The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen

by Delia Sherman

  The Glamourist examined the pass. “Pretty,” he said. “The beaver’s got style.” He turned to the makeup shelves.

  “You can come out, little boy. I’m ready to tell you what you wanted to know now.”

  A small figure stepped out from behind the shelves—a pale, skinny figure with a close-clipped fuzz of black hair and slanting black eyes.

  Rage boiled up my chest and into my throat. “What—”

  The Glamourist, the agent, and Jacaranda leaned forward eagerly. I took a deep breath and counted carefully to ten, then fifteen, just to make sure.

  “Hi, Airboy,” I said stiffly.

  He nodded. “Neef.”

  “I see you two are old friends,” the Glamourist said. “Now listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once.”

  And then he told us how to get to Elizabeth Factor’s Beauty Salon.

  Folk can’t understand that everybody else isn’t familiar with their Neighborhoods. The Glamourist’s directions were full of phrases like “turn left where the Button Shop used to be,” and “take a right two blocks before the Knitting Factory.” When he was done, all I knew for certain was that I was going to have to cross Seventh Avenue after all.

  “Cool,” I said brightly. “You coming, Airboy?”

  Airboy bowed deeply. “Honored sir, you are a master of glamoury and as kind as you are great. I will recommend you to all my friends.”

  “Paint me white for shock,” the Glamourist said. “A mortal with manners. Hold on a tick.”

  He snapped his fingers and two objects appeared—a small blue jar and a shiny, brightly colored oblong. He plucked them out of the air like fruit and handed them to Airboy.

  “Here you are: a map of all the known Neighborhoods of New York. The jar is my special beauty cream. You don’t need it now, but you will.” He leaned close to Airboy. “A word to the wise: Don’t waste it on your girlfriend.”

  Chapter 15

  RULE 305: STUDENTS MUST NOT WEAR GLAMOURS OR ALTER THEIR APPEARANCE MAGICALLY.

  Miss Van Loon’s Big Book of Rules

  Airboy and I clattered down the stairs in one of those noisy silences that happen when you’re really mad and can’t yell. It lasted until we got to the street.

  “What was that all about?” I hissed at him. “What are you even doing here?”

  Airboy fixed his eyes on the street. “I’m looking for the Queen’s mirror.”

  “How do you know the Lady doesn’t have it? And how did you happen to turn up in the Garment District? Have you been talking to my friends?”

  He shot me a look.

  It did seem unlikely. “Why are you spying on me?”

  He shrugged. “There’s no rule against spying on enemies.”

  “I’m not your enemy. That’s really slimy, you know that, Airboy?”

  He turned and looked at me. “Slimier than vodyanoi?”

  Now I was mad and guilty. “I said I was sorry. I didn’t even know it was going to happen!”

  Airboy turned back to the street.

  I counted to ten again. “Listen. Hate me if you want. We can still cooperate. You know—like that exercise in Diplomacy?”

  Airboy unfolded the map the Glamourist had given him and held it so we could both see it.

  It was, of course, a magic map. Fortran would have loved it. Any part you focused on got bigger and so detailed you could see the signs on the buildings. If you kept looking, it burrowed down under the streets to show the shadowy tangle of the Betweenways. Central Park, however, was just a blank green rectangle without even Belvedere Castle or the Reservoir marked.

  Eventually, we found ELIZABETH FACTOR’S BEAUTY SALON, uptown and east, not in the Garment District at all. It was, as I had feared, on the other side of Seventh Avenue. Which looked just as impossible to cross as it had when I first saw it this morning.

  We walked to the curb. I watched racks zip by, their bright burdens swaying, their kobolds scowling and yelling as they tried to outrace each other. I glanced at Airboy. He was breathing normally. Fine. If he wasn’t scared, neither was I.

  A rack veered slightly toward me. I jumped backwards.

  Airboy sighed. “Focus on the ground a little in front of your feet. Step wherever you see a space. Don’t look up, don’t run. And don’t stop.”

  He stepped to the curb, stared for a moment like a cat at a mousehole, and walked into the traffic.

  A moment passed. No extra screeching or screaming. No Airboy flying through the air. I stared down at the pavement. I saw wheels and gray kobold feet. I saw the rainbow flash of clothes. More wheels. More feet.

