The Mirror (Short Story)

Aug 16, 2009 13:53

Right, so, this has gone through three revisions and I'm at an unnerving point in its development where the grammar is mostly fixed and it's time to question big things like characterization and plot. It would especially help me if anyone who's willing to read could tell me whether the pacing is all right, whether Dena's characterization is sufficient, and whether I should add more interaction with her family. I'm also concerned about the ending. Any comments or critiques are welcome, and anyone who even takes the time to read this story, which is 3,384 words long, is a wonderful person as far as I'm concerned.

xposted to a couple comms


Her mother asked her, very seriously, whether she were anorexic.

“What?” she paused in the doorway and stared back at her. She was in a hurry to get to school, but the question made her pause. “Mom, why would you even…?”

“Or bulimic? With the throwing up?” Her mother got up from her seat on the couch and moved a little closer to the front door, carrying her coffee mug between small, workworn hands. “It’s just, you haven’t been eating breakfast and I can’t…I can’t remember whether you’ve had a decent dinner and I suppose that’s my fault for working late. I know Bobby’s tired when he comes home, too, but Dena, honey, you’ve been losing weight awfully fast.”

“That’s a bad thing? I was practically morbidly obese before,” Dena scowled at her mother and adjusted her backpack on her shoulder impatiently. “I’m not anorexic. I eat lunch. I eat dinner. I’m fine.”

“Or bulimic?” She received a penetrating look and a raised eyebrow in return.

“Mom! I’m going!” She slammed the door behind her and began the short, brisk walk to school, fuming. The November morning was chilly, and the last few dying leaves from the oak trees lining the street followed her feet in swirls and eddies. Her breath came fast, sending gray wisps out in front of her. The air smelled of winter coming on.

The doors of Thomas Jefferson High School were just opening when Dena got there, and the janitor gave her an odd look as she pressed inside. Few students were so eager to begin their day. She paid him no heed, jogging down the slickly waxed hallway toward a door she knew would be open for her alone.

The school basement was off-limits to students. Even the janitors rarely went down there. It was more of a junk dump than anything else, with nothing in it but broken furniture and camel-back crickets. The latter jumped out at her unnervingly as she descended the last few stairs and stepped onto solid concrete. There was a musty smell, dirt and damp and rusty metal mixed with something harder to identify, something almost like oleander, strangely sweet.

She slung her backpack to the floor and advanced into the dark. “Turn on the lights,” she commanded, “I know you’re here.”

A single bulb flickered on in a far corner of the room. Beneath it was a gilt-framed, full-length mirror, behind which lurked a pale shadow. Dena ran to them, relief warming her entire body. She sighed and stroked the shining gold frame. There were sigils carved into it, alchemical symbols, magical designs, stars and curlicues that she couldn’t identify. Addressing the pale, semi substantial figure, she said, “My mother’s been on my case.”

“We know the cure for that,” answered a soft voice, and there was a tinkle of gentle laughter.

Dena grinned slowly. “Sure. That should help.”

“Parents rarely understand the gifts of the young, I find,” the pale figure offered philosophically. One long-fingered hand reached out and tangled a curl of the girl’s hair around a finger. “Or the gifts that I offer.”

The touch made her feel strange. Her stomach protested, and her heartbeat sped up. Dena ignored the sensations and nodded. “I didn’t tell her. She wouldn’t believe me, anyway. I didn’t believe it myself, at first.”

“But you were willing to make the attempt. You have the courage. She never would, poor thing.” The hand withdrew. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she answered, relaxing again. “I made a list.”

There was a smile in the voice. “Wish away.”

The girl peered into the depths of the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her with loathing. She was ugly. Dena was overweight by more than a few pounds. Her eyes were a plain brown, not a glamorous blue or green, colors she deeply envied. Her hair was frizzy and dull, and her skin was coarse and blemished. She wore clothes from discount stores and thrift shops. At the moment her jeans were ripped and her yellow t-shirt was stained with grape juice. She closed her eyes.

