The Mirror

by Millhiser, Marlys

  He died in my arms, Brandy, thinking I was you. And I forgave him for you. Hope I did right. He seemed very sorry for making us marry Corbin. His last word was “Joshua.”

  The writing stopped. Tears filled Brandy’s eyes. Pa … I forgive you too.

  Brandy returned to her bed and was soon forced to use the bucket for her efforts. Poor Shay. She would come back to her body to find it in a borrow pit. Probably unaware that she carried Marek’s child. That her parents planned to murder it and lock her up in an asylum for the mad.

  Brandy dozed and dreamed of the wedding mirror. She awoke determined it should be destroyed. It caused too much evil in people’s lives. Brandy stared at it with hatred.

  Lightning flashed into the room, paling the candlelight to insignificance. Thunder rolled in behind it and the mirror hummed. Misty clouds twisted across the glass.

  Brandy pulled the blanket over her head but the mist seeped through the weaving and drew her down through the bed.…

  8

  Voices rose through the mist with Brandy. “Shake, shake, shake. Shake your boodeez.”

  “Oh, no. No, please –”

  “Stop that now. Everything’s going to be all right. Here’s the bowl,” a man said close to her ear.

  Something cold slid under her chin and she opened her eyes in time to see the round container before she gagged into it. But Shay’s stomach was empty.

  Brandy lay on a bed in one corner of a kitchen. An elderly gentleman with flowing white beard and hair rinsed the bowl in the sink.

  A radio box sang on the table.

  A cat nursed her kittens on the foot of the bed.

  Brandy turned Shay’s face to the wall and clamped her eyelids on tears. I didn’t even have the chance to talk to Elton.

  She didn’t care how this body’d come from the borrow pit to wherever this was, only that she’d been torn from home again.

  “Twenty-year-old Shay Garrett,” the radio box said, “was missing from her home at Fourth and Spruce this evening. The young woman is in urgent need of medical and psychiatric care. She is five feet, seven inches, approximately one hundred and twenty pounds, with brown eyes and blond hair, and probably wearing a yellow shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. She was last seen crossing Twenty-eighth Street at Mapleton on foot, where she caused a series of rear-end collisions. No major injuries were reported in that mishap. Anyone with information concerning Miss Garrett is requested to call the Boulder Police Department or Jerrold Garrett, 444–1008. The young woman is not considered dangerous and foul play is not suspected in her disappearance.”

  The old man turned off the radio and came to stand by the bed. “Sounds like somebody we know, don’t it?” His eyeballs protruded.

  “I don’t care. I don’t care if they kill the baby … or about anything.” Tears spilled over, ran down her cheeks. “I hate this world.”

  “You mean these babies?” He scooped up two of the tiny kittens, and the mother cat moaned a warning.

  “No, this one.” Brandy placed a hand on her granddaughter’s abdomen. “And then they’re going to put me in a madhouse.”

  “It’s all right, Stina.” He patted the cat and replaced the kittens. “The baby they’re going to kill ain’t born yet?”

  “Not for about seven months.”

  “Someone’s going to murder it when it’s born?”

  “No. They’re going to do it now and call it abortion because they think I’m crazy.”

  “Crazy. Ahhh, we heard that word a time or two, ain’t we, Stina?” He sat on the edge of the bed. Seemingly lidless eyes roamed the ceiling and walls, lips pursed and then constricted. “Sometime last night, Stina here (she’s Swedish, you know) slipped out of the barn to do a little mousing and left her kittens alone. And do you know what happened?”

  He had a wild look about him. Brandy pressed back against the pillow.

  He leaned toward her. “A big” – he spread his arms – “scraggly old tom” – he clapped his hands and Brandy jumped but she could see the tomcat in her mind – “snuck up quiet-like and” – he raised bushy white brows – “and he ate up all Stina’s newborn babes.” The old man stood suddenly and the bed bounced Brandy and the felines. “Found a half a little body left this morning.”

  She stirred from her despair despite herself. “But her babes are there … with her now.”

