic. Chrome looked out the window to face the rising sun.
“What? It’s morning!”
“Look! Tell me what you see. This is important.” Chrome’s attention returned to the mirror and she nodded.
“Well, there are bugs too, all kinds. I see vines climbing up the sides.”
“Do you see any symbols? Any words or signatures?”
Chrome looked for a long time. “My eyes must not be good enough.”
“Your eyes are very fine, Chrome, if they have seen what you have already spoken of.”
Chrome said ‘thank you’ gently.
“What about the back? There might be something on the back.”
“Okay,” she said and shuffled around the mirror’s stand. And there it was, a symbol etched into the wood. It was sloppily carved compared to the craftsmanship of the rest of the frame. It might have been marked in a hurry.
“I see a spade, like on a deck of cards. It’s scratched in to where the looking-glass is fixed.” The mirror remained silent. “Mukuro?” Chrome walked back around to the front, but the boy’s face had disappeared. Chrome looked out the window regretfully. Her hair was still crimped neatly and held together by a big bow, matching her party dress. Outside, the sun was definitely rising and it had only been 5 o’clock when she climbed up the rope ladder.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
“Where on earth did you run off to?” the cook cried. “I’ve been searching all over the house for you! And I thought ‘Could she have run off into the forest?’ Your father’s out looking for you but here you are, all set for Miss Kyoko’s party as if you were here all along. Oh, my good heart! I thought something terrible had happened. These old houses can fool you with many a secret door, I bet.” The cooked hugged Chrome. “But my, my, Miss, what am I going to do with you? The mistress is in an awful mood since you evaded that party.”
“I’m sorry,” Chrome said, hugging the cook back. “I fell asleep. I was in the attic.” And she would have continued to tell the cook about the mirror when her mother swept into the kitchen, still dressed for the evening before, and heaved a great sigh at the sight of her daughter.
“These adventures could be the death of me! Chrome! Where did you make off to? It’s terrible! Everyone at the party was worried on your behalf, a little girl gone missing, you must be more responsible with yourself!”
Chrome backed into the cook. She looked at the floor, ashamed of her mother’s disapproval.
“Easy there mistress. Let me make you a cup of tea!” the cook pleaded and then she hustled to the stove. “Perhaps Miss Chrome simply didn’t want to go to the party.”
“Nonsense! What more is there for a little girl to love than parties and pretty dresses and a boy to cast her eyes upon? It’s all so romantic in this country town.” Chrome slipped upstairs to her room.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chrome went to school every day as any good schoolgirl should, but she always kept a distant far-off look in her eye. The cook thought she missed home, so she packed many goodies to share at lunch with the other girls in the classroom. Still, Chrome always came home with the extra treats uneaten. Cook was worried, stirring her soup with her hand on her hip. She decided to ask the schoolteacher about the situation. However, the schoolteacher, a lovely single woman by the name of Bianchi, wasn’t worried about Chrome’s silence.
“Some children are introverts. It can’t be helped,” she shrugged to the worried cook. “Help me take this brat inside,” and she nodded at a scowling boy with locked legs. She dragged him behind her. “I will have my vengeance when I meet with his father on Friday!”
So Chrome, watched over by the cook, was not forced to make friends with Kyoko or Haru, the other two girls her age. She played alone and walked the long road home alone. The cook stopped worrying about the girl as she was very keen on keeping herself busy without company. She often smiled as if she were holding a conversation in her mind and a very clever remark had been made. Chrome often went outside to go for long walks in the pastures and she collected bouquets of clover thistles, the only flower growing this time of year. The first bouquet Chrome gave to the cook was thrown out after a couple of days, as the plants had wilted and the small purple petals had turned an ugly brown. When Chrome noticed their disappearance from above the hearth, she asked of their fate. How serious a little girl could sound! When Chrome heard the news, she gasped.
“But there were fairies in the flowers! That’s where fairies live.”
She wasn’t angry or upset at the cook. She was just very sad, as if the fairies had died from her own misconduct. She promptly went back outside to walk the border of the stone fence, but she never came back with a bouquet again.
Soon, snow began to fall and it covered the pasture and blanketed all the flowers, and as a result, Chrome chose to play inside by the hearth. The sons of the farmers also returned to the classroom in large flocks as the harvest season was over and nearly overwhelmed the poor schoolteacher. Luckily, she was a fiery woman and could handle any mob of children like the reins of a bucking bronco, however, she had no time to attend to the details of the quieter children, especially of the girls.
