The Dark Mirror

by Juliet Marillier

  “They all told him,” Erip said, “his mother, his old grandfather, his sweetheart in tears, the elders of the settlement. It was plain to them he’d been enchanted by a woman of the Good Folk, and he must break the spell or die of it. But Conn wouldn’t listen. Each full moon he’d have his night of ecstasy, and in between, those who loved him watched him fade away with yearning until he was no more than a mad-eyed puppet of skin and bones. What did Amna want of him? Nobody knew. Others had glimpsed her there by the pond, the whiteness of the shawl eclipsed by the pearly fineness of her skin, the deep shadows of night never as dark as her lovely hair. Others had had the sense to drop their gaze and walk on past. Not Conn.”

  “What happened?” asked Tuala, thinking how foolish men were to allow themselves to be trapped thus; surely Conn should have recognized how his life was being destroyed and simply have told Amna no.

  “It’s a sad tale,” Wid said. “His family tried to intervene. One full moon, they tricked Conn and bound him, so he couldn’t go to meet her. They thought that by interrupting the pattern they might break the spell and bring him to his senses. That night, folk said they heard Amna’s cries out in the forest, cries that curdled the blood. That was not the calling of a young girl for her absent lover, but the baying of a wild animal for its prey.”

  “And was Conn saved?”

  Erip shook his head. “You don’t meddle lightly with the Good Folk. One such as Broichan could do it, perhaps, but not simple folk like these. Conn cursed them all through the night, wrestling against his bonds, and after that he barred his house to them. He waited until the Shining One was full again and he went out to meet his love. The next morning his folk found Conn facedown in the pool, stone dead. They thought he’d drowned himself until they turned him over. He was white as a sheet, drained of blood. The marks of her teeth were on him.”

  Tuala shuddered. “That’s a horrible story.” Horrible, and not useful at all; such a tale had nothing to do with her. “What about the other one, the owl-wife?”

  Wid regarded her gravely. “Along much the same lines,” he said. “A man drawn into the woods, this time by what seemed a white owl, a rare and beautiful creature. She became a woman by day, and consented to be his wife provided he respected her difference and did not pursue her when it was her time to change. A happier tale, for a while at least. She bore him daughters; he did not waste away from desire, only became dissatisfied with what he had, wanting the comfort of his wife’s warmth in his arms at night while he slept. Surely, he began to think, that was not too much to ask. In time his wish to make her human, which she could never be, led him to follow her into the forest under a full moon. He saw the wondrous moment of her changing, and on that night he lost her forever. This man did not die as Conn did. He roams the dark paths under the oaks, eternally crying out to the wife who will never come back to him.”

  There was a silence. Tuala was in no doubt of what the connection was between these tales. Still, try as she might, she could not make the link between them and the household’s sudden coolness toward her. After all, everyone knew she was a child of the forest, had known it from the moment she first came to Pitnochie. And yet they had welcomed her. They had smiled and told her stories and treated her as a friend.

  “What is it, lass?” Erip’s hoarse voice was full of kindness, and all at once Tuala was on the verge of weeping.

  “Fidich,” she whispered. “And Ferat and the men at arms . . . They’re shutting me out. I’m not part of things at Pitnochie anymore. Fidich said I can’t go and see Brenna and the children. And Brenna told me the men are worried because of those tales, Amna and the owl-wife. But that doesn’t make sense. Why would they be scared of me now if they never were before? I’d never hurt the children, they should know that—” Now she really was crying.

  Wid leaned forward, proffering a square of linen. “Do what we’ve taught you to do,” he said calmly. “Think it through. The tales concern men seduced by women of the Good Folk, men sucked in by a power so strong they cannot resist it, not even when they are individuals known for great common sense, as Conn was.”

  Tuala thought as hard as she could. It didn’t seem to help much.

  “You ask yourself,” Erip said, his fingers gently stroking the cat, “why everyone seems to have changed. I do feel bound to point out that Wid and I have not changed; we are, I think, beyond being afflicted by this particular phenomenon. But your mind must take another tack here, child. Perhaps it is something else that has changed.”

