Reflection: The Stranger in the Mirror

by Rachel R. Smith

  "It seems a masquerade surrounds us," Rica said with a wink. Her cheery mood was quickly returning. "Speaking of which, our masquerade party is just hours away, and you're not even dressed for the day yet! One day someone will see you in the morning and then everyone will find out that you're not always as energetic as you seem."

  "Actually, I'm not feeling very well this morning." Nerissa's tongue felt heavy as she spoke the intentionally misleading words. It was half true. The revelation about the shattered crystals and the distant rumbling in the back of her mind had left her feeling decidedly unsettled. However, she knew that her mother would think that she was referring to her physical well-being. Nerissa disliked being deceptive, but this was a necessary step in order to pull off her plan tonight.

  Reacting exactly as Nerissa had anticipated, Rica reached out and touched her daughter's forehead and cheeks tenderly with the back of one slender hand. "You don't seem overly warm," she said, smiling, yet her voice was filled with motherly concern. "Is it a headache and sour stomach?"

  Nerissa nodded vaguely in response.

  "It is probably allergies caused by all the blooms." Rica gave the diagnosis with a confident nod of her head. "Maybe you should cancel your training this morning."

  "Moving around may help me feel better if it is allergies," Nerissa suggested. She felt her cheeks warming from shame. "Besides, I doubt that Einar would consider anything short of death as a viable excuse for missing a day of training."

  Rica laughed knowingly as she walked to the door. "I think you're right. He is as stubborn as he is a good teacher." She paused in the doorway with one last request. "You do look a little flushed so be careful not to overexert yourself. It would be terrible if you were too sick to attend the masquerade. You wouldn’t want to miss the festivities, and you have social obligations as well."

  "Thank you, Mother. You're right. The last thing I want is to miss the party," Nerissa replied. That much was completely true. Rica nodded in understanding and closed the door behind her as she exited.

  Nerissa crossed the room, approaching the crystal wind chimes that were still dancing in the sun. She reached up to cup one of the transparent points in her hand, and hundreds of tiny rainbows danced across her skin. For a moment, she just watched, awestruck by the simplistic beauty of the twirling stone. Tao had said that you could often determine the changes coming based on the type of crystal that shatters. In this case, the spirit crystals were the only ones unaffected, so it seemed that whatever ominous change was coming would affect all aspects of life except spirit. What could that possibly mean? It was perplexing. Still, as Tao had said, there was no sense worrying about what the future held. It would come to reveal its mysteries soon enough, and at this moment, there was little she could do to change anything.

  There was not much time to dwell on matters, however. Out of the corner of her eye, Nerissa spotted movement in the practice fields beyond the gardens. After a furtive glance at the clock on her nightstand, she realized that she was about to be late for her lessons with Einar. Every morning began with some form of exercise. The practice was intended to improve coordination, mental agility, and stamina. A strong mind and a healthy body were qualities that were important for a ruler. This morning she had archery practice. Her instructor, Einar, was a strict teacher who demanded nothing less than perfection from his students. He had also been her mother's instructor though he had been quite young for a teacher at that time. Einar and her mother were nearly the same age. Nerissa had a knack for the sport, but this did not translate into her actually taking much pleasure in it. Quitting wasn’t an option though, so she simply went through the motions and used it as an exercise to help focus and clear her mind. As far as she was concerned, hitting the target was more the result of good concentration and discipline than physical prowess.

  After a quick change out of her night clothes and a breakneck dash through the halls, she arrived at the practice fields. All she could do was hope that she wasn’t late. As Nerissa tried to think of a good explanation in case she was tardy, a deep, masculine voice boomed just ahead of her. Nerissa groaned inwardly. Einar always greeted lateness the same way.

  "An Heiress is to perform her duties, not make excuses about why she is late for them,” Einar yelled.