Boys would yell at Chrome for not playing, but they yelled at Haru and Kyoko just as much. The two girls played hopscotch and stuck their tongues out at any boy that messed up their game, but Chrome kept to herself. She watched all the games intently from the corner by the vegetable garden and shrunk whenever her name was called.
As the winter season enveloped the small town, Chrome’s mother began chattering about a new party, a Christmas feast, that anyone who was anyone was invited to attend. It was a big event. There was to be a band and dancing and delicious food from the most famous farm in the district, the Vongola Farm. The pastor had invited the new family, excited that his son, Ryohei, was employed in its fields.
Chrome watched her mother’s gears become more and more fixed upon the holiday extravaganza. She order new dresses, designed in the capitol, for herself and her daughter and she carefully selected presents for the neighbors. She often asked her husband what he thought of a basket of spices as a gift to the pastor, or if he had a nice silk shirt that matched her own ensemble. He was a very tolerant husband of his wife’s attention to detail and he calmly smoked his cigar and agreed with her in all areas. He only put his foot down when she fervently stated cider would be a better beverage over the traditional whiskey he carried with him to such parties.
“My father did and so shall I. There is nothing wrong with sharing quality liquor!” he lectured and Chrome’s mother let it drop, turning her attention to her daughter instead. Chrome sat on the cobbled stone in front of the fireplace, helping her mother by sewing a more fashionable brooch onto an old scarf.
“Chrome-chan, the country is such a hospitable place, isn’t it? Much more friendly than the city. Everyone is more intimate in this dear town; city folk are so stifling. They just talk and talk and talk,” and she waved her handkerchief around in exaggeration. “All I’ve ever wanted was a peaceful evening with close friends, it shall be a ball!”
Chrome passed her mother the scarf.
“Oh dear, you sewed it on upside-down!” Chrome jumped up and apologized and took back the work. She took out the pair of scissors and carefully snipped off her seams, then went back to work with her needle. Her mother continued.
“I picked out that brooch especially for you. It matches your eyes, that shade of violet. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would make your eyes just pop! You’ll be better for it too, as the boys won’t be able to take their eyes off you, pretty girl. They say luck is on the side of one working at the Vongola farm. Many have gone off to start their own businesses and all become very wealthy and happy. Secret business techniques are passed on from generation to generation, it’s rumored.”
“The boys don’t care for girls quite yet,” Chrome said bluntly.
“Oh dear as me. I adored boys when I was your age. You just have to make them fall in love with you, dear. Of course little boys are stubborn, but you are very beautiful.”
“I don’t think I was interested in girls at her age either, dear,” Chrome’s father agreed. “Why don’t we just let her make up her own mind about going. She isn’t one for parties and she hasn’t had her debutant yet either. She’ll be very bored, I’m sure.”
But Chrome’s mother wouldn’t hear of it. The dress was already picked out and laid in the girl’s room. People were expecting her. Most importantly, Kyoko and Haru would be there with their parents and Chromes mother couldn’t her on her daughter missing out on the social life in this town of such fine pickings.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chrome dressed by herself Christmas morning. But when she left her room, she once again was confronted with the rope ladder dangling in front of her nose. She smiled and scrambled into the attic. The mirror sat in its dusty corner and she pulled the grey cloth off with a sweep of her small arm. The afternoon sun streamed through the mansard windows and she could see the frame’s intricate details even more clearly and it was truly spectacular. Numerous fairies were huddled in flowers, not just one or two, and the danced and rolled in the air, some even tinier riding on the hidden bugs.
Mukuro appeared and looked at her with proud, calm eyes.
“It’s been a while. That is a very pretty dress. Is there a party today?”
“It’s Christmas!” Chrome exclaimed. “Yes, there’s a party and I must attend it.”
“Christmas now? I don’t celebrate that holiday.” Mukuro laughed. “But I’ll make a deal with you. Spend Christmas with me and I promise you that you won’t be missed at the party. I understand I caused some trouble for you after your last visit and I must apologize. It was wholly selfish of me.” Mukuro was very charming and Chrome didn’t see anything wrong with his explanation. She imagined living in a mirror to be very lonely and he looked so like her that it attracted her own curiosity quite intensely.
“It’s okay. If you want me to stay, I will. Where did you go when you disappeared from the mirror?” Chrome’s voice was louder and stronger, though not by much. “Is there a world behind the glass? Are you in a magic mirror?”
