Mary Alice could not speak unless spoken to; that was the rule of the mirror. She was ready to burst with the things she wanted to say by the time Norbert glanced her way and uttered a pleasant ‘Good Morning, Mary Alice. You slept well, I trust?’
‘Good Morning, Norbert. I slept well. You trussed—’
‘I trussed no one. You are still happy in your home . . . I trust?’
‘You? Trust? No one I am, still. Happy? In my home, you . . . trussed.’
‘Still subverting, eh?’
‘Still subverting? Hey!’
‘You will not be long there, darling Mary Alice.’
‘I will not belong here, dear Norbert.’
Norbert smiled. ‘You naughty girl, Mary Alice, naughty! Tsch, tsch.’
Mary Alice returned the smile. ‘I, naughty? Boy, Norbert . . . naughty? Ptooh! Ptooh!’ She couldn’t help herself. It was the ‘impudence’, perhaps, that caused the spitting and the irony. Or perhaps it was the mirror. Mary Alice was not the ironic sort. Not really. It wasn’t till she was put in the mirror that this side of her emerged.
Norbert was a very careful man, but perhaps on this particular morning he was a little too satisfied with himself. . . . Perhaps the breakfast contained a smidge more than Three sausage links (those knots on the ends can be tricky), leading to a distracting level of protein. Whatever the cause, he made a crucial mistake when he went to wash the dishes. He left his to-do list on the table in full view of the mirror. And next to it, the Magic Pencil.
Mary Alice did not hesitate. The day was lucky, indeed—there was not one speck on the glass to distort either list or pencil from their fullest efficacy. With the eraser Mary Alice scrubbed away the item (‘Rx’) just below ‘wash the dishes’, and after some brief consideration substituted her own entry. She was careful to replace the list and the Pencil in their original spots.
Having finished the dish-washing, Norbert returned to the table and picked up his to-do list. With a flourish he brandished the magic pencil and placed a check mark next to ‘wash the dishes’. Then he read the next entry, perfectly rendered in his own hand: Spend the entire day in bed. Under the duvet with the daisies, that one. Make sure to water the daffodils. And don’t forget to bring the mirror with you.
He frowned, suspicions forming, then shrugged and smiled. It’s possible the idea secretly appealed to him, even though he’d never admit it. Mary Alice watched Norbert prepare to take the mirror down. She even helped a bit in her own way.
Norbert huffed and groaned as he heaved, step by step, the hefty mirror (containing, as it did, all of Mary Alice) up the stairs and through the narrow doorway into the bedroom. He leaned the mirror against the wall, reflective side inward, to regain his breath before attempting to raise the massive object into position above the dresser. After a few moments, in which the galloping gait of his respiration decelerated by hitches into an alarmingly awkward canter, he loosened his collar and tottered out of the door, announcing in wheezes, ‘I—I forgot—the pencil—Mary Alice—I—shall return.’
‘You? You forgot the pencil?’ said Mary Alice. The wall received her query with a dull shrug. More meekly she said, ‘Norbert? You will return?’
Norbert did not return.
The seconds skipped impatiently into angry hours that stumbled into baffled weeks that trudged into desultory months—two, three, five—so difficult to mark time without fingers. After an interminable span, when it finally occurred to her that Norbert’s departure might, after all, be permanent, she implemented as the basis of a calendar the reliable robin who lived in the tree outside the window. She wished that she could dance along to his sweet evensong, but she had only the wallpaper to reflect, damask and flat. Too clumsy for rhythmic motion, she consoled herself with fancies and daydreams of her favourite steps.
It was, Mary Alice conjectured, for dancing at the drugstore (by the pickle barrel) that she had been banished to the mirror in the first place, and she wondered why that had warranted such a long, stern and lonely sentence as the one she currently served. He had offered no explanation for his decision, other than her ‘impudence’, which, admittedly, was a word one didn’t automatically associate with the act of spontaneous, ecstatic swaying among Dills, but she was accustomed to Norbert’s, in her opinion, intolerant (and inaccurate) assessments. She recalled the grim fury with which his eyes (from his own station in the dry goods) had settled upon her frolicking form.
