Heirs of Grace

by Tim Pratt

  But going in there and getting axe-murdered would be stupider, so I stayed put and waited for Trey. He showed up after a few minutes and parked beside me, well back from the house. We got out of our cars, and I pointed out the light, telling him both my certainty that I hadn’t turned the lamp on, and admitting the possibility that maybe it was on all the time.

  “Hmm. I was going to say let’s call the cops, but let’s see if the door’s been forced or any windows are broken first.” He had a flashlight in the car, one of the big ones that can double as a blunt instrument, and we walked up to the house, where he looked through the window in question. “Nobody’s in there, and yeah, it’s just a little lamp on a table right by the window. There are piles of stuff all around it, so I can believe you wouldn’t have noticed the light. But we should look around anyway, just to be safe.”

  “Now you’re just looking for an excuse to come into my house,” I said, not entirely reassured by his opinion on the lamp but leaning toward a less sinister interpretation of events. “I see what you’re up to, counselor.”

  “Yes, I cleverly contrived to get you to call me over by turning on a light the last time I was here and hoping you wouldn’t notice until you got home tonight. You’ve seen through my plan.”

  The front door was locked up tight, as I’d left it, and I let us in, switching on the light as soon as we got through the door. I drew the sword cane from the umbrella stand, because holding a sword is a remarkable palliative for anxiety. “Do we split up?” Trey said.

  “Have you ever seen a movie?” I said.

  We went through the place together. The kitchen was clear, the mystery padlocked door was still padlocked, and the labyrinth that led to the studio didn’t have any lunatics in clown costumes crouching among the junk piles. We’d relaxed enough by then that we were able to stand around in the studio for a bit, him admiring what I’d done with the place, me brushing off his questions about what I was working on with generalities.

  “Should we check upstairs?” he said.

  I brandished the cane. “I guess we have to. If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. You know the sadistic dentist from the local insane asylum is always crouched in the last place you look.”

  We went up the stairs and checked the assorted bedrooms and spare rooms and found a remarkable absence of vandals or backwoods cannibals.

  “Just the master bedroom left,” I said.

  “Oh, I see. This was all a trick to deprive me of my virtue.”

  “I didn’t realize you had any virtue. That’s disappointing. But once we make sure there aren’t monsters under the bed I’m shooing you out and getting my makeup off and going to sleep. Fear, followed by feeling like a paranoid idiot, is not a powerful aphrodisiac.”

  “As long as I get points for doing white-knight duty,” he said.

  “I award you three points. They are not redeemable for anything.”

  “A fair system.”

  Trey looked under the bed, and in the closet, and I leaned against the wall by the door with my sword cane and watched him. He hadn’t mocked me or acted like I was a moron, or even patronized me, and that did earn him some points, redeemable for something to be named later.

  He finished his inspection and glanced around the room. “Let me just look under the drop cloth over there to make sure nobody’s pulling a Polonius on you.”

  Shakespeare reference. All right, Trey. Points for that, too.

  He pulled the cloth down, revealing the ornate mirror with its lion’s-head frame, and then stepped back, almost stumbling. He caught himself, looked at his reflection in the mirror, then laughed, turning to look at me and reaching out with one arm to gesture at the glass. “I didn’t know it was a mirror under there, I caught sight of myself and thought, Shit, there’s really somebody in here! I’m just glad I didn’t scream—”

  The finger he’d extended to point at the mirror touched the glass…and that’s when the mirror ate him.

  Trey gasped, and I watched in what I can only call paralyzed surprise as his hand vanished into the surface of the mirror up to the wrist. It looked like he’d plunged his arm into perfectly reflective water. “What—” he said, and then he was jerked off his feet, yanked by the arm into the mirror and disappearing in less than the space of a breath. The mirror glass was disturbed for a moment, rippling like the surface of a pond, and then went still again, reflecting nothing but the room and a terrified me.

  I wanted to run, and I’m not sure why I didn’t, except that I’ve always been the one to keep a cool head in a crisis. Some part of my mind just detached like the escape pod on a starship and traveled to a safe remove, or began running things from a command center in some hardened psychic bunker.

