A Bitter Magic (6 page)

Tonight's visit from Uncle Asa upset me badly. His sudden interest after months of indifference—years, really—turned out to be selfish after all. What did I expect?

I stare at my blue night-light, with its bright elementals floating eerily about. Usually, it helps me get to sleep. At least helps me smile. Not this time.

A bright rectangle of moonlight lies across the floor, like a letter slipped through the window; but it's blank, a letter from no one.

I swing out of bed and pad to the bathroom. That makes me think of Elwyn and his bathtub swims. Where is Elwyn when I need him?

And Mother?

And that mysterious being known as a father?

How often I've fantasized about meeting him, by
chance, on a street in a foreign city. Fantasized about what he'd look like, what he'd wear. He'd be handsome, of course. And hurt in some way that kept him from coming back to us, although he wanted to. Longed to.

No one here will tell me anything about him. It's like he never existed. Did he do something shameful? Is he in prison? Did he die in a shipwreck?

I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and tell my reflection it's okay to be lonely. It's okay to feel this icicle lodged in my chest. It's just part of me. Maybe it always has been, even when Mother was here. Here and not here.

Without my loneliness, would Cisley be Cisley?

Without his woundedness, would Asa be Asa?

I go and push the window open. Beneath the full moon, the town is tightly tucked, the firth a coverlet drawn up to its chin. Butcher, baker, candlestick maker, all asleep. All with families to dream about. And here I am—in a castle, no less—without mother, father, or friends. I've been
kept
from having friends. I thought Cole might be one, but it looks like he's got all the friends he can use. Even a girlfriend!

And how much of a friend can Miss Porlock be, kind as she is? Tonight, ten minutes after Uncle Asa left with my untouched tray, Miss P. timidly knocked, avid to know everything.

“He wants you to
work
with him?” Porlock shook her graying curls. “That doesn't sound like Asa.”

“Surprised me, too.”

“Are you going to do it?”

A shrug isn't much of a response, I know.

“Cisley?”

“I don't know. Sure. Why not?”

“He forbids you to go anywhere
near
the laboratory, and now—”

“I know.”

“I don't know what to say.”

I turned to her with a weak smile. “You could say good luck.”

“Oh, I do say that. I do.”

Dear old Miss P.

Sometime before dawn I must have fallen asleep, because when I open my eyes I'm on the window seat, my body stiff, and the maid is knocking with my breakfast.

Food and a bath help shake me awake. I'm ready to explore. Out in the corridor, I turn in the direction of Mother's rooms. The floor is level today, but before I go far, I'm confronted with that damnable Mirror Maze, reconfigured and more confusing than ever. Many of the glass panels reflect me in some grotesque form; but several reflect people I know. There, just to the right, stands Mr. Strunk, one hand in his pocket, jingling his keys as he inspects the wiring behind a panel.

“Mr. Strunk!” I call out, heading for him through prisms of glass. I almost bloody my nose bumping into a mirror that is not a mirror at all but a clear window.
By the time I reach the place where Strunk was, he's nowhere to be seen. He was never there to begin with.

What does Asa need real magic for when he can do this?

I feel my way forward—or is it backward?—through this glowing ice cave of reflections. Rounding an invisible corner, I see up ahead a reflection I never would have expected:
Cole Havens!

How did Asa know about Cole? How did he manage to capture his image in the glass? And a greater question: how did he animate that image to make Cole appear to look up at me and smile?

“Well,” says the image of Cole.

I'm speechless—not usual for me. I feel my way forward, catching a strong whiff of sawdust, sweat, and…
Cole!

I break into an astonished smile that's a moment away from tears. I touch his arm. “Is it you?”

He laughs in a way not even Asa could counterfeit. “I'm not sure. I'll have to reflect on that.”

My mouth must be open, but no words come out.

“Actually,” he says, “I'm lost.”

It takes a few seconds to remember I'm angry at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you.”

Don't you try that boyish smile on me!

“I was easy enough to find,” I answer in my hard voice. “I've been down at the wall every morning. As you
know
.”

He looks at me as though I've said something odd.

“How did you get in?” I continue.

“Getting in was easy. The hard part is getting out.”

“Have you come here to steal from us?”

Ha! For that, he doesn't have an answer
.

“What,” he manages to say, “put that idea in your head?”

“Simple enough question.” I level my special stare. “You're a known thief. You sneak in here—”

“Where did you get the idea I was a thief?”

