The Mirror

by Marlys Millhiser

  To get the Brandy Wine, he’d indeed saddled himself with a demented wife. And the fault was all his own. He’d investigated the float around the mine, talked to a man who’d once worked her, and rushed off to see if he could lease her from McCabe.

  After some thought and much questioning, McCabe’d stunned Corbin by offering the Brandy Wine to him as a gift, free title, and cash to boot, with only one condition. That condition now drooped next to him.

  Ever since Corbin started in the silver mines of Caribou as a mucker at fourteen, he’d dreamed of owning his own mine. Work as a miner had been hard to find in the last years as the mines closed one by one. He’d swept out stores and fed horses at the livery, any sort of odd job. Now the black iron that Samuel Conger’d discovered in the area would revive mining and Corbin Strock at the age of thirty had achieved his dream at last. He owned the Brandy Wine – but the cost had been dear.

  They munched on drying bread and cookies that Mrs. McCabe had sent along. Finally Corbin could stand his thoughts no longer, nor the dejection of the poor girl beside him. “What’s wrong with you now, Brandy?”

  She studied his face. He must not have set it right because the brief hope vanished from her eyes. “You’ll just think I’m crazy.” She looked away with the most heart-wrenching sigh he’d ever heard.

  “I listened before. I’ll listen again.”

  He thought she wouldn’t answer but finally she said, “What if I can’t go back? What if I have to live out Brandy’s life? She lives an awfully long time, Corbin.”

  “I won’t hurt you, Brandy.”

  “What if the mirror won’t work the reverse? I’d be stuck in this body and –”

  “Would you feel better if you had that mirror with you?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “We’ll have it sent up as soon as possible then.”

  Her mood seemed to lighten after that. She sat straighter, seemed to take an interest in old diggings and miners’ shacks along the way, but soon she drooped again “I think this is the longest trip of my life,” she said finally. “I’m used to a faster pace, I’m afraid.”

  “The horses are tired. I don’t think they can do more.”

  “I didn’t mean the horses, poor things. Look at the sweat on them.”

  “Tell me some more stories then. That will pass the time for us both.”

  “Stories?”

  “About the future, people flying or anything.” She did have a fine way with her stories, this little wife he’d acquired.

  “Oh … well … let me think. I don’t think you’re ready for Watergate –”

  “But we already have gates for water.”

  “Yeah. How about men going to the moon?”

  “That sounds interesting.”

  Brandy began the most fantastic tale he’d heard yet and, as before, the words tumbled from her lips so fast he missed many, and many were either from another language or made up by her poor fevered brain. But the sound of her voice was pleasant and soothing despite her excessive energy and the tale she told outdid most anything he’d ever read. Even the novels of Mr. Wells.

  “And the first astronaut gets out and says something about a big step for mankind and … where’s Tungsten? We must not be there yet.”

  “The ore?”

  “No, the town.”

  “There’s no town of Tungsten in this canyon. People are still laughing at those of us who are about to make our fortunes on the black iron, as they call it.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’re going to make a fortune, but a town’ll spring up along here somewhere and it’ll be named Tungsten. And it’ll die. There were only a few foundations left when I came up last Sunday.” Brandy turned haunted eyes to him. “Isn’t it scary how a whole town can be born and die in less than a lifetime? Of course, Brandy lives forever.”

  An eerie feeling along his spine. “What do you know of mining tungsten? I thought your father was among the scoffers.”

  “Nothing. I didn’t know it was something you mined. It’s just the name of a ghost town to me. The Brandy Wine is a mine, I take it,” she added without much interest.

  “Yes, and named after you. And you were not up here last Sunday. You and I were talking in your parlor. Don’t you remember?” His uneasiness grew.

  “No, that was Brandy. I was with Marek. We picnicked over there by the … where’s the reservoir? And the dam?” She stared around him at Barker Meadows, the rosy flush gone from her cheeks.

  “There is no such thing here, Brandy.”

  “There will be.”

  At times she seemed too smart by half, but she believed her silly tales and it frightened him more than a little. Corbin wondered if she would become a danger. Should Brandy be locked up somewhere?

