The Thief of Mirrors: 4 (Enchanted Emporium)

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  I picked up a stone that looked flat and tried to skip it across the surface. It sank into the sea.

  “And where are you having this meeting?” I asked without looking at him.

  “Nuh-uh,” Doug replied enigmatically.

  “‘Nuh-uh’ what?” I asked.

  When I turned around, he was too far away for me to hear his answer. I just heard that strange splashing in the background that had seemingly punctuated our discussion.

  The waves were majestic and cold. They skimmed indifferently across the pebbles, making them roll atop each other with a gravelly hum.

  Splish-splash.

  “What the heck is that noise?!” I said to myself.

  I followed the noise to a puddle of briny water formed by a wave that had gone farther up the shore than the rest. A little shadowy thing was trapped in it. It thrashed its tail in the shallow water.

  I smiled and leaned down to pick it up and throw it back into the sea. But the creature squirmed out from my hands and landed on the pebbles. With two quick strokes of its tail, it skipped across the pebbles and dove into the sea.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. Right then I saw a tiny, shiny object in the same puddle. At first I thought it was a shard from a bottle or a piece of metal. But as I kneeled down and picked it up, I realized it was a tiny pocket mirror with a silver frame.

  The next morning, my father drove me into town in his van. I could sense he had something to tell me. He asked me twice if I was comfortable, which is what made it obvious since he’d never cared before.

  My dad never really talked much, so it wasn’t like we spent time chatting. When we were forced to converse, we did it as quickly and directly as possible so we could get back to important things, like fishing, shearing sheep, or going for a ride in the boat.

  “Are you comfortable?” he asked for the third time.

  The van’s suspension had been shot for years. You could feel every pothole shake the seat all the way to your belly button. Patches was balanced on my legs, hoping I’d open the window so he could put his head outside and feel his ears blow wildly in the wind.

  “I’m fabulous,” I said, keeping my eyes straight ahead. I knew that if our eyes met, my dad would attack me with a conversation he felt we needed to have.

  We went silent for a few more turns. But when the first houses in Applecross loomed on the horizon, my father took a deep breath and said, “Listen, Finley … this business about that girl …”

  “What business? What girl?” I asked.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he said.

  “No, I don’t,” I said.

  After I’d returned from the beach the previous evening, I threw the puppet Aiby sent me over to Patches, telling him he should go bury it.

  “I know it’s not an easy thing,” my father said, “but I need to talk to you, man to man.”

  In my experience with man-to-man conversations with my father, more words were spoken than in our normal conversations but less was actually said.

  “You’re old enough now that you’ve figured out some things on your own,” my dad said. “As for the other stuff, well … it’s better to ask your father instead of …”

  I tried to help him out. “Instead of Doug?” I asked.

  Camas McPhee looked at me. “I wasn’t thinking of Doug specifically,” he said. “Just anyone who might fill your head with bad ideas.” He brought the van to a stop. “Listen, Finley, it’s a very easy thing to fall in love. But afterwards is when the problems begin.”

  Wow, I thought. My father really wants to have a conversation.

  “Think of your mom and me,” he continued. “We’ve been together for twenty years now.” He hesitated. “You understand, right?”

  I shrugged.

  “All of us, as kids, end up with a crush on some pretty girl,” my dad said. “Or even one who’s not so pretty, for that matter.”

  “Dad, Aiby is incredibly —”

  “Just let me speak,” my dad interrupted. “I didn’t mean that this friend of yours, Aiby, isn’t pretty.”

  You better not have, I thought.

  “What I want to tell you, son, is …” he trailed off.

  “Dad,” I began, but no words came.

  Man-to-man conversations are not like actual discussions where one person speaks and the other asks questions. They’re more like a nation’s state of the union address: the person talking feels like his back is covered by thousands of other people who think just like him. Not coincidentally, the listener is usually much younger than the speaker.

  My dad started up the car again and drove onward. For the next ten minutes, my father talked about girls and I listened. He talked about having crushes. He said when you’re very young, as I was, relationships can seem much more complicated than they really are. And he said a few more things that had clearly come from my mother’s lips. Even so, I appreciated the effort he made to see it through. In the end, visibly exhausted, he pulled the van up to Reverend Prospero’s rectory.

  “Do you understand what I mean, Finley?” he asked.

  I nodded without saying anything. What was the point? He had just told me that my relationship with Aiby wasn’t that big of a deal, and how could I argue with him? I couldn’t tell him about how I’d defeated a stone giant who loved riddles, or about the forest spirit who wanted to steal my soul. If I told him about diving head first into the reef to see if I could cross between worlds, he’d probably have me committed to an asylum. Perhaps most kids my age did think things were bigger and scarier and more serious than they really were, but my situation was different.

  Then again, maybe it really wasn’t all that different.

  I started to get out of the van, but then hesitated. I put Patches down. “Can I ask you something, Dad?”

  He turned red, undoubtedly imagining the worst of all possible questions. “Of course,” he said.