  Tuala looked at him for a long moment. “You mean me? This has to do with me changing, growing up? But—” She fell silent again, recognizing that this was indeed what he meant. Now that she thought about it, the cooling of the household’s attitude to her did date from the time when her body had begun to alter, rounding here and hollowing there, giving her the form and rhythms of a woman. As a child, it seemed she had been acceptable to Pitnochie, for all her difference. She had been treated with kindness, even affection. Now those who had been friends were tiptoeing around her as if she were in some way dangerous. Surely they did not believe that, as a woman, she was the same kind of creature as Amna of the White Shawl? “You must be wrong,” she said flatly. “Amna was of unearthly beauty, the sort of woman who drives men out of their minds. The sort of woman who exists only in stories. Nobody could think I would . . .” This was just silly. She could hardly believe they were having such a conversation.

  “Try looking in your mirror, lass,” said Wid. “What’s there now will be there a hundredfold next winter, and a thousandfold the one after. The men have seen it and they’re afraid. The women have more common sense, but they’ll be wary all the same. It’s sad but true; you’re in your fourteenth year now, and your path from this point on will have this shadow over it, however hard you try to be one of us.”

  Tuala was lost for words. Surely this could not be true. She was no great beauty, she had no interest at all in men and the kinds of things men and women did in the privacy of the bedchamber. The whole idea of Ferat and Fidich and the others thinking of her in such a way made her feel sick. She did not want to entertain the least notion that this could be the truth. “What about you?” she challenged. “You’re still my friends. You haven’t changed. What about Broichan? He never changes. This can’t be the explanation.”

  Erip began to cough; this time there was blood on the hand he clapped over his mouth. It took some time for the paroxysm to pass. At length the old man settled again. “As I said,” his voice was a thread, “we are perhaps too old, beyond such foolishness. Or maybe it is the case that we fell in love with you when you were knee-high and bursting with questions, and that that is the way we still see you: Bridei’s little treasure, a rare Midwinter gift. As for Broichan, his vision is a very particular one. No doubt he assessed you fully from the first, and continually weighs up the opportunities and the dangers you represent.”

  Tuala nodded. She could remember every word of what Broichan had told her, long ago, that time when he sent her away. There was no doubt he had seen her as a threat from the first. “What can I do?” she asked them.

  The two old men regarded her in silence, their eyes full of kindness, their mouths grim. “Wait awhile and be patient,” said Wid. “You’ve a difficult time ahead.”

  “Be ready for change,” Erip added. “You’ll need to be brave, Tuala.”

  “It would be all right if Bridei would come home.” Her voice was very small; she had not planned to say this aloud, but it came out despite her.

  Wid opened his mouth to speak; she saw Erip shake his head as if to silence his friend and then Mist, growing restless, jumped from the old man’s lap and stalked off toward the kitchen. As if at a summons, the three dogs arose from their sleep beneath the table and suddenly the hall was no longer quiet.

  “Loneliness can be hard to bear,” Wid said, rising to his feet. “A good friend is the most precious gift in the world, Tuala. That’s a lesson I’ve no need to teach ei
ther you or Bridei. Now, let’s fetch this old man some soup, shall we? He’s starting to resemble a scarecrow, and we can’t have that. I thought I saw Ferat with ham bones before; the smell’s definitely promising.”