  “Trey?” I stepped forward, scrabbling for rationalizations—maybe Archibald Grace had dabbled in stage magic, and this was a special effect. Maybe Trey had fallen through the mirror, and the appearance of unbroken glass was just a trick of the light. (I know. Pretty weak. I didn’t have a lot of reality to work with.)

  What I did know was that I wasn’t about to touch the glass. That didn’t stop me from extending the sword cane toward the mirror, though. When the tip of the cane touched the glass, the cane was jerked out of my hands, and disappeared into the glass, leaving only a ripple that swiftly vanished.

  I sank to my knees. Staring at the glass, unsure what to do next. Call the cops? “Hi, I’m new in town, and this mirror I inherited ate a scion of the local ancient lawyer family, and then it ate my sword—oh, didn’t I mention I had a sword? Sure, I’ll stay on the line.”

  When I was little I saw a cartoon—I can’t remember exactly what it was—about a little boy who passed through a mirror to a magical land. At age seven or so I spent a long afternoon trying to find a way to pass through the full-length mirror Mom kept in the hall, slowly pressing my hands and nose against the glass, thinking if I did it gradually enough, I’d be able to push through, like sticking your finger into a soap bubble without popping it. Once I did that, I’d find something wonderful on the other side.

  Never managed it.

  Now Trey had. But thinking something pleasant and wondrous waited on the other side of the mirror was maybe wishful thinking.

  My phone buzzed. Hell. This late, it wasn’t my parents, which meant it was probably Charlie. He would not have good advice for me, if I were stupid enough to ask for it. I looked at the screen.

  The name of the caller was “Trey.”

  I answered, because, I mean, what would you have done?

  “Bekah?” It sure sounded like Trey, only more panicked than I’d ever heard him sound before. “Did I walk through a mirror? Because…I think I walked through a mirror. Only the glass didn’t break, and now…I did not have enough to drink for this.”

  “Trey. Where are you?”

  “Uh. In a room. Just…a room, there’s a desk, a chair, I mean…Did you throw the sword cane at me?”

  “Not…intentionally.”

  “Huh. You should come in here, maybe.”

  It’s a trick, the cold part of my mind thought. Whatever predator the mirror contained—or was—had taken Trey’s phone, taken his voice, and now it was going to take me, too.

  Like hell it was. “That’s a big no from me. Sorry. I don’t walk into strange mirrors. You never read Through the Looking Glass? There’s jabberwockies and bandersnatches and shit in there.” I was babbling. It’s possible I was freaking out a little. Or a lot.

  “No, I mean, of course, but there’s a mirror here, too, I think—”

  The mirror rippled and Trey stumbled out, holding his phone. I might have screamed.

  “Oh shit,” he said, patting his body with both hands, then staring at me, wide-eyed and wild. “I think I’m okay?”

  “Trey. The mirror ate you.”

  He shook his head. “No, it…wasn’t like being eaten. Not that I’ve ever been eaten. But more like jumping into a cold pond, except the water’s only about a millimeter
thick, and you don’t get wet. I…I think it’s just a door. A freaky, messed-up door, but…come see.”

  “What did I say when you asked me how our first date was going?”

  Trey frowned, then he got it. “Right. Prove I’m me, not…whatever. Vampire reflection, whatever. Um, yes, I asked your professional opinion, and you didn’t say anything, you just kissed me. And under other circumstances I’d love to talk more about that, the kissing part, and—”

  “Okay. I guess you’re you.” Or else something ate his brain, or was wearing his body like a suit, and in that case I was doomed anyway, so, carry on. “So. It’s a door.”

  “Or something.” He held out his hand, and after a moment, I took it.

  He felt like Trey, and he didn’t shape-shift into a Trey-shaped monster with the head of a lion—which was all I could think about for a moment before shaking the image from my head—so I relaxed as much as I could considering the situation. He reached out his free hand to the mirror, and then jerked forward into the glass. But I kept my grip, and then I was through the looking glass, too.