She had found the Mirror two weeks ago, more or less, the first time the basement door had been unlocked. She had been hiding there, cutting class. She had yet to see its keeper clearly; it was only a vague pale shape that hid behind the frame. It was kind to her, though. It had said she had great potential. It understood how hard it was to walk the halls invisible and undesired. The things it had promised had set her mind aflame. Any wish she wanted, as many as she wanted, no matter how selfish or extravagant. The drawback was the effect only lasted a day, and then things returned to the way they were before the wish was made.

She had been tentative at first. She had made a single wish, for nicer clothes. Another, for clearer skin. For lunch money. By the third day, she had had a list of several wishes, and her creativity only mounted. She had ignored her homework. She hadn’t had to do it. All she had to do was to wish it done, or wish her grades higher. So what if it had only lasted a day? She had always been able to wish things the way she wanted them again the next day. The door was open to her daily. And no one else seemed to be able to find his way into the basement.

Her lips moved, listing her desires for the day, then her eyes opened. She was now a voluptuous redhead with green eyes. She smiled, and her teeth were perfect, white as a blank page.

“You look lovely, my dear,” said the Mirror Keeper, and again there was that flutter of laughter.

“Thanks,” she said, looking herself over thoroughly. She stroked her smooth red hair. “I have a question.”

“By all means.” The words seemed to float on the air.

“Thanksgiving break is coming up. I won’t be able to get into the school. How will I get my wishes then?” Her sleek skin was marred by a single crease, in between her eyebrows.

“Hmmmmm,” hummed the Keeper, “It is a problem. Can you do without for the duration?”

Four days, thought Dena. Four days of being her wretched self. The two days of the weekend were bad enough. Each weekend when she was unable to get to the school basement, lethargy settled over her. She slept in until mid-afternoon and avoided reflective surfaces whenever she did wake, feeling itchy and ill all over. “…I don’t know. Can’t you fix it so I can get here?”

“I have no power over the school’s locks. You could stay here.” The voice was hesitant, but intense. “The mirror would care for your needs.”

Dena chewed her lower lip, wanting but afraid. “My mom would have a fit,” she shook her head at last. “They’d send out the police looking for me.”

The Mirror Keeper was silent.

“The mirror can’t come with me?” she ventured.

“If it is removed from this place, its power will be broken,” said the Mirror Keeper.

“Oh! We can’t do that, then.” Dena shuddered, and her fingers twitched at the thought of all that magic, gone forever. “I’ll have to deal with it somehow.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll see you in the morning. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“Only your sweet self, my dear.” Keeper’s voice was like a flute. Its form vanished behind the mirror, light as air.

She smiled, waved, and went back up the stairs, but somehow she felt anxious all day despite her perfect beauty and flawlessly executed wishes.

Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and sunny, but to Dena it felt like she was in a gray fog. She buried herself in blankets until noon, protesting illness, and when she finally did get up to her mother’s desperate pleas for help in the kitchen, she felt nauseous, and her clothes felt hard and scratchy on her skin. She couldn’t stand to look at herself in the bathroom mirror. She sliced carrots and sweet potatoes without enthusiasm and occupied her mind by coming up with all sorts of wishes she could ask for when she was able to get back into the school. Under her mother’s hard, worried stare, she forced herself to eat two helpings of turkey and mashed potatoes, but she turned down the pumpkin pie.

Friday she looked in the bathroom mirror and wanted to peel off her own skin. The beauty of the faces she had worn in past weeks magnified her ugliness. She couldn’t bear it. A kind of frantic energy possessed her, and after helping clean the kitchen from the previous day’s activity, she began vacuuming and washing her room from top to bottom. Her mother was perplexed.

“Do you have any homework, honey?” she asked.

“Yeah,” she answered truthfully but without interest. “Project due next week on Friday. A book report on Catcher in the Rye.”

“I had to do that when I was in school, too,” her mother said with a smile. “Did you like the book?”

“Haven’t read it yet.” Dena began to turn her mattress.

Saturday she had run out of things to clean, so she left the house and walked down to the school. She tried all the doors, but they were locked and chained shut. She spent several hours there, just walking around, hoping a janitor would show up and she could tell him she’d left her backpack inside and could he let her in just for a moment? No janitors arrived, but her stepfather finally drove up.

He got out of the car and approached her with leggy strides as she hunched down into her jacket. “Dena!” he exclaimed, “What are you doing out here?”

