A Reflection of Ice

by Katherine McIntyre

  The wind whistled through the garden, creating a beautiful, chilling sound, like the flute, as it blew past the icicles descending on either side of them. They followed the stone pathway to where the beginning crags of the mountainside framed this section. This mountain peaked somewhere in the tufts of clouds above them, the first of a range spanning to the West as far as she could see when she’d looked from the castle window. The unfamiliarity of this domain enhanced her desire to leave.

  By the time they’d looped along the path and back to the castle, the sun had reached a tawny color as it descended to the horizon. The shadows stretched longer, like claws trying to find their footholds on any spare surface they could manage. Longing seized her as the reds and yellows cascaded onto the icy tundra, and she couldn’t dispel the ache in her heart. The sunsets she’d watched through the trees in her spot belonged to another person in another lifetime. Even though she hated so much about the trailer park, about living with Melinda and the jerks at school, Lyra missed everything, even the bad.

  Moro’s mouth opened, but she could see in his eyes what he’d say. Instead of waiting, she pre-empted, because this time she had a plan.

  “I hate to be a burden like this, but it’s getting dark,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Would you mind if I stayed one more night?”

  “Why, dear lady, you may stay as long as you like. Consider this your home.”

  While the words were innocuous, when he spoke a hunger lurked in his gaze that all the control in the world couldn’t hide. A shiver rippled down her spine with the way his eyes glittered as he regarded her. He didn’t view her with soft appreciation or the heat of desire—this was greed, and she saw past the gilt glaze.

  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d love to eat something when we get back,” she suggested. “I’m famished.” His pattern grew predictable, his tricks becoming transparent.

  He nodded, a slow smile reaching his unblinking eyes at last. Moro quickened his pace, guiding them along the pathway that led to the staircase inside. Lyra lifted her chin and set her jaw. Let him think he had the control because after tonight, she’d get to the bottom of the mysteries here.

  5

  Lyra was stuffed by the time Moro walked her to the room. He’d delivered yet another feast he couldn’t possibly have managed to make in the time he stepped out and returned, this one consisting of a beefsteak with gravy over roasted turnips. As she expected, the saccharine taste clung to the meal, like with everything she’d eaten here thus far. They’d swapped casual conversation, and yet again he had glossed over any specifics, avoiding any more answers to the mountain of questions she’d accumulated.

  Moro kept the conversation focused on the wondrous treasure room he planned on showing her tomorrow. Though she could admit curiosity, her growing sense of fear overrode any plans to stay another day. Besides, if she happened to indulge, she had the feeling he’d find some way to stall until night descended.

  She hadn’t been able to leave without finishing her food after her foray into the hallway last night. He’d watched her, and when she’d tried to stop midway through, he gave polite protestation until she succumbed and finished her plate. As she’d expected, once she placed the emptied plate down on the floor, her eyes began to droop and the exhaustion crashed in. Her mounting worries turned the savory flavors stale on her tongue, churning her stomach.

  When at last the door clicked shut, Lyra didn’t move until his soft footfalls echoed along the corridor. Two mirrors resided in her room—a small one by the bed stand and a long one on the far wall. She took care to remain out of sight as she headed for the bathroom.

  While this wasn’t her first choice, since he’d pushed her into eating, she didn’t have another. She sank to her knees because if she waited any longer, sleep might steel her chance. The cold tile steeled her resolve. Lyra jammed two fingers down her throat and retched into the medieval style toilet.

  The contents of her stomach plummeted into the porcelain as she gagged, her throat spasming in the wake of the violent heaving. If the food left her stomach, she might not be lulled to sleep. After her stomach stopped convulsing, she gripped the sides of the toilet and pushed herself up. Her legs were shaky as she made her way over to the sink, which didn’t have the obligatory mirror above, to her relief. Lyra wiped the corner of her mouth and sipped at some water to clear out the terrible taste. Whether her body had been shocked awake from heaving or her idea worked, the effects of the dinner had subsided for the time being. Her hands trembled from the effort, but she regained her mental acuity.