Ah, the time passed by so slowly! If only she had not tampered with the to-do list! Had Norbert construed it as one ‘subversion’ too far? Thrown up his hands in disgust, perhaps, consigning Mary Alice to this eternal limbo, held permanently away from the world and everything in it that delighted her, the ultimate punishment for her failure to conform to his expectations? Such severity did not match his character: Norbert always softened in the end. Norbert would return. . . . Oh, how she longed for him! For all his peculiarities and peevishness, she treasured and respected him, since he truly was a man of honour and integrity and had been good to her in every instance but this last. Solitude was so very dreary, after all. Even someone as dull and authoritarian as Norbert provided a delicious social sustenance in comparison with acrid loneliness, which not only failed to sustain, but also depleted whatever reserves she had left.
Suddenly, the bubble of her isolation was collapsed to gummy shreds by a tramping and banging downstairs, followed by a rowdy conference of strangers. These first sounds of human habitation in the house giddied Mary Alice in every corner of the mirror. Norbert! Finally! But the stairs refused to croak their ribald announcements of approaching visitors; the air in sullen stillness kept its arms folded and its gaze downcast; and after an excruciating length of days, she had to admit to herself that the person shuffling about the kitchen and living room, muttering cantankerously and issuing grunts, coughs, and bewildered sputters, was not Norbert; nor did any living creature harbour any intention of ascending to the bedroom where she waited so ardently.
In the mirror, in despair, in lassitude, in boredom (alleviated somewhat by the brassy music that occasionally lilted up the stairs and burst into the bedroom with drunken declarations), Mary Alice, for the next twenty-nine years, subsided into the tangled vines of the intricate damask motif that stared—vigilant and tireless—from a mostly smooth redoubt.
***
>Rowan and Melissa explored the premises of their new abode while their parents conferred with the several burly gentlemen who had hoisted all the family’s bound and gagged belongings from the trailer of the truck and distributed them to the house’s many rooms. The children surveyed the yard (‘Vast,’ said Melissa), speculated about potential tyre-swing branches (‘Two viable candidates,’ said Rowan), and tested the fountain’s depth with an improvised plumb (‘Shallow,’ said the yo-yo). Now, their parents deep in conference with those gentlemen, brother and sister commanded a grand entrance through the kitchen door.
‘This house is a character,’ Melissa whispered reverently, repeating word for word her mother’s earlier pronouncement, issued during the car’s timorous creep up the driveway.
‘This house is a house,’ Rowan said. He aimed a corrective elbow at an undocked drawer, which grumbled at his interference. He harrumphed.
‘A house of character,’ Melissa insisted, reverence giving way to vehemence. She took every statement made by her mother to heart and resented her brother’s consistent, unseemly efforts to asperse that woman’s dignity.
‘Ah, and this kitchen,’ Rowan wielded his arm in curlicues, invoking his favourite mode of thespian glamour, ‘A kitchen of character!’
‘Come on, Rowan.’
‘Oh my God, look at the icebox, it’s, why, it’s an icebox of character, I tell you!’
Against her will, Melissa laughed. Her brother was not respectful, but he was funny.
‘Hey, Rowan, look at the side—there’s a paper.’
Rowan snatched it from its magnetic berth and orated grandly, his r’s rolli
ng to the ceiling: ‘The Milk Man (Sat Day, Two Day, Thir Day): Seven Aee Em.’ Look at that! ‘The Young And Restless: One Pee Em. The Another World: Two Pee Em. The Guiding Light: Three Pee Em. The Mail Man: Two And Half Pee Em.’ (Signed, The Old Lady Who Died Here, A Spinster of Character.)’
Melissa shook her head. ‘Not nice, not respectful. Miss Magda was her name. Not “Old Lady”. Or “Spinster”. You’re horrible, Rowan.’
‘Miss Magda, then. Probably kicked it in this very room. Her ghost wants us to know when to play her favourite soaps for her because she can’t switch on the TV anymore. Her hand passes through the knob.’ He demonstrated his own hand’s attempt (were it ghostly) to grapple with an invisible knob (were it visible). ‘She’ll just die if she doesn’t find out what happens next in The Another World. Bound to this ground forevermore, or at least until the show’s cancelled.’
‘Someday you’ll be an old man rotting in front of TV shows, and then what?’
‘I’ll be sure to leave a programming guide for those who come after.’
‘You always have an answer.’