  Open space.

  It was gone before I could react, but now I knew what to look for. Another space appeared. I stepped into it, saw a second open space and beyond it, a third. I walked forward. The rumbling and shouting, the bright clothing and the kobolds’ gray faces blurred around the quiet path unfolding at my feet.

  The last step delivered me to the other side of Seventh Avenue, where Airboy was waiting.

  “That was wizard!” I said. “Is it magic?”

  Airboy shrugged. “We learned it last year in Questing. Come on.” He turned uptown.

  It was a long walk. Above 42nd Street, the racks disappeared, as did the leprechauns and sewing elves. I still saw plenty of models, though, complete with tiny dogs. But mostly I saw Midtown Executives, Folk dressed in dark suits and striped ties and snap-brimmed hats, their hands and wrists heavy with gold. Some had models on their arms. Some carried briefcases. All had flint-gray eyes that looked through Airboy and me as though we didn’t exist.

  Airboy guided us down a side street that came to a dead end, consulted the map, turned and retraced our steps, walked another block uptown, and stopped in front of a smallish town house built of cream-colored stone. Every window sported a window box planted with geraniums and deep purple petunias. The curly gold letters over the front door (red, to match the geraniums) read ELIZABETH FACTOR.

  While we were taking this in, the door opened and two fairies came out.

  I’m pretty good at identifying fairies. The sidhe from Ireland are redheads with green eyes; the fate of Italy are brunettes with dark eyes; the elle-folk of Denmark are blue-eyed blondes. Peris are cinnamon-skinned; afrits are midnight blue, with scarlet eyes. These fairies could have been just about anything. Their hair was glamoured in streaks of lime and shiny black, and their faces were painted in headache-making swirls of pink and turquoise. One was wearing a wide stiff coat that made her look like a giant bell. The other, in unbendable black pleats, with a wide, pleated hat on her streaky hair, looked exactly like a streetlamp.

  I wondered if they were Artistes or Debs.

  The bell saw us, clutched her chest, and squeaked. “Gargoyle!”

  “It’s only a mortal, dear,” the streetlamp drawled. “An ugly one in a fatally costumey coat. What it’s doing here, I cannot imagine.”

  “As it happens,” I said coldly, “the Ambassador here has an appointment with Madame Factor. On a matter of state.” I opened the door and bowed. “After you, Mr. Ambassador.”

  Airboy gave me a dirty look, then swept past me, holding his head high and looking—I had to admit—pretty impressive for a skinny kid in jeans and a T-shirt and high-top sneakers.

  “The Ambassador of the Court of the Mermaid Queen,” I announced to the startled model sitting in the front hall. “Here to see Madame Factor. Please announce us.”

  For a moment, I thought it wasn’t going to work. The model was giving me the kind of look beautiful princesses give trolls who want to marry them.

  Then Airboy smiled at her and she giggled. “Oh, Mr. Ambassador! Go right up. Top of the stairs, the red door.”

  At this point, I spotted the flaw in my otherwise flawless plan. If Airboy was an Ambassador, then I was just an aide. A nobody. A sidekick. Somebody Elizabeth Factor wouldn’t listen to. Which was really a shame, since Airboy couldn’t talk his way out of a wet paper bag.

 
Clearly, Airboy was having the same thoughts. He eyed the red door with loathing. “I don’t like this,” he announced.

  I tried to look sympathetic. “You want me to take over as Ambassador? I know you don’t talk much.”

  “That’s because I think before I say something.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you’ve just told some random Glamourist that the Mermaid Queen’s Magic Mirror is missing.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “What other mirror would the Mermaid Queen’s Ambassador be looking for?”

  I was trying to think of an answer when the red door swung open and a voice said, “Come in. I’m just dying to hear what would bring the Mermaid Queen’s Ambassador to Madam Elizabeth Factor’s Beauty Salon.”

  It was not the kind of voice I wanted to hear a lot of—loud and flat and harsh, with a rasp to it like a bad cold. Airboy stiffened, then took a deep breath and walked forward, with me a half step behind him.

  I’d half expected Elizabeth Factor’s salon to look like the LIVING DOLLS loft, full of clothes and shelves and beauty products. Instead, all I saw were mirrors.