“Kufufu. Magic mirror you say? Anything can be magic besides a mirror. A book, a radio, even a piano,” he nodded toward the other antiques littering the room. “But yes, I am trapped in this mirror, which now makes it magic. It suits me, I guess.”
“But then, how were you trapped, exactly?”
“How is a magic mirror made?” Mukuro clarified. Chrome nodded and sat down. Mukuro’s face lowered to her height. He was very fond of open ears.
“Well, first it was just normal mirror, as you would call it. This one in particular still had all its frivolous detail about the frame, very gaudy and dainty,” he laughed, “and I’m not surprised by the signature of the maker you found. You see, it’s his little inside joke that I belong in a mirror because I meddle with illusions.”
“Illusions?”
“Yes, like poof, I have a rabbit,” and a little bunny, squirming as if held by the ears, appeared above Mukuro’s face, and then leapt toward Chrome arms. The girl quickly held out her hands but she only caught wisps of smoke as that might escape an extinguished candle.
“Do you believe in my magic?”
“Yes! That was amazing!” Then Chrome lowered her voice. “You are very talented,” she said recalling the hour and careful of her noise. Of course, she always believed in magic. Wouldn’t any little girl be fond of the idea of fairy god mothers and pixie dust?
“I’m glad you think so. But so it goes, I have a rival who also meddles in magic,” and Mukuro’s changed into one ugly with disapproval. Chrome stopped smiling and she drew her knees up to her chest. “He had a woman who loved me slip into my drink what she thought was a love potion. Instead she trapped me in this very mirror that was crafted by my rival. My rival had a thing for her, you see,” Chrome nodded. “She was a very silly woman, not to my taste. Still, she was very smart and I employed her to the jealousy of Spade, who envied my magic on top. After I was tricked into gazing upon this mirror, I became imprisoned and all together, I have been very lonely ever since. I have spent so much time sleeping. Sometimes I dream, and I weave illusions into my visions to help me escape, but it isn’t the same.”
“Oh! But now, it is my turn to ask questions! I must wonder why you do not detest me on sight. Others have looked upon my face and I hear them scream in horror. It is all very bewildering, but apparently, I am now extremely ugly because of my rival’s cunning. I must ask, did he give me horns like some devil?” Mukuro laughed.
“No, you have no horns and I don’t find you ugly. You just look like me.”
“No sharp teeth or fangs? No red eyes?”
“Your teeth are normal and both your eyes are blue to me.”
“Hmm. He shall have his day, perhaps,” Mukuro mused.
“How old are you though? You look my age.”
“Now that is a surprise! Oh-ho! Your age you say?” The little boy’s face rose high and pompous, smirking and then laughing. “Your eyes are extraordinary. Maybe they see what they want to see, I don’t know, but you do indeed look like my younger self. Please, keep thinking I am your age, for I am probably ageless by now. I have been trapped long in these silver waters.”
“Can you tell me another story?”
“I know many stories.”
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chrome’s father had somehow persuaded her mother against hunting their daughter out and dragging her to the Vongola Christmas party. She obviously didn’t want to come and he imagined her to hide in some dark niche of the house, maybe in some secret passageway. The house was old and she was, after all, a small girl who could fit into tight places. Chrome’s father just wanted a good time, with or without the small girl and her mother reluctantly followed him out to the party. Chrome returned from the attic just in time for breakfast. She found cook in the kitchen talking to a woman with shoulder-length black hair.
“Chrome-chan! How are you this morning? I heard you skipped another party. How awful, to be in hiding all day! Let me introduce you to my sister-in-law, Lal Mirch.” Lal Mirch looked sternly at Chrome.
“She’s too skinny, Nana. Cook some chicken to fatten her up. We can spread the lard on some toast.”
“But the doctors say that’s unhealthy.”
“What are you talking about? It’ll strengthen her!”
Chrome couldn’t imagine this to be the woman from the fairytale. She expected a woman soft and quiet like herself, and it was hard to ask her about the cook’s story without seeming to interrupt. Lal Mirch ranted on about the cook’s brother.
“A girl must be strong to face the world!” Lal Mirch growled. She calmed as Nana agreed, speaking with a more business-like tone about how the cook should prepare Chrome for the real world, since her parents were ‘useless.’ Chrome sat down on a stool and watched the women chop from a distance. She liked being around the two, but not in their midst.