  There was a moment of bracing cold, and then we were standing on the hardwood floor of a circular room, maybe a dozen feet in diameter but with a plaster ceiling easily twenty feet above our heads. The space was sparsely furnished, with just an old wooden swivel chair and a faded red velvet smoking jacket hanging on the back. There was also a desk, empty except for a thick book bound in blue leather and a coffee mug with a long-handled spoon beside it. There was a wood-burning stove in one corner—unlit, cold—and the only light came from a dinner plate–sized round window of frosted glass, high up on the wall. The sword cane was on the floor, and I reached down to pick it up, feeling better immediately.

  “Check out the mirror,” Trey said, pointing behind me.

  I turned, and there was indeed a mirror leaning against the wall behind us, just like the one in the master bedroom—right down to the chipped ear. “Wait, the right ear is chipped on this one, and the left one is chipped on the other one, right?”

  “Huh. I didn’t notice, but it kind of makes sense it’s a mirror image, because…look at your left hand.”

  I looked, and for a second, I was confused, because my ring was on that hand, and I always wore my ring on the right—

  “Oh, hell.”

  “I noticed because I’ve got a scar on the back of my left hand,” Trey said. “But it’s on the right, now. It switched back, when I stepped through the mirror, so I guess the reversing is, uh. Reversible. I’m pretty sure my heart is on the right side now. And my phone, I would have called earlier, but it took me a minute to figure it out.” He showed me the screen with his contacts, and at first it seemed like it was in Cyrillic or something, but then I realized it was mirror writing—all the letters were reversed.

  Strange as that was, I was distracted by something else. I pointed at the window. “Trey. There’s light coming in there.”

  “Yes. That’s true.”

  “Trey. It’s dark. At least back in Meat Camp.”

  He winced. “I didn’t think about that. I guess we’re not in Meat Camp anymore.”

  “Doesn’t have quite the same ring as ‘Kansas,’ does it?”

  I did that mental taking-a-step-back thing. “So my dead relative invented teleportation. Okay. That’s quite an inheritance.” I needed to focus on something real, so I climbed up on the chair, and then up on the desk, and tried to reach the window, but it was still a good three feet above my head. Even Trey wouldn’t be able to reach it. Maybe if we put the chair on the desk…no, the chair had wheels and it would be kind of dangerous. I could jump and smash at the window with the sword cane…but I had no idea what was outside, and my curiosity only went so far.

  In fact, the thought of breaking the window made my guts go cold. I could imagine myself losing my balance and falling off the desk and rolling into the reverse-mirror and somehow breaking it and then we’d be stuck here and how had I just now noticed that there weren’t any doors? “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Works for me.” Trey picked up the blue book from the desk, tucking it under his arm, slung the jacket over his shoulder, and then put the spoon in the coffee cup and picked them both up. I looked at him oddly, but he simply shrugged. “What? The mirror is a magic door. Maybe the spoon is just a spoon, but aren’t you a little curious? At the very least I want to know what this book is—there’s not even a title on the front, maybe it’s Mr. Grace’s journal or something. I’d read it right now, but I am probably not in my right mind. Anyway, I bet it’s written backward.”

  “Yes. Good points.” I accepted the hand he offered and hopped down from the desk. “Let’s do the further-investigations bit back in the world. And maybe when we get out of here, let’s turn the mirror to face the wall until we figure this stuff out, all right?”

  “I was thinking hide the mirror in the cellar, but sure, your way works, too.”

  This time, I reached out to the mirror while he held my hand, and we plunged through the icy membrane and back into the master bedroom. I looked down, and my ring was on my right hand again. Trey put the book and cup and jacket down on the bed—

  And then we heard a crash downstairs, and someone cursing.

  I kept the sword cane in my hand and went out on the landing, looking down to the living room, where Melinda was inexplicably tearing shit off the shelves, flipping over tables, and generally wrecking up the place. “What the fuck?” I shouted.

  Trey joined me, and said, “Melinda?” in a baffled voice.