  “And then …” He raised his arms again and swirled. His cuffs had no fastening and the sleeves fell back to withered muscle. His hands were brown but his arms white.”… all the day long Stina cried. In the barn. In the house. In the yard. And I felt her misery.” His hands flew to his chest. “Till, Shay Garrett, I felt her great sadness here and I cried with her.”

  Brandy sat up, seeing the old man and the cat weeping together. “But her kittens are here.”

  “AND THEN!” Even Stina jumped to her feet at that, and the kittens mewed in protest. “A beautiful lady with silver hair fell into the front yard with this.” He produced a dirty cloth bag and waved it before her face. “You know what was in this?”

  Brandy cringed, fearing he meant to put it over her head and smother her.

  “Kittens. FIVE KITTENS!” He threw the bag against the wall, pushed Stina down with the babies and flopped back onto the bed. “Now what do you think of that?”

  “Uhh … well …” Brandy blinked.

  “And Stina and I ain’t cried since the beautiful lady and her sack of joy arrived. But the lady has tears on her face.”

  “I’m the lady?”

  “And then I hear on the radio that she’s got the police and her folks after her. And what should I do?”

  “You’ll probably take me back to them and I’ll be –”

  “I THINK that you was sent to Stina.” He seemed ever to ask questions of her but have no interest in her answers. “So I can’t let them find you, can I? After all, Stina’s Swedish.”

  Brandy nodded Shay’s head, though she couldn’t really make out his reasoning.

  “First thing’s to get somethin’ down you that’ll stay. What’s the one thing do you think’ll stay put when everything else comes up?”

  “Tea?”

  “SEVEN-UP!” He took a green bottle from an icebox with rounded corners instead of square like Rachael’s and poured a glass of clear bubbly liquid. “Drink this here and I’ll see if my granddaughter left anything around the place for you to sleep in.”

  The mouth was dry and the bubbles cleaned the scum of sickness from the tongue. Brandy wondered if the odd gentleman truly meant to help her, if Shay’d come back to this body when Brandy left it to find them a refuge after all.

  “Bit of a rag but looks clean enough,” the old man said when he returned with a baggy cotton garment.

  “Thank you, Mr.…”

  “St. John.”

  “Saint John?” Brandy looked at the clutter of piled newspapers, dirty dishes, and the sagging sofa across the room. This might be a refuge but it certainly wasn’t heaven.

  “Ansel St. John.” He stroked the cat. “And this here’s Stina Mark. Them Swedes make awful good mothers, you know.”

  Stina Mark curled her body around the sleeping kittens and purred.

  Marek Weir poured water out of the plastic bag and added more ice cubes. He lay on the couch with the bag against his bruised face. But the area on the back of his head where the doctor’d taken two stitches wouldn’t permit that for long. “Oh, hell.”

  Marek mixed himself a martini at the bar beside the fireplace and filled his pipe, which he smoked only when greatly agitated, since the surgeon general had finally scared him off cigarettes. Even striking the match against the moss rock hurt his head.

  He sat in his favorite chair and propped the ice pack across the swollen eye. With the one that would still open he stared out onto the patio but he saw instead gold-flecked eyes, bewildered, frightened.

  Why hadn’t she been found? When he’d walked into the Gingerbread House he’d had a vague impression
of someone behind the buffet at the foot of the stairs. He couldn’t remember if he’d seen a knee, a head or what. But before he’d had time to pull it into his consciousness an outraged father’d busted him in the face. When he came to, Shay was gone.

  Running alone. Carrying his child. He had no reason to doubt it was his. The helpless look of the new Shay tore at him.

  The police had reported a sighting of Shay running across Twenty-eighth Street. Marek’s apartment was on Thirtieth. He’d searched the grounds and given up.

  She’d had plenty of time to get here. The patio drapes and door were open to entice her, welcome her.

  Shay’d assured him she was on the pill. How had she become pregnant? What would the child look like if it were allowed life?

  Come home, Shay. Here’s where you’d be living and safe now if we’d been married on time. I’ll find a way to keep you out of Sampson’s clutches, if I have to fight your parents and the police.