  THE WINTER PASSED and the days grew appreciably longer, but Bone Mother did little to release her relentless grip on the land. Ice crusted the ponds; snow blanketed Broichan’s house under the oaks. The men grumbled on their way to watch and an array of clothing steamed before the kitchen fire, filling the house with a pungent odor. The dogs were reluctant to venture out; Mist spent most of her time in Erip’s lap before the fire or, later in the season, curled up on his bed in the crook of his bent knees. For a time came when the old scholar no longer had the strength to rise from his pallet, to venture forth into the household and make pretense that he would soon be better. They put him in Bridei’s room; Wid kept vigil, feeding Erip sips of water or measured mouthfuls of Broichan’s latest potion, wiping his brow, telling him tales as if he were an ailing child. Mara burned aromatic herbs near the doorway and bore away the stained linen. Tuala sought to help and found herself barred from the chamber. Mara had taken control; it was on her say-so that folk came and went now, and she had decreed that too many visitors would only weaken the old man. Wid, struggling with his own grief and exhaustion, had not the strength to argue, but he let Tuala in once or twice when the housekeeper was otherwise occupied. Erip’s hands were so fragile now that the fingers felt like twigs, and his voice was a faint whisper. Tuala thought she saw a new kind of light in his eyes, a brightness that looked, already, beyond the mortal world and into another full of peace and possibility. It was as if his mind conjured a great new tale of which he only waited to begin the telling. She held his hand and swallowed her tears, and when Mara returned she slipped away like a shadow.

  She made polite requests for admittance, pointing out that she was Erip’s friend, that he had asked for her, that she could make herself useful.

  “You’re not required, Tuala,” Mara would say.

  “Off you go, lass,” Ferat would tell her, the tone friendly enough, the look in his eye somewhere between impatience and unease. He, at least, seemed to feel a little guilt at the betrayal of someone who had been a loved child, a friend; all the same, his discomfort at her presence was clear enough.

  Toward the end she was reduced to pleading with Mara. “Please. He’s an old friend. Please don’t shut me out.”

  “Erip’s a friend to all of us,” Mara said. “You’re not needed here. Go on, and take your creature with you,” and she made to push Mist off the bed, but Mist fastened tooth and claw into Mara’s fingers, and was left where she crouched among Erip’s mounded coverlets. Erip himself was too weak now to raise a protest, and Wid was dozing in a chair, worn out from the long watch he kept. In silence, Tuala retreated.

  For a little she sat alone in her small chamber, staring at the wall. This was wrong; it was so wrong there didn’t seem to be any learning at all to be gleaned from it. How could they not let her be there? How could they not let her say good-bye? She was one of them, reared among them, welcomed to their household and guided to knowledge by that same old man who now lay dying under the roof that had sheltered them both. A curse on Amna of the White Shawl. A pox on the owl-wife. That was just foolishness, and had nothing at all to do with her.

  Suddenly Tuala was possessed with the need for action. Seizing her warm cloak, thrusting her feet into her heavy boots, she headed off outdoors. The chill clutched painfully at her lungs the moment she stepped from the kitchen; the air was like ice on her skin. But she had to get away, as far away as she could from Mara and Ferat and Fidich, from Uven and Cinioch, from the suspicious eyes of all those who had once seemed friends. She would not ask to take Blaze out; she did not want to hear another blank refusal. She would walk. She would walk all the way to the Vale of the Fallen, and there she would demand some answers.

  As she grew up, it had become apparent to Tuala that there were certain talents she possessed that did not come readily to other people. From earliest days she had recognized that such skills should be kept concealed, since to demonstrate them would only underline the fact that she was different, and she did not want to be different, she wanted to belong at Pitnochie. Erip and Wid knew a little of what she could do, and so did Bridei. Her full range of abilities, and the ease with which she could use them, she kept to herself.

  It might have been better, she told herself with some bitterness as she struggled up the track, boots sinking deep into the layer of damp and decaying leaves under the bare oaks, if she had never practiced those secret arts at all, if she had pretended even to herself that she had no such powers. Then she might have lost the knack. She might have forgotten how to use it, how to conjure images of queens and dragons and giants out of a ray of light through colored glass, how to coax a squirrel out of its hiding place and greet it in a way it understood in its small creature-mind, how to shape rushes and grasses and seed pods into a doll or a basket or a chain that held, not just the pattern of plaits and twists and knots, but a living power. She might have lost the ability to read the signs in the forest, signs left by the other kind, the Good Folk. Then she could not have found them, however much she felt the compulsion to seek. Their subtle scratches on bark or boulder, their small twistings of grass or bunchings of leaves were all messages and, without ever being taught their meanings, Tuala had long understood them. Their makers still eluded her. Those half-glimpsed shadows, those whispering voices were as close as they had ever come. Yet their messages were for her, she knew it. They called her; they wanted her as it seemed the human kind did not. With them there might be a home. It was one way; an impossible way. Step into that world and she must leave Bridei behind. To part from him was impossible. It would be like tearing herself in two.

