The Thief of Mirrors: 4 (Enchanted Emporium)

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  Shortly after, I emerged from the wall and cowered, dazed by the infinite possibilities I had for moving around. Yet I couldn’t stay still. As it turns out, ants never stand still.

  I kept following the aroma coming from home. It felt like the most satisfying thing in the world, the only thing that mattered. I scurried along, trusting my instincts and ignoring everything else.

  And then, when I least expected it, I found myself sitting on the floor in the middle of the Hall of Mirrors, completely naked and happy as a clam.

  I recovered instantly, possibly because of how cold the floor was against my butt. I stopped to look at Askell’s mirror, which Lightning Launcher was still stuck inside. The mirror was covered with cracks, but I could still recognize Askell’s features.

  The fact that my clothes were still inside that cell made his appearance even more disturbing. Nude Semueld Askell was the last thing I ever wanted to see.

  “One comes in, one goes out,” I repeated to the mirror. “Stay strong, little ant. Sooner or later I’ll find a way to set you free.”

  Then I grasped the hilt of Lightning Launcher and tried to yank it out of the mirror. It was deeply wedged into the wood frame behind the mirror.

  I pulled harder. The muscles around my neck bulged tugged on the sword with all my weight and might.

  “I … WON’T … LEAVE … YOU … HERE!” I cried between tugs.

  The sword moved a little, then a bit more. When it finally came free, I found myself holding the sword with the cold floor once again chilling my butt.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, stood, then cut off a piece of curtain and draped it around my shoulders like a toga. I’m not sure of it, but I think the ancient Roman reflection nodded ever so slightly in approval as I passed.

  I left the Hall of Mirrors, dragging the sword behind me so it would make as much noise as possible in resolute defiance of Askell’s evil plot.

  When I was in the middle of the staircase, I heard a noise coming from below.

  Is it Askell? I wondered, shivering. Or maybe the wolf?

  I raised Lightning Launcher, determined to fight whatever stood in my path — no matter how terrifying it was. Then Patches poked his head out from behind a piece of furniture.

  “Patches!” I cried. And he ran to me.

  We hugged each other. I barely felt the icy floor beneath my feet.

  “I know, I know,” I kept repeating, whining into my dog’s ear. “I missed you, too. But you could have come looking for me, you know.”

  Meanwhile I listened and watched for any signs of movement, but there was no trace of Askell. It seemed as though only Patches and I remained in the castle submerged in that dark lake — and our images in those strange mirrors.

  I reached the half-submerged window through which we’d originally entered the castle. Patches whined softly. “What is it, Patches?” I asked.

  Like some kind of responsible border collie, Patches persuaded me to follow him into a huge room where a neglected fireplace had blackened an entire wall. He disappeared behind a broken chest and fumbled around, trying to pull out something heavy that was hidden behind it: my Stay-at-Home Suitcase.

  “You’re amazing, Patches!” I told him, and this time it was completely true.

  That suitcase meant I could change clothes — but only if I could let Meb know she needed to put some into the corresponding suitcase back at the Emporium.

  I opened it. Inside was the tiny mirror with the silver frame that I’d found on the beach … and a book. I blinked in surprise. Its title was:

  Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

  It was a beautiful edition of the book written by Lewis Carroll, with gold leaf inlays and a dark red cover. It showed two kids behind prison bars, trapped inside a book, which looked awfully familiar — and terrifying.

  I felt the tingling of magic beneath my fingers. Why did Meb send me this book? I wondered. And how did she know I just passed through a mirror?

  I grabbed the silver mirror I’d found on the beach and finally took a close look at myself in the reflection.

  I was me. Just me.

  I set the book on the ground and calmed myself by petting Patches.

  It really was a strange book. It clearly belonged to the Enchanted Emporium. I didn’t open it. My instinct, or maybe it was a voice inside me, told me to leave it be.

  And so I did.

  I was no expert on books. Beyond reading the title on the cover and noting the illustration, I didn’t know what else to do with it.