  Night descended upon the castle, and with it came the crawling shadows and an unerring sense of caution. Lyra perched on the side of the bed, wide awake and wrestling with the one problem she had to overcome before exploring the castle: all of those damned mirrors. She glared at the one on the far wall—long, rectangular, and as tall as her, and she squeezed the sheets in frustration.

  Unless she could use his tool against him.

  Careful to not let her reflection catch in the tall mirror facing the edge of her bed and the nightstand, she crept around to the side. The framed piece hung by wire and a nail. Her heart beat a little faster in her chest as she grabbed it from the edge and off the wall with all the precision she could manage. She gripped it at an awkward angle as her fingertips dug into the metal frame until she stepped behind the mirror. With one quick motion, she grabbed the other side, carrying the long rectangle in front of her like a shield. Let’s see if he could spy on her if he only saw a mirror reflecting back.

  Each step was careful, since too much movement or shaking would draw attention, and she’d planned her destination. Out of all the majestic rooms Moro had whisked her away to, the throne room, outdoors, and the ballroom, he’d never brought her in the direction of the hallway, the one that bred darkness and cold.

  She turned the mirror in a different direction, extricated her hand, and opened the door. Time to find out what secrets the corridor hid.

  Bringing her mirror in front of her, she took the first, tentative step into the hallway. To the right lay a familiar route, but to her left lay the unexplored corridor, which without fail managed to give her the creeps. This stretch only consisted of four close-together mirrors before she could step down the corridor with so few. A shaky breath slipped past her lips. She could do this. She had to do this.

  The first steps she took, she thought her legs would shake right off her body. So far she hadn’t heard any sounds of his arrival, but she’d believed she was in the clear last night, and he’d slunk up behind her. A shudder rippled down her spine, and she cast a quick glance back.

  Empty.

  Approaching the first mirror, she turned to face it, trying to keep her fingertips out of view as much as possible. Her palms had begun to sweat, and she struggled to keep a tight grip. If she didn’t get answers soon, she’d have to try leaving, and based on the careful protestations he’d made so far, she wasn’t sure how Moro would respond.

  One step, two steps. She bypassed the first mirror and let out a breath. Lyra stood still, letting the cool shadows wash over her as she paused and waited. Walking through the hallway holding a mirror wasn’t something she could explain away if caught.

  On the opposite side lay the next mirror, a round one, so she pivoted quickly to face the other wall, hoping he wouldn’t notice the brief disruption. She continued to inch her way down this corridor. Another held breath, another mirror bypassed, and no sign of Moro. The castle during the day held such splendors, and even filled with mystery, the golden rays of the sun banished some of her fears. At night however, the deep blue of her surroundings, the darkened shadows clinging to the crevasses, and the hollow, shifting mirrors heightened her paranoia.

  She swiveled around again, turning the mirror to face the third and then the fourth one. Lyra continued her measured pace until she reached the right turn she’d been dreading to make. A door lay at the end of this hall, and two mirrors k
ept her from it. Though she’d walked through the place feeling little of winter’s cold, the closer she got to this door, the more the chill caused her flesh to prickle with goosebumps. Her tongue dried, making it difficult to swallow. Even though she took care to keep her footsteps light, every breath she took sent a shock of worry that she made too much noise and might draw him here.

  The final mirror hung a couple of footsteps before the door. She sucked in a breath and turned again. As she slid to the right, her boot scuffed the floor. Lyra stumbled forward, and a surge of adrenaline burst through her, flooding to her fingertips. Hefting the mirror up, she caught her balance, hoping Moro hadn’t caught the lapse. After several moments of silence passed with no sign of him, she let out a shaky breath and continued onward to the door, a tall, black monstrosity inhaling more shadows than the rest of the place.