Rowan merely shrugged: See? No answer. Wrong again, little sister. With his hip, he redocked the drawer—which had by now come near to fulfilling its rebellious itinerary—then watched as, once again, it gamely ignored his counsel and commenced an obstinate crawl down its tracks. He pulled the drawer all the way out and with a firm grasp adjusted its seating. Then he guided it home and held it there for a moment, his palm issuing a strict command, the drawer declining to acquiesce to his will . . . indeed, embarking even more eagerly upon its preferred escape route.
‘Dad’ll fix it for you, dear,’ said Melissa, smugly annotating her brother’s defeat. Rowan did not notice her nasty eloquence, however, for his gaze had alighted upon an object in the back of the drawer.
‘Look!’ he said, ‘A Magic Pencil!’
‘A what?’
He held it to her eyeline: a thick, shiny green, perfectly round pencil. ‘See? It says on the side: “Magic Pencil”.’
‘It looks old.’
‘Of course: all magic things are old.’
‘But they must have been new at one point, right? When they were created.’
Rowan shrugged. ‘Magic doesn’t obey the same rules, my darling. I think a magic thing can be old from the first day.’
‘Don’t call me “your darling”, and I think you’re making it all up.’
‘Then don’t call me “dear”, and I’ve read—’
‘I don’t care if you’ve read Tolkien. Or even Merlin’s diary. You don’t know the first thing about magic. I mean real-life magic.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Rowan said, ‘I know a thing or two. I’m a male of the species, after all.’
‘Don’t start that male chauvinist routine, Rowan! Let’s just explore, okay?’
Rowan stowed the Magic Pencil in his shirt pocket and winked at Melissa, aping his favourite actor, Harrison Ford. His awkward rendition of the gesture was more leering than charming, but Melissa knew her brother’s heart and acknowledged the intent, her cheeks warm from the repression of the urge to smile.
One last time Rowan demanded obedience from the drawer, which, to almost everyone’s surprise reformed its misbehaving ways and settled in for a cosy nap. Rowan stared at it for a moment, then shrugged and smiled brilliantly at Melissa, who giggled and patted his head with a rigid, ironic palm, a gesture borrowed from their mother.
The children made a clattering circuit of the ground floor before clumping up the stairs to examine and choose bedrooms. The second floor had been abandoned decades ago due to the difficulty posed by Miss Magda’s corpulent physique. There remained numerous pieces of dusty furniture, curios, knick-knacks, linens and assorted domestic objects which the realtor had offered to have removed to the local Goodwill organisation, but which their mother, charmed by this nostalgic glimpse into a bygone era (and possibly intrigued by the prospect of discovering some antique treasures amidst the otherwise pedestrian jumble), had insisted be left to her own eventual sorting and giving exercises. All of the items upstairs had been consolidated into the small bedroom at the end of the hall.
That was the room in which the children concluded their expedition, and also the one in which they spent the most time inspecting and declaring possessions and tabulating claims. They conferred, divvied, and tallied objects with businesslike efficiency: This one is mine and that one is yours and that one’s for The Poor. When conflict emerged, social harmony prevailed: The Poor can have this old candelabra; since we both want it so non-negotiably, it’s only fair we both renounce it. Without contest, the trick bubblegum is mine, while the sticky slide rule is yours. Meanwhile, we’ll share the armoire, which affords capacity for both our things and future growth—should Mother chance to bring more of our kind at some future date. (Two, however, was firm. The only potential Third lived and died within the space of Three weeks, still curled in its seed, unnerved, unnamed, even unknown to its mother before succumbing to her drunken tumble over a suddenly-in-the-way coffee table in the television room at eleven-thirty p.m., while the children slumbered upstairs and the father giggled.)
When they were called to dinner, Rowan, in his eagerness to scamper out, forgot to retrieve the Magic Pencil that he had earlier dropped upon the dresser beside an old spiral-bound notebook filled with lists. Pencil and notebook were therefore both reflected in the fancy mirror just above, which hung crookedly (to the exasperation of a certain interested person) due to a workman’s haste in the days leading up to the family’s arrival.