  And then, for some reason, I thought of my coadjutor.

  Mr. Tommy? Mr. Tommy?” I yelled through the streets of Right Village. Or rather, I wheezed. I’d had to run along all the dirt roads that I had traveled earlier in the sidecar, and I was exhausted — but determined.

  “Mr. Tommy!” I shouted again.

  I didn’t know which house was his, so I tried every single one of them. But the windows were barred and the lights were off. It seemed to me there wasn’t a living soul in Right Village. Besides, it was still nighttime inside my head.

  “Come on, Patches! Bark!” I ordered my dog.

  We split up. After a bunch of attempts, a revolting orange door finally opened partway. Through the shaft of light that seeped out, I recognized Mr. Tommy’s face. He wore a blue nightcap, and he was carrying the stub of a candle in a copper candlestick.

  “Who’s that calling my name?” he said. As soon as he recognized me, he exclaimed, “Ah, it’s you!”

  “Mr. Tommy! Do I ever need you!” I said.

  Before he had time to say something weird, I handed him the book I found in my suitcase.

  “What do you make of this?” I asked. Then I added, “I recommend you don’t open it. I’ve got a feeling it might be dangerous.”

  “Oh, I find that hard to believe, my boy,” Mr. Tommy muttered. “It’s just a book. But please, come into my home — though I must warn you it’s a bit untidy.”

  I followed him into a cottage crammed with piles of books, all of them face down and open. I recognized a couple that I’d once begun but didn’t finish. I don’t know why, but that thought made me feel a little guilty.

  “Come in, come in, sit down,” Mr. Tommy said. “Can I get you up a cup of tea?”

  “No tea, Mr. Tommy!” I cried. There’s no time for tea! I need you to look at this book and tell me all you can.”

  “Really?” he protested. “What’s all this rush about?”

  “It’s your moment,” I whispered to him. “Your moment to become a real … what’s that word again?”

  He put on his spectacles and gave me a long, studied look. “Coadjutor,” he said. He looked at the book. “Seems to me it’s a very unusual edition of Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll.”

  How clever of you, I thought, barely able to stop myself from saying it out loud.

  “Which is also the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a writer and first-class mathematician, as well as a lot of other,” Mr. Tommy said. He brought out a lens from who knows where and began to gradually pass it over the whole cover. “It’s the second book of Alice’s adventures, and I would say it’s quite the curious edition as I have no idea who the boy depicted on the cover with Alice could be.”

  It’s me, I thought, but I remained silent.

  “I know that the first edition is from 1871, but this copy seems to be even older,” Mr. Tommy proclaimed. “Almost ancient, actually. Why don’t we take a look at the book’s publication date.” He began to open the front cover.

  “Don’t open it, please!” I begged him.

  “Hmm,” Mr. Tommy said. “My boy, if I can’t open it, it will be extremely difficult for me to tell you more about it. I mean, you can’t quite judge a book by its cover, now can you?” He squinted and
stared at the spine of the book. “Hmm. There is something odd here on the binding where the name of the publisher is …”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He showed me an elegant silver logo that looked like the stylized silhouette of an octopus. “’Octobooks Publishing’ is written here in silver. If I tilt it this way, it’s as if it’s printed over something else that’s much older. It’s a strange stamp of some kind, I’d say.” He put down the book. “In any case, I’ve never heard of Octobooks Publishing before.”

  I hadn’t either. “Is that all?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Mr. Tommy admitted.

  I began walking around the room nervously. “Do you have a pen and some paper, Mr. Tommy?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied, passing them to me. In the meantime, he continued to study the book.

  I figured I’d try my old method of solving mysteries. I wrote:

  List of the few things I know for certain:

  1. Aiby and her father went to a meeting with Doug. They should come back Sunday afternoon, but Meb and I (and the seagulls) are convinced that something bad happened to them.

  2. Askell had Aiby’s travel journal with him. When I asked him what happened to Aiby and her father and Doug, Askell replied that they were a “closed chapter.”