  Her hand rested on the cold iron doorknob carved with intricate knotwork. This held the same gravity as the other important rooms they’d wandered to, but the biting cold radiating from this one seemed appropriate.

  With a twist of the knob, she opened the door.

  Her chest sank. She hadn’t known what she hoped for, but it wasn’t this. On the far right wall sat a single, wire-rimmed chair, and a large gray-and-white patterned rug covered the center of the floor. A small chandelier comprised of pale crystal droplets, a couple candleholders on the walls with unused candles in them, and a long, stretch mirror on the far left were the only decorations in this room. Lyra took several steps forward and closed the door with a gentle creak behind her, careful to stay out of the mirror’s field of view.

  A chill clung to this room, but certain spots grew Arctic, numbing her toes. She paced back and forth on the carpet, trying to figure out what she was missing. After propping the mirror up, Lyra ran her fingertips along the flat surface of the icy walls in an attempt to find some bump or secret door. There had to be some reason why the unnatural cold emanated from this room and why being in here made her skin crawl.

  No luck. She tried moving the candleholders, but they didn’t budge either, and the chair in the corner didn’t unlock a secret entrance. In the middle of walking toward the mirror, cold washed over her like a mainline of ice water, so strong she stopped in her tracks. The rug lay under her feet, same pattern as the others, except the one corner stuck up as if it had been pulled on a regular basis. She squatted on the floor and rolled the rug forward.

  After all, who would hide their secrets in plain sight?

  Moving the carpeting revealed an iron rectangle with a handle in the exact spot she’d stepped. As she put her hands on it, the cold burned her fingers, and she yanked them away. Lyra squeezed her hands together to bring back the warmth. Now or never. Whatever lay underneath the door remained hidden for a reason, and since her host refused to give her answers, she’d have to seek them herself. Steeling for the shock, she gripped onto the rung and tugged the door open.

  A set of steps led the way into a pit of darkness. The air tasted sharp and stagnant. Fear gripped her by the throat, but if she didn’t take the plunge, she’d have much bigger problems. With a glance to the door and then one to the mirror, she balled her hands into fists before descending into the shadows.

  After carrying the mirror through the corridor to here, she felt unprotected without it—after all, who knew what might wait for her at the bottom of these steps. However, if he used mirrors to keep watch, perhaps he wouldn’t install any down here. She halted mid-step. What if he wasn’t the real danger in this place? Before the dark, insidious thought took root, she pushed herself to continue down the stairs.

  Goosebumps prickled along her arms, either from the cold or the immersive darkness as she made her way down the stairs. Her boots scraped against the rough grain of the steps, but her feet had frozen to the point she could barely feel them. The further she descended, the more her eyes adjusted, and similar, dimly-lit globes to those she’d seen outside cast the room in bluish light.

  Upon reaching the base of the steps, she stopped and looked around.

  Lyra wished she hadn’t. She wished she’d never found the door or wandered through the halls. If she’d stayed in bed, shut her eyes, and hadn’t indulged in her curiosity, she could have kept herself from this place.

  Against the far wall stood ice statues. Except these looked nothing like the ones in the ballroom, all polished with vacant faces. Agony lived in these frosted gazes, and the ice hardened the lines of pain and fear etched with permanence into these sculptures. A pit grew in her stomach, one that twisted more fiercely by the second. Dim lighting glanced off the statues that stared back at her like she was a monster. Maybe she’d stumbled into the section where the rejected pieces were kept.

  However, the statues closer to the steps weren’t nearly the same.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  Moro might be off, but he couldn’t do this.

  Ice hadn’t encapsulated these yet, and though some people’s legs and arms had been frozen, the rest of their bodies were real. Human. And many hadn’t been finished yet.

  He was making ice statues of live people.