“Don't deny it. I saw you running out of that shop last week. You had a big bundle under your coat, and the owner—”

“You saw
that?”

I cross my arms. A small army of cross-armed Cisleys surrounds the boy, all of them glaring.

He looks down with a puzzled smile. “You thought I'd stolen, what? A clock?”

“What else? You were running out of a clock maker's shop.”

“Yes, I was. But with a cat.”

“A
what
?”

“I got some memorable scratches that day.”

“Wait. You were running.”

“Ever notice how cats feel about rain? I was trying to get him home.”

I don't believe him. I half believe him. I want a reason to hate him for not showing up on the seawall, morning after morning.

“Why was the owner chasing you?”

“I didn't know he was until the next day. He'd forgotten to tell me something about the cat.”

I wait, arms still drill-sergeant crossed.

“He wanted to warn us not to feed him milk. Best mouser in Ravensbirk, but he can't digest milk. Unfortunately, we found out too late.”

An answer for everything.

“We?”

“Me and Gwen.”

“She's the girl—”

“She's my little sister.”

Try not to look surprised
. “Of course.”

I shelve my other questions and cut to the important one: “So,” I say, “what are you doing here?”

“Helping out my dad. He's redoing some chairs for your uncle. My job is to carve birds and vines on the chair backs.”

I reach out and flick a curl of sawdust off his shoulder. “And somehow you ended up on the second floor, tangling with mirrors.”

“Serves me right. I was looking for you.”

“Here I am.”

“Still angry?”

Good question
.

“While you're making up your mind,” he says, “can you show me how to get out of this place?”

“I'm as lost as you are.”

“That's ridiculous! You live here!”

“Please tell Uncle Asa that when you see him.”

It strikes me as funny that I could get lost between my rooms and my mother's, and never be seen again. Then another thought, equally silly:
Gwen. Gwen's his sister!
A giggle escapes me.

Cole looks relieved to see it. “Any ideas?”

“Let me think.”

Yes, Miss Magic Girl, think of something
.

“Wait. What do you smell?” I say. “Besides yourself.”

He looks around, sniffing. Shakes his head.

There's that other ability I have. Is it possible for a sense of smell to be…magical? “Let's go this way.”

He follows close as we slip around glass walls, past hordes of reflections. “It's getting stronger,” I say over my shoulder.

“What is?”

“Roses.”

On we go until, stepping around a final trapezoidal pane of glass, we find ourselves in a corridor a few yards from Mother's door.

I slip my key in the lock. Hesitate. Cole's never been here before. Is it violating Mother's privacy? I feel her resistance, like Elwyn when he'd pull back on his leash.

The scent of roses is strong.

I look around at Cole. He nods.

I turn the key.

Silence enfolds us. We walk softly, letting our eyes adjust, making sense of the lumps of dimness in the sitting room. I draw a match from my pocket and light a table lamp, turning up the wick. A white rose glows in its crystal vase.

A different rose this time, taller than the other. Who changes them? Who waters them?

Not watching my step in the semi-dark, I bump into Cole. He catches me by the arm. I'm more aware than ever of his boyness, the room's darkness, our aloneness.

“Quite a place,” he says softly.

“Yeah.”

I wonder if there's some way to bump into him again. But I remember where I am. Mother's sanctuary. She'd
hate
knowing a stranger was here.

And do I trust him? Do I still think he's looking to
steal something? This would be the place. He meets my glance. “These aren't your rooms, are they?”

I shake my head. “Mother's.”

“Where is she?”

He doesn't know! “Don't you read the papers?”

“I don't believe them.”

“You really haven't heard anything?”

“The other kids talk about it. They say your uncle killed her. Did he?”

I have an unreasonable impulse to defend Uncle Asa—although just last night, I wanted to ask the same question myself.

“Not that I believe what they say,” he adds quickly.

“No, you shouldn't.”

We fall silent. The place seems to want silence.

“So you're here looking…,” he says.

“I don't know what I'm looking for.”

He glances around the shadows. “You want me to help?”

I ignore the zing of excitement and scan his face: the clear forehead, full lips, alert blue eyes so often on the verge of amusement. But not now. He's serious now.

“I've searched the place pretty thoroughly already, but…” I need to make a quick decision: trust or mistrust. Mistrust. Trust. “Okay,” I tell him. “You'd better sit down.”