  Then Melinda’s face started changing, the flesh shifting and sliding like it was made of melting wax. Her cheeks hollowed out as the color bled from them, her nose lengthened, and her chin became pointier. She started tearing out chunks of her hair and flinging them to the floor.

  If I were the fainting type, that might have done me in, but I’d walked through a mirror twice, so maybe I was temporarily immunized against psychotic breaks. Instead of fainting, I unsheathed my sword cane. Holding a few feet of bare steel in my hand did wonders for my morale.

  The woman below tore off the last of Melinda’s hair and sloughed off the last of her face, revealing a very different person underneath: eyes of icy blue, skin the color of titanium-white paint, hair long and white-blonde, nose sharp as an arrowhead with a chin to match, and a mouth like the slot you put a dollar into if you want to get a soda out of a vending machine. She tore her clothes off, revealing a shapeless black sack dress. “You were gone. You were gone, then you were here, and I hid, and then you were gone, I couldn’t sense you at all, and now you’re back. I don’t understand where you went or where you came from and I do not like not understanding!” The last bit was the shout of a crazy person. Actually all the bits were, but there was extra crazy at the end.

  “That’s not Melinda.” Trey was a sweet boy, but not as quick on the uptake as I might have liked right then.

  “Lady.” I showed her the blade in my hand. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  I don’t know where that bravado came from. I have never been especially territorial, and I should have been a quivering pile of terrified goo, but in that moment I was ready to cut her down. I think just about anybody else who saw my face—the death glare I learned from Mom, which can make priests and school board officials tremble—would have run away as fast as their legs and lung capacity would allow. But not this woman. She came stomping up the stairs instead, spitting out words while she did it.

  “I am the Eldest Daughter. I am the Firstborn.”

  I’ve read books where people said, “You could hear the capital letter,” when some character intoned the name of a dark lord or magical artifact. It turns out, that’s actually a thing that happens. She was the big-E-big-D Eldest Daughter, and the capital-F Firstborn.

  Whatever that meant.

  “This house and all its treasures should be mine. You are the youngest, the most ignorant, so weak you don’t even recognize your weakness. Of all the so
ns and daughters and others of Archibald Grace, you are the least deserving of his legacy.”

  I stared down at her. “Wait…are you saying you’re my sister?”

  “I’m not sure that’s what we should be focusing on right now,” Trey said.

  The Firstborn sneered. She had a mouth made for sneering and not much else. “Our father’s blood is strong in me, and thin as water in you. You will renounce your claim to his inheritance. It is my birthright, and I will have it. You are not capable of taking up the mantle of his power. It would incinerate you where you stand. Keep the money.” She spat—literally spat—on my stairs; I was pissed. “I just need the house, and all things within it,” she said.

  That territorial streak rose up in me again. “You’re not getting shit, except your head cut off if you don’t fuck off back to wherever you came from.”

  She was halfway up the stairs then, and she paused. “Do you think you’re brave? You are only stupid.”

  The Firstborn moved faster, then, except it was less moving and more just being in one place, and then in another, without bothering with the space between. Suddenly she was in my face, smiling with a mouth that held more teeth than you usually saw in a human head, and I fell back a step. Trey stepped between us, which was also either brave or stupid, but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it. The Firstborn didn’t bother with him, though, because she was looking into the bedroom, and her eyes went wide. “The mirror. Of course. The portal to the sanctum. The vessel must be there.” She shoved Trey aside like he was a row of dresses hanging on a rail, and he thumped against the wall and slid down, groaning. “You will give me the mirror, Rebekah. Renounce your claim. Tell me to take it. Give it to me.”

  I had warned her. Nobody can say I didn’t warn her. I didn’t have room to do a big wind-up and slash-down like I wanted, so…

  I just stuck the sword right into her belly.

  She gasped, and looked down, and then got a funny look on her face. It was not, unfortunately, an about-to-die funny look. The Firstborn said maybe the weirdest thing she’d said so far: “Thank you. You cured my heartburn.” Then she just stepped backward, sliding off the sword, which left a rip in her dress but apparently hadn’t hurt her a bit.