Its likeness to Thorn has not escaped me. I think about the fairy stories of old, the idea of darkness and light. Is it some demonic cousin of his, his opposite? Are they the same species? I have read the Fey book now from back to front, but I can find nothing it its pages like Thorn, nothing that comes close. The little snatches of his past I can gather shed little illumination. His parents are dead, but he remembers his mother. There have been visitors before me, but none of great importance. He has not always been alone here, and yet he feels as if he has.
I have the strangest urge to take his hand, whenever I remember these words of his. I want him to know that he is not alone now, that neither of us are, but I do not. This is but a respite from his loneliness, and soon I will vanish from his side.
I try not to think about this too often, but it haunts the shadows of thought at the back of my mind.
Rain comes to the castle. For a period of almost three days, we are caught in a torrential downpour. Rivers stream from the skies. Silver coats the garden.
I know I should be happy for the rain; the plants need it. But a coldness comes with this weather, and the sun is hidden behind a sheath of water. I miss the warmth, the smell of flowers, the long walks. The rain makes me restless.
I spend some time in the music room, trying to compose, but everything I create sounds angry or sad or melancholy. My fingers eke out only tragic notes, my voice struggles with joy.
I wander around the castle. There is little I haven't explored yet, but any change of scenery is welcome. I return to the hall of mirrors I visited on my first week. It is a strange place: thirteen mirrors wrap around the golden chamber, covering almost every surface of the room. The mirror at the end, larger and grander than any of the others, is obscured by a black sheet. The curious part of me longs to remove it, but when I approach, there is a cold hum behind the sheath, that warns me to stay away.
I turn my attention to the other mirrors instead. I wonder what their purpose is. Was this some kind of vanity room, where nobles would come to see themselves reflected a thousand times from a thousand different angles? Was it some kind of status play, a symbol of wealth and privilege? I veer towards the one beside the black mirror. As I move closer, the glass ripples like water.
My reflection fades away. In its place is water, deep and dark. It is like I am lying at the bottom of the lake. Tiny pinpricks of light glimmer far, far above me. I can almost feel the pressure of the water against my chest. Hard, aching, overwhelming.
I shudder.
The minute I step away, the image vanishes. I return to the frame. It is then I notice that the mirror is titled. Beneath the glass, in miniscule writing, is a single word.
Fear.
I call for Thorn.
“What?” he cries, “What is it?”
“The mirror,” I stammer. “It... it doesn't show my face. It showed me-”
“They're working again?” Thorn's eyes light up. He looks around excitedly.
“They're working?”
“The Hall of Mirrors,” he says, by way of explanation. “Each one has the ability to show you something different. What you desire most, who you really are, what you fear-”
“I'm acquainted with that one,” I say, pointing numbly.
Thorn looks a little guilty. “I'm sorry. What did you see?”
“Water,” I reply. “Deep, deep water.”
“The lake?”
I nod. “I've never liked deep water. I don't like... not knowing what's beneath the surface, or not having my feet on the ground, or being out of my depth.” I stiffen just thinking about it. “What do you see?”
Thorn takes a step back, involuntarily, I think. “I'd rather not see it with my eyes,” he says. He must know exactly what it is already. I wonder if it shows you only one thing. There are so many things I fear, if I think hard enough. Water is relatively mild.
“Now this one,” Thorn says much more jovially, pulling me to a different mirror, “I think you'll really enjoy. This mirror will show you anything in the world, anything real and living.” He points to a little engraving at the top. The present. “It can show you your family, if you like.”
There is nothing in the world I want more. “How does it work?”
“Just step up to the glass, and ask it. You have to ask this one- there is too much in the world for it to show you otherwise.”
I move eagerly towards the frame. “Show me my father,” I ask.
The mirror swirls like ink, then suddenly there is a crystal-clear image of my father, sitting in his study. I gasp. It is like I am there. My fingers press against the glass. It is cold.
Papa looks older than I remember, but the study is just the same. The same faded books and weathered globe. The dried flowers that only I ever replaced. The same pipe. I can almost smell the tobacco. He coughs. I can hear him!
“Show me Beau.”
The mirror swirls again. Beau is in the garden, surrounded by flowers, playing with his little toy soldiers. Hope is sitting on the swing nearby, and Freedom is in the background, target practising against a tree. They all look happy, carefree.
“Show me Honour.”
Honour is in a parlour I do not recognise, a little nicer than ours, just as cosy. I find our clock on the mantelpiece, and spot a vase on a nearby table that used to be Mama's. She is gazing out of the window, knitting contentedly. Just then, Charles comes into the room, leans down and kisses her, and sits down in the chair opposite. Golden wedding bands gleam on their fingers.
“She's married,” I whisper.
“What's that?” Thorn is at my elbow.
“My sister, Honour, she's married.”
Somehow, Thorn knows immediately where my mind has gone, and he sighs. “I'm sorry you missed it. Time does not always flow so perfectly between this world and that one; a part of me hoped you would be home before they missed you-”
“I'm sorry?” I startle incredulously. “Time flows differently between worlds, and you didn't think to mention it when I arrived?”