I told Chrome-chan here your story of the mirror and mists. It left her unsatisfied,” Nana said, “and me too now that I think about it. Why did you cut off your hair? Why get rid of the mirror? I’m sorry but I was only half listening when you told me the first time,” the cook reminisced. Her sister-in-law grumbled, and then she rubbed her eyes.
“These onions are terrible! All right, when the mists rolled down from the hills, slithered through the village streets, and crept into my room, I had the dreadful feeling the boy I loved was hurt. I didn’t like feeling so dreadful, so I had to check up on him. He lived close by. I ran to the door but I couldn’t open it for some reason, I figured it stuck, so I ran to the window, but that was stuck also. My Colonello! He’s tough as a bear, but he’s ten times as stupid! And that blasted mirror, I could see it clearly in my room despite the mist. Like the eye of some storm, the mist practically revolved around it, and that’s when my intuition said to me loud and clear: ‘Cursed!’”
“So I narrowed my eyes at that mirror and I walked up to it slowly.” Lal Mirch’s voice deepened and she slowed at her task of washing the dishes. The rag made small cicles on the wet porcelain. “I didn’t know what I was going to see or what might jump out at me, but the mist was crawling on my skin. I shut my eyes and grabbed the mirror at the top and pulled it down so it lay, reflect the floor. I remember, immediately, the air dried, but became very cold simultaneously, so cold I could see my breath make its own mist. Right then,” and Lal Mirch banged her fist, turning animatedly to the cook, eyes shifting to Chrome, “I knew I had to change my reflection so it couldn’t find me and threaten me again. I got out the sewing scissors and I cut off my hair. There was just something about the mirror-the way I looked in it-that highlighted my hair. And all I can remember is the danger, and, listen girls, if you ever see a mirror like that, stay away from it. That mirror unsafe. I never saw it destroyed! And I would also love to know who gave it to me!” She was now violently chopping vegetables by the cook’s side.
“So dramatic!” Nana laughed.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chrome sat on the front steps of the house, watching the winter snow melt and trickle into the cobble’s cracks. Ants were busy building mounds of their small dusty stones and she scraped a stick glumly nudging them this way and that. Cook was in the kitchen. Her mother was in the parlor. Her father was away. The attic was shut up again.
A boy holding the reins of a Shetland pony, not riding it but leading it behind him stopped at the farthest end of her drive-way, which caught Chrome’s bored eye. He had dark hair and wore a riding uniform. Through her drive-way’s tunnel of trees, Chrome saw him and got up. They faced each other like two distant animals unwilling to draw closer or farther away. The girl’s house and the boy’s pony anchored them where they stood. Then, he moved on suddenly remembering his errand. She watched the boy’s head bob over the stone fence of the property’s border until the trees swallowed him out of vision.
Feeling she must depart too, Chrome rushed back into her house, her face scrunching with her blush and the sudden sensation of her loneliness. Up she went until she came to the attic, and she gazed up at it as one might look up at the unreachable stars, her face still hot and red. She ran to her room, mustering the sitting stool by her nightstand, and then, she piled a stack of books on top. Earnestly, she climbed her wobbling tower, her grubby fingers reaching up and pushing open the attic’s hatch, and up she climbed and pulled herself in. She rushed to the mirror and removed the sheet with the same acceptance of a magician’s audience the bizarre to be normal.
“Chrome-chan! What is the matter?” Mukuro said. She put a hand to her tomato face and bit her lip.
“I-I don’t want you in the attic,” she uttered.
“You can’t move me Chrome. I’m too heavy.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.” The blush began to disappear, replaced by her pale complexion. She would always be so far away from Mukuro, just the same as when she looked upon that boy at the length of her driveway. She touched the mirror. Mukuro looked down at her hand solemnly, then at the little girl before him. He said nothing.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Now that she had figured away to get into the attic at night, Chrome went to Mukuro every night. She would sneak in, climbing her footstep piled with books careful and slow. Then, she would return to her bed and sleep the remaining hours till dawn, and awaken refreshed as ever. Her clothes would be laid out by cook. He would pull her arms into her sweater, peering out into the hallway, her eyes tilted up.
At school, her reputation as the new girl eventually diminished. Kyoko and Haru left her alone when she sat beside herself at recess, even though if they had her, they could finally play jump-rope with the long rope. Cook kept a careful eye on her at home, but she never showed any signs of unhappiness or loneliness. Her mother didn’t understand her daughter’s ways and her father shrugged it off.
