The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen

by Delia Sherman

  Airboy squeezed my hand. Looking up, I saw Tiffany half crouched between Stonewall and Fortran. Her head was down and her shoulders shaking. Tiffany the ice queen, Tiffany the most Folk-like student at Miss Van Loon’s. Tiffany was crying.

  Alone in the middle of the circle, Bloody Mary floated. She wasn’t trying to kill us anymore, but she wasn’t offering to grant our wishes, either. If we were even in any shape to make one. The furious grief pouring off her made it impossible to think, let alone come up with a clever idea. Maybe she couldn’t reach us, but we couldn’t reach her, either.

  Stalemate.

  Suddenly, Espresso started to speak.

  “Bloody Mary, bogeywoman,

  Queen of Mirrors, Lady of Terror,

  Cut us a break.”

  Bloody Mary screamed. The blood froze in my veins, but Espresso kept speaking. She didn’t scream to compete, she didn’t even shout, but I could hear every word. Her voice was more like singing than talking, and the way the words sounded was part of what they meant.

  “Bloody Mary, we see you.

  We see the blood on your hands and clothes.

  We hear you mourn your lost children.

  You want us to sigh with you?

  We’ve sighed.

  You want us to cry with you?

  We’ve cried.

  But it’s over now.

  Mother of Fear, we’re not your children.

  Sister of Death, our blood’s not yours to shed.

  Child of Violence, we have better weapons

  than a knife.

  We have knowledge, we have heart, we

  have courage.

  We have each other.

  Go back into your mirror-world.

  Leave us in peace.”

  Bloody Mary stopped moaning and quivered. Tiffany rolled her eyes at Espresso, who grimaced. And I saw for the first time the thick scarlet rope of the genie spell binding Bloody Mary to the Mermaid’s mirror.

  I had an idea.

  I took a step forward, tugging at Airboy and Espresso. They hesitated, then shuffled forward beside me, pulling Fortran and Mukuti, who pulled Bergdorf and Tiffany and Stonewall, closing the circle tighter around the bound bogeywoman.

  Another two steps, and we were all squished together like a human wall. Bloody Mary had gone all thin and shadowy, her hands down by her sides, her head thrown back, her black eyes white-rimmed with panic.

  I dropped Airboy’s and Espresso’s hands, quickly grabbed Fortran’s and Mukuti’s. The circle tightened.

  Tiffany shot me a hard smile, shoved Stonewall behind her, and grabbed Bergdorf’s hand.

  We squeezed closer.

  Bloody Mary oozed toward the ceiling and hovered there uncomfortably, the scarlet spell-rope stretched tight and thin. Behind me, everyone took hands to make a second circle.

  Bergdorf dropped back, then Mukuti. The spell’s rope was a string now.

  Then Fortran dropped my hand and it was just Tiffany and me, our hands joined around a pulsing scarlet thread. Bloody Mary was a thunderous mist above us, the mirror a bright disk between our feet. I focused on where I thought Tiffany’s eye was.

  Tiffany shrugged and pulled me into her arms and hugged me.

  The thread snapped.

  Bloody Mary gathered herself in a reddish swirl and arrowed straight into the bathroom mirror. She hung there for a moment, a vision of reflected horror that filled the mirror from edge to edge. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, she shrank and dimmed until finally there was nothing in the mirror but the reflections of two guttering candle flames and our own masked faces floating above the sinks like ghosts.

  Fortran broke the silence. “We sure kicked her butt.”

  Tiffany snorted. “You think? I didn’t see much butt-kicking. Just a lot of snot-nosed mortals, crying like babies.”

  Stonewall whipped a white handkerchief out of the pocket of his classic vampire tail-coat and handed it to her with a flourish. “For your snot nose, Mademoiselle Pirate Queen.”

  “Oh, go bite yourself.”

  Mukuti threw herself at me and clung like a spider-web. She was still shaking. Feeling a little strange, I put my arms around her. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s over. She’s gone. You helped.”

  “I cried.” Her voice was thick with tears.

  “Yeah. Fast thinking,” I said. “Um. You want to wash your face?”

