Tag: mirror’s surface

The sound of the creaking study door jolted him back to reality.  He looked up to see his wife standing next to him, carrying his dinner on a tray.  A quick glance outside confirmed his fears—the sun had already set.  He’d gotten distracted and missed breakfast.  Again.

“Do you think it will work?” she asked, setting the bottle down onto the desk next to him.  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, of course, but…”

“No, it’s fine, I understand.  It’s hard to believe that something like this would exist, I get it.  I don’t blame you for being skeptical.  But every other spell I’ve found in that manuscript has worked.  So it’s got to work.  It just… it has to, you know?”

She smiled, and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.  “I’m just worried about you.  Ever since… well, you know… you’ve been so depressed.  I can’t blame you.  Lord only knows how I’d do if I were suddenly transformed like that.  But as much as I love seeing you happy like this, I just worry that it’s for the wrong reason, you know?  Two weeks after the attack, and you just happen to find something that will reverse all your troubles?  Dearest, it just sounds too good to be true.  You’ve spent so much time and effort into translating that grimoire, but what if it’s just snake oil?  What happens then?”

He reached up, wrapped his fingers around hers, and smiled.  “Well… I guess if that happened, I’d just… try and figure out what went wrong, and do whatever I can to fix it.  I’m sure it’s possible.  Yeah, okay, no one around here thinks it’s possible, but… that… that doesn’t mean anything!”  He spun around on his work stool, and stared into her eyes.  “This is going to work.  I know it.  If I had stopped working just because I didn’t think something was possible…”

He paused.  “Is that a new blouse?  It looks nice.  I like the collar.”  She clutched her neck, her face growing pale, but he was too distracted to notice. (more…)

She looked in the mirror. Fifteen years old now, home from school, but needing to view what the others were seeing in her. They all claimed to see things she did not. So she looked.

Mirror mirror?

Sure enough, there was the dog. Cody Stineman told her she looked like a stupid dog almost daily; a dog stared back at her now. Stupid eyes peering out from a pale face, crooked teeth, white, but surely too crooked to be human. A stupid and ugly dog stared at her, its eyes somehow even more hurt than her own.

Her vision clouded for a moment. She felt the wetness on her cheek before she saw them. A small drip of tears on a dog’s face. She clenched her eyes shut, hoping the dog would be gone when she opened them again.

The dog was gone. She was now staring at an eagle. Wings spread wide and sharp eyes glaring in a most majestic way. This is what Coach Ainslow saw at practice just an hour ago. An eagle of a basketball player. She picked off two passes into the post and tipped a few more, resulting in Coach screaming that she was an eagle, sharp-eyed and ready to pounce. “Yeeeeeeahhhhhh,” he screamed in a very un-eaglelike way. “That’s you right there, an eagle. Yeeeaaaaahhhhh.”

“More like a gorilla.” She heard Megan Winters mumble that to some freshman girl, and when she looked over, they were staring at her, laughing and rolling their eyes. (more…)

The mirror’s surface remained devoid of any human reflection. Dirt and unidentifiable sludge kept her curly hair twisted into a tangled mess. Carefully applied charcoal dust and more dirt buried the features of her face in earthy cracks. Torn fabrics and layers of ragged coats hid her expensive undergarments. She was only disguising herself as a vagrant, not forcing herself to suffer every aspect of their misery. Besides, at her age wearing anything felt uncomfortable already. Everything dragged at her skin, chaffing or cutting in the worst places and almost nothing seemed to heal anymore. Eventually she would be nothing but a gibbering pile of cuts and bruises. She needed to finish this before that happened, or before someone made the decision for her. With one final turn in the mirror, she gave a snapping dismissal to herself and headed for the streets.

It had been years since she’d gone outside. While she had technically left her home on several occasions, she had never just spent time outdoors for the sake of being outdoors since the day she’d received the phone call asking her to come to identify the body of her last grandchild. Her family had not been large, but this was the twenty first century in a first world country. She hadn’t expected to be the last Goldenbaum standing. Children were supposed outlive their parents here, and the grandchildren outlive them. If you had a few descendants, your legacy was secure. You didn’t need to pump out fifteen kids in the hopes that a few would live long enough to do the same before they all kicked the bucket. She scowled up at the pale blue of the winter sky. “I had four kids. Two had kids of their own. Fifteen! That’s fifteen I could rely on! I was supposed to be done with this!” She screeched. A woman passing by gave her a small look before quickly hurrying on her way. Evalise sighed. Causing people to think she was psychotic wouldn’t help. Probably. (more…)

I am the happiest woman in all the world. I am about to marry the man of my dreams, and he has given me this delightfully magical mirror as a wedding gift. My complexion glows, my eyes sparkle, and as I twirl in my gown, I am beautiful. Nothing could be better.

#

After our first year of marriage, it appears some of my sparkle has dimmed. I gaze into the glass surface of the mirror, desperately looking for the sparkle in my eye and the glow in my cheeks. Perhaps the year of arguments and disappointment have taken their toll on my beauty. I have to hope that this next year will be better. He gave me a lovely pendant for our anniversary. But it pales in comparison to this mirror he gave me last year.

#

Each day it seems as if there is less life in my reflection. After every fight, I rush to the bedroom and stare myself down in the mirror. My eyes are squinty and hard and frown lines wrinkle around my mouth. Had I known this marriage would slowly suck the beauty—the life—from me, I never would have accepted it or this mirror.

I don’t know what to do. (more…)