Thorn hangs his head. “I did think to mention it,” he replies. “But with so little magic left in this place when you arrived, I knew that was highly unlikely to be the case this time. It would have been a false hope I was giving you. I do like to limit the falsehoods between us.”
There should be no falsehoods, I think bitterly, but I try to swallow my anger. He was right, after all.
“How do you know time flows differently?” I ask, as tonelessly as I can manage.
Thorn looks down sheepishly. “I've been known to look in on my previous visitors, every now and again,” he admits. “Just to see... that they're all right.” There is a guiltiness to this confession, more so than simply spying on them.
“I can understand you wanted to make sure they return home safe,” I tell him.
“It's not that,” he says. “I just want to know... that being here didn't hurt them.”
It's then that I recall he was not friends with most of his previous visitors. Six months for them would be much more isolating, much more damaging, if they remained strangers all this time.
“It isn't your fault they come here,” I say, but I struggle with making my words soft. My family have been so long without me. What have I put them through? Yet... my siblings all looked happy enough. And Papa... well, he did look older, but he has never really been happy. I hope he's all right.
Thorn seems to sense my distress. “Would you like to see something else?” he offers. “That one will show you whatever your heart desires, and that one will show you-”
“Why is that one covered?" I ask.
“It's broken,” Thorn replies quickly. “'Tis bad luck to have a broken mirror uncovered.”
“What did it used to show?”
He pauses. “Nothing worth seeing again.”
A chill passes between us. Another restriction, I fear, but this one I feel I can live with. I do not want to know what lurks behind the surface of that glass.
&nb
sp; “A mirror of desires?” I pipe up. “Lost many hours in front of that?”
“Too many,” Thorn admits.
“What did it show you?”
“A very personal question,” he starts to smirk at me. “Why don't you step in front of it, and tell me what it shows you?”
“No!” I say quickly. I cannot help but wonder what it would show me, but I am too afraid to look myself, let alone have Thorn see it. I point to another. “And that one?”
“That is the Mirror of Remembrance- any one that's passed. Then there's the Mirror of Truth-”
“The Mirror of Truth?” I stop him. “What does that show?”
He swallows. “That one shows you for who you really are.”
The thought intrigues me, so I immediately step in front of it. I am disappointed with the result; I look just the same. “Do I look any different to you?” I ask.
Thorn laughs lightly. “You always look the same to me.”
“You have a go.”
His face drops. “No,” he says. “I cannot.”
“You can't?”
“I do not wish to see it.”
“Haven't you ever- aren't you curious?”
“I am not sure I would like what it would show me.”
He thinks he will see a monster.
“Could you not step in front of it for my sake? You can close your eyes!”
Thorn sighs. “You know I would do anything, for your sake.” He closes his eyes obediently, and holds out his hands to be lead. Gently, I lead him forward, and place him next to me in the frame.
Try as I might, a little gasp escapes me when I see our reflections, standing side by side, hand in hand.
“What?” asks Thorn desperately.
“You should open your eyes.”
He turns his head, just enough to face me, but avoiding his reflection. “I would much rather see myself through yours,” he says.
“I see what I already see,” I lean up on the tips of my toes, pull his face to mine, and touch our noses together. Our breath mingles. “I see that you are beautiful.”
Chapter Twelve: Stars on the Ceiling
I try my best to put Thorn's reflection out of mind, but it haunts me, thumbing the back of my mind for days afterwards. I do not look at any of the other mirrors, but I cannot help but feel that the Mirror of Desire would show me something similar, and I feel equally certain that the Mirror of Fear would now cast a very different image.
Why doesn't he want to see? Perhaps if he saw it, he would know, as I do, what he really is...
I do not think that I will visit the room again, although another niggling voice tells me eventually, the desire will be too strong. The mirrors can show me anything; my family, my home, my dreams, my fears, my heart. They can show me, me. Who could avoid that temptation?
They can even show me the past. My mother.
The one thing, Thorn explains, that they cannot show, is the future, which suddenly I find myself wanting to know more than anything else. What is to happen when I go home in ten weeks' time? How is the rest of my life to be changed by what has transpired here?
I am no longer the person I was, and I fear trying to fit myself into the shape I once used to fill.
As the days pass, I put the Hall of Mirrors out of my mind, although I know that Thorn visits it frequently. I am constantly passing along the corridor and finding its door closed, and his absence is touchable. For the following week, Bramble is more my companion than Thorn is, rarely away from my side. He is a hopeless gardener and tends to howl at my music, and sometimes I get cross with Thorn for not looking after him more. But I understand his fascination with the mirrors. They must have been his doorway to the mortal realm long ago; his companions, entertainers and teachers long before me, and they will be with him long after I go.
My nights have been less lonely since Bramble's arrival. It is comforting, after all these dark hours alone, to have someone to share my room with, and, eventually, my bed. I felt swamped by all the space I had before. When I wake from nightmares of faces and shadows, of crying babies and blood-stained bedsheets, his presence is soothing. The darkness no longer feels so absolute when tempered by his soft snores.
