Deep down, I always thought I would see her one day. That somehow, I’d get a phone call, or a letter, or just an address. And I would stand in front of some foreign door, both terrified of and desperate for what awaited on the other side.
I placed my hand over the heart, imagining the tree as a door, and the carved initials as the bell. Rain pattered softly. Who’s there? I imagined her saying.
“It’s me,” I murmured, with my forehead on the bark. “Can I come in?”
I fell forward. A section of the bark had swung inward, throwing me off balance. On my hands and knees, I looked up in shock. There, inside the hollow of the trunk, stood a mirror.
The mirror stood a little taller than me, so it had to be close to six feet. The frame was a delicate design of twining thorny vines and roses in silver. And there was not a spec of dirt anywhere on it – no dust or corrosion of any kind. The glass of the mirror was absolutely pristine. It seemed to glow.
I climbed back to my feet, gaping at it in wonder. I saw my reflection – my hair sticking to the sides of my face, rain dripping from my chin and my fingers – as I reached to touch the delicate silver branches and flowers that arched from the mirror’s frame. Who in their right mind would hide something this beautiful? I thought. Is this what my mother wanted me to find?
Then my finger pricked on something and I pulled back, shaking my hand reflexively. It must have been one of the thorns. A drop of my blood hit the mirror.
Against all laws of logic and nature, the surface of the mirror rippled on the droplet’s impact, waves undulating out to the mirror’s rim. The surface began to darken and dim. It seemed to dissolve, until I was no longer looking at a mirror, but a silver-rimmed hole in the back of the trunk. But it did not show the orchard on the opposite side. I beheld through the rose frame a darkened stairwell, leading upward.
It did not even occur to me to step away. I reached out my arm, testing to see if the glass was really gone or if it was an illusion. My hand passed right through, and I swear it even felt cooler on the other side. I pulled my hand back and stared at it, marveling. I had to. I had to go. Zipping the journal safely into my jacket once again, I stepped over the mirror’s rim into the stairwell. I shivered as I passed through, a tingle running through my nervous system that faded as my feet found purchase on the stone floor.
It was noticeably cooler, like I was somehow underground. Or maybe it was the stone walls - though one section at the base of the landing was a solid sheet of iron. I could be in a castle for all I knew. My heart quivered, both terrified and ecstatic. I began to climb, my steps echoing up the spiral. Iron-and-glass oil lamps were nestled in recesses in the stone, casting strange shadows around the tight corners. Strangely, some of the sections of stone were glued together with what seemed to be glass instead of regular mortar – like the walls had veins of glass. And I climbed.
I must have ascended at least four or five stories, maybe more, before I reached a landing with a curtain. I pushed it aside and blinked at the sudden brightness. I shielded my eyes with one hand and stepped forward in wonder.
Sunlight streamed through an open arch directly ahead of me, where a lush garden awaited. To my left and right were two other curtained arches. I stood in a foyer made of white bricks, maybe marble or alabaster.
“Hello?” I called instinctively. “Hello, is anyone here? I don’t mean to intrude, I just sort of...walked in...” I sort of hoped no one answered. I mean, there was no social protocol for this kind of situation. What would I say? Oh, I do apologize, I simply had to step into this mirror I found that turned into a portal to your home. I shook my head. Then again... I thought of my mother, and tried not to get my hopes up.
But the place was silent, not even a breeze touching the garden up ahead.
I should leave, I thought. I don’t belong here. But despite the words in my head, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I did somehow belong here – that I had every right to be here. That I was home. I swept aside the lefthand curtain.
I beheld an empty gothic cathedral sanctuary, every inch made of dark stone, with high vaulted ceilings and support pillars, but no furnishings of any kind. No chair, pews, benches, tables – just cold stone floor, pillars, and a series of unlit colored glass lamps hanging by long chains from the ceiling. The only other adornment was the surplus of stained glass windows that populated every wall.
And what magnificent windows they were. I stepped forward, dazzled. Wherever I was, it must be bright and sunny outside, because the light was streaming through the carefully assembled shards of colored glass. It made the darker glass smolder in rich royal blues, blood crimson, and amethyst purple, and it made the pale colors almost blinding. And then, as I studied each pane individually, I began to realize that they were all connected, almost as if they told two sides of the same story, with the giant pane at the front of the sanctuary showing the point where the stories intersected.
The furthest left pane showed a man at a brookside. The next pane showed him meeting a fox – the fox seemed to be talking to him, and stood on its hind legs. It reminded me of an illustration I’d seen in a children’s book once.
The far right hand pane showed a woman – or was it a girl? The figure was too small to be sure – kneeling in a vast field of flowers. The next pane showed a wolf in the bushes watching her.
They were beautiful, and excited to see what the rest of this place held, I went back through the partition into the foyer, and crossed to the other curtained room.
When I pushed the fabric aside, my breath caught in my throat.
Books. Ladders of books. Towers of books. Sliding ladders leading to more tiers of books. Tables with piles of books heaped on them. There were couches upholstered in heavy fabric nestled in the crooks of shelves for browsing. Lamps of all shapes and sizes hung from the ceiling, stood in random corners, and topped tables and shelves. It was magnificent, and couldn’t be the slightest bit organized, and made me happier than anything in years. It even smelled right – like paper and ink and worn wood and dust and light and shadow. But most of all, possibility.
