The Looking Glass

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The Looking Glass Page 18

by Janet McNally


  Jack moves so he’s sitting crosslegged in front of me, looking right into my face.

  “When my dad first left,” he says, “I saw his car everywhere. The Volvo. I’d see it while I was sitting next to the window at Class Coffee, and I’d try to catch my mom’s attention so she wouldn’t see. I’d see it on Broadway, waiting at a stoplight in between two taxis. He was in Virginia by then, so it wasn’t really him, but every time I saw it I was convinced it was.”

  I’m shaking my head before he even finishes. “So you think I’m just making this up?” I ask. “Hallucinating?”

  “No,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s magic. But maybe it’s just a matter of how your brain is perceiving the things you see.”

  “I’m perceiving just fine,” I say, but that’s a lie. I’m not sure what I’m doing here on this road trip. I’m not sure what anything means. Suddenly I feel exhausted, just straight-up bone-tired. Behind Jack, the fireflies are dimming, blinking out like flashlights switched off.

  He’s looking at me. “So if it’s magic, then what?”

  If it’s magic. I almost echo his words out loud.

  “I don’t know,” I say. My heart is falling again, like a lead weight through water. “Maybe it can help me forget.”

  “Forget what?” he asks.

  The breeze kicks up then, and all the leaves above me whisper the same thing.

  “All of it.”

  Track 23:

  Storms

  LIKE THIS. ONE NIGHT IN April, when my parents were at a faculty party, I could hear Everett rummaging in the kitchen, opening the cupboards, the fridge. I had barely talked to him in weeks because he either wasn’t home or he wouldn’t come out of his room. There were sheafs of sketches piled on every surface of his room, as far as I could see through the cracked-open door. He couldn’t even look at Julia since the day we’d had to call the ambulance, so he was avoiding her, I guess, but it felt like he was avoiding me too. I hovered just before the kitchen for a few moments, listening to him opening and closing things, not eating anything. Then he turned down the hallway. He looked unsteady, like the floor beneath him was uneven. His face was ash gray. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

  “I’m fine,” he said, answering a question I hadn’t asked. He rubbed his forehead.

  “You’re not,” I said.

  “I just need to sleep, Sylvie.” He was already turning away. “Please let me sleep.”

  He shut his door hard behind him. I heard him switch on his turntable.

  When I turned around I saw Julia, standing like a ghost in the doorway of her room. I couldn’t really see her face clearly in the half-light, just the shadows in the hollows of her cheekbones. Her beauty was spectral. She stepped toward me and I took a step back.

  “Can’t you just get better?” I asked.

  Her eyes were glassy with tears. She took another step toward me, and without thinking about it, I backed up just a little.

  “I used to read you ‘The Red Shoes,’” she said. “Do you remember?”

  I did. It was a Hans Christian Andersen story and we’d had an illustrated edition. In it, a little girl wishes for a pair of red shoes and is forced to wear them forever as a punishment for her vanity. The shoes keep dancing, whether she wants to or not. She can’t take them off. She eventually asks an executioner to chop off her feet. It doesn’t help.

  “Sort of,” I said. I was lying. I remembered.

  “It’s like that,” Julia said. “I want to stop. I don’t know how.” She was standing right in front of me, but her voice sounded small and far away.

  Rage moved through me like a comet, fire on the outside and dirty ice at its core.

  “Well, figure it out,” I said. “Don’t you see? You’re wrecking everything!”

  I didn’t wait to see the look on her face. I whirled around and went back into my own room, slamming the door behind me. And two days later, Julia left.

  Now, in the forest, that feeling is back, the one where my molecules are spinning and I’m a galaxy again, full of stars and wide-open space. I’d give anything to settle myself, to stand on the edge of something, do a hundred fouettés. But what can I do in the middle of the forest?

  “I don’t know what I’m doing out here,” I say to Jack. I stand up and turn to leave, to head back toward the cabins, but he catches my wrist in his hand. Under his fingers, my tattoo feels hot.