  Late again, Nerissa thought. She vowed to herself to wake earlier from now on, as she did every time this happened. Without waiting to be told, she began the usual punishment of running six laps from the first target to the garden walls. This was definitely not how she wanted to start the day, but she had learned long ago that it was best not to try to argue with Einar. He was a tall, well-built man, not overly muscular, but far from weak. Between his physique and his manner, he had a commanding presence that could intimidate even those twice his size.

  "You could save yourself a great deal of running if you got here on time," Einar called out when she passed him on the first lap.

  "It's not like I planned to be late," she huffed. It was as much of a defense as she could muster.

  "It makes no difference to me. The results are the same regardless of your intentions," he replied, shaking his head sadly as she passed on the second lap. The disappointment in his voice humbled Nerissa more than the scolding—it always did. She hoped that he would have nothing further to say by the third lap, but fortune was not on her side.

  "Rica said you weren't feeling well. She asked me to go easy on you today, but you don't look sick to me," he commented, eyeing her suspiciously.

  Nerissa couldn't help but wonder how her mother had managed to talk to Einar in the short span of time between leaving her room and Nerissa's arrival at the practice field. "Running seems to be helping," she muttered under her breath. She picked up her pace to escape his scrutinizing look. Lying was always so much harder than it seemed. Nerissa had never been good at it, but it was especially difficult to get away with anything around Einar. That man seemed to know everything.

  Midway through the fifth lap, Nerissa realized that she was hardly even winded. She really must have been serving this punishment often.

  As she passed by again, Einar rolled his eyes up to the sky and lamented, "Why are my two best students both delinquents?"

  Nerissa had lost count of the number of times he had said that to her. She had no answer, but she was secretly glad not to be his only delinquent student. She had often wondered who this other student was. Out of curiosity, she had once asked Einar. His response had been that he was not at liberty to share who his other students were. Matters of privacy he had said. If his other “delinquent” student were getting private lessons, then they were likely from one of the other noble families. Nerissa mentally added archery lessons to her repertoire of conversation topics for the masquerade. It would at least break up the monotony of the usual polite conversations about the weather and similar small talk. Maybe she could figure out who Einar’s other delinquent was.

  Einar abandoned his post for the remaining lap to begin preparing the targets, leaving Nerissa to finish running in blissful silence. She put on her practice clothes and chest protector and pulled a four-fingered glove onto her right hand. Her bow, nearly an inch taller than herself and made of curved bamboo, had also been used by her mother when she had taken lessons from Einar.

  At Einar's signal, Nerissa pulled an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and raised her arms overhead. She slowly drew back the bowstring, simultaneously pushing the bow away with her left arm. She focused on both the familiar motions and the feeling of the arrow’s fletching brushing behind her ear. Aiming the arrow at the target, she cleared her mind of all worries about shattering crystals or the many tasks to be done later. The sooner she shot these arrows perfectly, the sooner she could be done with practice. All that existed was the target, and she reached out to it with her mind, visualizing the arrow flying effortlessly through the air before striking the center. When the image was firmly embedded in her mind’s eye, her fingers released the string almost of their own accord.
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  Einar said nothing, which meant that the shot was good. Praise from Einar was a rare occurrence indeed. He only gave it for truly outstanding shots and he was a difficult man to impress. However, Nerissa had not missed the hidden compliment in his earlier comment about being one of his two best students. As she nocked the next arrow, she idly wondered who was actually the better of the two. Whoever they were, it would be interesting to test her skills against them in a competition one day.

  "Focus!" Einar barked from a few feet away.

  Nerissa sighed, certain that the man really was able to read her mind. She forced herself to focus on the target ahead. The rest of the practice continued in much the same way, with Nerissa concentrating on form, step by step, and Einar watching for even the tiniest mistake or break in concentration. Her shots early on were excellent, but by the end of practice she wasn't doing as well. It didn't make much of a difference to her by then. She felt awake and refreshed, and her previous worries had finally been put out of her mind. Einar dismissed her with a clap on the back and a stern reminder not to be late next time.