Oh, I would be coming back here, all right.
Heart lightening, I skipped out to the garden. There were fruit trees here, though I couldn’t name what they bore. They were strange, jewel-colored, and similar to plums, if plums were scarlet or blue or orange. The flowers that grew at their bases were more recognizable - daffodils, irises, and violets, among others. Various colors of rose bushes made hedges and ivy climbed over the garden wall, too high for me to see beyond. What could be on the other side?
My happy revelry was disrupted by a noise.
I heard steps on the stone floor in the entranceway and ducked to the side of the garden wall, out of sight of the atrium. Could it be the owner? Would they be angry that I’d found this place? Oh god...anyone who owned something like this – who knew what they could do to me?
Please don’t come outside, just grab a book and go, please, I silently begged, even as I thought, Mother?
But the steps on the stone didn’t turn to the library. Instead they turned the opposite direction, and went into the sanctuary. The echo became louder in the huge space.
But that room is empty, I wondered, my heart still pounding in my chest. What could they want in there?
The footsteps had ceased and there was silence for several moments. In the absence of sound, I could swear I heard my own heartbeat. Who was it? Was it even a person? What else could exist, if something like this Tower did?
Then, the faint tinkling of glass filled the silence. I blinked. Glass. The lamps in the ceiling? What could be going on in there? My curiosity overrode my fear and I crept along the side of the wall further into the garden, aiming for one of the stained glass windows that overlooked it. I could peek in without being seen, surely...
There was a human-shaped figure beyond the dark glass, standing perfectly still in the center of the sanctuary with one hand outstretched, palm forward. The shadows of the l
amps overhead were swinging as if there was a mild breeze running through the place. I squinted from my carefully angled vantage. The glass was too dark...it was hard to make out what he was doing – it looked like a man, I decided, with some disappointment. His head was bowed, and while the rest of him remained still, his outstretched arm swung to the far side of the sanctuary. The colors in the glass there began to change, and the fragments themselves took on new shapes, their edges twisting and elongating, the images there making a new, active scene.
I watched with rapt attention. He didn’t seem to be saying anything. He didn’t even seem to be looking at what he was doing. His fingers twisted in a gesture and the shapes of glass of the man at a brook ordered themselves into a horse and rider, the beast impatiently pawing at the ground with its hooves. He raised his right arm in front of him, towards the giant pane at the front of the sanctuary, and the glass there shifted to take on the scene of a castle on a hill, a stylized sun shining brightly at the top of the large circular pane. He swung his left arm around and the rider spurred the horse into action. Following the movement of his hand, the horseman galloped across all the panes on the left side of the room, disappearing when he hit the edge of a pane and reappearing in the next. His hands came together and the rider appeared at the base of the hill ready to charge towards the castle.
He flicked up his left hand in a halting gesture, and the window froze in place, just as the horse reared back. It was a beautiful frame, stunning in its color, use of motion, and the tangible sense of the rider’s determination. The man’s methods struck me as familiar. It was...not exactly like photography...more than that...it was almost like directing, or composing – that was it – he was composing! But with something other than sound...how did he do it? And he never looked up.
His right arm stretched out to the glass before me and I flinched away, reflexively hiding behind the wall. A glance told me the window I had been looking through was morphing, just as the pane with the rider had originally. It was becoming an indoor scene, the hue of the glass lightening. I wondered if his head was still down, if I could see him more clearly now. Chancing it, I crouched by the corner of the window and peered over the sill as the colors were still setting. The scene was a woman knitting at a window, and through the pale glass that formed her white dress I studied the composer. He was tall, but he didn’t look as old as I’d originally assumed. He wore faded jeans and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off lightly muscled forearms. His dark hair was just long enough to obscure his down-turned face at this angle, and I was embarrassed when my heart gave an awkward lurch. He was kind of hot.
The woman in her pane held her needle and cloth with a wistful expression, paying more attention to the sky out her window than her knitting.
“No,” he murmured, the first sound I’d heard from him, and his head twisted in annoyance but still didn’t rise, though I was ready to duck if he did. His fingers flexed and the woman’s hair changed color from brown to a vibrant red. It grew long and curly, and kept growing till it pooled around her feet. His fingers flexed again, freezing her in place like he’d done to the rider.
He sighed, and his hands dropped, going to smooth his hair back as he looked up finally. I dropped silently, my hand over my mouth, kneeling below the sill with my heart pounding, but I was sure he hadn’t seen me. He had been looking at the giant pane of the castle and the rider. No, my face was scarlet because I had recognized him in that brief moment before I hid. It was Rhys, Kei’s handsome, taciturn friend.
I heard the sound of his probably overpriced loafers pacing around the sanctuary and I pressed myself tighter against the wall, as if that would somehow help. My mind raced. Rhys? What the hell? Did he own this place? Did he...a new thought crossed my mind, in light of what he’d just done, did he build it? I’d never expected to find someone I actually knew in the Tower. But I had just seen Rhys reassemble a stained glass window with a thought and a gesture.
