by Holly Hook
It was the friendliest thing he had said to me so far. “No thanks.”
The officer left me sitting there in his office. Stephanie would be freaking out right now. Both of us were gone. Sara and I had never done that to her before. Heck, I had never done that to her before. Where was I supposed to go when I had no car and most people considered us trouble?
And this was the result of me daring to step outside my bounds today.
Sara didn’t have to deal with this. She was the sweet girl. I was what people expected out of Haven House.
I waited in that office for a long time, but the officer never returned. Somewhere, a phone rang. Fifteen minutes turned into half an hour and I wondered what the officer was doing. Maybe he was trying to test my patience.
I didn’t have patience anymore.
I got up, opened the door, and made sure no one was in the hall. All clear. The police station wasn’t very big and I made my way down the hallway to the back of the place. Someone spoke in a low voice behind the door and I paused for a second, but it was two women talking about a garden and what hadn’t come up this year. I didn’t want to hear about gardens. I kept going, to the very back two doors of the station.
There.
A man was laughing and it sure wasn’t sane. His laugh echoed out in the hall towards me and a chill ran down my spine. I’d heard this laugh before, many times. I was sure of it. It was there in the back of my mind along with the word Fable.
“Could you stop that for one second and answer our questions?” the older officer asked. “Why did you harass that girl and show off your knife if you didn’t mean to hurt her? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”
The man giggled again. “I wasn’t going to stab her,” he said. “Why are you holding me here? The laws of this world are strange. Who is your king or queen?”
“Crazy,” a female officer muttered.
“So what world are you from?” the male officer asked.
“Fable. I told you. Fable. I came through the mirror. The magician sent me to help her.”
The laughing had stopped. The man sounded completely serious now. I tensed, waiting for someone to come around the corner of the hallway, but they never did. I couldn’t move, anyway. I was too riveted by the conversation going on inside the interrogation room.
“We don’t have a king or queen,” the male officer said. “Did someone send you to hurt this girl? Who is the man you’re talking about? The magician?”
“We won’t be able to use any of this in court,” the woman said.
“Alric,” the man said. “He helped me get here. To this world.”
The name exploded in my mind. Alric. I had heard that one before, too.
And I didn't like the sound of that name.
"The story has to fall," the crazy hunter continued. "All her rival has to do is die." The man laughed again. Alric had chosen a crazy guy to come and kill me. Well, at least he had no chance of getting out of here. "I swear, I only came here to help him and help her. Why hasn't she come here to get me out?"
I snorted. Sara was too busy shacking up with Eric to come rescue this creep. Even if she wasn't, I couldn't imagine her doing so. Not if Sara had any sanity.
"Mara."
I jumped. Stephanie stood there and she didn't look happy. In fact, she was practically scowling at me.
"They called you," I said. "Please. I don't need that. I've had a really, really long and crappy day."
"They did call me," she said. "The chief explained to me everything that happened. We're going home. You need to be away from this."
"Not until I figure out why all this happened," I said, raising my hand to knock on the door. "In case you haven't heard, I almost got stabbed."
"Which is why you need to go home," Stephanie said. "The police want me to take you out of here. That man is crazy from what I understand."
"I need to figure out why he tried to stab me," I said. I wasn't moving. Stephanie was just the lady who ran Haven House.
Or was she?
Stephanie had been sitting in the den with those seven little men that I hadn't seen since that night.
Or maybe I just thought she had.
"Come on," she ordered. "Mara--you need to come home and go to bed."
"Doesn't Sara need to come home, too?" I blurted. "She's over at Eric's house. Who knows what they're doing, and you're mad at me because I went to Wal-Mart? How awful!"
My comments did nothing to soften up Stephanie. Her face got harder than ever behind her glasses. "Get in the car," she said. "Sara called me. She's all right. I'm not worried about her. But you need to get back into Haven House pronto."
Stephanie had never talked this way to me before. At least, I didn't remember it. "But this guy," I said. "I have to hear what he's saying." I wanted to scream with the frustration. I was in the middle of some fairy tale nightmare and my life was on the line. "I want to know why all this stuff has been happening to me!"
Stephanie sighed. "Can you stop giving me a hard time? I don't want to have another girl committed. It's the last thing I need."
"Committed?" I asked. I lost it. "You think I'm crazy? If you want crazy, go in that interrogation room! Or ask Sara. She's the one who's crazy. I think she wants to hurt us." Everyone was turning against me. Everyone except for Moanna. Even the boys at Haven House were looking at me strange. The man in black could be affecting them with some curse. Or Sara was helping. Or they were working together. Whatever.
"Mara, we need to go."
Did Stephanie sound scared?
There was a glint of fear in her eyes. There was something she wasn't telling me.
Something in me broke. My guardian was just as freaked out about all of this was I was and she had no room to show it. Stephanie had to be in charge here and Tom wouldn't be around since he was visiting the Haven House branch on the other side of the state. It was just her. And me. Sara was still out there and she might try to come back and finish me off in the middle of the night.
But I had nowhere else to go.
"Fine," I said, not letting my hard mask slip off. "But you have to promise to keep the front door locked."
