How did this fit in with my mother’s obsession with mirrors? Frazer claimed that mirrors and reflecting pools were to be avoided, lest one’s soul be taken away. Colette had surrounded herself with mirrors, doted upon her own reflection.
Mildly frustrated, I selected another book from the collection: Robert Graves’s The White Goddess. Skimming, I gathered that the author was attempting an even more ambitious effort at comparative religion than Frazer had. Graves’s goal was to find connections for the present day back to an ancient Moon Goddess, something that he saw as a lost feminine principle.
Hope fluttered in my heart as I flipped back to the index, for Colette was most certainly a very feminine female. However, Graves disappointed me. I only found one reference to mirrors. This proved to be part of a discussion of mermaids, which in turn seemed to be part of a discussion of Muses.
Graves seemed not to know what to do with the mirror in question. In one sentence he dismissed it as a possible artist error—a substitution for, of all things, a quince! In the same sentence, with only a semicolon’s pause to note his shift, he says that the mirror probably stood for “know thyself” and was a part of some ancient mysteries. By the end of the paragraph, again without any explanation other than his own fluid connectivity, Graves states that the mirror was an emblem for vanity.
Remembering Colette at her makeup table, that aptly named “vanity,” I could almost believe this last, but in the end I found Graves too facile for me, and put the volume aside.
Graves had mentioned several names that were not familiar to me, so next I reached for the dictionary. The entries were terse, even cryptic, but tantalizing. I hunted up the entry for mirrors, and found it satisfactorily substantial. Skimming over the brief list of words associated with mirrors, I found hints of both Graves and Frazer. Doubtless, were I better read in the area, I would have recognized the contributions of other eminent scholars. Toward the very end of the entry were subcategories related to specific mirrors. One of these entries seemed oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place why. Aunt May had said something about this section, but this was something else … .
It was a reference to seven mirrors that in the cabalistic tradition were tied to specific types of divination. Unlike the references in Frazer and Graves, these were very solid, practical mirrors. The dictionary’s brief listing included what metals each mirror was to be made of, the planets each was associated with, and noted that each was meant to be used on a specific day of the week in order to divine answers to specific types of questions.
I’d been looking at the books in the first-floor front parlor, and now I rested the thick volume in my lap, trying to figure out why this seemed not precisely familiar—I was sure I had never encountered anything like this before—but somehow connected to something I’d seen, and recently, too. Then it hit me, and I got to my feet so quickly that I nearly dropped the dictionary. Instead I tucked it under my arm and rushed up the stairs to Colette’s room.
Now that I knew how it was done, I managed to get the secret compartment holding the kaleidoscopes open quickly, without spilling the contents all over the floor. Examining the neat rows of kaleidoscopes I found what I had remembered. Seven of the kaleidoscopes were inscribed with emblems I vaguely associated with various planets. There was the round circle with the dot in the center that stood for the Sun. There was the circle with the arrow coming off it at an angle that today is more commonly used to mean “male,” but started as the sign for the planet Mars. There was its mate, the circle with the cross below that stands for both “female” and “Venus.”
I’d have to look the others up, but I was sure about these. I lifted out the kaleidoscope marked with the Sun sign, and checked its characteristics against those listed in the dictionary. The outer casing was of hand-beaten gold, the shining, ruddy warmth of the metal still showing tiny hammer marks. I put the eyepiece to my eye, and was delighted by mandalas of gold-dust intermixed with minute rubies and multifaceted golden topaz.
The next kaleidoscope in line bore the characteristic crescent shape that even small children know is the mark of the Moon. This casing was dull grey, but when I rubbed my finger against the metal, the tarnish came away, revealing the gleaming metallic white of pure silver. The silver within the object chamber at the kaleidoscope’s end had fared better than the casing, probably because the object chamber was sealed away from the outer air. Flakes of metal shown silver-white, mingling in patterns with the bluish white opacity of moonstones and the pale pastels of irregular pearls.
Mars came next, out of order in how we post-Galileans arrange the solar system, but making perfect sense in the ancient order of things. After the Moon, anyone can see that Mars and Venus are our closest neighbors.
The casing for this kaleidoscope was also dull grey, but no amount of rubbing brightened it, for the metal in question was the war god’s favorite metal: iron. In a damper climate, the metal might have shown rust, but New Mexico’s dryness had preserved the iron’s dull solidity. The images I viewed through the kaleidoscope’s eyepiece were anything but dull. Here the red planet was given his due, his warrior’s booty. Rubies glittered against bloodstones, jasper, agate, garnets, and even against chips of ruddy sandstone.
I only looked briefly through this eyepiece, because according to the dictionary, the day on which the Mars mirror was used was Tuesday, when the kaleidoscope might be consulted as to enemies and lawsuits, neither of which I thought I had—and if I did, I didn’t really want to know.
My own superstitious reluctance to look made me hesitate, considering whether I’d spent too many hours reading books whose authors seemed to at least half-believe in their subject matter. Wasn’t I a practical woman? I was a schoolteacher, for heaven’s sake! Then I looked around the room where I sat, remembered where I was, remembered, too, how this room had come to be so spotlessly clean. If I could accept the silent women, then there was a lot more I needed to accept.