  8

  The sun had gone down behind mountains and Nederland sat in dusky halflight and shadow. A different scrubby-looking Nederland, most of the houses mere rough cabins, the slopes around denuded of trees – for firewood and building materials, Shay supposed. Stumps were left standing to scar the hillsides. Desolate tendrils of smoke filed from ugly pipe chimneys, mingled with the raw smells of pine and rotting garbage. No power lines here, the only poles those propped against a few lopsided buildings to keep the structures upright in the wind.

  Where was the tiny resort, tucked in its bowl of forested mountains, reflected in the aqua-blue waters of Barker Dam? Like me, it hasn’t been invented yet. And most of the people on the rickety steps or porches and those strolling the wooden sidewalks in front of false storefronts were dead and gone to her yesterday.

  Shay shivered as the horses crawled their snaillike way up the dirt Main Street.

  GROCERIES & PROVISIONS – a sign hanging over the sidewalk, fastened to a store with weather-torn paint. They turned a corner, crossed a primitive bridge over Middle Boulder Creek and angled across the valley to ascend the opposite side.

  Brandy’s body felt hungry, tired and dirty. Inside it, Shay was heavy with depression.

  Only scattered shacks along the road now, and finally some trees.

  “Why is everyone sitting outside?”

  “It’s a nice evening. What else should they be doing?”

  Watching television.

  Corbin turned off the road and the wagon bumped over rocks and depressions. No driveway here. A tiny cabin ahead had a covered porch running the length of its front. Corbin drove along its side and backed the horses toward the rear door. An outhouse in the trees behind.

  “Is this … all?”

  “All of what?”

  “But … where do you keep your horses?”

  “You’ll have to get used to less here than at your father’s grand house, Brandy. The wagon and horses belong to the livery stables.”

  “How do you get around without even a horse?”

  “On my two feet, as the good Lord intended. When I need more I can rent a conveyance, if there’s the money to be had.” He jumped off the wagon and came around to lift her down.

  A tiny woman, bent with the weight of a metal pail in each hand, rounded a shadowy path by the outhouse. She straightened when she saw them and approached with her stare fixed on Shay.

  “Thora K.,” Corbin said under his breath, and without greeting his mother or offering to help her with her burden began to unloose the ropes that tied the cargo to the wagon.

  Thora K. stopped in front of her and set down the pails. A swarm of black flies settled instantly on their rims. The old woman peered up at her with such fierce concentration her eyes crossed. “I be Methodist, wot be ’ee?”

  “What?” Shay backed away.

  “The McCabes are Presbyterian, Thora K., and this is Brandy.” Corbin manhandled the coffinlike box from the wagon bed to the board platform that provided a back step for the cabin.

  “Brandy? And wot kind of man names ’is child after spirits, I ask ’ee?” Thora K. said, almost in English, and moved to open the screen door for Corbin. “And wot’s this yer takin’ i
n me ’ouse, Corbin Strock?”

  “You’ll see.” Corbin grunted with the exertion of tipping the box onto his back, straightening his knees to lift it and careening into the cabin.

  “Do ’ee carry in the water, you,” Thora K. commanded, still holding the door, dirt and pine needles sticking to the hem of her dress.

  Wait till I get my hands on that mirror! But Shay stooped to lift the pails and staggered after Brandy’s husband.

  “Be it for she?” Corbin’s mother stood looking at the box, upended now, sitting just inside the door.

  “No, it’s for you.” Corbin wrenched out nails with a hammer, tore apart the boards of the box and looked at Thora K. expectantly.

  She neither moved nor spoke, her eyes riveted on the upright chest he’d uncovered.

  Corbin took a blackened lamp with a glass chimney from a hook in the ceiling, lit the wick and held the lamp high. “Open it.”

  But the old woman backed away, sat on a rough bench by an even rougher table and put her hand to her breast. “Tez a hicebox.”

  “Yes.” Corbin opened it to reveal shelves inside.

  “’Ow did ’ee get money fer that?” She sounded breathless.

  “From my agreement with Mr. McCabe. I told you.”

