Reflection

by Elizabeth Lim

  As if the Fa Zhou in the mirror could read her thoughts, he held out a blossom in his hand. The limp petals sagged onto his palm, dried and withered.

  “I was wrong.” He crushed the flower in his fist. “The blossom will never bloom. It is dead to me.”

  Mulan watched the petals flake onto the ground. Anger swelled in her chest, so tight it became hard to breathe. How dare this projection of Fa Zhou ruin what had been one of her most tender memories of her father?

  “My father encouraged me to see the strength within,” Mulan told the mirror crisply. “When I was a little girl, he told me that life is a journey, one whose path diverges due to the choices I made. He told me not to worry about how difficult a path might look, for the only one worth following was the one that my heart chose.” She waited, but the Fa Zhou in the mirror said nothing. “My father would understand what I did. He believes in me.”

  “I did believe in you,” Fa Zhou replied coldly. “But that was because I trusted you. Do you know how worried your mother was when we found you had left home? Do you know how much danger you put your family in when you impersonated my son—my son who does not exist? It does not matter if your intentions were honorable. The risks you took were too great, and they cannot be forgiven.”

  Was that really what Baba would think? Mulan swallowed. Doubt swarmed inside her, and no matter how she tried to quell it, she could not.

  Her mother appeared beside him, carrying a tray of tea. Distress lined her face, and she wouldn’t look Mulan in the eye.

  “Baba is right,” Fa Li added, passing Fa Zhou a cup of the tea. “Everyone saw the Emperor’s counsel give him the conscription notice. The neighbors have been wondering why your father is not serving.”

  Mulan glanced at her father. He sat quietly, holding his teacup but not drinking. He wouldn’t look at her.

  “A secret like that cannot be kept forever,” her mother finished.

  “I did not mean to—”

  “War broke your father’s body,” Fa Li interrupted again. “But you have broken his heart, Mulan.”

  Her mother’s words were like a punch to Mulan’s stomach. Mulan felt her knees lock and her breath catch. It was true her father’s health was weak. She’d always prided herself in helping her mother take care of him—making sure he had company on his morning walks about the garden, that he wore an extra robe over his clothes when it was cold, and that he ate enough cabbage and carrots and celery at dinner.

  But she’d never stopped to worry about how her decision to leave home might affect his heart.

  Fa Zhou choked on his tea then. Fa Li dropped the rest of the tray and rushed to help him.

  “See how weak he is?” her mother rebuked Mulan. “It is because of you. You should not have come back.”

  “No!” Mulan bolted up to the mirrors, but her parents disappeared from the glass.

  She clenched her fists. “This is all a lie. My parents won’t renounce me when I go back. They won’t.”

  Why should this fate be so unbelievable? the mysterious voices taunted. You disappointed them, Mulan. First when you could not make a match. Then when you ran from your failure.

  “I was trying to help them.”

  You went for yourself, the mirrors hissed. You told Captain Li Shang that, and it was the truth. You left home out of selfishness.

  You will never find acceptance. Not at home, not in the army, not anywhere. That is your fate, Fa Mulan.

  Before she could reply, the empty mirrors fogged and misted. This time, the entire chamber came alive, every mirror capturing Fa Zhou and Fa Li’s neighbors until their entire village occupied the room. The villagers whispered to one another, just loud enough for Mulan to hear.

  “That’s her. She’s back.”

  The whispers grew louder.

  “Do you see what she’s wearing?” The women scoffed. “Trousers!”

  “And her hair, so short. Do you see the way she walks? With her chin up like she owns the world. Such impudence.”

  “My daughter would get an earful if she went out looking and strutting about like that.”

  Mulan didn’t flinch, not even as the insults brought back the pangs of loneliness she’d felt in the Hall of Echoing Forests. No matter how real everything looked, she’d been in Diyu long enough not to fall for the enchantment. But what was the test here? How was she supposed to get out of here…by letting them insult her? Or by fighting back?

  “I used to think she was just clumsy,” her family’s baker said.

  “She’s a discredit to her father’s name.”