  Airboy had already peeled off his furry blue mask, turned on the tap, and dunked his face and hands into the sink. As soon as Mukuti let go of me, I did the same. The water felt wonderful. I scrubbed my face hard, then stood up, dripping.

  “The mirror?” Airboy asked.

  I wiped water from my eyes. “It’s in my pocket. Airboy? We did it, right? She’s really gone?”

  He looked up from the sink into the bathroom mirror. “I guess so,” he said.

  Espresso’s unmasked face appeared over my shoulder, grinning in the fading candlelight like a jack-o’-lantern. She gave me a quick, awkward hug. “Way to go, Neefer-bear!”

  “You, too,” I said, and returned the hug. I felt like I might be getting the hang of it. “Your poem was far out.”

  “You think? It just came to me. I thought the last lines were kind of lame.”

  “No. It was”—I thought for a moment—“outta sight and in the groove.”

  Espresso’s cheeks turned pink. “You were the one who got rid of Miss Scratchy. You and the Tiffster, grooving to the beautiful music of love and harmony!”

  “Oh, spare me!” Tiffany’s voice came out of the gloom, more East Side than Bowery. I heard the door creak open. “All this Hallmark cheer is making me sick. Let’s boogie.”

  Nobody was in the mood for pretending to be grossed out by a bowl of peeled grapes or talking to anybody who’d been bobbing for apples all night. So we went back to the library. We were totally starving.

  Over a cooperative feast of sushi, bean sprouts, hamburger, cheese, bread, apples, sparkling water, chocolate, and lattes, we relived our triumph for Danskin. There was a lot of giggling and toasts with sparkling water to the Lady Poetess and the Banshee Twins (that would be Tiffany and me), the Grand High Weeper of Crysville (Mukuti) and the Queen of the Masks (Bergdorf), and (last but not least) the Grand Vizier Count Stoneywall and his magical swan, Danster.

  Through all this, Tiffany sat cross-legged on the checkout desk, swigging from a bottle of green energy drink from Fortran’s Backpack, and scowling like a gargoyle.

  “Lighten up, Tiff,” Bergdorf said. “Have some chocolate. It’s over? Bloody Mary’s gone. Maybe your face isn’t so bad, and you can come home and it’ll all be okay.”

  “Woolworth,” Tiffany said through gritted teeth. “I’m Woolworth, remember? And nothing’s okay. Even if my face weren’t totally trashed, I wouldn’t go back. The Upper East Side is garbage. Mother Carey is garbage. I’m Woolworth of the Bowery now. Whatever that means.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Mukuti asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  While Tiffany—or Woolworth, I guess—was telling her just exactly why that was the most stupid idea in the universe, Airboy got up and walked off. I scrambled up and joined him on the window seat where Bergdorf had talked to Stonewall.

  “I want to see the mirror,” he said.

  I pulled it out of my apron pocket. It had lost its gold chain, and the place where the chain had been attached was broken off, but it was in pretty good shape for a mirror with so many adventures behind it.

  “Does it still work?” he asked anxiously.

  I felt for the grooves in the rim and pressed. After a tense moment, I heard a clear, low chime. The mirror clouded, then cleared to show a familiar gold trident pulsing gently against a pale-blue field.

  We puffed out twin sighs of relief. “It works,” I said.

  “So ask it what we should do next.”

  I turned the mirror off. “I only know how to make it show me the weather forecast and the answers
to one thousand and one common riddles. Besides, I already know what to do next. Take it back to the Mermaid Queen.”

  “I could do that for you,” Airboy said.

  I held the mirror to my chest. “It’s my job, Airboy,” I said, a little more forcefully than I had to.

  “It’s my job, too.”

  Suddenly, we were glaring at each other, enemies again. I imagined Airboy plotting to take the mirror and all the credit for finding it. I imagined the Mermaid Queen salting the waters of Central Park because he’d brought it back instead of me. I imagined yelling at him. I imagined hitting him, hard.

  Airboy looked away and sighed. He sounded almost as sad as Bloody Mary.

  I laid the mirror in my lap. “It’s our job,” I said finally.

  There was a little silence. Then Airboy said, “You’re right, I guess.”