  “And ’ee bought a hicebox.” Thora K. sat trancelike, apparently unable to believe an icebox had happened to her.

  Looking around the room, half-lit by the lamp, Shay could see why the present was such an occasion to Thora K. Strock. And if she’d felt depressed before, Shay felt totaled now. This won’t be forever.

  She stood in a corner, forgotten, while Corbin put the broken boards of the packing case into a box next to the cookstove, collected the unbent nails in a rusty can and unloaded the wagon. The cabin was one room deep with two tiny bedrooms at one end, so tiny Corbin could barely squeeze her trunk through a door that wouldn’t open fully because of the bed. Unenclosed stairs ran up the wall between the two bedroom doors to what couldn’t be more than a low attic in this small a cabin. And that was it.

  No wonder everyone sat outside after dinner.

  When Sophie had counseled her to be brave, she’d meant more than just the mechanics of going to bed with Corbin Strock.

  He towered over Shay now and she backed farther into her corner as he reached behind her to take his hat from a peg on the wall. “I’ll return the horses and wagon. She’ll get you something to eat.” And he was gone.

  Thora K. finally came out of her trance. “Be careful of that, you. Tez all I ’ave left of Cornwall.”

  Shay turned to see the buffet that had sat in the hall of the Gingerbread House. She was staring into Brandy’s stricken face in one of the twin beveled mirrors. She touched a familiar pull on a drawer. Rachael’d been so proud of those antique pulls.

  Longing and homesickness engulfed Shay like a fever.

  Thora K. stuck her face close to Shay’s and again one eye wandered in the intensity of her concentration. “’Ee look wisht, girl.”

  “I don’t feel very good.”

  “That’s wot I said. Take off yer ’at and sit ’ee down here. I’ll get some kiddley broth fer ya.” She motioned toward the table with her thumb, an unnecessary gesture since the benches on either side of it were the only seats in the room. “Won’t take they kiddley long ter boil.” Thora K. poked at the coals under a lid on the cookstove, added a piece of the icebox’s packing crate and set a teakettle on. “I ’ad some tay not long afore ’ee came.”

  Shay was still trying to translate all this when the old woman brought a slab of crusty bread to the table, broke it into pieces and placed them in a bowl. Tucking the ends of her shawl under her belt to keep them out of the way, she sprinkled salt and pepper over the bread, added a dab of white butter and some kind of herb from a glass jar.

  When the kettle sang she poured boiling water over the whole mess and set it in front of Shay with a spoon “’Ere, stir it some. Looks funny but it do go down ’andsome when yer a mite wisht.”

  Shay couldn’t believe how delicious it was and wondered if perhaps instant soup were not such a modern convenience after all. And it did make her feel less “wisht” if not less depressed.

  Thora K. sat opposite, watching her every move. Streaks of orangy-red showed in thin graying hair pulled into a little ball on top of the old woman’s head.

  “Tez funny, ’ee don’t look daft.” She stood and turned up the wick in the lamp to study her new daughter-in-law.

  “Would ’ee eat somethin’ more now? The color’s back in yer chacks.”

  Shay looked around the barren cabin. “Well, if there’s enough, I –”

  “Henough!” Thora K. threw back her shoulders and her shawl came out of her belt. “Don’t ’ee worry, you. Us don’t go ’ungry ’ere. Us weren’t scat, ’ee know, even afore yer fayther’s uld mine and ’is money.”

  “I didn’t mean –”

  “I know wot ’ee meant. Henough indeed. ’Ere, eat every last crumb, you, or I’ll scat ’ee across the chacks, proper.” She threw a semicircular thing into the bowl now cleaned of soup.

  A kind of cold meat pie with potato and onion, rather strangely spiced and encased in a thick crust.

  Thora K. sucked in sunken cheeks, pressed her lips together so tightly her nose came dangerously close to her chin. Her attention shifted with equal suspicion between Shay and the new “hicebox.”

  How could John McCabe have thought this a good place for his daughter, crazy or not? Shay wondered miserably.