“I…left a book in my locker,” she tried, shying away from him. “I thought if someone showed up I could-“

“Your mother’s crazy with worry,” he snapped, following her doggedly over the grass. “You could have shown a little more consideration. You didn’t even leave a note.”

“I’m sorry!” she snarled back, not sounding sorry at all. She jammed her hands into her pockets and turned away. “Now you know where I am.”

“You’re coming home right now. Get in the car.” He loomed over her.

She backed down. Miserably and wordlessly, she shuffled over to the little vehicle and slid into the passenger seat. The drive home consisted of stilted silence and the radio wailing a horrible love song.

Sunday her mother made her sit down and do her homework. Math, her best subject, went slowly but surely. Biology was more difficult, and trying to get through Holden Caulfield’s ruminations was pure torture. By bedtime she felt like a wilted lettuce leaf. She plunged gratefully into sleep.

She made up for lost time on Monday. Her wishes ran wild. She skipped school entirely and went back home to a castle to play with a pet lion cub and be served by a dozen handsome knights in silver armor. Her mother and stepfather vanished entirely. The knights were properly solicitous, and the lion was adorable and cuddly, just as she’d wanted it to be, but the shadow of the upcoming weekend was already casting a pall over her enjoyment. As she lay beneath a silken canopy, the night breeze blowing gently through her window, it occurred to her that Christmas break was soon to come. And then there would be summer, and what about when she graduated? This couldn’t last forever.

Something would have to be done.

Tuesday morning she got up early and found both her mother and her stepfather waiting for her at the kitchen table. “Sit down, sweetie,” said her mother.

“I have to get to school,” she said evenly.

“No,” said her stepfather. “You’re not going this morning. We made an appointment for you.”

“You’ve been acting so strange lately,” said her mother, “I know you say nothing’s wrong, but I’m worried, Dena. If you can’t talk to me, maybe you can talk to a doctor. Someone objective?”

Dena felt her stomach clench. “B-but…I don’t need…I’m fine! There’s nothing wrong with me!”

“You haven’t been eating,” her stepfather began to list things out on his fingers, “you’ve been anxious and fidgety, you’ve been hanging around the school at all hours, and you look like death warmed over.”

“I’m supposed to be at school!” she protested. “I’m taking an interest in my education.”

“We got this note from your English Lit teacher,” her mother held up a piece of paper. “She says you haven’t turned in any homework for three weeks. Can’t you tell us what’s going on?”

She backed up against the wall and felt sweat trickle down her back. “Nothing’s going on!” her voice sounded high-pitched and shaky. She tried again, forcing a calmer tone, “Look, why don’t you let me go on in today and we’ll talk about it tonight?”

“Nice try,” said her stepfather. “You sit down and have breakfast. Your appointment’s at nine.”

Something in her brain went snap. She bolted for the door.

“Dena!” her mother shouted, but her stepfather was on his feet in an instant and after her. He grabbed her by the wrist, gently but irresistibly. She screamed and bit him.

“Stop this! Dena, stop!” Her mother came up behind her and hugged her, pinning her arms to her sides.. She struggled a moment, then the feral energy that had possessed her only seconds ago fizzled out abruptly and she sagged to the floor, sobbing.

Her stepfather let her go and rubbed his arm, which was already bruising. “Ow,” he said softly. “That…it has to be drugs. I’m searching her room.”

Her mother nodded in acquiescence, then began crying, too. “Call the hospital first. We’ll drive her there.”

The next few days were a blur of doctors, nurses and pills. Dena was put in the state hospital and given a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. She took them numbly, and ate whatever she was given, utterly defeated. She spoke to no one voluntarily, answering questions with monosyllables. The gray fog had descended again and was wrapped tightly around her soul.

Her stepfather searched her room twice, fruitlessly, but her mother pointed out that she had cleaned it recently. The clinic tested her for illegal drugs, but found no residue. A counselor came to speak with her.

Dena asked him did he believe in magic. Cautiously, he said that depended on your definition of magic. After all, one might consider the birth of a baby or falling in love a kind of magic. She told him she thought he was trying to dodge the question. Their conversation went downhill from there. She didn’t tell him about the mirror.

