Mirror Magic

by Claire Fayers

  The sound of bones echoed through the House of Forgotten Mirrors. Howell tried to cry out but his voice had abandoned him. A skeleton stepped out of the shadows towards him, one hand outstretched. The dark bones glistened, the colour of bronze, and the empty eye sockets burned like candle flames.

  ‘Howell Fletcher,’ the lipless mouth whispered. ‘You will come to Waxing Gibbous.’

  The last word ended on a long hiss of air. Howell felt a low moan rise in his chest. All the stories he’d heard about Mr Bones’s skeletons were true.

  The skeleton advanced on him, but he couldn’t move – he couldn’t even remember how to move. He stood frozen, not even able to blink and shut out the sight of the gaping eye sockets.

  Then he felt Lunette’s hand on his arm. She pushed him behind her, pushed her bag into his arms. ‘Protect The Book,’ she said, and tossed her hat on to the floor. It changed instantly, the tiger swishing its tail through the fallen sheets.

  Howell gripped Lunette’s bag, his arms sagging under the weight. This wasn’t happening. It was a dream – a nightmare, more like. He’d wake up any minute and find himself safe in bed.

  The tiger pounced. The skeleton grabbed it round the middle.

  ‘Unfortunately, it is only an illusion,’ Lunette murmured. ‘Most people run away before they find that out.’

  The skeleton thrust a bone hand right inside the tiger. It roared once, then vanished.

  The bag slipped from Howell’s grip.

  The skeleton tore Lunette’s hat in half and threw the pieces aside. ‘The boy,’ it whispered. Its voice was like cold mist, filling the whole gallery, smelling of sickness and decay.

  Lunette picked up the hat-coat stand and swung it. It was big and clumsy, but it drove the skeleton back a step.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, her voice coming in short gasps. ‘I’m sure it’s not as dangerous as it looks.’

  They were going to die, Howell thought. Master Tudur would find his body here, or Will would, if Will was still alive – maybe the skeleton had killed him already. The thought wasn’t any comfort.

  Lunette swung the coat-stand again. The skeleton caught it and wrenched it out of her grip. The fear that had held Howell immobile snapped. His ears filled up with a roaring sound.

  ‘Let her go!’ he shouted. He snatched up a dust sheet and lashed out with it wildly, hitting a mirror instead.

  The glass turned to mist and then cleared. Howell saw Ava’s startled face looking out at him.

  Relief coursed through him. ‘Ava!’ he cried. ‘Invite us through!’

  Ava stared at him stupidly. ‘What?’

  She was arguing? When he was about to be murdered. ‘Do it!’

  The skeleton threw the coat-stand aside and grabbed Howell instead. Howell screamed and struck out but the bone hands held him fast.

  ‘Howell!’ Lunette shouted. She picked up the fallen coat-stand and hit the skeleton with it. The skeleton staggered sideways, its grip loosening enough for Howell to struggle free. He landed hard on his hands and knees, facing the mirror where Ava watched.

  Finally she seemed to understand something was wrong. She struck the glass from her side. ‘Come through. I order you to come through.’

  Howell scrambled back to his feet, looked around to find Lunette and saw her right behind him.

  ‘Go!’ she shouted. She shoved him at the glass. The mirror turned to mist. Howell yelled. Bone hands groped for him, but he was already falling out of reach, his hands twisting into Lunette’s dress as the Unworld disappeared around him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Is it safe to come out yet? Don’t blame me for hiding. You people should take better care of books. Don’t crease our spines, don’t bend our corners and, above all, keep us away from angry skeletons.

  The Book

  Ava stumbled back, shielding her eyes as the mirror turned bright with mist. A second later, Howell burst out backwards into her, and, before Ava could recover, a lady with pink hair fell through as well, and landed on top of them both.

  The front door banged. Ava squirmed free and stood up. ‘What in the world . . .’

  A hand appeared in the mirror – a hand made entirely of bone.

  ‘Don’t let it through!’ Howell shouted.

  Ava didn’t think. She grabbed the poker from the fireside and hit the mirror as hard as she could. She couldn’t see the glass for mist, but she heard it break – a crack louder than lightning, as if something far more than ordinary glass had shattered. Bone fingers wrapped round her wrist. She screamed and hit the mirror again. The skeletal grip loosened, the hand turning grey as it dissolved back into the mist. As the first shards of glass began to fall on to the carpet, it vanished.