  “How old were you when you met Mom?” I asked.

  “About the same age as you,” he said softly. “Maybe a year older, more or less.”

  “And back then, if you’d known someone else really liked Mom … and perhaps this other person was your friend, but he was playing dirty to take her away from you … what would you have done?”

  He thought about that for a moment, seemingly relieved I hadn’t asked him about the birds and the bees. “Well, it would depend if she —”

  “Tell me the truth,” I interrupted.

  “Man to man?” he asked.

  “Man to man,” I said.

  “You won’t say a word to your mother?” he asked.

  “Not a single one,” I vowed.

  My father chuckled. “I would have given him a good beating,” my father admitted. “Or at least I would’ve tried to.”

  For the first time in days, a large smile spread across my face. “Thanks, Dad,” I said. I walked around to the back of the van and grabbed my bike.

  He left again, clearly satisfied with his work. Meanwhile, I shuffled to the rectory as slowly as possible, dreading whatever new task Reverend Prospero had in store for me.

  * * *

  “Cataloging rocks?” I repeated, holding the gigantic book he passed me.

  “Exactly, son,” Reverend Prospero replied. He seemed even larger and more imposing than usual, with his fiery eyes and the voice of a hurricane. “A professor friend of Mr. Everett is doing research on rock formations along the entire northwest coast of Scotland. He needs volunteers to take samples.”

  “And I’m that volunteer,” I said.

  “I thought it would be something interesting for you to do,” Prospero replied. “All you need to do is go to these places that are marked.” He showed me a map with fifty or so places noted with a red marker. “Bring a shovel and a few other digging tools with you.” He pointed t
o a backpack filled with gardening equipment. “And compare the rocks with the catalog you have in your hands.” I leafed through the huge book. It had all kinds of rocks with the names in Latin. “When you find one, put an X next to it in the catalog.”

  I saw out of the corner of my eye that the sites to be inspected included Reginald Bay, where the Lilys had reopened the Enchanted Emporium.

  “That’s fine with me, Reverend,” I said, pointing at Reginald Bay. “As long as you never go there again.”

  Reverend Prospero looked at me, considering his response. Just like with my father, a good part of our communication was nonverbal. He knew that I knew and I knew that he knew. But neither of us knew enough to ask the other what he knew.

  It was complicated.

  “That seems like a good idea to me, Finley,” he finally said. “Much better for everyone, in my opinion.” He marked a big red X on the Enchanted Emporium.

  “Can I start right away?” I asked.

  “At your leisure,” the reverend replied. “The rocks have been waiting for you for a few million years. No harm in keeping them waiting a little longer.”

  I squinted at the reverend’s attempt at a joke, checked the contents of the backpack, slung it over my shoulders, and took the map. The reverend accompanied me outside.

  “Reverend?” I asked before saying goodbye.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “What was it like when the Others took you to the other side?” I asked.

  His eyes flickered involuntarily. “Dark,” was all he said.

  I left.

  I decided to start at the dam, the rough cement barrier between the two mountains behind Applecross. The location was far enough away from everyone and everything that I knew I’d be alone, at least. All I could see, besides the hairpin curves in the single road that slid down into our valley, were rocks. Rocks, bushes, lichen, and more rocks.

  The harder I tried to not think of either Doug or Aiby, the more my mind wandered back to them — like a dog with a bone, my dumb brain just wouldn’t let go.

  “Which is a great way to put it, right, Patches?” I said to my dog.

  I got to work. It was slow and tedious. Up to that point, I’d thought that campers were the weirdest beings on the planet, but that was only because I hadn’t met any geologists. What could they possibly find so interesting about the fact that there were more yellowish rocks than bluish one at the dam?

  “Maybe geology is a form of punishment for people who did something terrible in a former life,” I suggested to Patches.

  At school, they explained that Indians believed in something called reincarnation. That meant when you died, you were reborn in a different form. Maybe that’s why cowboys shot Indians without worrying about it. Or maybe those were other Indians?

  “Ignorance is bliss, Patches,” I said, slightly ashamed at my lack of knowledge. “Ignorance is bliss.”

  I mean, you’re always better off not knowing. I wished I hadn’t known that Aiby had come to Applecross, or that Semueld Askell had arrived too. I wished I didn’t know about the meeting of the shopkeeper families, and that Doug would attend it in my place.

  I should have felt less foolish than I did. Only three days before, I had been thrilled to discover there was a passage on one of the islands that led to the Hollow World, a place where magical beings lived, where magic leaked into our world. Now those events seemed far away, as if someone else had experienced them.

  “Three days,” I muttered, stumbling over rocks to catalog the ones that were higher up. “I should just leave the key with Doug and stay ignorant forever!”

  Mid-morning, I was hit by a wave of hunger. I opened the lunch I bought at the only pub in Applecross and split my bread and ham with Patches equally. As I munched, I continued to torment myself with worries.