  For some reason, I wanted to laugh. “As usual,” I said.

  Airboy gave me a look of pure shock. I waggled my eyebrows. His expression morphed from annoyed to puzzled, then, slowly and reluctantly, settled into a smile.

  “Allies?” he asked, holding out his hand.

  “Friends,” I said, shaking it.

  He didn’t argue with me.

  Chapter 20

  RULE 306: STUDENTS MUST NOT CARRY OR USE MAGIC TALISMANS WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD GENIUS.

  Miss Van Loon’s Big Book of Rules

  In Battery Park, the ghosts were waiting patiently in front of Castle Clinton, surrounded by bundles and baskets and ghostly children.

  I’d seen them last summer, with Changeling. I hadn’t known, then, who they were or anything about them. Now I knew they were the ghosts of immigrants, waiting to be allowed into New York City so that they could get a job or catch a train out west. Some had brought Folk with them, invisible stowaways who eventually found their way Between and founded the New York I live in.

  Airboy and I were sitting on the pier with our backs to the ghosts, dangling our feet in the water, listening to the oily waves lapping at the pilings, watching the lights of the Harbor islands glimmering like sequins on the water, and smelling the tart, salty perfume of the Harbor. We were arguing.

  “For the millionth time,” I said, “I’m the official Voice of the Genius of Central Park. I get to talk first. ”

  “You’ll be official shark food before you can open your mouth.”

  “I know she’s really mad at me, but even the Mermaid Queen wouldn’t kill the Lady’s Voice.”

  Airboy kicked at the water viciously.

  “You know I’m right,” I said.

  “I know you like being important. Well, guess what? You are important. You’re the official Park changeling, Voice of the Genius of Central Park. Nobody there would dare hurt you. I’m the one who has to earn the right to keep my merrow cap.”

  I stared at him. “You’re kidding. Without your merrow cap, you’d—”

  “Drown?” Airboy shrugged. “Life is hard in the Harbor.”

  I was going to say that life was hard in the Park, too, but stopped myself. Sure, I’d faced the Wild Hunt, but I’d escaped. And I’d had help. A lot of help.

  “Fine,” I said. “We found the mirror as a team, right? Park and Harbor working together toward a common goal? Why not take the next step and give it to the Queen together, too?”

  There was a long silence. “Okay,” Airboy said.

  “Wizard!” I got up. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  He tugged at my skirt. I looked down at the delicate embroidered apron. “Oh. Yeah. Pepperkaka would kill me, wouldn’t she?”

  “So take it off. The skirt, too. In fact, take off everything.” He opened one of his Harness’s pouches and pulled out something shiny and black. “Extra swim skin. One size fits all.”

  I found a relatively ghost-free spot behind the Castle and changed into the swim skin. It was like putting on wet jeans, only worse because it was too dark to see what I was doing. When I’d finally managed it, I stuffed the troll maiden gear into Satchel and went back to Airboy. I felt like a shiny black sausage.

  The water looked black and cold and thick. “Um, Airboy? How am I supposed to breathe?”

  “I’ve got a bubble wand,” Airboy said impatiently. “Come on.” And he jumped into the Harbor, pulling me with him.

  Sputtering, I scrambled for the surface. Airboy surfaced beside me, the lights of Battery Park reflecting off his eyes and his half-moon grin. “It’s cold!” I gasped.

  “You’ll warm up as you swim. Ready for your air bubble, tourist?”

  “Can’t wait,” I said sarcastically.

  I ducked under the surface. Freezing water stroked my face and ran icy currents through my hair. Airboy, his Harness glowing faintly green through the murk, produced a wand with a circle on top and blew a bubble around my head. I blinked water from my eyes and took a shallow lungful of air. It smelled of fish and stale magic.

  “Okay?” Airboy asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Follow me.” And he darted off.

  I’d learned to swim from nixies, but Airboy had grown up underwater. Within six strokes, I knew I couldn’t keep up with him, not swimming in the dark with a bubble of air around my head and Satchel bumping and dragging at my back.

  Airboy darted back to me, grinning. “I’ll get help,” he said. “Just keep swimming.”

