Blood, Smoke and Mirrors

by Robyn Bachar

  “I think you have interrupted these proceedings quite enough, Mistress Morrow,” Cecelia scolded, and I blushed redder than a genetically modified tomato. I would’ve said I was sorry, but I was certain that opening my mouth would get me zotted into unconsciousness again, and I wasn’t sure I’d live through another blast. The faerie folded her silvery hands in her lap and leaned back into her seat, appearing relaxed and unaffected by the fact that I’d been ready to stab the face off my father’s head just a few short moments ago.

  “Both of you have come here to petition for the open position of liaison between the realm of the Faerie and the Midwestern region of the United States of the realm of Earth. The council will initiate the new liaison during your next full moon. You will be tested during this time to determine your adequacy for the position.” Her blasé tone did not make me feel more comfortable, and I was nervous about what they had in mind for testing. It was a good bet I wouldn’t need my #2 pencils ready for it.

  “Your first test begins now.”

  I opened my mouth to form the word “Now?” but the floor dropped out from under me and someone blacked the lights out again.

  Thankfully this time I was conscious, though the landing might have been more enjoyable if I had been unable to feel it. The breath whooshed out of my lungs as I hit solid ground with a very painful thud. Looking up, I expected to see light shining through the trapdoor that attacked me, but only saw more darkness. I reached down and unsnapped one of the pockets of my cargo pants, blindly grabbing a large hunk of crystal and pulling it free. Holding the lump in my hand, I spoke the incantation to activate the spell stored within it.

  The crystal began to glow with a bright white light, surrounding me in a circle of illumination. Sadly there was nothing to see-no walls, no ceiling, no people-just more darkness outside my globe of visibility. I almost called out to ask if anyone was there, but I bit my tongue and decided against it. If there was anyone out there in the black, they probably weren’t about to come to my rescue, and were much more likely to try to kill me instead. Holding the crystal aloft, I took a few hesitant steps forward. The floor was rough earth, not the pristine marble of the great hall. Roots from indeterminate plants poked through here and there, and I eyed them, half expecting them to leap to life and attempt to strangle me. When the plants did not become homicidal I continued to walk forward, hoping to reach a wall, or better yet a door.

  The silence was eerie, even more so than it had been since first I entered the mound. Tilting my head to the side, I paused and sniffed the air, but everything still reeked of cinnamon and was of no help at all. With a disappointed frown I went back to my slow, cautious walk. Maybe this wouldn’t be as difficult as I first thought. Maybe this was just a test to see if I could get myself out of wherever I was, which should be easy enough. All I had to do was leave the faerie realm, and I had the materials to do that on me. I just needed the mirror in my compact and my-

  Panicked, I grabbed for my dagger and discovered it was missing, as well as my sword.

  “Damn it,” I cursed under my breath. Well, I would have to find another way to cut myself then. Something in my many pockets ought to be able to do it.

  A slithering, skittering noise interrupted my internal cataloging of my equipment. The strange sound was unfamiliar and startled the hell out of me after all that heavy silence. Whirling around, I searched the darkness, but saw nothing. Nervous, I licked my lips, waving the light around and trying to find the source of the noise, but the darkness remained cold and unmoving. Then again, maybe I wasn’t supposed to just find my way out. Maybe I was supposed to find my way out alive after whatever slimy monster out there tried to bite my head off.

  I balanced the crystal on the brim of my top hat, giving it a sort of magical coal miner’s helmet effect. Centering myself with a deep breath, I felt my shields snap into place with an electric sizzle and a spark of multicolored light. Feeling more secure, I dug through my pockets and produced a matchbook. After a few attempts I managed to get one lit, and I turned myself toward the south (thanks to my magician built-in sense of direction).

  “Light that warms and nurtures life,

  Pierce the darkness like a knife.

  Drive back this black unnatural sea,

  As I will, so mote it be.”