  Ava stood panting, still clutching the poker.

  ‘You broke the mirror,’ Howell said. His eyes were round, his face pale beneath the green spikes of his hair.

  ‘I know. Are you all right?’

  He nodded and put a hand in his pocket. ‘I . . .’

  The door flew open.

  Mrs Footer shrieked. ‘My mirror!’

  Ava groaned. ‘Mrs Footer, please let me explain.’

  ‘Explain what?’ Then she saw Howell, and the lady with pink hair, and she screamed again. ‘You invited strangers into my house!’

  Howell tried to sidle towards the door.

  Mrs Footer caught him by the ear. ‘You stay where you are. I’m calling the police.’

  ‘Let me go!’ Howell flailed at her, his closed fist striking her in the middle. The room filled with silver light and the musky scent of lavender.

  Ava sneezed.

  The light faded back to normal.

  Mrs Footer was gone. In her place . . .

  Ava rubbed her eyes, blinked and rubbed her eyes again, unable to believe what she was seeing . . .

  Where Mrs Footer had been standing, a small black and white dog danced about on the carpet, yapping frantically.

  If that was an illusion, it was the best one Ava had ever seen.

  The Unworld lady cleared her throat delicately. ‘Um, hello, my name is Lunette. I’m very pleased to meet you. The weather is pleasant for the time of year.’

  Ava tore her gaze away from Mrs Footer. ‘What?’

  Lunette smiled and shrugged. ‘I thought humans always talked about the weather.’

  Ava shook her head, trying to focus. ‘No. Not always. Sometimes we talk about things like . . . what on earth are you doing here and why is Mrs Footer a dog?’ Her voice shook. She put a hand out to the dog, expecting to feel Mrs Footer’s bonnet, but her fingers touched a pair of floppy ears, and short, scratchy hair.

  Howell backed away. ‘That’s a dog? I’ve heard stories about your dogs – they eat people.’

  ‘What? No they don’t.’ Ava hoped this was a dream because none of it was making any sense. What was Matthew going to say when he found out? She sucked in a breath. ‘Turn Mrs Footer back at once.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Howell said. ‘That was your enchantment, to reveal the truth about someone.

  ‘I got it from my aunt,’ Lunette said, nibbling her bottom lip worriedly. ‘I’m sure it’ll wear off eventually.’

  Ava crouched down to study the little dog. She couldn’t see any aura from the enchantment, no sign that Mrs Footer was anything other than a common terrier. If the cheap enchantments in the souvenir shops could last a few weeks, how long would this one last?

  And then, as if the evening wasn’t bad enough, Ava heard Charles in the hall.

  ‘Ava? I heard shouting. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Don’t come in,’ Ava shouted, just as Charles appeared in the doorway. His mouth fell open.

  ‘Fair Folk,’ he said. ‘Wow.’

  For several seconds no one moved. Ava spoke first. ‘Um, this is my friend, Charles Brunel,’ she said. ‘Charles, these are Howell and Lunette from Unwyse.’

  ‘Actually, I’m from Unlyme,’ Lunette murmured. She held out her hand to Charles. ‘Pleased to
meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ He shook hands, a huge grin on his face. ‘My mother is the secretary for the League for Freedom for Fair Folk.’ His gaze fell on the dog. ‘Ava, if you’d said you had a dog, I needn’t have lied to Mrs Footer.’

  ‘That is Mrs Footer,’ Ava said. ‘Howell enchanted her by mistake.’

  Charles’s eyes popped. ‘Really? It’s a good enchantment. Isn’t she going to be cross when she turns back?’

  ‘I expect so.’ Ava pulled off her bonnet and ran a hand through her hair. She needed Charles to be serious and he was treating this like a game. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Well, Mum did want to invite you to dinner,’ Charles said. ‘And my house is closer. Why don’t we go there?’ He picked a piece of glass off the carpet and breathed on it, turning its surface to mist, then placed it carefully back down.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Ava said uncertainly. Going to the Brunels’ house would at least delay the moment when she had to face Matthew. ‘Thank you.’