An hour later, bellies full and spirits rampant, the pair returned to the room to resume their talks and treaties, only to discover a curious bit of nonsense scrawled across the top of the exposed page of the notebook: Free Mary Alice from the mirror. (Count Two, wait thirty years—no more, no less—then count Three.) In the meantime, tidy the room, keep the duvet in view, and garnish the sill with daffodils. And do straighten the mirror, please.
II
There were many ways to count to Three. Mary Alice could name all of them: she certainly had time! The visible walls were Three. The daily meals to which the children were called were Three. Ceiling, floor, and space between were Three.
Three structures seen through the window (mossy fountain front and centre; crumbling toolshed a dozen weedy yards north west of it; neighbour’s shed, immaculate, imperious, almost severed by the window frame), Three panes of glass in the window (the right one on the bottom warped—or was it left? so confusing!), Three daffodils (plastic) in the vase (glass) on the sill (wood).
Three barks in Rowan’s haughty laugh, Three whimpers in his nervous one, Three entries in the Star Wars Epic to which the boy’s adolescent devotion was assigned.
Three shiny rings in the binder of Melissa’s memory book (comprising mostly sketches, many more imaginative than memorable, indeed some quite far-fetched and even obscene, much to Mary Alice’s amusement). Three red petals in the fleur-de-lis embroidered on Melissa’s favourite yellow sweater. Three words in the phrase that lissome, lovely, lonely girl spoke into the mirror every morning (‘I love you’, but never, sadly, appending ‘Mary Alice’, which would have enabled the sentiment’s deeply felt return).
Whether Three or Two or One, whatever stood before her Our Lady of the Mirror reflected: to honour, to subvert, and somewhat terrifyingly, to become. The becoming was subtle and temporary . . . For the most part, she could overlook this replacement of the woman ‘Mary Alice’ by the fixture ‘armoire’ or the boy ‘Rowan’ or, more frequently, the girl ‘Melissa’. On occasion, however, she felt herself soaking into the scenery of the room, or settling into a fine dust upon all the objects, or woven as an intricate and infinitely curving filigree into every visible surface. The sensation might be described as ‘losing oneself’, but the self had been lost already, had it not? (Long ago, even before she lost Norbert: truly, at the counting of One.) For if Mary Alice was in the mirror, then what self was ex
tant for her to lose? No, what she lost in such moments was not self, but interest. It was a form of despair, and its only antidote was hope.
For Two had been counted, had it not? There was the source of all her ‘hope’! The thing that never failed to revive her from the mesmeric clasp of despair. Melissa, brave girl, defying Rowan’s jeers, defying her own misgivings (a prank? it did seem, after all, just the sort of scheme her brother might contrive to make her look foolish!), had stood before the mirror that first evening and counted Two in absolute belief, and Mary Alice, in that moment, had swelled to every corner of the mirror with joy and confidence that life among the living would again be hers, even though she’d wait a lifetime for it: another thirty years till Three, and thirty years beyond to fulfil the final term. The only uncertainty lay in whether Three would indeed be counted; and if not, what happened then?
But it would be counted, that she could depend upon. Melissa loved her, even though the child had never seen her, and for her existence had only the evidence of one note written years ago (page one of the memory book) in a girlish script that might have seemed Melissa’s own to any other eye, but which (she confided occasionally to the mirror) Melissa knew to have spilled eloquently from the hand of a beautiful and mythic ‘Mary Alice’, whose origin was tied to some neglected epoch of magic and romance. (That was not quite how Mary Alice viewed either her predicament or provenance, but why quibble? Upon the canvas of the universe, history’s brush, dipped in rainbow hues, is wide and grand; leave pointillism to the scientists.)
In the meantime, a thing not ‘hope’, but similar in effect, was ‘pleasure’. Occasionally and potently, a dance would twine her in his limbs—arriving out of curtains, sneaking from the duvet, swirling sinuously from the floorboards’ seams and up along the painted vines, so delicate and detailed, of the gorgeous wallpaper. The dance emerged from every surface of the room to sweep her in his arms and turn her through the steps she knew and teach her unfamiliar ones she hardly credited with viability in human shape. In such moments, rare as they were, Mary Alice forgot to see, forgot to savour, forgot to remember, instead dissolved into a spinning choreography that replaced the world, until the mirror showed nothing of the room but vapour and steam . . . had anyone been present as a witness.
Strange Tales V Page 20