  A ball of fire appeared in front of me, growing from the tiny flame at the end of the match into a small sun the size of a basketball that hovered in front of me. Now that I had a decent light source I extinguished the crystal atop my hat and popped it back into its pocket. The warmth of the flames soothed me, and thanks to its light I was finally able to see the room I had dropped into. Like the floor, the walls were rough earth, and the ceiling stretched high above my head. I didn’t see my father, which was good because I might’ve accidentally hurled the ball of fire in front of me in his general direction. He must have been sent to another room, or perhaps a different test. I turned around to examine the rest of my temporary prison, and saw an enormous golden eye staring at me, less than ten feet away from where I stood.

  I did what any sensible witch would do in my circumstance. I screamed like a scared little girl.

  The eye blinked. Once, twice, and then shifted as the dragon turned its head toward me, regarding me with both golden eyes. “I could have eaten you, you know.”

  I nodded numbly and stammered, “Thank you for not doing that.” I knew dragons existed in Faerie, though I’d never seen one before. Dragons are reclusive as a rule and tend to guard their privacy ferociously, so only the overly brave or overly stupid seek them out on purpose. The creature was huge, taking up a good portion of the room with its bulk. Black scales covered its body, and leathery wings were folded against its back. Smoke puffed out of its nostrils for a moment, and my stomach leapt in panic.

  “I only eat virgins though.”

  I stared at the dragon in disbelief, feeling the inexplicable urge to defend my past sexual history. My mouth worked as I struggled to find an appropriate response, and I thought I saw a glint of humor in its golden gaze.

  “Oh,” I managed. “Why am I here?”

  “Because you wish to be Titania.”

  “Well, yes, I mean why am I here in this room?”

  “Because you wish to be Titania.”

  “Right…” I suppose I should have expected that and just been grateful it wasn’t picking bits of Catherine out of its teeth. Turning around, I surveyed the room again, seeing no obvious exit or entrance. “How did you get in here?”

  “The same way you did.” The dragon laid its head upon the ground, its tail swishing forward to cover its nose, reminding me of a dog curling up against the cold. I couldn’t imagine why the council would have abducted a dragon to stick in the room with me if it had no intention of eating me, and no intention of helping me either.

  “Can you leave?” I asked, curious. Dragons were magical beings, but I really didn’t know the extent of their magical abilities. Maybe it couldn’t teleport, as faeries could, and relied on those leathery wings for transportation when faeries used theirs more as a fashion statement.

  “No.” It sighed and smoke puffed out from its snout in a great huff, which made me jump. “And I’m missing Jeopardy!. It’s celebrity week, you know.”

  “Yeah, Sean Connery’s on today too.” The absurdity of that statement hit me for a moment and I shook my head. My day was just getting more bizarre by the moment. “Would you like me to help you leave?”

  The dragon raised a brow, its expression quizzical. “Can you do that?”

  “Umm…maybe?” I guessed. Could I? Sure, I could get myself out of the room by returning home, but I couldn’t bring the dragon into my apartment. Aside from the obvious fact that it was bigger than my entire apartment building, dragons are very specifically forbidden from traveling into the human world and have been for several centuries. That’s why dragons are known to hoard human loot stolen by other faeries. I couldn’t leave the dragon here alone in good consci
ence, not after it’d been nice enough not to eat me or roast me to a toasty Cat crisp. There had to be a way to do it.

  I could try opening a portal to elsewhere in Faerie. I’d never tried anything like it before, but I figured it was hypothetically possible. On Earth you couldn’t use a mirror to go from one place to another, only from Earth to another world. There weren’t any concrete answers as to why that was, but the general thinking was that Earth simply doesn’t have the magic in it to support that sort of travel anymore. Centuries ago a magician didn’t even need a pre-made portal like a mirror to world walk, they could use almost anything as a gateway, especially mist or water. Faerie didn’t suffer from that problem though; Faerie was magic. I should be able to get us from the room to somewhere safer, somewhere I was very familiar with. It was worth a shot, if nothing else.

  “Where would you like to go?” I asked after a few minutes. “Does it matter to you if you end up somewhere else in Faerie?”

  It shrugged its scaly shoulders. “I can get home from anywhere after I’m out of here.”

  “Right then. Not a problem.” I rubbed my hands together, but then paused. “Well, one more question: Can you shrink? Change your shape at all?”

  “No.” I could have sworn it frowned at me.