  Along the wall, over a dozen people of differing ages were chained up, some encased from the waist down, and others almost reaching frosted completion. The permeating ice turned the exposed skin ashy and pale, as if they were being changed from the inside out. Eyes stared at her, seeing but not moving. Lips had turned blue from the cold or glazed over as they transformed. She couldn’t pull her gaze away even if she wanted to, and oh god, she wanted to. The cold burned her skin, as if the ice threatened to devour her too.

  The room smelled like decay, metal, and ice, all of which made her nose sting, and she couldn’t help the bile rising in her throat. Monster. That creature roaming the halls was a monster. The soft bluish lighting did little to illuminate the room, pale rays in comparison to the bitter revelations of the truth. The coldness slithered across her skin, and their gazes bored into her as she approached. At the sound of her footsteps, one girl who could’ve been her age looked up from where she was chained and let out a sharp gasp.

  With slow, hesitant steps, she approached the ice figures. The one girl watched her, dark eyes glinting in the low light. When Lyra stepped in front of her, she caught the glisten of tears in the girl’s eyes.

  “I knew there was a reason he hasn’t been down.” The girl’s voice came out feeble and spiderweb thin, as if she struggled to breathe. Chains suspended her arms to the wall, and her legs had already frozen over. Tendrils of ice spread up her body like the tide’s crawl up the shore. The girl’s skin had a pale blue pallor, the blood drained away in lieu of the slow freeze that encroached. Even though her eyes were stark and vivid from crying, the cold had begun to outline the trails of her tears.

  “Moro did this.” Lyra said, not a question in her mind.

  The moment she voiced it out loud, everything clicked into place, all the lingering doubts, the shifting shadows, and the slow, trickling inkling that something wasn’t right here. And with that realization came a fear so dizzying the room swirled around her.

  The most important question sprang to her lips. “Why?”

  The girl’s lip cracked as she opened her mouth to respond. Ragged breaths escaped from her throat. “Wants to leave. This is his prison, and the one way for him to escape is if someone willingly takes his place.”

  Lyra’s lips formed a thin line as the final piece of information settled in her mind. Clarity descended. “And these are all the people who said no.”

  The girl fell silent, looking at her with big eyes widened by pain and fear. The pleading expression broke Lyra’s heart because she didn’t know how she’d ever manage to escape, let alone reverse the magic done to the poor girl. Or any of the other people here. My god, she would die here. She would be sentenced to this hellish fate, forced to watch her own limbs turn to ice until she could no longer move, no longer breathe, and then she’d be trapped here with him for an eternity. For a moment, L
yra forgot how to breathe.

  She swallowed, forcing herself to take a deep breath, and then another one in an attempt to rein in the terror. The girl didn’t seem to have much energy to expend, so if she wanted more answers, she’d have to choose only vital ones.

  “He takes you when you want to leave…” The girl trailed off, her lips barely moving. “If the mirrors don’t catch you, then the blizzard will.”

  Lyra’s stomach sank. She had known deep in her gut that if she insisted on leaving, he would find a way to stop her. Now she understood why. Even if she managed to thwart the mirrors, once he discovered her gone, he would do anything in his power to make sure she didn’t escape. If he didn’t accomplish the task, the blizzard would do the rest of the work. Who knew how many had met their final fate in the snow drifts she’d waded through. Her throat tightened, and a sickening wave of despair swept over her. Home had never felt further away.

  A few ice statues rattled, blocky movements and sliding eyes as they tried to form words. Heat stung her eyes at their struggle, at how little remained of them. Their agony sliced right through her, sharp enough that she lost her breath. These people were too far gone. The ice must’ve penetrated their insides. The girl didn’t have much longer either from the looks of it—she must have been the most recent attempt before Lyra had shown up.

  Lyra’s shoulders shook until her entire body trembled. All of his feigned loneliness and sympathetic airs hid the real monster of this castle, a creature waiting to kidnap and destroy anyone who refused to take his place here. Lyra had believed Melinda was bad, but that woman paled in comparison to the charming sociopath roaming this castle.