  “Who does she think she is? Her father was a legendary warrior.”

  “It’s a shame they never had a boy.”

  “Do you remember how Fa Zhou used to let the girl go wild? Even gave her a horse. Look what’s come of that.”

  “I still can’t believe she ran away to join the army.”

  “Maybe they put her up to it. The old man can barely walk anymore. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was behind the whole idea.”

  “My father had nothing to do with my going to war,” Mulan shouted back. “It was my choice.”

  “A woman doesn’t get a choice. If the Emperor had wanted women in his army, he would have said so. You’re a traitor.”

  This isn’t real, she reminded herself. This isn’t real.

  The villagers weren’t listening. “Did you think the Emperor would honor you, even if you saved China? When he finds out what you’ve done, he’ll have you killed.”

  “You’re a traitor.”

  “I’m not a traitor,” Mulan cried. “I did it for my father.”

  “Traitor! Traitor!”

  The villagers yelled, their accusations growing so loud Mulan couldn’t distinguish one from another. She let them scream at her. She could bear it.

  Then, a little girl threw a bouquet of withered flowers at Mulan.

  The action, so quick and unexpected, stunned her. She stared at the little girl, whose black hair was braided to the side and adorned with a simple blossom.

  She looks so much like me, Mulan thought, when I was her age.

  “How could you, Fa Mulan?” said the little girl, sounding more sad than angry. “How could you lie to your parents and dishonor them that way?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Mulan whispered. “I didn’t.”

  Seeing they’d hurt her, more children appeared, flinging withered flowers at Mulan.

  They’ll never understand, she thought. Every time I try to explain myself, they twist my words.

  Breaking through the crowd, Mulan ran. The villagers parted for her, sneering and hissing as she fled. There wasn’t far to go before she hit the wall. But when she looked up, she found herself back at the training camp with the other soldiers.

  She turned back. Gone was the village, and even her home. There were only mountains in the distance, and a line of familiar-looking pitched tents. And an armory of swords, bows, and arrows.

  Shang appeared. His lip curled with disdain when he saw her. “What are you doing here? I told you to go home.”

  Mulan stood her ground. She raised her chin at the captain. Another one of the chamber’s illusions. “Why do you think I’m here? I am trying to go home.”

  Shang stared her down. If not for the hard glass under Mulan’s feet, she might have forgotten he wasn’t real, that he was simply a projection of the Shang waiting for her outside—for her to free them. With every passing second, everything in the Chamber of Mirrors felt more and more real, from the sweat on Shang’s forehead to the wrinkles on his shirt. Even the flags behind him fluttered with the wind, and Mulan thought she could smell pine from the trees in the nearby forest.

  Shang grimaced. “To think I considered you my friend. I’ve never been more wrong about anyone in my life.”

  “I am your friend.”

  “Friend?” Shang laughed. “You nearly got me killed with your foolish maneuver on the Tung-Shao Pass. Shan-Yu was right in front of you, and you mi
ssed him! Do you know why you couldn’t defeat him?”

  “Because you’re a girl!” said her friend Yao, coming up from behind her.

  With him were the rest of the soldiers, Mulan’s friends.

  Ling wrinkled his nose at her. “I can’t believe we trained together.”

  “Girls can’t be soldiers,” Shang yelled. The men shouted in agreement. “They’re weak, and they cry at the first sign of danger.”

  Shang raised his hand, and a gust of wind pushed her to the other side of the field. “Get out of here. You aren’t fit to serve the Emperor.”

  Mulan tumbled, falling on her backside. The soldiers laughed, Ling and Yao particularly loudly. Even Chien-Po couldn’t bear to look at her.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, getting up. “I belong here.”

  “You belong nowhere,” Shang said sharply. “To betray the Emperor is to betray China. Your life is meaningless.”

  Mulan swallowed. Even if he wasn’t the real Shang, what he said was true. The Emperor would have her killed if he knew. “You’ve said all this before. But you didn’t mean it.”