  Nerissa assured him that she would not, then hurried away from the archery range to look in on the final preparations in the gardens. The Manor and its surrounding gardens were separated from the acres of open grass by a tall stone wall containing only two doors. She detoured to the farthest end, where the wall curved in and intersected with the exterior of the main house. Here, she crept through the rarely used door behind the greenhouse, which also happened to be located just below her bedroom. The door creaked and groaned on hinges rusty from disuse as she pushed her way through. Immediately inside, a trellis covered with intertwined vines extended from the ground to the bottom of her bedroom balcony. When she was younger, it had served many times as an impromptu exit and entrance for late night escapades with Charis. Tonight, it would once again be used for a similar function. Nerissa inspected it to make sure it would still be sturdy enough to hold her weight. After all, she had grown a bit since the last time she had scaled up and down it. Satisfied with the stability of the makeshift ladder, she left the secluded corner and followed a stepping stone path to the main area of the gardens.

  The rest of the gardens were already a hive of activity as she approached. Rows of glow lamps were neatly arrayed in the sunshine, soaking up the daylight in order to provide illumination after sunset. Most people didn't even think about how glow lamps worked. They gave light in the darkness, and that was all that mattered. To Nerissa, though, it was her curiosity about this very phenomenon that had ignited her desire to learn more about how the world around her worked. She was certain that Charis rued the day that she had volunteered to sneak in a book about how glow lamps were made. It had been the first in an unending stream of clandestine texts.

  Nerissa spent the remainder of the morning in the gardens, helping to position garlands and lights while answering a multitude of questions. All the while, her mother sent frequent messages telling her to go and rest. Finally, the last minute preparations were complete, and she was able to slip away to fetch her second costume from the dressmaker's shop. By the time she returned, it was mid-afternoon and her stomach was growling. In all of the rush, she had forgotten to eat breakfast and lunch. She stowed the hanging bag containing her second costume along with the boxes containing her shoes and mask in the back of her wardrobe and went down to the kitchen for a late lunch. There were only a few hours remaining before the festivities would begin.

  She opened the doors to the kitchen and found the place in an uproar. Pan and his wife, Addy, were there and had already begun to set up lavish displays of pastries. It seemed, however, that the preparations were not proceeding smoothly.

  Addy chased after a stumbling Pan, waving a rolling pin in one hand. "Stop this foolishness right now, Pan! Oh! What were you thinking? There's so much work to be done!"

  Pan continued to run, ducking Addy's swings with the pin and merrily chuckling the whole way. "I had to try the wine to make sure it was fit for drinking, my sweet. One just can't be sure! Especially considering it was made by that sour old grape."

  "I am not a sour grape! The nerve!" scoffed the shriveled-looking winemaker from the corner. Nerissa had to disagree with Pan. In her opinion, his wrinkled appearance combined with his perpetual scowl made the winemaker look more like a sour raisin.

  "Well, I'll admit that the ones you used for the wines certainly weren't sour. They were delicious!" Pan's cheeks were rosy as he toddled around the corner of a table, grasping the edge at the last moment to stay upright.

  "Of course they were!" Addy and the man yelled in unison. Pan grabbed handfuls of flour from a nearby bowl and threw one fistful after another toward the two of them. It was an utterly futile tactic, but it caused an involuntary giggle to escape from Nerissa.

  It was at that exact moment that Pan noticed her taking in the scene from the safety of the doorway. "Hello Neriss-OW! That hurt!"

  Pan's momentary distraction had given Addy time to finally catch up and clobber him with the rolling pin from behind. He sat down on a nearby stool and whined, rubbing his head. A dent in his puffy white hat marked where Addy had inflicted the blow.

  "I'm sorry you had to see that, Nerissa," she apologized, still tapping the rolling pin on her open palm and glaring down at Pan menacingly.