  Perhaps I should just tell everyone the crazy things I’ve seen, I thought. But how could I even explain them?

  I sighed. “I guess if we always knew what to say, then we’d all talk like books,” I said. Patches looked at me. “And then we’d have to say goodbye to surprises, right?”

  Patches agreed, as always.

  Somehow or other, the day passed by. It was time to go home, but I wanted to see Doug again about as much as I wanted to cut off my little finger. Instead of riding it, I tiredly pulled my magic bicycle all the way home.

  When I finally got home an hour later, Mom told me that Doug wasn’t there. For some reason, it felt like I’d really cut off that finger.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked.

  “He left early this afternoon,” she said. “He looked everywhere for you.”

  “Imagine that,” I muttered. “And when’s he coming back?”

  “Sunday,” she replied.

  I quickly counted the days of the week in my head. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I thought. That’s why he needed the three days he had asked me for. Three days away from home, far away from Applecross …

  “But where on earth are they having that meeting?” I wondered aloud.

  “What meeting?” my mom asked.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” I replied. “But I’m going to find out.”

  I went up to Doug’s room and closed the door behind me so my mom wouldn’t think about following me. I opened the closet and an unbearable cloud of mint aftershave hit me in the face.

  I groped through Doug’s jackets until I found what he’d hidden at the bottom: a Closet Skeleton.

  I draped it out the window the way Aiby had taught me to do, bathing it in the light for a bit. Then I told it, “I want to know where Doug went.”

  The skeleton’s jaw creaked a little before it spoke. “He went to the Enchanted Emporium, where the others were waiting to leave,” the skeleton said. Its raspy, hissing voice was not pleasant at all.

  “Which others?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where were they headed?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Come on, talk!” I said.

  “Your brother spent the whole morning deciding what to wear so that he’d be sure to make a good impression. His Knicks jersey was too tight and his hat was missing.”

  “I know,” I admitted.

  The skeleton in the closet looked at me. Apparently, he had a knack for sniffing out bad behavior, probably from having absorbed so many people’s wicked thoughts.

  “And?” I asked.

  “He was worried about you.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because he didn’t want you to worry.”

  “How clever of him,” I said.

  “He also wrote you a letter.”

  “Bah!” I snarled.

  I grabbed the skeleton and tossed it back into the closet without even a word of thanks. Just as I left Doug’s room, I found myself face to face with my mom.

  “Would you mind explaining to me what’s going on with you and your brother, Finley?” she asked.

  “It’s simple, Mom,” I said. “Doug and Aiby are getting married.”

  Mom’s face scrunched up. I took advantage of her confusion to slip past her into my room.

  Doug had left the note in the middle of my bed, but it wasn’t from him. Even at a distance I could recognize Aiby’s handwriting on the envelope, as well as the golden words that shifted depending on the writer’s thoughts.

  Open me, please, it read.

  When I snatched the envelope and prepared to crumple it up, the letters shifted to read: You can’t do everything on your own, Finley. Read me!

  That was just too much. It made me want to tear the envelope into pieces. Instead, I threw it into the corner of my room with the writing side down so I couldn’t see it.

  Patches sniffed it with interest, then barked.

  My mom appeared in the doorw
ay. “What made you say something like that to me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Doug and I have been fighting.”

  “That’s obvious,” she said calmly. “What isn’t obvious, however, is why Doug seemed so disappointed he couldn’t say goodbye to you.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and pretended to be interested in something outside the window. “It’ll pass,” I muttered.

  That night seemed like it would never end.

  I woke up with my joints aching and two dark half-moons under my eyes. When Patches spotted me, he jumped on top of my chest to lick my face. He seemed heavy. I pushed him away as best I could, angered by his irrepressible happiness.

  I struggled to gather the strength to lift off the covers and get out of bed. “How can you dogs be so happy every single morning?” I asked him.

  I felt something strange beneath my feet. The envelope with the changing letters.

  This time, the golden letters read, It’s important, Finley.

  “Don’t try to enchant me,” I said and kicked it under my bed.

  I ruffled Patches’ ears and went into the bathroom. My face was greenish-yellow. I tried rubbing my face with cold water, then hot water, but neither helped.

  When I went back to look at myself in the mirror, I jumped back with fright. For an instant, I saw a face that wasn’t mine staring back at me. But then it was gone.

  I sighed. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen odd things in the mirror when I was especially tired. Once I saw the face of my dead grandmother, whom I remembered almost nothing about other than the fact that she had read bedtime stories to me.

  I brushed the mirror with my fingertip, leaving marks behind. Then I went downstairs.

  I dragged myself around the kitchen, looking for something to shut up my stomach. “Do you want a ride in the van?” my father asked.

  I said no, that I would go to work by bike. I made every effort to be vague about what I would be doing and where I would be going. I felt a manic urge to be completely out of reach.

  “Cataloging rocks, huh?” was all my father said about my new assignment. “Reverend Prospero told me you’re a smart kid, you know.”