  There were hundreds of them, hung floor to ceiling on the walls and set up on stands and tables in a glittering maze. There were pier mirrors and wall mirrors; hand, table, and compact mirrors; mirrors round, rectangular, oval, and heart shaped; mirrors framed in metal and tile and carved wood; and mirrors with no frames at all.

  And then I noticed the humming.

  It was more a feeling in my back teeth and breastbone than a sound, uncomfortable and exciting at once. It was the sound of magic, and it came from the mirrors.

  Interesting.

  “So you’re the Mermaid Queen’s Ambassador?” Thinking the voice came from behind a tall mirror in a gold frame, I looked behind it and saw—another mirror. The voice went on. “Please tell me she’s ready to get rid of that faux punk pirate look. It’s so . . . last century.”

  “He’s not really an Ambassador,” I said, when Airboy didn’t answer. “I just said that so you’d see us.”

  The invisible Madame Factor laughed—a loud hnya, hnya,like a donkey braying. “A lie, eh? How human. I never thought you belonged to the Mermaid Queen, little girl. You’re too ugly. The boy, on the other hand, has a certain waterlogged charm.”

  “Do you think so? He’s my sidekick.” Airboy glared at me. “I’m a hero. I’m on a quest.”

  “A quest?” Madame Factor sounded amused. “Quests are Out, you know—too Olde Countrye for words. Still, I could use a laugh.”

  The humming changed pitch, and the mirrors began to move. I stood very still as they slid around me, tossing me fractured glimpses of my startled face and Airboy’s frozen stare. When they stopped, we were standing in a solid oval of mirrors.

  The humming intensified. The air shimmered unsteadily, then thickened into a glittering mist that twisted and flickered and solidified into the figure of a woman.

  I stared at her, open-mouthed. Madame Elizabeth Factor was sun-haired and emerald-eyed, graceful as a young birch in spring, divinely tall, and stunningly, awesomely beautiful.

  She stretched out her white arms and smiled into my eyes. It suddenly became clear to me that Elizabeth Factor was the most important person in New York Between. Her love and approval were like air and water. I was willing to do anything if only she’d let me stay and look at her forever and ever.

  “You, ugly girl.” Her voice was still harsh, but somehow I didn’t care. “Close your mouth before something flies in, hnya, hnya. You look like a perfect pig. Or do I mean a toad? Take a look and tell me what you think.”

  A mirror appeared, cutting off my view of Madame Factor’s beauty and replacing it with a spreading, lumpy horror. I moaned and covered my eyes.

  “What’s wrong, ugly girl? Are you afraid to face the truth? You know magic can’t lie. Look, I said.”

  I dragged my eyes open and gazed at the toad. It was wearing my jeans, my sneakers, even beat-up old Satchel and the stupid black coat I’d thought was so cool. The expression on its wide, lumpy face was the same disgusted horror I felt pulling at my own. And the worst thing of all? It wasn’t even scary, which might have been bearable. It was just pathetic.

  “Does that look like a hero to you?” Madame Factor went on. “Of course it doesn’t. Heroes are tall and strong and as beautiful as a summer’s morning. You’re more like a wet November afternoon, hnya, hnya.” She and all her gorgeous reflections smiled happily. “Lucky for you, I used to be a fairy godmother. I’ll grant you a wish, and in return, you’ll serve me for a year and a day.”

  “Madame,” I breathed, “I’d love—”

  “Shut up, Neef!” Airboy’s shout jerked me out of my rosy dream. I glared at him. He glared back.

  “Little boys,” Madame Factor said, “should be seen and not heard.” She waved her slender hand. The magical humming rose. Two mirrors trundled forward to stand on each side of Airboy, reflecting him back and forth between them down an infinite tunnel of frightened boy statues. He didn’t move. I didn’t think he could, even if he’d wanted to.

  “That’ll keep him quiet,” she said. “Now, ugly girl, if you keep my mirrors polished and do everything I tell you, in a year and a day, you could look like this.”

  The gargoyle-me in the mirror shimmered and morphed into a beautiful maiden. Her—my—hair was straight and shiny, her—my—skin was pale and smooth, her eyebrows perfectly arched, her mouth perfectly full and pink. She was tall and slender and graceful.