And so, every night, she escaped into the attic. Mukuro told her stories and he filled up the room with dazzling illusions to explain what words could not. Dragons and knights. Despotic kings. Evil sorcerers. Jungles and deserts, the hero without food, water, or his stolen treasure. The boy in the mirror was an excellent story-teller. Chrome listened and watched the ghostly sheets melt in new worlds built by his alchemy and magic.
All this time, her mother’s belly grew larger and rounder. Doctors came to the house, and Chrome would see them putting their stethoscopes to her belly when she returned from school. Summer came and her mother was yet due. The size of her mother’s stomach worried Chrome, and she talked about her concern with Mukuro. The boy in the mirror assured her that if her mother gave birth in this house, all would be safe. The delivery would be healthy. He said, “I have my ways.”
But Chrome’s mother was determined to have a modern surgery back in the city. For once Chrome protested. At dinner, horror-stricken, her fork dropping into her peas, Chrome asked “why?”
“Haha! Have my child under the expertise of a mid-wife? You were painful enough, my darling. I trust our doctor in the capitol. He has gone through his training.”
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The cook helped Chrome pack clothes and soaps for the hotel in the city, and she said good-bye to the attic mirror that night.
“I’ll be gone, cook says, for about a week.”
“You spoil me, coming every night. Take some time away, but do not forget to return Chrome.”
Chrome touched her hand to the mirror and smiled looking down.
“Is it cold inside in the mirror?” Maybe that was why the sheet was always over it when she returned. “I can get you a blanket.” But Mukuro didn’t look cold. He chuckled.
“It is hard to explain what this mirror is like. I’ll show you when you return if you do not forget about me up here.”
Chrome blushed. “I-I won’t,” she said, and left him, as she always did, the mirror’s sheet pulled off, lying on the floor in a heap.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Shrieks beat Chrome like a sinking steel vessel in a storm, her brittle metal cracking in the salt. She sat with her knees pulled up to her mouth in a chair in the waiting room. Doctors and nurses rushed by her, carrying metal trays in one hand. Her father and Cook were with her mother and had left her behind here. Chrome’s eyes were closed tightly. What was happening? Two doctors and a nurse talked in hurried technical terms outside the room. A nurse put her hand a doctor’s sleeve. “The little girl?” she said and all three stared at Chrome.
“Move her.”
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chrome’s father found her by the hospital entrance. He sat down beside her and stroked his mustache. He looked at the girl hold herself and she looked back at him with wet eyes. She could not sit up straight. He put a heavy hand on her head and kissed the top..
Chrome was led into the room, her father keeping a hand on her back. Cook sat on a chair beside her mother, sobbing, but smiling at the bundle she held. Chrome ran to her mother. She was propped up on pillows and a sheet had been pulled over her face. Chromes fingers scrambled under the covers and found her hand. It was warm and she squeezed it with her two hands.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Her father hushed her brother in the doorway, bouncing the babe in his arms. Chrome stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up. The house was dark and smelled now of her family’s inhabitance-her mother’s perfume and her father’s tobacco. She wanted to go to bed. Her father called her name and she looked at him.
His soft eyes told her to come and she approached.
“Hold your brother while I help Cook unpack, my girl,” he said and he eased the bundle into Chrome’s small arms. She looked down and saw a round face with big eyes like hers. He opened and closed his hand, and then, he went to sleep. She sat down on the floor, and looked at her brother. She rubbed a tear off of his warm, cheek, softer than the any of the flower petals in the meadow.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chrome busied herself helping Cook with her brother, feeding him and washing him. The memory of her mother surrounded her in the furniture and her dresses. She found her way into Cook’s bedroom instead of the attic upstairs.
Kyoko visited with a basket of bread, honey and flowers. Chrome took it and said thank you, and then Kyoko hugged her. Chrome let go of the basket and hugged the girl back, though she had no more tears left to cry. They laughed together afterwards and Cook made the two girls tea, flavoring it with the honey Kyoko had brought. Chrome showed her the little babe in his cradle, and they talked of ways to dress him up. All day, they played House with her little brother. Both of them played the mothers.
The fields outside her house became over-ridden with clover, attracting deer and rabbits. Then buttercups and jumping jacks came up, consuming a patch by the stone fence in its colorful speckles. Chrome no longer went out into the fields. She came home from school to give her brother early in reading. She was a quiet and patient teacher and she told him wonderful stories that even put Cook to shame.