  Alone in the dark, I grimly forced my arms and legs to stroke and kick, stroke and kick. I was moving, but I couldn’t tell whether it was forward or up or down or around in circles. Maybe, I thought, I’ve swum farther than I think. Maybe I’m heading out to sea. Maybe Airboy won’t be able to find me, and I’ll just keep bumbling along until a sea monster gets me. Maybe—

  “Your Diplomatic Honor Guard, Madame Ambassador!”

  A sleek black streak with a grin on top flashed past me: Airboy, followed by a pod of sleek, black bodies, their Harnesses glowing faintly green. They twisted and darted above and below, calling out cheerfully to each other and me.

  “Hello, Airboy’s land girl!”

  “Look at her swim! I didn’t know landies could swim.”

  “She looks like a seal maiden. Don’t you think she looks like a seal maiden, Godfather Robbie?”

  A broad, whiskered seal face popped up close beside me and examined me with dark, mournful, long-lashed eyes. “Not at all,” the selkie said. “Canna you see yon great bubble on her heid? And no more meat on her than a sea otter.” One of the sad eyes winked at me. “Still, she’s fair enough, for a wee skellington.”

  I went stiff with embarrassment and I started to sink. Two of Airboy’s friends grabbed my arms.

  “It’s like towing an oar,” one changeling said. “Relax, landie, and let your legs trail.”

  The other changeling laughed a trail of brownish bubbles. “Yeah, relax. The sharks won’t chase you if you’re relaxed.”

  Which was useful information, but not particularly relaxing.

  As we zigged and zagged through the water, faint lights stitched the darkness: a kappa, its head-bowl glowing blue, a merman with a lantern, a magic fish with star-bright bobbing antenna. Once a school of lantern fish darted by, their white glare illuminating mer garbage collectors with yellow vests and nets and a pod of police selkies and a small, horse-faced sea monster.

  The Mermaid Queen’s Court is in a huge cavern under Staten Island. On Airboy’s magic map, it looked pretty close to Battery Park. Swimming, it seemed a lot farther. Still, when Airboy’s “honor guard” said good-bye, I wished the trip had been longer.

  We floated in front of the deep rift in the foundation of Staten Island that was the entrance to the Queen’s court.

  Airboy nudged me. “Allies?”

  “Right. Allies.”

  We swam into the rift side by side.

  The last time I was here, I’d found the rift uncomfortably narrow, but I’d been all squishe
d up with Changeling in a huge bubble towed by a team of merguards. It was actually plenty wide for all but the biggest sea monsters. It was also dark with the kind of darkness that presses down on you. As I followed the ghostly green glow of Airboy’s Harness, I could hear my heart beating in my ears and a deep whooshing that sounded like the breathing of an immense animal.

  My hand brushed against something that swayed and clattered and scattered beads of blinding light. I gave a yelp and back-finned.

  “I’m going inside,” Airboy breathed. “Wait here.”

  I poked at the clattering thing, catching my finger on the edge of something sharp. A tin can. More careful exploration revealed metal fragments, more cans, bits of plastic, and a strong, thin line stringing it all together. A curtain of junk.

  Not far away, Airboy was talking to a merguard. I steadied myself against the slimy rock wall and tried to listen, but they were speaking some sea language I didn’t know. I was starting to get really bored when a sliver of light appeared at the bottom of the curtain.

  “Come on,” Airboy hissed.

  I glided through the gap as quietly as I could. After the black, black rift, the cavern was dazzlingly bright. Airboy caught my groping hands and pulled me forward. A moment later, we drifted to a stop.

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  We were in a dim corridor between a rocky wall and a row of rough stone pillars. I remembered from my last visit that there was another row of pillars across the hall.

  I peered around the nearest pillar. A thousand lantern fish twinkled in the roof of the cavern like scaly stars, bathing everything in soft, green light. The court itself was surprisingly empty. No nereids, no mermen, no brightly colored magic fish, just a few grim merguards and selkies with HARBOR POLICE medallions around their necks.

  Down at the end of the hall, I saw a giant pink scallop shell with a mermaid lounging in it like an oversized black pearl. The Mermaid Queen was In.