Yet my days do feel lonelier. I miss Thorn, but I cannot tell him. I reason that some time apart will be good for us, that it cannot be good for him to rely to closely on my company when I am to leave him, but at the same time... should we not be enjoying what time we have together?
Then, one day, Thorn emerges from the room, and we resume our old routine with renewed vigour. We dine together constantly, with Thorn even suggesting certain menus. Cuisines from countries I have longed to visit, exotic delicacies and foreign extravagances. Each meal becomes and exercise in flavour, a feast for the senses. Some days, he proposes eating elsewhere; picnic lunches beside the lake, breakfasts in the gardens, candlelit dinners out on the balcony. He makes his own additions to grounds, installing a rock garden filled with lavender and a rudimentary swing like the one I have at home. Knowing my wistfulness for Nanny's home-cooked pies, we harvest food together from the orchard and bake dozens of wonky, bursting monstrosities, which taste a lot better than they look and pair beautifully with sunsets, mulled wine and fine company.
Some nights, Thorn sets up the Hall of Mirrors with a cold, buffet-style supper, pulls in several rugs and cushions, and requests one of the mirrors shows us a play. It is a miraculously thing to behold, and we lose hours in front of it, soaking up our favourite stories coming to life, and discussing how we would have done it differently if we were directing.
I am still wary of its power, and wonder what Thorn was watching to come up with all these ideas.
“You didn't... you didn't spy on my childhood, did you?” I ask him one evening.
“The mirrors would never show me what you would not allow me to see,” he explains, seeming a little hurt. “Why? What gave you that impression?”
“The food I've always wanted to eat... the swing like the one I have at home... the plays I adore... I thought you might have got them from watching me.”
“You've mentioned the swing before,” he explains. “And I know you love the idea of travelling. I cannot take you other places, but I thought the cuisine might appeal. As for the plays, you are very forthcoming with your preferences there-” he trails off, looking at me intensely. “What is it?”
It occurs to me I'm staring at him. In the other mirrors, I see an expression that does not convey the depth of the overwhelming pleasure and gratitude and affection that ought to be pouring out of me. He listened. He did all of this because he thought it would please me.
“That's... that's... thank you,” I manage.
“You're welcome.” The intensity of his gaze does not waver.
I swallow, and divert my eyes around the room. “What were you looking at then, if not my life?”
“Inspiration, mostly,” he admits. “Things to do to... entertain you.”
I wonder which mirror held the answer to that, and what questions he had to ask it. I also wonder if entertainment was truly what he had in mind.
I turn back to the performance playing in the mirror before us, and rest my head against Thorn's broad shoulder.
“I've missed this,” I say quietly.
“Watching plays?”
“Being close to someone.” The soft confession glissades out of me. “You know,” I add hurriedly. “Being physically close to someone. Like my sisters, for instance.”
While it’s true that I do miss the physical contact my sisters and I used to share, physical contact with Thorn of any kind was entirely different. For a start, he would rarely touch me without me first touching him. I thought perhaps he was afraid of hurting me –he was so large, after all- but I was starting to feel it might be for gentlemanly reasons, too. James Saintclair was always so careful where he put his hands whenever we were together, always awkwardly conscious of wherever his limbs were. Thorn was not so awkward, but I felt he was
restrained.
I wish he were not so. I miss the way my father used to hold me in his lap, the way my brothers would grab me in the kitchen, or dance with me around the room. I missed the feeling of being held, of having my hair stroked. That gentle link of family, the feeling of owning a little bit of that person, enough to hold them. Enough to know when they wanted to be held.
Thorn stares at me solidly for a moment, and then laughs lightly. “Ah, Rose, you truly know how to compliment a man!”
If he realises what he has just said, he does not acknowledge it. My mouth freezes in a smile; it takes me a moment too. Without really thinking, I lean forward and kiss his cheek, inhale the scent of pine and wood smoke.
“What was that for?” he asks. He blinks, and I wonder if he is blushing. Can a beast blush?
A man can.
“If you have to ask, you shall never know,” I smile, and pick myself off the floor. I cannot help but twirl as I head towards the door.
“But… where are you going?”
“An evening walk,” I announce. “Are you coming?”
There are stars on my ceiling as I dream that night. They swirl above the gossamer, glittering, twinkling like bells. I dream the stars have voices.
“She kissed him!” says a high, young voice.
Another one groans. “That was not a kiss.”
“He looked like he enjoyed it.”
“He can enjoy it all he likes,” a matronly one replies. “It's her we've got to worry about.”
A silence passes between them.
“She still can't see us, can she? After everything we do for her!”
“She saw us outside of the chamber! I think she even felt Ariel kick her.”
“But she hasn't noticed us since.”
“I think she will surprise us. She certainly surprises him.”
“He can't see us either.”
“Not yet. But soon, I hope.”
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