The Real Folktale Blues (Beyond Ever After #1)

by Random Jordan

  No, perverts. It was the baby fox lying between my knees, likely trying to stay warm too.

  I propped myself up with one of my arms on the stone and let out all the air in my chest. The little fox joined me with a yawning cry.

  “Tired huh?” I nodded down to the little beast. All it seemed to do since I found it was sleep and yawn. “Me too.”

  It lifted its head up and yipped a cry at me, which I figured meant something along the lines of “Also Cold.”

  “Yeah, well you seem to be enjoying keeping yourself warm. And comfortable.” I smiled at the fox and it grinned back at me with slits for eyes. I leaned forward and scooped it up from between my legs to hold the baby fox against my chest. It yipped again.

  “So you got any idea where we are?” I asked. I have no idea why I was asking a fox. All I got as an answer was a rolling high-pitched yawn.

  “You’re getting better at the yawns. Think you can work up to a growl?”

  The fox yipped a reply and popped up in my arms. I laughed before standing up and taking a look around.

  Stone was everywhere around me except for a small hole in the wall as a window, which had only faint light coming through it to fill the rest of the room. There was also a long wall mirror with interesting gold framing, crimson stains scattered on the floor, and best of all was the foul scent in the air.

  Nothing like the smell of death in the morning to get your day going.

  My feet didn’t even make a beat against the cold stone as I stepped up close to the mirror. I set the fox down on the floor next to me. It tried to take a few steps but fell over and just decided to stay on the stone.

  “Quitter.” I teased the fox before looking up at myself in the mirror.

  Faerie Fudge...

  It wasn’t a pretty sight. Not even remotely.

  Raspberry tangles of hair surrounded my face all the way down to matted ends hanging over my shoulders. If you tossed a couple of birds, a few twigs and leaves, and some bird eggs into my hair, I might as well have changed my job status to: Pale bush. My dulled sapphire eyes were studded with blood-red pain. The bruises I was wearing across my sunken cheeks, along the thin bridge of my nose and against my rounded jaw suggested I was hit in the face repeatedly while I had been passed out.

  The rest of my body wasn’t fairing much better either. About the only thing I had more of than goose bumps on my stubby arms and legs were oozing wounds and bruises. A lot of old wounds were even reopened and recently too. Most of my skin was crusted over in blood and dust. I didn’t have my red cloak, but it almost looked like I was still wearing it.

  Someone had been ripping away at my body and continually knocking me out to keep me from waking up. That meant they didn’t want me talking to them. Considering how beaten I looked, it seemed unlikely whoever it was would have let me wake up before they were done with me too.

  The fox at my feet barked up a little noise while I touched a few wounds to see how tender or intense they were. I was in pain, but nothing I had sustained would put me even close to risk of death, other than maybe the head wounds. Whoever did it knew what they were doing and how.

  But why did they not want to face me while awake?

  Actually, why the fey did they take everything away from me… except for the fox?

  I glared down at the fox. It looked up at me and blinked nonchalantly.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think you were capable of deceit yet.” I sighed and looked back into the mirror.

  I’m not exactly the most carefully pruned person around, but I do at least try to keep to the basics of hygiene. Generally you aren’t considered hygienic when you are covered in blood, bruises and puss to the degree that I was. I tried to get out some of the tangles in my hair with my fingers at least enough to where I could brush it around a bit. Then I cleaned off as much dry blood as I could and dug out the crud under my nails after that.

  I looked like polished faerie fudge when I was done, but at least I was polished.

  It wasn’t even until I was looking at my self-pruned finished product that I noticed something was different from the Mirror room compared to the room I was in.

  Midnight Magic!

  I can’t believe I didn’t even notice it before. Other than what I figured was blood drenching the floor and the little fox at my feet there wasn’t anything else on the ground in the room. But the mirror room had a pile of clothes off in the darkest corner with my red cloak draped over them.

  At least I think it was my cloak.

  I pressed my hand against the mirror. Beyond the shimmer of light against the reflection, nothing changed. I didn’t fall through it or anything.

  It was just one of the many ways I could check to see if anything was in the mirror. Things live in the mirrors in about the same way things live in houses. Some of them help you, some of them play tricks on you, some of them even steal you, and some just ignore you. You never really know. I lived with a mirror spirit in my hand mirror for six years before I realized it was there.

  Because of that, I learned that some looking glasses were born with spirits in them. Mirror spirits.

  Each one with their own name, and will. Apparently a favorite of many witches, though the one I knew was so terrible no one but a severely wicked witch would want it.

  The one I knew liked poetry as well. In fact that was the only way it would allow being talked to.

  “Mirror, Mirror on this wall. Show me who I had been maul…ed by.” Okay, so I am not the greatest with poetry. Turn me into a frog if you got a problem with it.

  I heard a laugh pretty much immediately. It sure wasn’t coming from me, or the sleeping fox at my feet. After a few moments the fox in the looking-glass sat up and looked at me, its mouth open in a big vulpine grin. The fox lying on my feet was still out cold.

  Oh, that is so not peachy. I look so bad that the mirror creature liked a fox’s reflection better than my own. That just does wonders to my self-esteem.