What was I saying? Some good that would do if Sara was some evil witch queen or something. Locks wouldn't stop her. If she could make combs and ties dangerous, she could do anything.
Stephanie walked me out to the car and the secretary only gave us a nod as we left. The police wanted me out of here. I was just another Haven House kid, after all. I'd be back soon enough.
Stephanie opened the back door of her sedan and I climbed in. The weirdness of that didn't hit me until she had closed the door and climbed into the drivers' seat and I realized she only had a few pieces of mail in the front passenger seat. There was no reason I couldn't sit up there. I had, many times. Or many times that I could remember.
She filled me in before I could ask anything. "I don't want you up here in case someone's watching."
"Like who?" I asked. "Sara?"
"Maybe. We're not going to talk about it tonight."
Her tone was final. The drive back to Haven House seemed long and drawn out. Stephanie said nothing, but kept her eyes on the road as if afraid a deer would run out in front of her any second. I stayed quiet and watched the scenery go by in the car's side mirrors. Streetlights. A jogger crossing the street behind us.
And a shadow, growing over the side mirror.
I jumped in my seat.
"Mara?" Stephanie asked.
I blinked, but the shadow was gone.
The crazy hunter said something about coming through a mirror.
The man in black might be able to do the same.
I'd have to get rid of all the mirrors in Haven House, then.
I watched all the car mirrors and even the passing windows all the way home until Stephanie pulled into the gravel driveway. In the dark, our garden and apple tree looked ominous, full of strange reaching creatures and lanky demons. I hurried inside right af
ter her and Stephanie was sure to close the door and lock it.
"Are you scared of Sara, too?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said. "She left today, so I'm not sure."
I wanted to ask her if she'd seen any little men. Haven House was dark except for a nightlight on the wall in case a kid needed to come down the hall and use the bathroom. The happy star smiled at me.
I wondered how long she'd left the kids alone. Something wasn't right about that. I didn't see a sitter anywhere, but it was late and all the lights were off behind the closed doors of the boys' bedrooms. They were asleep and unaware that Stephanie had left them for a bit.
"Go to bed, Mara." She spoke fast like she wanted to cover up that fact.
"I'm not five," I said, opening the fridge and squinting in the light.
"You are still under my protection and you're going to go to bed," Stephanie said. "Let me pour you some milk. I'll bring it up and I expect you to be getting ready for bed."
"What is with you?" I asked. "You never cared how late I stayed up before. That's why I'm on the privileged floor, remember? And how am I supposed to sleep when I just almost got stabbed today? That makes for pleasant dreams."
Stephanie opened one of the cupboards. "Since when are your dreams ever pleasant?"
A new horror rose in my chest. "Have you been reading my dream journal?" My voice came out like a screech. Could this day get any worse?
Stephanie jumped and she swallowed. "I have to keep an eye on all of you since...since what happened with the other girl." Stephanie faced me, backing into the counter as if she expected me to grab a knife and go for her throat. I couldn't believe this. "If you were me and one of your kids tried to murder another girl, you'd do the same thing."
"Even you think we're a bunch of rejects," I said. "I'm going upstairs. And I don't want you to bring me anything." She'd read my Eric dreams. My dreams about thorns tearing people apart. Stephanie probably thought I was a serial killer waiting to happen.
Stephanie backed away as if hurt and I stormed up the stairs. Tears rimmed my eyes and I loved the darkness for hiding them. First Sara had betrayed me, then Eric, and now my guardian. Even the police were against me. Next they would end up letting the crazy man out and he'd come right up here to Haven House. The guy knew my name. It would only take so long.
I wondered how Eric was doing right now and if Sara had put some love spell on him. Another on the maid and maybe even another on Stephanie to make her horrible. She wanted to make my life a living hell as much as she could.
But why did Stephanie have to invade my privacy?
Didn't everyone have twisted dreams?
I got up to my room, grabbed my pillow, and threw it against the wall. It landed with a thump between my bed and the window. I hated my life. It had all fallen apart, maybe more than I knew.
I flopped down on the bed.
There was no fight left in me tonight. I fished through my backpack for my dream journal, which was still there, but stuffed in between two textbooks instead of resting in its own pocket. I hadn't left it there. Stephanie had been up here, all right--and she'd been up here today. I got out my book and flipped through it, because there was nothing else I could do. I had written dozens of dreams in here. The book smelled musty and the pages were yellowed with age, but I couldn't remember where I had gotten this journal.
Then I noticed something.
All of the dreams I had written before a few days ago were written in black ink. Almost in calligraphy, with an occasional ink blot as if I'd been using a quill. My last few I had written in gel ink, in purples and bloody reds.
I flipped through the journal, reading my keywords. My dream titles.
Eric.
Castle. Big forest.
Cottage.
Something was stolen from me.
Eric.
Red. Man in black. Hatred.
A long mirror.
The mirrors. I had forgotten.
Stephanie was coming up the stairs. I had to commend her for her bravery even if I could never forgive her for this invasion of privacy. I stuffed my dream journal under the mattress as she knocked. "I brought you some tea," she said. "I figured that's a little more grown up than milk, you know?"