  “Bugger,” I muttered. “No worries, still doable. Just a li’l more difficult.” I did my best to sound much more confident than I felt, because honestly I wasn’t sure I could pull this sort of magic off. To get the dragon through the portal I’d have to stretch the edges of the gateway. It was possible in theory, but I’d never attempted anything like it before. I could stretch the glass to fit myself no problem, just needed a bit of blood, but the dragon was huge.

  Shaking the doubt off, I squared my shoulders and dropped my shields. As hoped, the dragon stayed where it was and did not attempt to eat me while I was vulnerable. Like it said, it could have eaten me when I first appeared and was stumbling around in the dark, so I just had to trust it wasn’t hostile toward me. Digging into the recesses of my memory, I recalled that despite the stories, dragons didn’t really eat people, and preferred livestock. Hey, unless you’re Hannibal Lecter, wouldn’t you pick a steak over the guy down the street?

  From my right-hand pocket I pulled out my compact and opened it, setting it down on the ground in front of me with the mirror facing up. I frowned down at my hand, wondering how I was going to cut it open without my ritual dagger, and I glanced up at the dragon who watched me with much curiosity.

  “May I borrow the use of one of your teeth, please?”

  It blinked, and then chuckled, the noise a deep rumbling that made the ground beneath my boots vibrate. “Of course,” it answered with equal civility.

  Images of rednecks getting their hands bitten off after putting them in the mouths of alligators filled my head as I approached the dragon. The beast could swallow me in a few tasty bites if it had a mind to, and I felt a trickle of nervous sweat slip down my spine. It opened its mouth wide as I stepped near, and I stared in amazement at the sharp, dagger-like teeth. Terrifying to behold, but just what I needed. To my credit my arm only shook a little as I reached into the dragon’s mouth and drew my palm across one of its incisors. I whipped my palm over to prevent any blood from dripping into the dragon’s mouth-just in case-and then trotted back to my compact. Squeezing my hand into a fist, I let several drops of blood fall onto the surface of the tiny mirror and then placed the tip of my index finger against the glass.

  “Winter’s bite and moonlit snow,

  To the land of frost let us go.

  Castle Silverleaf let me see,

  As I will, so mote it be.”

  Closing my eyes, I formed an image in my mind. A castle surrounded by light gray stone walls, slender towers that stretched toward a pale blue sky dotted with thin white clouds, dark blue banners that snapped in the stinging wind. Familiar strains of music carried on that wind, as well as the sounds of voices lifted in song, laughter and conversation. A forest of barren, snow-dusted trees stretched to the north of the walls, and a frozen river ringed the castle like a moat. I opened my eyes and saw the image in the mirror, each minute detail just as I pictured it.

  Rubbing my hands together, I smeared them with warm, slick blood. I reached down and brushed the edges of the image with the tips of my fingers, and taking a deep breath, I tugged them outwards. A sharp crack sounded as the plastic backing shattered, but the image expanded. With painstaking care I drew the edges of the mirror farther and farther out, stretching it like a piece of uncooperative dough across a cutting board. Blood continued to flow from the wound, and I used it to refresh the coating on my hands. All magic is based in blood, and my blood is strong. This, however, required a lot more blood than I was used to.

  As I worked I lost track of time, focused on the task before me until finally the mirror that had once been small enough to fit in my pocket took up a space large enough to (I hoped) fit a dragon through. Standing up straight, I wavered a bit on my feet, lightheaded, and turned to my captive audience.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  The dragon studied the mirror. “Impressive.”

  “After you,” I said, sweeping my arm out in an invitation. The dragon crept over to the image, standing at its edge as though it were a pond the beast was deciding to dive into. Its muscles bunched, and with a graceful leap the dragon sailed into the mirror and through it. Before the magic could fade I leapt through and found myself standing in a snowbank up to my knees, staring at the castle in the distance.

  A shadow passed over me as the dragon flew away, a black silhouette against the afternoon sky. “Thank you!” it called out as it whooshed toward the horizon.

  “You’re welcome,” I shouted after it. I held my hand above my eyes to block out the sun and suddenly remembered the cut I’d left open and bleeding all this time. “Uh-oh.”