  Nerissa chuckled. She grabbed a flour-dusted apple from a basket of fruit on the counter as Addy continued. "His mother warned me that I'd need to take up the rolling pin if I married him. I thought she meant so I could share his passion as a baker, but I've since come to learn otherwise."

  "You know you love me." Pan's voice was small as it drifted up from behind a white cloud.

  Addy looked down at him, with one eyebrow raised, visibly holding back her amusement. "Oh, I do. Sometimes I don't know why, but I do."

  Nerissa didn't bother restraining her laughter as she left the kitchen. She held the apple in her upraised hand as she waved farewell to the group. One day she hoped to be as happy with someone as Pan and Addy were with each other.

  Chapter 6

  Masquerade

  Nerissa returned to her room to find that the maids had prepared a bath for her in the short time that she had been in the kitchen. In the fireplace, a small kettle of water boiled merrily. The steam from the kettle heated two rows of metal hair curlers. A tray with a tea kettle and a small jar of honey had also been delivered. That was unexpected. Nerissa noticed a folded piece of paper on the tray and opened it. Inside she found her father's firm, square handwriting. The honey was the freshest batch and would certainly help with her illness, the note said. In smaller print at the bottom, he had added that the tea would taste much better than the medicinal herbs her mother would be sending later. That was just like him. Her mother knew how to make her feel better outside, but her father knew how to make her feel better inside.

  "Thanks for the warning," Nerissa murmured to herself. She smiled as she laid the card back on the tray. The last thing she wanted was to have to choke down a wretched mixture of medicine.

  She closed the balcony doors and barred the hall one, then rolled the steam-heated curlers lock-by-lock into her hair, securing them with U-shaped pins. She poured herself a cup of the tea, making sure to add a generous portion of honey, before disrobing and sinking blissfully into the rose and strawberry scented bathwater. More than a half an hour passed before she could summon the willpower to climb out. Even then, she managed to do so only because the teacup was empty and the bathwater was growing progressively colder.

  After swaddling herself in her dressing robe, she sat in front of the vanity mirror. She applied her makeup with deft hands then unwound the curlers from her hair. Instead of shaking out the resulting mass of curls, she restrained them in a fine black net that was held in place at the base of her neck by two shimmering black combs. Hopefully, the curls would hold until later. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror, and Nerissa smiled, satisfied. Even her less than ample chest was s
atisfactory tonight, now supported by an incredibly uncomfortable corset. Sometimes it was necessary to suffer for beauty.

  No sooner had she donned her dress and mask than the distant sound of music and the din of festive voices began to fill the room. There was still one final thing to do before meeting with her parents. She pulled a piece of stationary from her desk and hastily scribbled a message to later give to her mother saying she was retiring early. She folded it into quarters and tucked it into the flap at the back of the small dance book that hung from her wrist and then hurried down the hall. She joined her parents in front of the double doors that led to the main hall. Nerissa could hear muffled music from the other side of the doors. The party had begun, and the time for the hosts to make their entrance was close at hand.

  "How are you feeling?" her mother asked.

  At the same time, her father said, "You look lovely!"

  Nerissa smiled. Her mother and father were a perfect match, as elegant and regal looking as always. "I'm feeling better than before—thanks to your tea and honey, Father."

  "Did you take the medicine I sent you?" Rica asked.

  "Medicine? No one brought me any medicine," Nerissa replied. She tried to look like this was the first she had heard of it being sent to her.

  Rica gave her husband a suspicious look, but he smiled back wide-eyed and shrugged. Rica sighed as she took his arm.

  The doors to the great hall opened far enough for a graying man to poke his head inside.

  "We are ready," Rica said.

  The man nodded, and a moment later the doors swung open fully. "Presenting Rica, the Blood of Chiyo's past; Parlen, the Bond of Chiyo's present; and Nerissa, the Heiress to the future of Chiyo," he said. He spoke into a hollow metal cone which amplified his voice so that it would be heard even by those at the back of the room.