Even so, I put the iron-cased kaleidoscope back in its holder and reached for the next one. Here the formula called for a mirror of crystal encasing mercury. The kaleidoscope maker had invoked this by making the case from slabs of smokey quartz crystal, the rock nearly transparent in some places, in others heavily veined with darker lines. This was the first of the lot not constructed in the “traditional” round-barrel shape usually associated with kaleidoscopes. Instead, the casing was a rough triangle, the seams joined with a metal solder.
I studied the case, thinking about what I knew regarding how kaleidoscopes are made. It had been that knowledge as much as the planetary emblems on each case that had made me think of these devices when I’d read the entry about the seven cabalistic divining mirrors.
You see, the working heart of every kaleidoscope is a reflective surface—essentially, a mirror. In a cheap child’s toy, this might simply be a folded piece of metal with a polished inner surface. In the more elaborate kaleidoscopes, high-grade mirrors are used, at least two for each reflecting system. Two-and three-mirror kaleidoscopes are the most common, but more mirrors can be used, as long as the reflecting chamber is properly aligned. The shape of the mandala the viewer will see is affected not only by the number, color, and quality of the mirrors used, but also by the angle at which the mirrors are placed.
The casing exists for no other reason than to hold the mirrors in place. I’d demonstrated this to my students in a summer “Art and Science” course, showing them how a simple kaleidoscope could be made with mirrors, duct tape, and a small plastic container to serve as an object chamber. These makeshifts were neither pretty, nor particularly durable, and my students always agreed it was worth the trouble to make a casing.
In my classes, we usually used premade cylinders, everything from potato chip cans to cardboard tubes to PVC piping. However, as the kaleidoscope in my hand showed, a triangle encasing the mirrors could work as well or better. At arts-andcrafts shows, I’ve seen casings with six or eight sides; I’ve seen cases created from stained g
lass, polished wood, and precious metals. The Victorians, who were the first to enjoy kaleidoscopes after Sir David Brewster invented them in 1813, loved elaborate exteriors for their “elegant philosophical toys.” In the intervening years during which the kaleidoscope was relegated to a role as a cheap children’s toy, these elaborate exteriors were neglected, but I doubt they ever will be again.
But no matter how elaborate, the casing isn’t the kaleidoscope. If the mirrors are the heart, and the eyepiece, well, the eyes, then the object chamber is the guts. The object chamber is the container that holds the objects that tumble and twist, ready to be transformed into an infinity of mandalas when the kaleidoscope is turned. As with other aspects of Professor Brewster’s creation, object chambers have evolved over time. Some use stained-glass wheels. Others are brackets meant to hold interchangeable spheres—often your standard cat’s-eye marble. Still others hold viscous liquids in which various objects are suspended. The patterns of these last never remain constant, but are in constant motion.
When I looked into the Mercury kaleidoscope, I saw that this object chamber held liquids. The heavy, silvery one was almost certainly real quicksilver. The others might have been colored oils. They shifted and slipped about each other, carrying with them drifts of glitter and infinitesimal emeralds. Tomorrow, if I wished, I could consult this one on matters relating to finance.
I set the Mercury kaleidoscope back in its place, then lifted the next, the one dedicated to Jupiter. The tin casing had resisted tarnish better than had the silver. Moreover, the artist had followed a Spanish tradition and pierced the surface in intricate patterns. Usually, pierced tin is used to decorate lamp shades and candelabra, to let the light can shine through. This artist had instead put a thin layer of gold foil beneath the tin. It created a fine illusion, giving back the lamplight in irregular little stars.
Examining the interior of Jupiter’s kaleidoscope, I felt fairly certain that the mirrors used for the reflective chamber were tin, just as the cabalistic spell had demanded. They gave back the light more reluctantly than did the silver or gold, but with a muted steadiness. Jupiter’s object chamber was dominated by white and azure. I saw tiny lightning bolts intermixed with the gems and bits of glass, and wondered if I augured for success with this, if they would form some sort of recognizable pattern.
There were two kaleidoscopes left. Venus’s copper sheath had greened, but as with Mars’s iron, Saturn’s dull lead stubbornly refused to be affected by the passage of time. Again, the items in each object chamber were coordinated to the colors and symbols related to the appropriate planets, the kaleidoscopic patterns brilliant and enigmatic.
As I set Saturn’s kaleidoscope back in its place in the drawer, I wondered how one actually used these to divine. The dictionary’s entry had been complete, as far as it went, but offered no directions as to how these divining tools were to be used. Did I just gaze into them as a carnival gypsy did into her crystal ball, or did I need to say magic words or wave my hands or something?
In my reading, I had come across a reference to the need to smear oil on the divining tool in question—though that one had been a polished shield, rather than a mirror. Did I need to do something similar here? The kaleidoscopes were sealed systems, but maybe the elaborate casings played a role in the effectiveness of these divining scopes that they did not in a normal kaleidoscope.