  Ansel St. John sat at the table eating oatmeal. He’d removed his teeth to eat. They lay, complete with store-bought gums, between the radio and the teapot. Brandy decided she was the only sane person left in Shay’s lunatic world.

  She’d managed some of the acrid tea and a piece of toast after she bathed Shay’s body in the bathroom that opened into the kitchen.

  Shay’s body felt feverish with aches that moved to every part and back again. Brandy didn’t know if it was because of the baby, or the exhausting escape of the night before or the terrible wrenching of bodies caused by the mirror switching her and her granddaughter in time. She could only hope that the wedding mirror would switch them again, and soon.

  She longed to see her mother once more, and Elton before he died. She’d do her duty by Mr. Strock if only she could return to the peace of a world she could understand.

  By lunchtime Mr. St. John had to spoon her a poached egg while the radio announced failure in the search for Shay Garrett. Stina Mark and her adopted kittens were in a paper box with rags for a floor.

  And then Brandy lost track of mealtimes and of nights and days.

  John McCabe drove the buggy down Pearl Street and she ran behind, calling to him. When he looked over his shoulder he didn’t seem to recognize her.

  “Pa?”

  “I ain’t your pa.” Ansel St. John propped her up and held a spoon to her lips. “Got some nice soup here. Want you to take it all.”

  Her mother and Elton stepped off the trolley at Chautauqua Park with a picnic basket.

  Brandy ran up to them. “Ma, Elton, I’m home.”

  Sophie McCabe slid her arm through Elton’s and they both drew back. “Who in heaven’s name is that? Where’s Joshua?”

  “I don’t know her, Ma. But Joshua’s dead of the typhoid and I think she has it too.”

  “Typhoid? But don’t you see I’m –”

  “No, ain’t typhoid.” Ansel St. John’s eyes bulged above her. “Just a bug from running around all hours of the night probably. You’re young. You’ll pull through. Here, drink this.”

  Clouds of mist rolled across the glass of the wedding mirror, thunder shuddered the floor beneath it, lightning flashed the bronze frame to green. The entwined hands writhed until they disentangled themselves, reached out to her with fingers parted, the face of Marek Weir formed from the smoky mist, dark curls fluffing toward his face, sharp features half-shadowed.

  9

  Brandy heard the cock crow before she opened her eyes, and wondered why that ordinary sound should make her so happy. It meant it was time to rise and help Nora with the breakfast, bring up coal for the stove, let the hens out and …

  Something furry with prickly nails moved along her neck, nudged her cheek. Brandy sat up with a gasp even as her eyes flew open.

  The bed was alive with wobbly kittens. One lay on her lap, where it had fallen when she’d sat erect. Another wrapped its front paws around her foot and tried to bite through the covers. Yet another squatted to wet on the bedclothes. Five in all.

  Oh yes, Stina Mark. Tears pricked behind her eyes and nose. Why couldn’t dreams be reality?

  Mr. St. John snorted and rolled over on the sofa.

  The odor of cat and sickness permeated the room.

  Shay’s body felt weak, hungry and filthy.

  Brandy caught a kitten about to topple over the edge of the bed, stuffed him and his siblings into the box and put it on the floor.

  In the bathroom she ran a tub of hot water and scrubbed Shay’s body.

  “Shay Garrett, you up and feeling better then?” Ansel St. John called from the other side of the door.

  “Yes. Could you find my clothes, please?”

  At the breakfast table Brandy consumed three eggs, toast and tea. “You’ve been so kind, Mr. St. John, I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I’ll tell you how. Drink all that milk.”

  “I don’t drink milk. I –”

  “It’s not for you. For the little one.” His eyes grew wild and threatening. His beard dipped into his tea. “Do as I say now. Ain’t ordinary milk. It’s goat’s milk.” He finished eating and replaced his teeth.

  Brandy choked down half the milk and then lay on the sofa while he stripped the bed.

  “I’m going into town to the Laundromat and to get some food. You rest now. Got Happy chained out front. He’ll keep anybody from the door.”