  Stupid cute baby fox.

  “The last thing you should be doing is Poetry. Stick to being a gore tree, you seem good at that.” The fox in the mirror gleamed its little teeth and let out another cackle. I would have punched the mirror, but I was stunned more than anything.

  “I thought all you spirits in mirrors were poetic types?”

  “Even if I was, I could not stand your dreadful lyrics long enough to have a conversation with you. But we are not all into the poetry talking thing. That is one of the biggest stereotypes I’ve ever heard.” The mirror fox explained while padding about on its tiny paws in the darker room.

  “Okay. Can you tell me what happened? Why I am here? Why the fox is here? Where Goldie is?”

  “Yes. No. Yes. No.”

  “Care to elaborate?” I swung my hip and dropped a fist on it while eyeing the fox’s reflection.

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” The mirror spirit began while taking a few sniffs as it trotted about the stone room, “I am no faerie folly.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You want something in return…”

  “Obviously.” The copy fox paused in step and looked up. “Information can be costly, yes?”

  I didn’t even have to ask what the spirit wanted. “Let me guess. Information for the price of freedom?”

  “Actually, yes.” The spirit sounded surprised.

  “No way. I need something else for that kind of cost.”

  The spirit fox stomped a paw down in annoyance. “Well, what then? I don’t even have a body to give you.”

  “I don’t want your body anyway!” I screeched before calming myself.

  “I don’t know; you could probably do for a new body, considering the way that one looks.”

  I hit the mirror with my fist lightly and growled. “Don’t make me come through this thing and strangle you, spirit.”

  “My, my… Someone is touchy.”

  “Stop it.” I slammed my hand against the mirror again, watching it shimme
r and ripple, which drew my attention to the clothes pile in the looking glass.

  “There.” I pointed and the fox in the mirror turned to look. “I want the clothes in there. Get them and give me the information and I’ll free you.”

  The mirror spirit turned back with wide foxy eyes while I tried to at least seem a little calmer. “What clothes?”

  I shook my head in bewilderment and poked the mirror as I pointed again. “Right there. In the corner. How can you miss it?”

  The copy fox looked again then turned back. “The only thing in that corner is a giant hole in the wall.”

  “What? Are we looking at the same corner? Clothes, with a red cloak…” I pointed again as if it would help my case. “Right there!”

  Was I really dealing with someone who couldn’t see what was right in front of them?

  The fox strolled up against the glass and eyed me in silence for far too long before saying, “You don’t understand the concept of mirrors, do you?”

  “What?”

  The mirror spirit sighed and lowered its borrowed fox head. “They bend things, warp reality and distort perception. How do you not know that?”

  The spirit had a point… but, “How do you know that?”

  “Because I…” The mirror fox began but we both finished the sentence at the same time.

  “…am not a faerie folly.”

  I blew out a deep breath and my head folded down to press into the glass. “I should have known mirrors distort perception. I just didn’t think it was so literal.”

  “Then you have not dealt with very much magic before the current spell that brought you here.”

  My head lifted up and I stared into the looking glass. The spirit must have realized it gave away some information because it groaned then added, “Do not think that is all I know.”

  “I don’t. But I also don’t think I have a reason to believe you and I can just walk out of here. You can’t. So you should be convincing me to help you, right?”

  “But you want to know what happened.”

  “I can figure it out.” I shrugged and turned away from the mirror.

  “No, wait.” The mirror fox pressed paws against the glass as I looked back, waiting. “The dragon sent you right? To take me away from here. Please, it must be you.”

  My mouth dropped open. “D-dragon? Why would I have been sent here by a dragon? And looking like this?!” I waved my hands like I was showcasing my naked body as a feast.

  “I can’t tell you that. Not until you agree to free me.” The spirit dropped paws back down to the ground and paced.

  I took another deep breath and glanced away. “Fine. I’ll free you for information, but I also want that cloak, where ever it is in the mirror.”

  “Seriously?” The look glass fox seemed stunned.

  “Why not? You deserve to be free like anyone.”

  “Then you must have been sent by the dragon!” The spirit exclaimed and jumped around excitedly.

  “Calm down.” I shook my head and pressed my hand to the mirror. “I wasn’t sent by anyone and I need to know how I can free you first, because you definitely aren’t taking my body.”

  “But…” The fox’s reflection stopped and looked up with beady eyes. “That eliminates two possibilities.”

  “And what are the others?” I asked, while leaning in close to try and relax against the mirror even briefly.

  “I can take the fox’s body and he would take my place in here.”

  I shook my head and my forehead rubbed against the glass. I knew I couldn’t do that to the little furball. “No, what else?”

  The spirit groaned. “The only thing left would be something like a possession. It would be me sharing a body with the fox. He’d still be the same, mostly.”

  I moved my arm and eyed the reflection. “Mostly?”

  “He’d have to eat more and I could take control if I ever want to. That’s all.”

  I shivered and glanced down to the fox at my feet. “Oh, that’s all?”

  “Yes, but it is a free will thing. I can’t take a body without permission first.” The copy fox cleared its throat. “That could be a problem.”

