The Mirrors (part forty-nine)

The Mirrors

(part forty-nine)

xix.

A physical touch. But this was poignant, if anything.

If only her fingers mashed against Nat’s could communicate her friendship towards him, that she loved him, and fought him for his own salvation. She saw the circle broken to just this mirror, William even now pulling a floor-length dressing glass…

To rest near the wall, the last arc split, the two reflecting nothing of each other.

He spun and caught Charmante around the waist. Carmine fell slack as a ragdoll. The mirror struck the floor.

“Oh, Polly!”

Veronica rushed in, knelt by Carmine and unbuttoned his collar…but this time, he seemed himself at once. He stood. Charmante edged to take William’s hand.

“You’re all right…everyone’s all right?” William asked.

She thought suddenly of her taffeta church dress. Sweating and laboring…well, here they’d come to wrestle the devil in their finest…why not?

It made her laugh. Then Carmine laughed.

He winked at Veronica

A princess, to deliver her swan-changed brothers, must keep mute for six years, never once to speak or laugh. She hides herself, sewing the spell’s undoing, shirts made from aster flowers. When the curse ends, one shirt lacks a sleeve, and so one brother is left with a swan’s wing instead of an arm. Likewise (at least, this tale from childhood had come to mind), Charmante, for failing to shepherd one mirror to its home, saw Carmine part Nat, part possessed.

Veronica thought not by Leonce. “No. Wouldn’t I know? Maybe Rothesay… Young Rothesay went off adventuring abroad. He might have had some charm. You’d think so, the number he did on Nat’s mother.”

Holding silent, hearing only birdsong from the oak, the three of them panting like sprinters…

And quieting, no hum rising…

William said, “I’ll go see about Mr. Rothesay. But I don’t know.”

“What our story needs to be,” Charmante finished for him.

“Well, Nat?”

“Well, Miss Dumain. I think we agree I’m not strong on my feet, after yesterday. The hallway was dark, and when I came near the bannister I had a dizzy spell…”

“You fell against him.”

The mantel clock chimed. “How can it be two!”

“Because that one’s not set right. By my watch only five til. Really, Charmante, mirror time is mirror time. We’ve been here twenty minutes. That’s why,” Veronica drew her to the stairs, “our story should hold good. William!”

“I can’t wake him up, but he’s living.”

“Then go get a pillow. Charmante, grab a blanket. Let’s look like we’ve done our best. I’ll call for an ambulance. Better if I do.”

95

The Mirrors

The Mirrors (part fifty)

(2020, Stephanie Foster)