  Brandy’s little display of health had exhausted Shay. They lay quietly drowsy, but clean and fed.

  Stina Mark entered through a flap door cut into the side of the house and crawled into her box, calling to the kittens. They tumbled from all corners of the kitchen for their morning bath and breakfast. Stina purred while they nursed, her eyes black slits in pools of yellow.

  A dog growled outside the wide glass door. It must be Happy. With a name like that he apparently wasn’t Swedish.

  Where had Shay found the kittens? And how had she come to be at this place? What was she doing with Brandy’s body now?

  The rattle of the electric icebox kept time with Stina’s contented noise. A clock above the sink ticked soothingly. Brandy slept.

  “Wake up, I say. High time you was eatin’ something. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

  Brandy hadn’t heard Ansel return. The table was set for a meal. Ears of corn, sliced tomatoes, peas, green beans and carrots.

  “Just picked from the garden out back and steamed. Now, what do you think of that?”

  “Mr. St. John, it looks like a feast.” Except for the goat’s milk.

  Ansel cut his corn from the cob and mashed it and everything else on his plate with a fork.

  Brandy politely looked away from the dentures sitting next to his glass and ate until Shay could hold no more.

  “Got you a toothbrush in Boulder. Took some old things my granddaughter left around into the Laundromat and went to the Salvation Army store for more like ’em. You’ll want to be getting out of the house one of these days and you can’t be seen in that outfit. And that hair gets hit by sunlight, it’ll shine like a beacon. Bring every cop for miles. You tie it up in a kerchief and people’ll think Lottie’s back and won’t take no notice.”

  “Mr. St. John, why are you doing all this for me?”

  “Told you. For Stina Mark there. And” – he stood to orate, waving his fork and shirt cuff – “because I don’t think you’re rowing with just one oar, any more than me.” He seemed to have a great deal of energy for so old a man. “You see, Shay Garrett, the WORLD is crazy. You and me know where it’s at.”

  He flopped into his chair and gummed the last of his food. “Now, if you feel up to it, you can do the dishes while I do the chores. I’ll bring your bedding in off the line.”

  No dishwashing machine here, but there was the luxury of hot water piped into the sink. Every dish in the place seemed dirty, stacked wherever there was room. Nora would have been aghast. The cupboards were almost empty. Brandy washed them out first and then began filling them with clean dishes. When she finished
she was tired but had gone a long way toward cleaning up the clutter.

  She crawled gratefully into the washed and aired sheets, awakening rested and stronger the next morning.

  She talked Ansel into removing the piles of newspapers and then swept and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors. She slept all afternoon.

  The next day he brought her a long patterned skirt, a baggy blouse and a kerchief to cover her hair.

  “Time you met the others and got some fresh air,” he said when she’d dressed.

  “There are others living here?”

  “Come on, I’ll show you.” He led her past stale-smelling rooms, out a back door, along a path by a vegetable garden and rusting metal machinery to a board fence and a series of sagging sheds.

  “This here’s Olina,” Ansel announced as a nanny goat bounded up to him. She was joined by her billy, “Oscar,” and two frolicking kids, “Arvid” and “Luvisa.”

  Brandy laughed and was surprised at how it felt. “I suppose they’re all Swedish.”

  Ansel’s big eyes watered. “You’re a picture when you smile. Even in that getup. It’s a JOY to see you mending.” On the word “joy” he raised his arms to heaven. There was something almost religious about him.

  “Mr. St. John, you said I was sent to Stina Mark with the kittens. Do you think God sent me?”

  “God’s for the young and the rich. Us old folk and animals got to look out for ourselves.”

  Tall whitened tree trunks lined one side of the goat yard, barren branches pointing like dead fingers toward the blue depth of morning sky. “What happened to them?”

  “Used to be an irrigation ditch run through here. Dried up because of the town and the drought. Trees couldn’t take it. God don’t care about them neither.”

  “The town is very close.” Boulder sprawled out along the base of the mountains to envelop the prairie until it reached dwellings and roads to the bottom of the long rolling hill on which they stood. “Do you truly believe you can hide me from the police?”