  Lunette opened her bag and pulled out a wide-brimmed yellow-silk creation that really shouldn’t have fitted in there. ‘My camouflage hat,’ she said, putting it on.

  Ava couldn’t imagine something more likely to draw attention – except maybe here in Wyse, where every holidaymaker competed to stand out.

  Charles sniffed. ‘Can anyone smell apples, by the way?’

  Ava could smell it too. She looked back at the broken mirror. A thin strand of white mist was curling out. As she watched, it sank into the carpet and, where it touched, the carpet turned the same yellow as Lunette’s hat.

  ‘What’s that?’ Ava asked, but by the time Charles looked, it had already gone back to normal.

  CHAPTER 15

  One of the problems is that human people don’t really believe in magic any more. It is a curiosity, entertaining and with just enough danger to make it interesting, like a fast carriage ride through the park.

  Most fairy magic is not like that, but, by the time you humans learn that, it is usually too late.

  Those bits of broken mirror, for example. Some of them are turning misty. But you probably don’t care.

  The Book

  No mist. That was Howell’s first thought. The evening air was warm and clear, and in the naked moonlight all the edges of the houses stood out in sharp focus. The air didn’t smell of anything, either; instead, scent came in gusts from houses as they passed: food cooking, over-sweet perfume from gardens. Every time a new smell hit him, it made him want to sneeze.

  Charles and Ava hurried on and didn’t seem to notice the lack of mist. Maybe the human world was supposed to be like this.

  ‘How long have you two been communicating?’ Charles asked.

  Ava glanced back at Howell. ‘Since about a week ago.’

  ‘And you didn’t say?’

  ‘What was I supposed to say – “Hello, Charles, isn’t the weather nice and, by the way, I’ve been talking to one of the Fair Folk through a mirror that shouldn’t work”?’ She smiled, but Howell saw the worry in her eyes.

  He hadn’t been the only one who’d struggled to keep this secret, he thought. Well, the secret was out now.

  ‘Don’t ask me what happened,’ he said. ‘All I know is I was cleaning the mirror when Ava appeared in it.’

  Oddly, Charles appeared pleased. ‘It’s a mystery, then. Good.’

  It might be good for Charles. He wasn’t the one stuck in the wrong world.

  A carriage rattled by, covered all over in poor-quality enchantments. The two horses seemed impossibly large in the narrow street. Howell shrank back from them.

  ‘Don’t you have horses in Unwyse?’ Charles asked.

  ‘Of course we do. But they’re all wild.’ Unworld horses had manes and tails of pure flame. If you were silly enough to try harnessing them to a carriage, they’d burn it to a cinder. Howell looked down at Mrs Footer, running along beside Ava. He wasn’t sure he liked this bright, too-warm world where nothing was as it should be.

  They turned a corner on to a road where a large, stone building with a cross above the door stood opposite a row of houses. Charles knocked on the second door.

  How did humans greet each other? Howell wondered. Before he could ask, the door opened. A large, dark-haired lady stood there, wiping her hands on an apron.

  ‘Charles, where have you . . .’ she began and broke off. ‘Oh, my. You’d better all come inside.’

  Until today, the only thing Howell had known for certain about humans was they had no magic of their own and so they kept demanding enchantments to make their lives easier. But Charles’s mother was a whirlwind of activity. First she sent Charles’s sisters to fetch Ava’s brother, and then she made Howell and Lunette sit by the fire, asked every minute if they were all right and brought them cups of something she said was tea, though it was pale brown instead of blue and tasted milky and sweet. Howell considered asking if she had any salt he could add, but everyone else seemed to be drinking it happily so he sipped his slowly, hoping he’d get used to it.

  ‘Shall I put your bag somewhere safe?’ Mr Brunel offered.

  Lunette shook her head. She’d taken off her hat and her hair drooped in pink curls. ‘Thank you, but it’s safest here with me.’

  Howell was wondering where Ava had gone when she came into the room. ‘Mrs Footer is in the kitchen. Thank you for letting us stay here.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Mrs Brunel. ‘More tea, anyone?’

  Howell shook his head. He wished everyone would stop smiling at him; it was unnerving.

  ‘This is so amazing,’ Charles said.