  3. I found a book in my suitcase that just felt wrong — my instincts told me not to open it. The publisher is unknown. It seems to have been made especially for me.

  I stayed still for a while, pen in hand, before adding:

  4. Aiby and her father knew they were in danger, which is why they didn’t take me or Meb to the meeting. Aiby wrote that I should ask Angelica for help and prepared the Stay-at-Home Suitcases for me.

  5. I buried Angelica for the second time next to the lake. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

  6. Only Meb could have put that book in my suitcase, which means it has to be for me.

  I examined the cover with the bars and the prison as well as the silver octopus on the spine.

  7. I found a silver pocket mirror on the beach.

  “Mr. Tommy?” I asked. “Does silver mean anything to you?”

  “It’s a white precious metal that —”

  “No, Mr. Tommy,” I interrupted. “I meant to ask about silver’s magical properties.”

  “Oh!” Mr. Tommy said. “It’s a nocturnal, lunar metal associated with the unconscious and emotions. It’s also used to protect travelers, especially ones at sea.”

  “Maybe …” I said. An idea had popped into my head. Even if it didn’t pan out, I had nothing to lose.

  I grabbed the silver pocket mirror from the suitcase. “Protect me now,” I murmured.

  “Can you tell me what you intend to do?” Mr. Tommy asked.

  “Just trust me,” I said. “And close your eyes!”

  I opened the book without reading the pages and held it up to the mirror. I saw the swirling and flickering letters of Incantevole but made sure I didn’t read any of them.

  I slammed the book shut. “Now I understand why Askell said that Aiby and the others are a closed chapter,” I said. I rubbed my chin. “You know something, Mr. Tommy? Evil people talk too much. They just can’t resist the temptation of letting everyone know how great they are and doing so reveal their evil plans.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me, my boy,” Mr. Tommy said. “Typically, in traditional stories, the villain explains everything at the end because —”

  I cut him off. We didn’t have time for a lecture. “We don’t have any time to lose, Mr. Tommy,” I said. “And I still need you — and your two brothers.”

  “To do what?” he asked.

  “To get away from here with me,” I said. “As soon as possible.”

  Mr. Tommy slipped on his overalls and checkered shirt and went to wake up Mr. Jim and then Mr. Timmy. Soon after, Mr. Jim took me back to the lake in his sidecar. There I dug up Angelica, who bombarded me with insults the entire trip back.

  Angelica’s insults pleased Mr. Jim. “If only there were women in our world with her temperament!” he said after we’d returned to the village. “Today’s women are so namby-pamby.”

  Soon we’d reached the crossroads. In the square next to the streetlight, Mr. Tommy started arguing with Mr. Timmy to convince him to get the bus going again and take me back.

  “I can’t, Tommy!” Mr. Timmy said. The Incognito Bus’s stubborn driver kept rearranging the baseball cap on his head and seemed decidedly worked up. “I just can’t do it and you know it! Ours is always a one-way trip. You can’t change the way things work!”

  Jim turned off the sidecar engine. “What was I telling you, Finley?” he said. “My brother reads too much. And the other one watches too much TV.”

  I ignored them. I motioned for Patches to get on the red bus while I tossed the suitcase inside. I had Lightning Launcher firmly attached to my belt. The feeling of its scabbard bumping into my leg gave me a sense of confidence and security I’d never felt before.

  The three brothers continued to bicker amongst themselves. I couldn’t tell what even one of them was actually saying.

  “QUIET!” I shouted. They stopped speaking. Mr. Timmy arranged his baseball cap nervously, Mr. Tommy shook his head and adjusted his round spectacles, and Mr. Jim spat out a glob of phlegm. Patches stared at me through the windshield. All eyes were on me.

  I pointed at the red bus. “Mr. Timmy, I need you to turn on the engine for me.”

  Mr. Timmy blew his nose. “That’s easily done,” he said. “But I cannot drive it. Will you do it yourself?”

  I rested my hand on the hilt of the sword. “Of course,” I said.