  “Wait,” he says.

  When he pulls me back toward him, it feels like choreography. It makes me think of my physics teacher’s favorite rule: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I pull away, he pulls me back, and we end up in the place we’re supposed to be, right in the middle. Then we’re kissing and I don’t even know how it happened.

  I’m certain the stars are exploding above us, that woodland animals are forming a circle around the spot where we stand. (Creepy little jerks.) But it doesn’t matter because I don’t open my eyes, so the only magic is here, inside us. Between us.

  In fairy tales, everything changes after the kiss, but that’s mostly because the heroines are unconscious directly before. Jack lets me go and I step back a little, unsteady, still holding his hand, my eyes open now. The stars are a glittering canopy over our heads, the trees form a soft, shadowy barrier around the clearing, and the last firefly goes out. For this one moment I feel completely, perfectly safe. And here’s what I’m thinking in this exact moment:

  This is what it feels like to wake up after you’ve been asleep your entire life.

  Track 24:

  Never Forget

  “ARE YOU OKAY?” JACK ASKS.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You?”

  “I am very okay.” He’s smiling. “I’ve wanted to do that since we crossed the New Jersey state line. Maybe before.”

  “I thought you hated me.” When I say it, though, it doesn’t feel true. Or it feels like it’s been a very long time since I believed it. And I believed it in a place far, far away.

  Jack shakes his head. “I never hated you. I . . . felt confused when I looked at you, and that made me mad.”

  “That’s perfectly normal,” I say, smiling.

  He smiles back. “I thought so,” he says, and kisses me again.

  When we come out of the woods I’m surprised to see the cabins still there, each with a round white lamp glowing like its own personal moon above its door.

  “Civilization,” I say.

  “I preferred the woods,” Jack says. He leans close and presses his shoulder to mine. Even though I feel my molecules rearranging themselves again, I don’t mind it this time. Nothing disturbing or scary has happened in the outside world since we got to Philadelphia, and I’m thrilled about that. I may be carrying the fairy tale book around, but I want the stories to stay safe inside it.

  When we part I walk up the stairs, keeping my footsteps quiet. I wave to him from the doorway.

  “Pssst.”

  I turn and see Allie sitting on the stairs of her cabin next door. She’s lit up by the bulb above her and has a novel facedown in her lap.

  “Hi,” I say. “I snuck out. Am I busted?”

  Allie smiles, showing all her teeth. “If I had someone as cute as Jack to sneak out for,” she says, “I’d be right there with you.”

  I can feel my skin get hot. I shiver a little, shaking it off. “You totally do,” I tell her. “Hello? Knox?”

  Allie looks toward the ground. “Well, he’s got to ask me first.”

  “It’s going to happen,” I say. She smiles.

  “How was it?” she asks. Her voice is just above a whisper but she’s watching me with interest.

  There are so many possible answers to that question after what I’ve seen the past few days. But I just choose the easiest one.

  “Magic.”

  Track 25:

  That’s the Way Love Goes

  THIS MORNING IS FAIRY BREAKFAST, and Allie has a pair of wings for me to wear. They’re made o
f silver wire and tulle, tied with sky-blue ribbons at the bottom.

  “These are amazing,” I say when she hands them to me. “You just have extra wings lying around?”

  Allie shakes her head. “I made them this morning. I’ve made so many at this point, I could make them in my sleep.”

  “Have you ever thought of a future in costume design?” I say. “We could use you at NBT.” I flash back to standing on a stool in the middle of our wardrobe room last week, Miriam fussing with my skirt below me, her mouth full of pins. It seems like a lifetime ago.

  “Maybe,” Allie says. “Actually, I think I’d like that.”

  I slip the straps of the wings over my shoulders and stand with Allie in the front of the cabin. All the small fairies line up in front of us, smiling, their own wings covered in glitter and silk.

  “All right, fairies,” Allie says. “Sylvie has to leave this morning.”