  Frantic, I tried to direct the cut to close itself, something I’m normally quite good at, but it stubbornly refused. I realized there was something wrong with my legs as well as they wobbled beneath me. My traitorous body was not letting me enjoy my victory, and a queasy lightheadedness washed over me before the world went black for the second time that day.

  Chapter Four

  I awoke by degrees, lost in a sea of hazy dreams and nightmares that vanished as quickly as they appeared. I saw myself as a girl running through a forest and giggling madly as I chased after the white, winged figure that darted between the bare trees in front of me. I heard the cool crunch of snow beneath my boots and felt the occasional glimpse of faint winter sunlight on my face as it peeked through the gray clouds above. You can’t catch me, Kitty-kitty!

  Then I saw the front door of my childhood home. I reached to open it, my hand small and smudged with dirt, and the knob turned easily in my grasp. As the door swung open I heard shouting, strange angry words, and it frightened me down to my core. I crept through the house back to the kitchen, everything around me now seeming sinister in the late-afternoon light. I paused as I passed the bedrooms, surprised to see two suitcases on the floor in front of my parents’ room. I hid behind the open basement door, sitting on the top step and making myself as small as possible as I listened to the voices. My father was yelling, my mother was weeping, begging him not to leave.

  The dream changed, twisted. I was older. I opened the door of my home and found quiet, an awful silence. I stepped inside and turned to my left, looking into the living room. The smell hit me, the pungent, poignant stench of death. My mother’s body lay on the floor, tiny pools of her blood staining the carpet, her face pale like I’d never seen it before and twisted into a mask of terror and agony. Those lifeless eyes stared at me, pleading, warning. Home was no longer safe-her killers had been invited in. Invited by my father, to tear my mother apart and feast on the strong magic in her blood.

  Fleeing the dream, my eyes blinked open to stare at the ceiling of my bedroom. I lay crumpled on the floor in front of my mirror, the scent of drie
d blood and faded cinnamon filling my nostrils. I pushed myself into a sitting position and surveyed my surroundings. My top hat had rolled off and was tipped on its side just out of reach. My unbound hair hung in dirty strings, and I absently pushed it out of the way. As my hand passed in front of my face I was startled by the dark, crispy coating of dried blood that stained it, and then I remembered how I’d stretched the mirror in the earthen room beneath the faerie mound.

  “Out, out, damned spot,” I muttered, my voice dry and raspy in my throat. Shaking my head, I glanced at the alarm clock on my nightstand and was surprised that it read a little after four. I really hoped it was the following morning and I hadn’t missed any days during my misadventure in Faerie. It was entirely possible, considering I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. Stumbling to my feet, I wobbled over to the door and opened it. Spots danced in front of my eyes as a warning that I needed to consume mass quantities of coffee and pancakes, and soon. First I wanted to check the date, so I continued on into my living room and flopped down into my desk chair. I slapped my mouse to wake up my computer, raining flakes of dried blood onto the mouse pad in the process, and waited as the screen took its own sweet time to wake up.

  At long last I was able to confirm the date: June 29th, and a refreshing 4:36 a.m. Lovely. At least I hadn’t lost any days, just hours. For a few moments I sat in the chair and debated the pluses and minuses of showering first versus eating first. The shower sounded very appealing-I felt like hell, gritty and grungy like I’d been dragged through the mud. Eventually I settled on the shower in order to save myself the time and effort it would take to clean the blood trail I’d leave behind in the kitchen. I only caught myself losing my balance twice and managed to hold onto consciousness the entire time.

  Go me.

  Dressed in my fuzzy purple bathrobe and matching slippers, I puttered about in the kitchen, fixing my “Huzzah for survival” feast. Instead of coffee I forced myself to brew a strong herbal tea, one I knew had healing properties in it. As usual I decided to comfort myself through the cunning use of fattening food-cheesy scrambled eggs, sausage links and chocolate chip pancakes. And, most importantly, nothing that included cinnamon, which was how I realized I was no longer alone in my apartment when the scent of it wafted down the hallway halfway through my meal. I stared down at my eggs, and decided I was too tired to get up and go to her.