And how did the teleidoscopes fit into my evolving theory that Colette had employed these as divining objects? Unlike the kaleidoscopes, teleidoscopes lacked an object chamber. Effectively, the world served as the object chamber for a teleidoscope. The type of lens set at the end—Colette’s all seemed to be spheres—affected how those external scenes were transmitted to the mirrors, but that was all.
I opened the drawer containing the teleidoscopes and studied their casings. They did differ from each other, but there was no tidy planetary symbol to tell me what each might be used for. I considered what the different names Brewster had given his creations meant—for although the word “kaleidoscope” has entered our general language, coming to mean any repeating image, or even any broad view, the word did not exist before Brewster coined it for his invention.
Brewster derived “kaleidoscope” from three Greek words meaning “to see a beautiful form.” “Teleidoscope” in turn meant “distant-form viewing.” Thus, the kaleidoscope seemed to be intended to be employed to see beauty, to create art. The teleidoscope’s purpose didn’t seem much different from a telescope, a “far-seer.” I guess Brewster must have been less impressed with the teleidoscope than with the kaleidoscope, or maybe any word he could invent that would mean “to see the world busted up into fragments and rearranged into interesting patterns” would simply have been too much of a tongue twister.
I studied the teleidoscopes in the drawer, hoping to note some sign or symbol that would give me a hint as to their use. Some of the cases were intricate, and there might indeed be magical symbols in their workings, but I couldn’t tell if there were. I’d have to do more reading in Aunt May’s books, mark pages that gave symbols, and do some comparing. Then there were kaleidoscopes other than those I had mentally dubbed the Cabalistic Seven. Were these also “magical,” or had Colette simply collected them because of their undoubted loveliness?
I didn’t believe it. Were Colette simply collecting them as decorative objects, she would have had them out on display. What now seemed certain to me was that, like the wicked queen in Snow White, my mother had been using mirrors for scrying—or for spying.
Did all the mirrors in the House serve this purpose, or just these carefully designed kaleidoscopes? And why had Colette chosen to use kaleidoscopes rather than simple mirrors for her divining? What use was there to a fragmented and repeated image?
Each time I found something that seemed an answer, it also seemed I also found more questions—questions so complicated that they all but invalidated my original question. “Why mirrors?” led to kaleidoscopes. “What use are these kaleidoscopes?” led to “Why kaleidoscopes at all?”
Sitting there at my mother’s vanity, methodically restoring the false bottoms to the drawers, I thought about my original questions. It seemed to me that both Aunt May and I had started with the same ones, “What happened to Colette Bogatyr? Is she alive or dead?”
Trying to understand Colette, and thus the reasons she had disappeared, had led Aunt May into a search for Colette’s background—and the warning from Mr. Hart that asking such questions was dangerous indeed. So Aunt May had turned to trying to find out the source of those enigmatic titles Mr. Hart had let slip—or perhaps had deliberately dangled as bait or distraction.
Following Aunt May’s lead and my own memories of Colette had brought me to mirrors, and through researching mirrors I had discovered some undoubtedly fascinating things, but none of what I had learned seemed to offer an immediate answer to my initial questions. Where had Colette driven on that day forty-odd years ago? Why hadn’t she come back? Was she still alive?
To these I added one more, “Why had Colette taken a teleidoscope with her that day?”—for I was absolutely certain that she had done so. If, like the kaleidoscopes, the teleidoscopes were used for some sort of scrying, then it followed that Colette had been looking for something—some “distant object.” What had she been looking for—and had it found her first?
I slid the drawers shut, locked them, and left the room, locking the doors to the suite. Frowning, I walked across to the room I had taken for my own, and dug the teleidoscope out from under the socks. I held it to my eye and looked around, but though the fragmented patterns were undoubtedly as lovely as anything a kaleidoscope could produce, they showed me nothing I did not expect. I slid the teleidoscope back into its protective concealment, and went downstairs.
The silent women hadn’t gotten to the point where they cooked meals, and I was hungry.
Wednesday morning the phone rang just as I was bringing in the coffee mugs from breakfast.
“Hello
?”
“Mira, this is Chilton O’Reilly. I’ve finished the background work, and I was wondering how you felt about going ahead with the feature story on area Victorians.”
Actually, I felt a lot less enthusiastic about it than I had when he’d first proposed it, but I couldn’t say so without too much explanation.
“Sounds good,” I said. “By the way, one of my childhood friends got in touch with me after the last piece. We’ve been out to lunch.”
“Great!” Chilton said. “Listen, can I bring a photographer by on Friday? If things go well, we can do a big feature in the Sunday paper. If we get delayed, there will be room later in the week.”
“Friday morning will work,” I said. “I haven’t gotten a lot more done inside, but the outside is progressing nicely.”
“We’d really like some inside shots, too,” Chilton said. “After all, people can see the exteriors just by driving by.”
“I’m sure we can handle that,” I said. “I have the living room in shape, and I know my neighbors would like to get involved. Many of them have put a lot of work into their homes, and furnished them beautifully. Let me give you a few phone numbers.”
Child of a Rainless Year Page 26