  A collective sad noise rumbles through the room. Allie raises her hand and they quiet.

  “But first we’re going into the woods to make our fairy houses,” she says.

  The girls cheer. I can’t stop smiling. They’re so cute, and it’s so easy to like them. It’s so easy to be here.

  Allie has already explained this to me: the kids will use sticks and leaves and bark to make little houses in the middle of the forest, making the fairies’ real estate dreams come true.

  Across the yard I see some of the boys coming out of their cabins, in full fairy attire. I don’t see Jack, and honestly, the idea of seeing him makes my blood spin. What the hell was I thinking, kissing him?

  Oh my god.

  But I don’t say this to Allie. I just ask her about the wings. “The boys wear wings too?”

  Allie nods. “Just as much glitter over there, if not more. Definitely a little messier.”

  I run my fingers over the edge of Allie’s wing. “I love this place.”

  “It’s pretty magical,” she says. There’s that word again—magic—but I like it better this way. Not creepy. Just real.

  “If you’re interested in being a counselor next summer,” Allie says, “let me know. I know the boss.”

  “I’d love that,” I say. And I wonder, again: What would it be like if I weren’t always dancing?

  I turn around and Knox appears in front of me, huge dark blue wings on his back. They’re covered in sequins big as quarters, shiny like the scales of a fish.

  “Your wings are enormous,” I say.

  Knox looks at me. He presses his lips shut. Then he opens them.

  “This is me,” he says, “resisting the urge to make an off-color joke.”

  I laugh. “Thanks. Where’s . . .” I let my voice trail off.

  Knox smiles. “Your dashing consort?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s coming. He’s not quite as comfortable in his wings as I am. Give him a little while to let go of stereotypical gender roles.”

  I see him then, across the grass. Jack, his wings wide and green. They’re covered in iridescent fabric and shaped like a dragonfly’s, but a little smaller than Knox’s. He can still fit though a doorway without turning sideways.

  My heart butterflies inside my rib cage. Panic rises in my blood. Here’s the guy I made out with last night: my best friend’s crabby brother, my chauffeur, a guy who is presently wearing dragonfly wings. Which, honestly, is a pretty good look for him.

  When he sees me he smiles, a slow, warm smile like a sunlamp angled in my direction, and my heart straightens out, settles back into its spot. And beats so hard I think he must be able to hear it.

  “Hi,” Jack says. His hand comes up like he wants to take my hand, or otherwise touch me, but then he pulls it back to his side.

  “Hi.” My hand wants to hold his too, but I keep it at my side. I don’t really know the new rules.

  “Nice wings,” Jack says.

  “You too.” I can’t stop smiling.

  “I’m trying to play along.”

  I tilt my head and look at him. “I never really saw you as a dragonfly.”

  “I’m not,” he says. “I’m a fairy like everyone else. Or is there, like, a male word for fairy? Like you have mermaid and merman, for example.”

  “Fairman.”

  “Something like that.”

  We watch the kids gather pinecones and sticks and leaves, then form them into delicate houses they lean against the bottoms of tree trunks. Jack leans down next to a boy with shiny black hair and huge dark eyes.

  “That ought to last through any storm this forest can throw at it,” Jack tells him. “The engineering is very sound.” The boy grins.

  My heart is getting kind of melty, so I take a few steps toward Allie, who’s helping one of her girls make a freestanding fairy house out of twigs.

  Past her, Knox is watching Jack help a boy named Leo arrange a pile of pinecones in a “fence” around a fairy yard.

  I lean close to Knox.

  “Want some advice?” I ask. He nods. “Ask her to sneak out some night. Do something romantic.” I poke him in the arm. “She’ll love it.”

  “Yeah?”

  I smile. “I’m sure of it.”

  Knox looks at Allie, who’s standing a few trees away.

  “Fairies!” she shouts. “Are you all finished?”

  There’s a chorus of yes from all the tiny people, and Allie climbs up on a tree stump like it’s a soapbox.