  “Not at all.” I explained to the mirror creature before bending over and picking up the cute little monster at my feet. I held it in front of my face, under its front armpits. The fox opened an eye and yawned again like there was no way I could ever possibly hurt it.

  Then it promptly began to piss on me.

  Yeah, piss on me.

  I yanked the fox to the side and tossed my head away while it finished peeing to the stone floor. When it finished it looked toward me and grinned that blasted vulpine smile, teeth bared and everything.

  “Oh, you are so agreeing to this now.” I gritted my teeth and gave the fox my best impression of an evil eye while adding musky piss to the list of scents mixed with mine. Among them was blood, death, mud, some Pixie Path glitter and the lingering honey-porridge smell of Goldie.

  The fox just yawned at me again like it didn’t care. This had to be the most laid back and annoying fox ever.

  I always get involved with the crazy ones.

  I turned the fox’s face toward the mirror. “You okay with a boy?”

  “Boy, girl, ham sandwich. What do I care? As long as I get out and whatever I inhabit can get from one place to another, I’m good.”

  “Good enough for me.” I shrugged and set the little fox back down before it could do anything else to me that would make me regret ever getting it out of that heart. “Now my information and my cloak.”

  “Oooh. Uh…” The mirror spirit began and I turned my evil eye impression on it now.

  “Don’t even tell me you can’t find my cloak in there. How hard can it be?” I shook my head.

  “Well… uh…”

  I almost lost control and punched hard against the mirror. But I managed to get by with just clenching a fist and my jaw. “Just tell me.”

  “Well… that hole I told you about? It leads to an area that is… well…large.” The copy fox explained.

  “So, start looking.” I offered with a little side dish of rage.

  The spirit scoffed. “With these paws?”

  “Faerie Fudge.” I cursed. If things could get any more complicated, then I didn’t have the imagination to produce such possibilities.

  “Okay. “ I grabbed and rubbed at my eyebrows. “Give me the information I wanted then we can figure out how you are getting my cloak. What happened to me?”

  “Magic. Mostly. Specifically a magic that only dragons use. I guess you would call it draconic magic maybe?” The fox nodded a few times while explaining.

  “And?”

  “It means either you had a run in with a dragon like the one who had put me in this mirror, or someone who can do dragon magic. When you dropped into that room, you were dead. I would have been shocked that you could wake up at all if I hadn’t noticed the person who was here around the same time.” The fox sat still nodding a bit while thinking it over. The real fox had sat too, looking into the mirror with me.

  “You know the person who did this to me?” I asked crossing my arms at my chest, mostly for warmth.

  “Know would be stretching it. Some humanoid in a hood came to me and asked me if I would like to be freed from the mirror. Of course I said yes. It was that same person that was here when you were and they blew a hole in my wall with the same magic that brought you here.”

  I shook my head before glancing back down at the real fox with a frown. “Well there goes my theory that it had been Goldie or Bonny to have knocked me out. Are you saying that person is a dragon? And it was definitely only one person?”

  “Oh, there were others, but the hooded person was the only one that did anything or said anything and the only one that showed draconic magic. They didn’t look like any dragon I knew though.” The mirror fox said while standing back up.

  “What color was the hood?”

  “A blue-ish I think. It was d
ark for sure. But it seemed to have a little blue tint to it. I could show you.” The looking-glass-fox licked at a paw, after seeing the real fox do it.

  “Show me? Show me!”

  “Fine, fine.” The fox in the mirror twirled around then took a step back before there was no fox in the mirror anymore.

  Instantly there stood a figure cloaked heavily in a deep dark blue to the point of almost being black, from head to toe. The person might as well have looked like me when I wore my red cloak, except for one thing.

  The eyes.

  The eyes were glowing a brilliant purple, almost to the point that it looked like lightning was firing from them. The entirety of the eyes were consumed by that color and glow. In some way, they almost looked like Bonny’s eye, but far different, more consuming and unnerving to see.

  I glanced away and waved my hand, pulling from the mirror. “That’s enough. They all look like that?”

  “Yes.” I heard the cloaked figure in the mirror say before it was suddenly the fox again, near the floor.

  “Then Bonny might still be involved in this. She had an eye similar to those. Though I don’t know why. This isn’t Charming’s style. Nor would it make sense for him to remove me before I even got around to getting his… job done.” I mulled over the thought with a picture of Bonny’s electrical purple eye pressing in my mind. The mirror fox watched me squirm.

  “Okay, you said you could tell me why the fox is here?” I rubbed my arms to generate a little heat. My feet were tingling and starting to fall asleep again since the fox wasn’t laying on them anymore.

  “Oh yeah, he came running right out of the hole in the wall on this side and through the mirror to you. The little guy cuddled up with you as soon as he was able to. He tried licking you to wake you up, but you were still out.”

  I contorted my lips oddly, which wasn’t hard considering the damage on my face already. The real fox glanced up at me with sad squinty eyes and my face started to hurt when I tried smiling at him. “Then the fox could have come from where my cloak is?”

  “Yes, possibly, if it is in here.”

  I nodded softly while soaking up the information, and then glanced back to the fox’s reflection. “And if I go into the mirror, would I be able to get out like him?”