  Howell didn’t think any of it was amazing. It was unreal, terrifying. He was in Wyse; he’d been attacked by a skeleton. He hunched lower in his chair. The skeleton had to be Mr Bones’s doing – but why would Mr Bones send a skeleton after him? He could have found Howell in the House of Forgotten Mirrors any time.

  Because of Lunette and The Book, of course, he thought. Mr Bones wanted The Book and he must have found out Lunette was looking for Howell. That was why he’d kept asking if Howell had seen her – he was hoping Howell would lead him to her.

  Howell shuddered. If Ava hadn’t called him through the mirror, he and Lunette would be prisoners by now.

  Then the door opened and Charles’s two sisters came in, accompanied by a young man with frizzy brown hair and wide, worried grey eyes.

  Ava jumped up. ‘Matthew. I can explain.’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ Matthew said. ‘Your friends were babbling about fairy visitors and people turning into dogs, and . . .’ He stopped, his mouth still open. A few strangled sounds came out of it while his face turned the same strawberry pink as Lunette’s hair.

  Lunette stood. ‘Please don’t be angry at Ava. She saved our lives. If she hadn’t invited us through the mirror, Howell and I would have been dragged into captivity by a skeleton.’

  Matthew’s cheeks tried out several shades from strawberry to plum and back. ‘It’s no bother,’ he said weakly. He sat down heavily, clutching his hat on his lap. ‘A skeleton? Will someone please tell me what is going on?’

  Howell let Ava do most of the talking: she seemed to want to. He sat, his empty teacup on his knee, trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed how Charles’s sisters kept staring at his hair. In the end, Mrs Brunel shooed them both out and shut the door firmly.

  ‘They won’t tell anyone,’ she whispered to Howell. ‘None of us will.’

  He ought to have felt grateful, but he didn’t have room for anything besides bewilderment.

  ‘. . . And then Mrs Footer turned into a dog,’ Ava said. ‘A real dog.’

  Matthew almost dropped his cup. ‘That’s impossible. Fairy magic is only illusion.’

  ‘You’d be surprised what fairy magic can do,’ Lunette said. ‘Magic brings things to life, it transforms and destroys. It all depends on what kind of magic is used and who uses it.’

  Once again, Howell saw a pair of skeleton hands reac
hing for him, and his teacup rattled in its saucer.

  ‘Where is Mrs Footer now?’ Matthew asked.

  Ava picked at her skirt. ‘The kitchen. Mrs Brunel found her a bone.’

  Matthew smiled at this, and quickly covered it up with a stern frown.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Ava said. ‘The enchantment was meant for Lord Skinner.’

  ‘You wanted to turn Lord Skinner into a dog?’

  ‘No, I wanted to find out the truth about him.’

  ‘The enchantment brings out a person’s true nature,’ Lunette explained with an apologetic shrug. ‘It appears your Mrs Footer was doggish. The enchantment will wear off in time.’

  Matthew heaved a sigh and slumped back in his chair. Howell couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He looked nice – nice, and confused, and slightly battered by all this information.

  ‘I suppose we shall just have to tell Mr Footer everything,’ Matthew said. ‘He might be able to take the enchantment off. And he can send Lunette and Howell back to the Unworld.’ He cast a glance at Lunette and blushed again. ‘I assume he can. I don’t really know how these things work.’

  Howell felt a prickle of alarm across his back. They couldn’t go back, though, not now. ‘Every working mirror in Wyse is paired to one in Unwyse,’ he said, ‘and all the Unwyse mirrors are in the Mirror Station. If we go back, that’s where we’ll end up, and Mr Bones will be waiting for us.’

  ‘Mr Bones?’ asked Matthew.

  Howell really didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Mr Bones rules Unwyse. People say he saved the last mirrors when all the others were dying. And he can create skeletons out of mist to hunt down people who disobey him.’

  ‘People like you, you mean,’ Matthew said. ‘What did you do to make him come after you?’

  Howell hunched his shoulders and said nothing.

  ‘It’s not what we did,’ Lunette said. ‘It’s what we’re guarding.’

  Howell caught his breath. They’d only just met these humans and, though he liked them, he didn’t know how much they could trust them.

  Lunette, however, seemed entirely unconcerned as she reached into her bag and laid The Book on her lap. ‘This is The Book,’ she said, opening it. ‘It foretells the future – in a manner of speaking. It’s not being very helpful at the moment.’