On the other hand, if he could do all that, why hadn’t he sensed my presence, or whatever? If he was made of magic – if the Tower was made of his own magic, wouldn’t he have like some kind of intruder detection system? My brows knitted. I didn’t know how these things worked, exactly, but if I could...do that...I would.
I heard the crash of glass from somewhere in the sanctuary. Rhys made a noise of frustration that echoed in the huge, empty space. I risked it and peered stealthily over the ledge again.
“Every time,” he grumbled, seemingly to no one, running his hands through his hair as he paced. “Every time it falls apart.”
The panes of forests and fields that the rider had passed through on the left side of the room had crumbled, littering the stone floor with shards of glass. Rhys inspected his hand. I thought I saw electricity spark between his fingertips.
“What’s the point?” he yelled, and the pane with the castle burst outward, as if from a shockwave.
I cringed, pressing myself against the wall like I could melt into it. What exactly did I sit next to in science class?
“Master Ryan,” I heard another voice say, echoing in the room now. “You’re in high spirits today, sir.” Where was it coming from? I didn’t see anyone else in the room.
“Spare me,” Rhys said. “Every effort I make is wasted. This place is too unstable.”
“Perhaps with more practice,” the voice said.
I craned my neck, trying to get a better angle and still stay out of sight. Rhys was looking towards the door when he spoke, but that side of the room was out of my field of vision. Had someone else come in with him? There was a high-pitched sound that made my ears ring. I assumed it was residual from the panes bursting.
“I have practiced, Porter, you know that. You’ve seen me here almost every day for a year and have I improved at all?”
“You have, sir,” the voice said.
“Yeah, well, it falls apart anyway,” he snapped. “Going through all those records by myself is taking way too much time.”
“I’m afraid I - ”
“Cannot help me, I know,” Rhys cut the voice off.
The faint high-pitched sound was getting louder. I blinked, feeling it all the way in my optical nerves. It was distracting me from the conversation inside, and I had to learn more. I needed to understand what this place was. Rhys had answers, but I wasn’t sure he’d be very happy to see me...
A shrill crack. I looked up. A fracture ran the length of the window above me, threatening to snap the glass woman in half. It cracked again, branching like lightning across her face. I curled up just in time. The window shattered, raining glass all around me. I yelped as I felt some of the sharp pieces graze my fingers.
“What was that?” Rhys demanded.
“Perhaps I should have mentioned sooner,” the voice said placidly, “we have a visitor.”
Reflexively, I bolted through the garden, into the foyer. Rhys was already blocking the exit to the stairwell, and tendrils of glass were creeping across the door to the library. Panicked, I ducked into the sanctuary. I immediately regretted it, but where else would I have gone?
“Porter!” Rhys called. “Stop her!”
“I cannot,” said the placid, hollow voice, echoing through the sanctuary. I spun, looking for the source. A small mirror, on the wall by the door, showed a bleary, ghostly face.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Rhys demanded, entering the doorway.
“I cannot,” the mirror repeated.
With a low growl of frustration, Rhys made a grasping gesture with one hand. I shrieked as I nearly lost my balance - tendrils of glass had snaked up from the floor, trying to curl around my legs to root me to floor. I danced out of the way and made a break for the door, pushing past Rhys.
“Hold it!” he shouted angrily, but I wasn’t staying for more. I flew down the stairs, and leapt out of the mirror at the base. I slammed the bark hatch shut, catching my breath for the barest moment, leaned against the tree. I patt
ed my jacket, and froze.
I’d dropped my mother’s journal. It must have fallen out somewhere in the Tower. But if I went back inside, Rhys would...
Chest tight, I ran back to the house. It was still raining, and I was soaked by the time I got to the back door. I couldn’t believe I’d lost it.
I took a hot shower, to chase away the chill of the rain, and to hide the puffiness of my eyes. What could I do? How was I supposed to get the journal back? Rhys clearly had control of the Tower, and I saw no way that I could best him. Oh god, I thought, almost dropping my bottle of shampoo. I had to see him at school. On Monday. He was clearly some kind of...magic person...I didn’t know! It was all so weird. Was I supposed to pretend I’d never seen the Tower? Pretend I hadn’t seen him break apart a window with a thought and a gesture? I wasn’t sure if I could. When did life get so thoroughly complicated? All I wanted was a connection to my mother. A way to go home. With every effort I made, it seemed to get further and further away.
When I came downstairs, Bea had already come home and finished dinner. Silently, I sat down at the table, anticipating another awkward meal.
Bea set a plate in front of me that held green beans, carrots, roasted potatoes, and a roll. It was notably absent of the porkchop or cubesteak or fried chicken that usually accompanied every meal, and I looked up at her. The question must have been plain on my face.
“Tell the truth,” she said. “You’re one of those vegetable people, aren’t you.”
I colored. “Well, yes.”
She sighed. “You could have said. I’m not in the habit of wasting food. I won’t get upset if you tell me honestly you don’t like something. I’d rather make food that gets eaten. Alright?”
I blinked. She was...I think she was actually trying to be nice. My heart warmed. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, earnestly, “thank you, this looks really good.”
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