  In fact, except for her brown hair and hazel eyes, the mirror-me looked exactly like Tiffany or Bergdorf or Best. She didn’t look like a hero at all. She looked like someone the hero rescued.

  “What do you say?” Madame Factor asked eagerly.

  My beautiful self gazed out at me pitifully. “I don’t know.”

  Madame Factor’s perfect eyebrows rose. “You aren’t thinking clearly. It’s that boy, isn’t it? You’re jealous because he’s better-looking than you are. Shall I turn him into a real fish? We could watch him drown in the air.”

  The hunger in her voice reminded me of Peg Powler and the Wild Hunt. Clearly, Madame Factor wasn’t nearly as good as she was beautiful. I began to be very frightened.

  “Or I could make you uglier,” Madame Factor said. “Or I could turn my mirrors on that stupid bag of yours and burn it to a crisp.”

  I moaned and clutched Satchel to my chest. Something inside it nudged me sharply. I reached inside, grabbed the first thing I felt, and flourished it over my head. “But you won’t,” I said. “You’ll let me go. And you’ll tell me what I want to know. Because if you don’t, I’ll break all your mirrors.”

  Madame Factor burst into a storm of scornful hnya, hnyas. “With one little apple? I don’t think so. I can turn it into applesauce.”

  “Then why don’t you?” I said, and threw the apple as hard as I could at the nearest mirror.

  The apple hit the glass with a dull thud and rolled away. The mirror wasn’t even cracked. My heart sank.

  Madame Factor gave a horrible screech. “You broke it!” she wailed. “You broke my mirror!”

  I turned around and gasped. Elizabeth Factor had changed. Oh, she was still tall and slender, but her golden hair was more like wisps of dry grass, her teeth like steel chisels, and her sparkling green eyes like bulging, malevolent grapes in a face that would have sent a demon screaming.

  I reached into Satchel again, groped around hopefully, and pulled out a giant drumstick, too big for even a turkey leg. Ostrich, maybe? It didn’t matter. It was big and heavy and shone with grease. I started to feel somewhat less frightened. “There’s just something knocked loose,” I said. “Maybe this will fix it.”

  “You’re an ungrateful, selfish little girl,” Madame Factor wailed, “and nobody likes you. I could have made you beautiful. I could have made you popular.”

  I raised the drumstick threateningly. “I didn’t come here to be made bea
utiful. I came here to ask you some questions. You can answer them or I can destroy your mirror. You choose.”

  Madame Factor writhed. “I’ll answer, I’ll answer. Next time an ugly girl wants to see me, though, poof. She’s a toad before she opens her mouth.”

  I ignored this. “I want to know about the magnifying mirror you got from Snowbell the Swan Maiden in Lincoln Center. The whole story. Every detail.”

  Madame Factor took me literally. I got far too much information about what Snowbell was wearing and what Madame Factor was wearing and the magic mirror shades that allowed her to leave her Salon, and what kind of spell she used to give Snowbell’s hair that otherworldly shimmer. Finally she got to the part about seeing a fine mirror in Snowbell’s nest, and taking it as payment for her services.

  “So the mirror’s here?”

  “I couldn’t do a thing with it,” she said disgustedly. “All it would do was show me my real face, in extreme close-up. I couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”

  “Who did you give it to?”

  “I don’t know,” said Madame. “Hnya, hnya.”

  I stepped up to the closest mirror and swung the drumstick threateningly.

  “Don’t!” she screeched. “It’s true. Every Equinox, the Dowager starts sending me the latest crop of debs so I can make them beautiful for the Solstice Ball. I never pay attention to their names.”

  “Was one of them blonde?”

  “My dear.” Madame Factor shrugged. “When I’m done with them, they’re all blonde. One was almost elfin—there really wasn’t much to do. But she thought there was. You ought to have seen what she thought she looked like. Yes, I have a mirror for that, too. She thought she was too fat—that type always does—and her nose was too big. I said I’d grant her wish if she’d get rid of Snowbell’s mirror for me.” She glanced at my drumstick and licked her lips. Her tongue was pointed, and an unpleasant shade of gray. “Can you put that thing away?”

  Tiffany was a member of the Dowager’s court, and she was going to be presented at Midwinter. But so were a couple of the other girls. “When did all this happen?” I asked.