  “Didn’t I?” Shang scowled. “The penalty for what you’ve done is death.”

  Yao grabbed a bow and raised it at Mulan. “Say the word, boss.”

  Shang paused, and Mulan thought maybe, maybe she’d gotten through to him. Maybe making everyone see that she wasn’t worthless was the key to getting out of this chamber.

  Yao, Chien-Po, and Ling pointed their arrows at her.

  She couldn’t even hear the thudding of her heart. The soldiers’ disapproving chorus drowned out her shouts. “No!” Mulan cried again. “Shang, you can’t! This isn’t real.”

  “I know it isn’t,” said Shang. To her horror, the captain’s body paled, becoming blue and luminous. He strode out of the mirror to show her he wasn’t a reflection like everyone else. “But I am.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Only one of us leaves Diyu alive,” he said, his jaw tightening with resolve. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be you.”

  Then Shang’s eyes, glassy as the mirrors surrounding them, hardened. “FIRE!”

  All at once, the mirrors exploded. Thousands of tiny glass shards ripped across the room, flying off in all directions. Mulan crossed her fists in front of her face, blocking her head from the oncoming storm of mirror pieces. Sharp fragments nicked her cheeks and sliced through her sleeves and pants. She tried to fight off the flying shards with her gauntlets, but there were too many of them. The glass beneath her cracked, and the ceiling collapsed. She ducked and covered her head with her hands.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “Shang, please!”

  The captain lowered his hand. The storm ceased, and the soldiers drew back their weapons. “Had enough?”

  Mulan shakily rose to her feet and saw her reflection in the pieces of glass at her feet. She touched her cheek. Blood smeared her fingers. She recoiled.

  Had Shang really just given an order to kill her? The Shang she knew would never hurt her.

  “Shang,” she said, her voice quavering, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but my deal with King Yama is for all of us. You, me, and ShiShi. We have to work together and find a way out of here.”

  “Zhen told me how to get out of here,” said Shang, crossing his arms. “You fight your inner demons, Mulan. And mine is that the friend I trusted most lied to me. The only way I can vanquish that is if you take my place in Diyu.”

  There was a trace of regret in his face. It softened his features for one fleeting moment, long enough to make Mulan’s heart lurch. Maybe it was him.

  Then his expression hardened. “China needs me, Mulan. More than it needs you. So this is how it must be.” He turned to the soldiers behind him, motioning for them to prepare for another attack.

  Mulan kicked her leg back into a lunge and raised her fists. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She’d find a way out of here—for both of them.

  Her father appeared at Shang’s side. “You should never have come back.”

  Her mother and grandmother echoed Fa Zhou. Then the villagers and the rest of the soldiers. Mulan even saw the Matchmaker among them.

  “You are a disgrace!” the Matchmaker yelled. She turned to the other villagers, her bright red lips curling into a smirk. “I knew she was trouble.”

  “How dare you show your face back here!”

  “You will never bring your family honor.”

  As the shouts intensified, Mulan’s cheeks grew hot with shame and anger. Her heart pounded, her skin tingled with sweat. This was one of her greatest fears: to go home and be reviled by her parents, their village, and her friends—for bringing shame upon her family name.

  I fought for you all, she wanted to yell. What does it matter if I’m a girl? I held my own. I saved our army from the Huns.

  But she pursed her lips tight and reined in her anger.

  This is a hallucination, Mulan told herself. Don’t listen to them. Don’t lose control.

  She couldn’t even understand what they were shouting anymore. The commotion grew so loud that all she could make out was her name.

  Find a way out, she reminded herself. It was hard to see where the walls were. The frames around the mirrors had disappeared, and if she hadn’t known better, Mulan might have believed she were actually outside and not trapped in a chamber of mirrors.

  She ventured closer to the walls, but Shang obstructed her way. She tried to move past him, but he was too fast.

  “A life for a life,” Shang said. “King Yama can’t afford to let both of us leave Diyu. Only one of us gets to go, and it isn’t going to be you.”