  Mr. Timmy took off his hat, put it back on, and then took it off again. “In that case, maybe the regulations would allow it,” he said. “But then again, there’s —”

  Mr. Tommy’s gesture cut Mr. Timmy off. “Oh, drop it, Tim,” he said. “Regulations are just guidelines.”

  Mr. Jim nodded. “Agreed!” he crowed. “Just give him the dang keys already. Finley’s one of us, after all.”

  Mr. Timmy took a few moments to consult the regulations, then reluctantly agreed to the plan. To be safe, he slipped the key into the ignition and told me how to adjust the driver’s seat.

  “A well-placed seat,” he explained, “is the secret of safe driving. And treat her well, okay?” he added, patting the steering wheel.

  “You can count on me, Mr. Timmy,” I said. But when I heard the bus engine chug to life, took stock of the steering wheel’s enormous size, and evaluated the countless controls and buttons on the dashboard, I asked him, “Could you turn it — err, her — in the right direction for me first?”

  So that’s how I found myself driving an enormous red bus along the twisty, bumpy road of my subconscious back to Applecross. Or at least, that’s how I pictured the long return trip would go.

  It should go without saying that I knew how to drive a little bit. Dad had taught me to move the van, and I’d done so many times. But there is a big difference between parking a van in your front yard and maneuvering a double-decker bus along a treacherous mountain road.

  The entire ride seemed uphill, too, as if I was coming back from a place that was at the bottom of the deepest, darkest, best-hidden valley in all of Scotland. And if you think about it, that’s not too far from the truth.

  The road went on and on for I don’t know how many miles. At the first junction I reached, I turned on the high beams so that I could read the only sign:

  The Road to Applecross

  Not recommended for beginning drivers.

  No large vehicles or trailers allowed after the first half mile.

  At least I knew I was on the right road.

  The bus climbed through the hairpin turns while the mirrors hanging from the windows swayed like attendees a
t a concert. Patches whined after each curve as he got tossed repeatedly from one side to the other. Even the suitcase banged around while Angelica ranted like a preacher proclaiming the apocalypse was nigh.

  I still wasn’t sure why I’d retrieved that aggravating doll. But that was only one of many things that I was unclear about:

  The strange, enticing book. The mirrors. The prisons.

  They were all connected. They had to be.

  That moment, the headlights of my monstrous bus lit up a dam I recognized well. Despite feeling exhausted, seeing the dam reinvigorated me. “We’re coming, Aiby,” I said. “For all of you.”

  I felt even better when I passed over the mountaintop and saw the breathtaking view of Applecross Bay below.

  Just then, a faint gleam brightened the sky behind me. I’d returned almost exactly at dawn. The sea below stretched out like a silk blanket between the dark cones of the islands of Skyle, Robha Chuaig, and Rona.

  I stepped on the gas and somehow managed to speed through the first hairpin turn. Going down turned out to be much harder than going up. Every time I touched the brake pedal, the juggernaut screeched to a halt, forcing me to accelerate immediately to prevent the bus from stalling. It was a war filled with hiccups, rumbling, and the clinking of mirrors underlined by cursing and frantic barking.

  Somehow we managed to get to the bottom of the mountain safe and sound. The agony of the Incognito Bus’s final trip continued until the first houses in town, where we popped out of that final curve like a pellet from a slingshot.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. At that very moment, the brakes gave out.

  “Haaaang on!” I screamed, swerving wildly.

  The bus tilted sideways, causing two wheels to lift off the ground. It teetered for a brief moment before it fell on its left side with a thunderous crunch. We squealed along the asphalt for over a hundred feet before grinding to a halt in a mountain of smoke.

  Patches, Angelica, the suitcase, and I wound up squashed against the windows, sore but otherwise unharmed.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked, taking off my seatbelt.

  Patches wagged his tail from under the seat where he’d ended up, seemingly wanting to do it again. Meanwhile, Angelica railed insults at me while dangling from the rearview mirror.