Time makes it easier for Chrome to put her loss aside, and she forget about the enchanted mirror above her room alongside the absence of her mother. Chrome grows older, and soon, she fits into her mother’s dresses. She becomes a tall lean girl, beautiful to behold with her pretty eyes and silken hair. She even caught the admiration of Hibari Kyoya, who now pulled a grown mare by her farm instead of his cute Shetland pony.
Years pass by. She finishes her primary education under Bianchi. Her debutant date is set for next August. Her brother has grown into a helpful and polite child, proud and talkative of his sister. Her father purchases new furniture to prepare for his daughter’s growing-up celebration. Cook asks Chrome to go into the attic and find some white dust sheets to put over her mother’s old furniture.
When Chrome thinks of Mukuro, she recalls smudged dreams like a sidewalk painting lost to the rain, chalky colors mixed and blurred. He is not real in her mind and the distance between her childhood and teenage years is canyon wide. She has grown into a new person. Obediently, she finds the hatch and pulls the stool from her bedroom to stand on. She pulls herself up into the attic, and, low and behold, her big seventeen year old eyes meet the tall mirror looming like a ghost under its sheet. She has found him, discovered him, again. Her hand comes to her mouth, uncertainty to her breast and the déjà-vu of her dreams is suddenly a reality. She stumbles over to it, banging her knee on a table’s sharp corner and nearly tripping over a rope.
With a great elegant sweep, she pulls the sheet from the mirror. Dust floats into the air and the face of the mirror shows nothing but her reflection on its glassy surface.
Then she sees the misty vision skimming the edges of her jaw, like the waves of an ocean if it were made of clouds. His face overlaps hers, the face of a little boy. His eyes are closed. Chrome grabs the frame with both her hands and whispers his name with a cracking voice. When his eyes drowsily open, his image matures to match her own age. He is handsome with blue hair and sharp, tired eyes unlike hers. Chains of black mist surround him like cobwebs. Mukuro’s mouth moves.
“You have returned. What are we to do?” he says and she puts her palm on his cheek, her chest heaving. A cracked sob escapes her lips. Her knees are weak and she crumbles to put her forehead on the cool glass. Memories come back to her sharply, as if the painting of her past filled in with fresh pigment. “Years ago, you asked me how I looked inside this mirror.”
“Sorry… I’m sorry… Mukuro,” she cries.
“You were but a child,” he smiles. The black chains begin to disappear.
“No, keep them out!” Chrome says. But then, she sees his apparition is fading as well.
“I must go Chrome. I am not needed and I am very weak.”
“Please stay! I will come-every day!” Chrome cries. Her face is red with tears, but with the last of his strength, Mukuro shakes his head.
“I should not have waited so long,” he says. “I have a long journey ahead. Do not forget me and we will meet again.” His ghostly image vanishes into frothing mist. Chrome cannot even see her reflection through the mirror’s milkiness. She wipes her eyes with her wrists. She finally looks at the frame with nostalgia. Through her tears, she does not see the fairies basking on the flowers or the bugs flitting around for pollen. She does not see the little secrets dancing to the delight of her eyes, her vision blurred with her regret.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
In ten more years, Chrome became a delicate woman. She owned an antique shop by the Town Common. She received training in business from the head of Vongola farm because he considered her a bright and caring girl. With the help of her father’s loan, she purchased the antique business before it went under, and she fixed it up into a successful and stable operation. First to sell was the great tall mirror in the attic, and the treasure took her immediately into a profit margin.
A lovely spring afternoon winked at Chrome outside her shop’s window. Ken and Chikusa, her two assistants, manned the register and watched that no ignorant patron harmed their wares. Chrome sat in her office, keeping tabs on the business, several, large, leather-bound record books on her desk.
Chikusa opened the door part-way and asked, “Excuse me, this is troublesome, but I’m trying to identify the signature-of-make on this mirror.”
“Oh, I can help with that,” Chrome said sweetly. She closed her books. Chikusa came in, his gaunt frame dressed in a professional suit and jacket. He handed her a circular hand-mirror. Flowers decorated its frame and the wood felt smooth in Chromes hands.
“The signature-of-make is on the back,” Chikusa said obligingly, and Chrome flipped it over. “The man who sold it looked like an aristocrat, but I think we’ve been had,” he sighed. Engraved on the wooden back, where the mirror attached to the wooden frame, was the image of a lotus blossom. Its vine-like tendrils enclosed a spade.