He takes the flowered ottoman. I take the chair opposite and tell him about my mother's disappearance, the mysterious black mirror, the note she left me, the ship
that sailed without me. Cole's a good listener, it turns out, almost as good as a lobster.

“You must have been very close to her,” he says.

I take a beat too long to answer. “Very,” I say. “So. About the mirror. It was back there, in the bedroom.”

“Can I see?”

I glance at the darkness beyond the bedroom door. No one goes in there without Mother's permission.

I lead the way, carrying a lamp before me. The flame turns the room's red-tinted air to burnt orange. A finger of sunlight pokes through an opening in the drapes and throws a bright diagonal across the wall. Across the painting.

“Who's that?”

“That would be my mother.”

He looks at the painting longer than absolutely necessary. “Pretty woman.”

“People have said that.”

“Not sure I'd trust her.”

My heart beats harder. “Why do you say that?”

“The eyes.”

“What's wrong…?” I stop myself. I look at the portrait, trying to see it the way Cole does. Okay, maybe there's something about the eyes. Half mischief, half steel. The artist really caught her.

“She has her own picture by her own bed?” he says.

“What's wrong with that?”

“I don't know. Nothing. It just seems a little…” He catches my look. “Nothing.”

I pull the drapes aside, changing the subject by flooding the room with light. “Over here is where the mirror used to be.”

He studies the indentations in the carpet. “Not much to go on. Let's see if there's anything else.”

I remind myself that I've decided to trust him. Still, I hold back. Mother glares at me from the painting.

No need to tell him about the dress I tried on
.

I settle myself at the vanity, before the three-paneled mirror, her domain. Everything's neatly arranged: combs, silver-backed brushes, a glass tray with little bottles of perfume. I pull out the top-left drawer. Nothing any lady of fashion wouldn't have.

“Do you really have time for this?” I ask, turning to Cole, hoping he doesn't. “Don't you need to get back to your dad?”

“Yes, but remember? I don't know how to get there.”

“Right.”

“Maybe he'll send a search party after me.”

“They'd get lost.” I go to Mother's dresser and open the top drawer, feeling beneath her carefully folded clothes. All I find are sweet-smelling sachets and a number of silk stockings, some still with the Paris labels.

Cole takes pillows from the divan. “It would help if we knew what we were looking for.”

I close the drawer and move to the bookcase. Novels by that popular lady author who writes under a man's name. More novels. Also a number of thin books that turn out to be poetry. I move on.

I feel something hard in my pocket. Cole's turtle. “I like him,” I say, pulling it out. “He cheers me up.”

“That's what I was hoping.”

“You were?”

“I thought you needed some cheering up.”

“Was I that glum?”

“You were…serious.”

I think a moment. “Wait. How long were you watching me?”

He doesn't answer.

“Cole?”

“Long enough to figure out you were different.”

I give him my famous stare.

“Different. You know. More going on upstairs.”

What does that mean?
I step on the ottoman to reach a silver decanter on a shelf. There's something in the bottom of it. “Cole. Come here.”

He climbs up next to me on the ottoman. In my open palm lies a gold ring.

“Hello,” he says.

I hold it up and squint to see better. “Looks like an inscription.”

I feel his breath on my cheek. I've never been this close to a boy before. I wobble a bit, and he steadies me with an arm around my shoulder.

“To M,” he reads, “with love…”

“From P,” I finish. “This is a wedding ring!”

“
M
would be Marina.”

My breath lightens.

“But why,” he continues, “would she hide it?”

I can't think with him so close. But there's another excitement as well: the letter
P. My father?
This is the first clue I've ever found. Paul? Philip? Peter? What else? Phineas?

A loud door slams behind me.
“Just what is going on here?”

I practically fall off the ottoman. Uncle Asa stands by the entrance, stiff as a fireplace tool. Cole lowers his hand from my shoulder.

“I'll take that, if you don't mind.” Asa reaches up and snatches the ring.

He turns a cold eye on me. “And the
key
.” He holds out an impatient hand.

I stare back, fighting panic.

The hand stays out.

With a sigh, I dig in my pocket and give him the key.

“Sorry, sir,” says Cole. “I got lost in the maze, and Cisley—”

“I'm not speaking to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anyway, you're not lost.”

“I'm not?”

“No,” says Asa, his voice dead cold. “You're
fired
!”

“No!” I cry without thinking.

Asa looks at me. “Actually,” he says slowly, “yes.”

He turns to Cole. “Now get out!”