  Dusk slid into night over the Gingerbread House and the wedding mirror still standing on the porch. Light from the windows gave straining bronze hands a dull sheen, left the secret glass shadowed.

  Elton McCabe crossed the planks over the irrigation ditch and walked through the gate. Head lowered, lost in thought, he moved slowly, not anxious to reach the house. The glum silence at dinner, the empty place at the table, his mother’s sighs, his father’s reaching too often for the wineglass … and Elton’s own sense of guilt had sent him from the house as soon as the meal ended to walk quiet streets, to brood, to kick at dogs who nipped at his heels, to merely nod at others out for a stroll.

  Elton sat on the steps, smelled in the residue of dampness from the irrigating, the fragrance of his mother’s flowers tumbling from their beds. And felt a curious shiver along his spine. All the while thinking of his sister in the crude hands of Corbin Strock.

  The door slammed behind him. “Should get that mirror in sometime. I forgot it.” His father sat next to him. “She’ll be all right, son. Don’t take it so hard.”

  “And how do you know that?” Elton was ashamed of the emotion that shook his voice. “That lout Strock is –”

  “Now, what else could I do? Answer me that.” John McCabe spit into the grass. “As I see it, I had three choices. One was to shut her up in a lunatic house in Denver. And if she’s not out of her mind she would be soon in a place like that. The second, to keep her home here.”

  “That would have been my choice.”

  “Would it?” John asked quietly.

  Guilt brought a flush to Elton’s cheeks. “Yes,” he lied.

  “And what would your chances be of finding a wife in this town, Elton McCabe, with a loony sister in the house? I don’t believe she is, mind you, but she insisted on acting like it. And people have long thought it taints the blood of a family. If not yours, then maybe that of your children. Folks won’t be anxious to have you courting their daughters if … I suspect you’ve noticed a few fences without gates already. Haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” Mary Ann’s mother giving him a pitying look but summoning her daughter into the house when he’d walked her home from the store. Mrs. Elliot hovering at the parlor door when he’d called on Margaret. The people of Boulder had to show respect to a McCabe but that didn’t extend to endangering the future of their daughters. The cruel comments of some of his men friends. He’d tried to talk his father into keeping Brandy home and he’d felt empty when
Strock drove her away. But Elton had also felt relieved. This was the reason for his heavy load of guilt tonight. “Corbin Strock is –”

  “And how many beaux has the girl had in the last two years? Where was I to go for one? Strock dropped out of heaven like it was all intended. He’s not uneducated, you know. Schooled in Caribou and I’ve heard many a miner’s child who come from that school talk with a better command of the language than you, boy. He’s better-read than you too.”

  “He’s a lout,” Elton insisted.

  “Well, if he is, he’s a strapping one. Ought to beget children by the score. And what better to prove our Brandy’s a normal woman than a passel of normal children? He’s a powerful man and stubborn as hell and his mother’s a tough old Cornish woman. Now, if those two can’t make her see sense, no one can. Your mother and I have always been too soft with her. Hope we done better by you.

  “She’ll have plenty of hard work, live in a healthful, bracing mountain air …” John McCabe took off his spectacles to polish them with his handkerchief, avoided Elton’s eyes and whispered, “And already I miss her something terrible … just terrible.”

  “Pa –”

  “Let’s get that mirror in.” He shrugged off the hand Elton had placed on his shoulder.

  Sophie came to hold the door as Elton took the cold brass hands of the mirror’s platform and his father the upper portion.

  “Let’s put it back in her room for now.”

  Elton imagined an odd tingling current passing through his hands as he struggled up the stairs with the heavy wedding mirror …

  And in Nederland Shay toppled off the bench as if she’d been struck, crumpling the meat pie in a fist that tightened without her command. She felt Brandy’s head and back hit the floor, struggled to bring air into Brandy’s lungs and began to black out …

  A wavering vision of herself and her parents standing by an undulating box. They spoke, but Shay could hear nothing. Rachael wiped her eyes, her other arm around Shay’s body. Her father stood next to them.

  Shay’s body had the platinum hair pulled back into a bun, had a blank look in the eyes but responded when Jerrold spoke to it.