  Deeply enmeshed in her thoughts, Tuala covered the long distance from Broichan’s house to the hidden vale almost without noticing. The mist was thick today; she could barely see her own feet as she made her way down the steep path to the pool. The vapor seemed to close in above her, a suffocating, oppressive blanket. Somewhere in the woods a dog was howling, a sound of pure desolation.

  On the rim of the Dark Mirror Tuala crouched down. At first she did not feel the cold, for the brisk walk had warmed her, but before long her nose, her ears, her fingers and toes began to tingle and to ache with a bone-gripping chill. Her teeth chattered. This had been foolish; she was a long way from home and nobody knew where she’d gone. Not that they would care, Tuala thought. If she never came back, Mara and Ferat and the others would probably welcome it. No irksome presence among them; no Otherworld temptress at hand to carry off their young men. That was so foolish she still could not come to terms with it. Herself some kind of unearthly beauty? Tuala casting spells to drive men mad from desire? She would simply laugh such a misguided theory off, were it not for the terrible reality of what it seemed to mean for her. She would scorn it entirely had not Erip and Wid, whose common sense was plain to her, told her that this was indeed how the household now perceived her. Look in the mirror, they’d said. So she did, leaning over the pool’s still waters, seeking not visions or portents this time but simply her own true reflection.

  She didn’t seem much different from before. Her face was oval, the dark brows arched, the eyes large and light, perhaps blue if one had to give them a color. The eyes were questioning, and there were shadows around them; she had wept for Erip, and for Wid, and just a little for herself. The nose was straight, the mouth small and neat, pink as a rosebud. She was certainly pale. Tuala was forced to concede that in this respect, at least, she did somewhat resemble Amna in the story, for her skin had always been white and transparent, as if the Shining One lent her the gleam of moonbeams. Her hair was coal-black, long and glossy for all her neglect of brushing. That, too, made her like the girl in the tale. But she was young yet, not long come to her bleeding, and she shrank from the idea of what Amna had done with her lover under a full moon. Amn
a had been a seductress, a woman of sensual awareness and earthy passions. How could anyone think she, Tuala, had the same power as that dangerous creature of the night?

  Tuala’s practical outdoor clothes, cloak, shawl, tunic, and long skirt over sturdy winter boots, quite concealed her true form; the girl who looked back at her from the dark water could have been of any shape at all. Yet now, as she gazed, the image changed and she saw, shockingly, herself with not a scrap of clothing to cover her, standing there without the least shame, arms raised, neat, round breasts displayed like twin small moons, pink-tipped; curving contours of delicate waist, rounded hips, slender thighs all exposed for any eye to see. Even the small, new triangle of dark hair between her legs was visible. Horrified, Tuala clutched her hands across to shield her body, although here on the water’s edge she was still well wrapped in her layers of wool. There in the Dark Mirror, her naked image turned and smiled and beckoned, and she recognized with sinking heart that a man might indeed find such a creature of pearl and ebony and rose enticing. She saw her own innocence in the vision, and the danger it carried in its very nature.

  “Go away,” Tuala muttered, angry tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t want to see you! This isn’t what I came for!” She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her own image into oblivion.

  “Afraid to face truth?” said someone on her left. “That’s not like you.”

  Tuala’s eyes sprang open. This was not a subtle, hissing voice like those she had heard before in this secret fold of the land. This was confident and real-sounding, surely the voice of a flesh and blood woman. She had time only to blink and take in a glimpse of a cloaked figure standing beside her, close enough to touch, when a second voice spoke. Tuala jumped to her feet, turning the other way.

  “Besides,” observed the second personage, “this sight is pleasing. You cannot deny that. A fair image. Take one look at it, and a man would be eager to discover if the reality were fairer still.”