I didn't say a thing to her. She knocked again.
"Mara. Are you okay?"
"All my personal secrets are out. Sure. I'm okay," I said.
Stephanie opened my door a little.
"Could you stop it?" I asked as she peeked in. "Do you want to see me undress, too? You might as well at this rate."
She set the glass of tea on my dresser, where the liquid inside settled. My Jack Skellington figurine smiled through it, looking huger than it should. It almost looked like the skull that should be on a bottle of poison. "I thought I might be nice and bring you something."
"You could have been nice and not snooped in my personal things." I felt violated. Past violated. "I'm going to bed now."
It was a lie. I still needed to get rid of all the mirrors. The last thing I needed was the man in black coming here. That would be great.
Stephanie must have been satisfied, because she headed back down the stairs. I eyed my clock. Almost midnight. Even more great. I usually stayed up later than this, but not on school nights and not when I was this exhausted. I waited for Stephanie's footsteps to vanish down the steps and waited for the sounds of her own bathroom sink running to stop before I dared to open my door.
I had no mirrors in my room...but Sara had her big vanity one.
The one just like the talking mirror from Snow White. The one that had the face appear in it in the Disney movie.
And it was also big enough for someone to step through if the magic mirror could be used that way. Mrs. Laney's phone had been different. I couldn't imagine Alric climbing out of that unless he could shrink first, and then he wouldn't be too intimidating.
I crept across the hall and to Sara's door. She had left it locked.
I didn't have time to get angry. The air around her door felt electric, almost cold. It reminded me of the sensation I'd gotten when Alric had emerged from the Foods room after wiping everyone's memories. Something was going on in there. Something very, very bad.
There was a punch of paper clips back in my room on the desk. I snatched one and went back to Sara’s door. It took me a couple of minutes of messing with the lock, but at last it gave and the door opened just a tiny bit. Sara’s door was old, like mine, but the lock installed on it was new. I wondered why I had never noticed this before.
By then, the cold electric feeling had gotten even stronger. A glance at Sara’s nightstand clock showed that it was five minutes to midnight.
I wondered if something bad would happen if the clock struck twelve.
Sara’s mirror was black in the darkened room, but it had taken on a bit of that more present look, like the void inside held some kind of silvery magic that I couldn’t quite see. Alric was ready to appear in this mirror. Maybe he’d expected to find Sara here or maybe tonight was the night she meant to let him through.
I grabbed the mirror, which felt like ice. I wasn’t letting that man even show his face in the same building where those kids slept below my feet. He could stare at the floor. I took the mirror, kicked some of Sara’s clothes under her bed, and started to tip it down towards the floor. He could enjoy the view.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
I stopped, the mirror halfway down to the floor.
“Are you sure you want to bar me from entry?"
The man’s dark voice echoed from inside the glass. It almost sounded like he was talking through a closed window. Maybe this mirror was just a window and he could open it any second.
I couldn’t help it. I stood the mirror back up, not sure what was making me do that.
Even in the almost-dark, I had to hold back a scream. Silvery mist swirled inside the glass and the man in black stood in the middle of it. He seemed so close that I could almost r
each out and touch him. And he still had his hood lowered over his face. Secretive much?
“Mara,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re still in that place. Sara is gone. There’s no need to be there. You’re so much better than that. Haven House is a place fit for the lowest of peasants.”
While he spoke, he didn’t move. It might be scarier if he did. A part of me could pretend he was just some hallucination.
I found my voice. “I thought you wanted to kill me.”
The man laughed. “I don’t want to kill you, Mara. I’m just here to watch your story and see the way it turns out. Sara is a big problem. You know that. If you had let the hunter speak to you, you might have a better idea of what is really going on here.”
I felt like my breath had been sucked away. “Yeah. I was going to stand there and talk to a guy who wanted to stab me.”
“Sara is the villain in this story. You know that,” Alric said. “She wants to take your life. That, I guarantee. You have to stop her before she can do any more damage. What else is she going to take from you? She has the man you love. She’s stolen your trust.” Still he didn’t move in the mirror. “It’s almost midnight. Portals to Fable open at midnight and the mirror you’re looking through must be one. These form in places that make you think of fairy tales. Step through and your memory will start to be restored.”
I backed away. I didn’t like the tone of the guy’s voice. "So Fable is full of fairy tales." I was not stepping through that mirror to go meet that guy. “And by the way, you can tell me my real memories when I’m standing right out here. What do you need to have me in the mirror for? I thought you said yesterday that you wanted me out of the way?”
“It’s complicated,” Alric said. “It would ruin things if I told you right now."
“And how do I know if you're telling the truth? What do you plan on doing once I’m there? I don’t think it’s rated G. You’re probably just a pervert who got rejected from the Renaissance Festival.”
Alric must not have gotten it. He didn’t even react to my comment. Maybe pervert wasn’t a word in this Fable world. “Do you really want to continue the way you are now?” he asked. “You have a long history in Fable, Mara. Don’t you want to know what you’re dealing with?”