At last, the time came for her to leave the hospital. The staff saw no reason she couldn’t go back to school, and perhaps once they found the proper balance of medication, she would improve. Dena’s relief was immeasurable. As her mother checked her out of the hospital, worried and dissatisfied, the girl looked across the desk at a large mirror set into the wall. Her reflection was there, pale and ghostly, the dark hair startling against the white face. There were bluish shadows under her eyes, like bruises. She sucked in her breath. “Mom,” she asked, “how long have I looked like that?”

Her mother looked at her. “You’ve been sickly since before Thanksgiving, Dena. That’s why we’ve been worried.”

She nodded a little, and stared at her reflection over her shoulder as her mother guided her out the doors.

The next morning, her stepfather drove her to school. She was quiet on the journey, but before she got out of the car, she mumbled, “I’m sorry I bit you.”

He gave her a slow smile. “I’ve had worse. Have a good day at school.”

She nodded soberly and exited the car. She went toward her homeroom and paused by the door. Inside there were a few students gathered, but the teacher wasn’t in yet. One of the girls poked another and pointed to her. Ignoring them, Dena deposited her backpack just inside the room and continued down the hall.

The basement door was open again. She descended quietly into darkness. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused a moment, organizing her thoughts, then called into the corners of the room, “I need to talk to you.”

The single bulb clicked on. The mirror was bright beneath it, but the shadow of the Mirror Keeper could not be seen.

“Where are you?” Dena asked.

“I’m here,” said the Keeper’s voice. It seemed to come from just beside her, but when she turned, there was no one there. Disturbed, she moved into the light and placed a hand on the mirror’s frame.

“We need to talk. The mirror’s doing something bad to me. The wishes, they’re great, but during the in-between times, when the wishes aren’t in effect anymore, I look awful. I’m sick.” Her eyes strained as she looked around the room, searching for the Keeper.

The voice seemed to come from behind the mirror this time. “Then there must be no in-between times.”

“How do you mean?” Her heartbeat picked up. She felt cold.

“You may stay here, with the mirror, at all times. I will sacrifice my place with the mirror and take your place in the real world.” The laughter rippled around her, but it no longer sounded gentle and friendly.

“Wait a minute, no! I never agreed to anything like that!” Dena recoiled from the mirror. “I don’t want to be trapped down here forever!”

“Not for eternal life and all the wishes your pretty mind can concoct?” wheedled the voice close to her ear. “I ask so little.”

Dena lashed out with both arms, flailing wildly. “No! Get away from me!”

She felt something growing tight around her throat and chest, constricting against her like a snake, but when she clawed at herself to remove it, there was nothing there to grab a hold of. She made little choking sounds and struggled to catch her breath.

“You will remain here, one way or another,” said the Keeper’s voice calmly. “You have already made a contract.”

Dena was acutely aware of every breath she struggled for, every expansion and contraction of her chest. She fell to her knees, then to all fours, dizzy and seeing sparks dance before her eyes. Her fingernails dug into the chilly cement floor beneath her. She arched her back in one last desperate attempt to get air, and as her head came up, she saw her reflection gasping. Reaching out with both hands, she thrust the mirror over onto its back.

There was a wordless screech as the glass shattered. The light went out. The invisible stranglehold on her throat slowly relaxed. And then there was nothing.

She collapsed onto the floor, shaking all over, and gulped the dusty air. There would be no more wishes, no more flights of fancy brought to life. But it seemed that she had made a lucky guess in breaking the mirror. Upstairs the bell rang and there was a sound of running feet as students made for their classes, late.

She would be late now, too. She couldn’t bring herself to care. Hauling herself to her feet, she felt her way to the broken mirror and gathered the fragments, slicing her fingers on the pieces as she shoved them into her coat pockets, her pants pockets, and tied them into the corners of her shirt. When she had gotten as many as she could find, she stumbled toward the stairs blindly.

When she reached the top, she pulled the door shut behind her, and heard the lock click. It would never be open for her again.

The outside of the school was quiet. All the teachers and students were in classes now. Dena ran to the edge of the road and scattered the mirror fragments into the sewer with bloodied hands. Let it wash away with the next winter storm. She never wanted to see it again.

Only she kept one jagged fragment in her pocket, in order to remember her dreams and her nightmares.
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