  “Watch me.” She bolted left, running for the mountains behind the tents. She thought she saw a way out—a brightly lit path that led toward the distant moon. If she could reach it—

  Another wave of shards shot out of the mirrors. As soon as Mulan heard the glass whizzing across the chamber, she slammed her body to the ground. The glass fragments looked sharper this time. They were thinner, too, with sharp points that glimmered as they flew.

  They hurt like needles. Just pricks at first, but as more and more shards bit into her flesh, the pain seared into her arms and legs. Some pierced her skin, and others cut her only as they flew past. As glass shattered all around her, echoing and echoing in her ears, Mulan realized she had no idea how to get out of here.

  In the Chamber of Mirrors, you only battle the demons within, Zhen had warned her.

  Even if everything in this chamber was an illusion, the gashes on her cheeks and arms were real. The staggering pain from her battered body—that was real too. If she didn’t fight back, she would die here.

  So she got up, shielding her face with her arm. The shards flew at her so fast there was no time to blink. Only fight. She raised her arms and jabbed at the glass pieces. She didn’t hold in her fear. Every time a fragment pierced her, Mulan let out a cry. Then she channeled that pain into anger and determination to live. She kicked and whirled, swooping her legs up to evade the flying glass pieces.

  Without a shield, she couldn’t possibly protect herself from every angle. She wouldn’t last long against the mirrors, not unless she broke them. Her tactic had been to defend herself, but that wouldn’t work forever. Even when she aimed her kicks and punches back at the mirrors, more shards fired her way. She picked up a larger piece of glass and held it against herself. The shield was brittle; it wouldn’t last long.

  Shang watched from a corner of the chamber, arms crossed and shoulders square. “Give up, Mulan. You’ll never get out of here.”

  Teeth gritted, Mulan smashed an oncoming shard with her raised gauntlet. The impact hurt her wrists. Everywhere hurt, really. Her shoulders ached, and glass pierced her knees and legs. Only adrenaline kept her going. “I could do this all day.”

  “You don’t have all day,” Shang replied. “And neither do I.”

  He turned, heading for that lit path toward the moon—towa
rd freedom. He was leaving without her!

  Mulan’s chest tightened. She couldn’t forget the anguish on Shang’s face when Huoguai had taken her, when he thought she’d perish by falling into the waterfall. Shang, the real Shang, cared for her. He wouldn’t betray her like this.

  “Wait!” Not caring about the shards anymore, Mulan ran after Shang, ignoring the blasts of pain as the glass smashed against her armor. Weakly, she reached for his arm. “Wait.”

  All at once, the camp and the mountains and the trees vanished, blanketing the chamber with a blank darkness. The reflections of her parents, her friends, and the villagers disappeared.

  Only Shang remained. He stood in the middle of the moonlit path. His eyes were hard. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” said Mulan. She reached for his hand, but a gust of wind shuttled her away from the captain. No matter how she tried to make up the distance, another gust tore them apart.

  She blocked her face with her arm until the wind passed. When she looked up again, King Yama’s soldier demons surrounded them. She recognized Languai, the blue one who’d led her across the Bridge of Helplessness. He stood in the front next to Shang, whom his soldiers had tied to a tree.

  Before she could begin to fathom what was happening, Languai thrust a wooden bow into her hand. “Kill Captain Li,” he ordered. “Then you may leave Diyu.”

  The bow was nocked with a jagged shard of glass. Its sharp point glinted in the chamber’s dim light.

  “No,” Mulan whispered. But the demons began to growl at her.

  “Kill him, kill him,” they chanted.

  “The only way you’ll leave this place is if I die,” said Shang. “I wouldn’t hesitate if I were in your place.”

  She lowered the bow and arrow to her side. Was it really him? Deep in her heart, she knew it wasn’t. The real Shang was waiting for her to pass whatever tests awaited her in the Chamber of Mirrors. But maybe that was the test—or rather, the price she had to pay to cross this chamber.

  “If it is true that only one of us may leave, then I will stay.”

  Shang pressed his lips into a thin, cold line. “Even if it means you’re trapped here forever?”