  “Okay!” she says. “Then it’s time to call the forest fairies. The tiny ones. But here’s the deal: you have to close your eyes while they come, because if they see you looking, they’ll stay away. And then we’re going to leave once they’re safe in their new houses.”

  Jack and I stand there and watch the kids shut their eyes tight, fully believing. He squeezes my hand and closes his own eyes, so I do too. With places like this in the world, it’s no wonder I can’t figure out where magic ends and the real world begins. But I know what I’m choosing: real world.

  So of course this is when I hear it, the bright song of a bird from the tree above me. No one else seems to notice, but I look up, listening, trying to glimpse the bird through the branches. I can see flashes of it moving in the leaves. It’s red, of course, singing its song over and over, a song I know because I’ve heard it dozens of times. It’s the Dance of the Firebird, from the Stravinsky ballet. I close my eyes and I see it: the long crimson tutu, the feathered headdress.

  I figure it out before I open my eyes. I remember who my fairy godmother has been all along.

  Track 26:

  Landslide

  MISS DIANA ANSWERS ON THE first ring.

  “Hello,” she says, like a normal human. I can’t quite manage it myself.

  “Who’s Daniela?” The words just tumble out of me.

  “What?”

  “It’s Sylvie,” I say. “I need to know. Do you know who Daniela is?”

  She pauses. “Where are you, Sylvie?”

  Well, I’m in the woods, obviously, both literally and metaphorically, but she doesn’t need to know that. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me,” she says. Her voice is soft. “I know you’re not at camp.”

  Shit. “They called you?”

  “No. I called them. I had a feeling.”

  Because you’re magic too, I want to say. I look down at my feet, my sneakers sunk into the grass. I’m always attached to the earth.

  “Tell me,” she presses.

  “Fine.” I look around the clearing. Past the trees I can see flashes of the campers finishing up their fairy houses. I can hear the hum of their voices too, punctuated by little shrieks of joy. “I am at camp, actually, but it’s a different camp, in Pennsylvania. I’m with my friend. I’m safe.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’m listening.”

  “You knew that package was from Julia.” This isn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know what was in it?”

  “No.”

  I
turn away from the clearing, start to walk back on the path a little. “It was a fairy tale book of mine, from when I was a kid. Julia made a list of names in the back. Grace Akua was the first. I mean, it didn’t say her last name, but you know Grace.” I’m rambling.

  “I know Grace,” she repeats.

  “Then my cousin Rose, and then Julia’s ex-boyfriend Thatcher.”

  “Okay,” Miss Diana says, carefully, slowly.

  “I went to see them,” I say. “All of them. I’m going to tell you all this, and I really hope you won’t call my mother.”

  “I’m not going to call anyone right this second, Sylvie,” she says.

  “Great. So here’s the problem. Thatcher doesn’t know where Jules went next, but I’m thinking it must have been to Daniela because Jules put her name right on the list. But I don’t know who she is. And this is where I think you can help me.”

  “Sylvie,” Miss Diana says. She doesn’t say it like it’s the start of something, or the end of something. She’s just saying my name. And in this moment the world cracks open a little, just a little fissure at its edges, and I don’t know if light or darkness is going to leak in. I’m so afraid that she won’t be able to tell me where to go next.

  I sit down with my back against a tree trunk, fill the space with words instead of fear. “I got a tattoo,” I say.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. For Julia. And for you too, I guess. It says ‘twenty-six bones,’ like you always say.” I pause for a moment. “Did you ever see hers?”

  I can almost hear her smile. “I did.”

  “I always wondered if you had. She thought it would keep her safe. But it didn’t. I don’t think there’s anywhere that’s safe in the whole world.” I’m crying now and I don’t know when I started. I don’t know how to stop.

  “Sylvie,” Miss Diana says again.

  I let empty space fill the line for a moment. “What?”

  She doesn’t say anything right away. I hear her breathe. “I thought about keeping that package. I thought about opening it, to see what it was. I should have, probably. I wish you had talked to me.”

 

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