In other words, he was already getting impatient. Berenilde entered the lift as if she were floating on clouds. Ophelia, in contrast, was more walking on eggshells as she went past the throng of policemen guarding the entrance gate. She didn’t find it that reassuring, being afforded such protection to go up just one floor.
“We’re no longer in the embassy,” Berenilde warned as the porter was closing the golden gate. “From today onwards, eat nothing, drink nothing, accept no gift without my authorization. If you value your health or your virtue, you will also avoid any alcoves and little-used corridors.”
Aunt Rosaline, who had helped herself to a cream bun from the lift’s enticing buffet, put it back without batting an eyelid.
“What measures are you thinking of taking concerning our family?” asked Ophelia. “It’s out of the question to make them come here.” Just imagining her brother, sisters, nieces, and nephews being in this nest of vipers, it sent her into a cold sweat.
Berenilde sat voluptuously on one of the lift’s banquettes. “You can trust Thorn to resolve that problem with his usual efficiency. For now, your greatest concern should be not making too bad an impression on our family spirit. Our future at the court will partly depend on the opinion Farouk forms of you.” Berenilde and Aunt Rosaline immediately returned to their recommendations, with one wanting to correct Ophelia’s accent, the other to keep it as it was; one requesting that any Animism be kept private, the other that it be publicly promoted. It was as if they’d each been learning their lines all day long.
Ophilia picked at the fluff on her scarf, as much to calm it down as herself. Behind the veil of her hat, she was pursing her lips to contain her thoughts. “Trust” and “Thorn”: she’d no longer make the mistake of putting those two words side by side. The little conversation they’d had the previous day would make no difference, whatever Mr. Treasurer might think.
As the lift creaked from its every nook and cranny, as a luxurious liner does when setting sail, Ophelia felt as if these sounds were emanating from her own body. She felt more fragile than she had the day she’d watched Anima disappear into the night; than the day her in-laws had clawed her; than the day the policemen had beaten her and thrown her into Clairdelune’s dungeons. So fragile, in fact, that she felt that, at the next crack, she could shatter.
It’s my fault, she thought, bitterly. I promised myself not to expect anything of that man. If I’d kept my promise, I wouldn’t be in such a state.
Agreeing automatically with the advice she was being given, Ophelia stared apprehensively at the lift’s golden gate. In a few moments, it would open onto a world more hostile than everything she’d experienced until now. She had no desire to smile at people who despised her without knowing her, who saw her merely as a pair of hands.
Ophelia dropped her parasol again, but this time didn’t pick it up. Instead, she looked at her reader’s gloves. These ten fingers were exactly like her: they no longer belonged to her. She’d been sold to strangers by her own family. She was now the property of Thorn, of Berenilde, and, soon, of Farouk, three people in whom she had absolutely no trust, but to whom she would have to submit for the rest of her days.
The lift carriage came to such a sudden stop that the buffet china tinkled; the champagne spilt over the tablecloth; Berenilde put both hands on her stomach; and Aunt Rosaline swore, in the name of all the stairs in the world, that no one would catch her taking a lift ever again.
“Ladies, please accept all the Company’s apologies,” said the distraught liftboy. “It’s just a small mechanical issue, our ascent will resume shortly.”
Ophelia didn’t understand why this boy was apologizing when, in fact, he deserved her utmost gratitude. The jolt had caused such pain to her rib that she was still winded; it was more effective than any slap. How could she have allowed herself to keep turning over such defeatist thoughts? It wasn’t just other people, it was also she, Ophelia, who had constructed her whole identity around her hands. It was she who had decided that she’d never be anything other than a reader, a museum curator, a creature more at home in the company of objects than of human beings. Reading had always been a passion, but since when were passions the only foundations of a life?
Ophelia looked up from her gloves and caught her own reflection. Between two illusory frescoes in which fauns were playing hide-and-seek with nymphs, a wall mirror returned a version of reality: a slip of a woman in a summer dress, her three-colored scarf lovingly wrapped around her.
While Berenilde was threatening to have the poor liftboy hanged if the lift’s jolting had the slightest effect on her pregnancy, Ophelia slowly approached the mirror. She lifted the veil of her hat and looked closely at herself, glasses to glasses. Soon, when the bruises had faded, when Freya’s clawing had turned into a scar on her cheek, Ophelia would see a familiar face once more. But the look in her eyes, that would never return to how it once was. From having seen so many illusions, it had lost its own, and that was just fine. When illusions disappear, only the truth remains. Those eyes would look less within, and more out to the world. They still had much to see, much to learn.
Ophelia plunged the tips of her fingers into the liquid surface of the mirror. She suddenly recalled that day when her sister had given her some advice, in the hair salon, a few hours before Thorn’s arrival. What was it she’d said, again? “Charm is the strongest weapon given to women, you must use it without scruples.”
As the lift began to ascend again, the mechanical issue having been resolved, Ophelia promised herself never to follow her sister’s advice. Scruples were very important. They were even more important than her hands. “Traveling through mirrors,” her great-uncle had said before their separation, “that requires facing up to oneself.” As long as Ophelia had scruples, as long as she acted according to her conscience, as long as she could face up to her reflection every morning, she would belong to no one else but herself.
That’s what I am before being a pair of hands,” Ophelia concluded, pulling her fingers out of the mirror. “I’m the Mirror Visitor.”
“The court, ladies!” the liftboy announced, lowering the brake lever. “The Lifts Company hopes your ascent was enjoyable and offers all its apologies for the delay.”
Ophelia picked up her parasol, fired with renewed determination. This time, she was ready to brave this world of pretense, this labyrinth of illusions, and resolved never to lose her way in it again.
The golden gate opened on to a blinding light.
Fragment, postscript
It’s coming back to me—God was punished. On that day, I understood that God wasn’t all-powerful. Since then, I’ve never seen him again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christelle Dabos was born on the Côte d’Azur in 1980 and grew up in a home filled with classical music and historical games.
She now lives in Belgium. The Mirror Visitor, her debut series, won the Gallimard Jeunesse- RTL-Télérama First Novel Competition.
From the next book in the series
THE MIRROR VISITOR
BOOK 2
THE MISSING OF CLAIRDELUNE
Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle
Book Two in the #1 Internationally Bestselling Mirror Visitor Quartet
When Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, promotes her to Vice-storyteller, Ophelia finds herself thrust into the public spotlight. Now that her powers (and the threat they present to the secretive denizens of this world) are known to all, she must uncover at her own expense the plots that have been brewing beneath the golden rafters of Citaceleste. In this ever-perilous situation, Thorn, her enigmatic fiancé, may be the only person she can trust. As influential courtiers keep disappearing, Ophelia once again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond Pole’s many illusions, to the heart of the formidable truth.
THE STORYTELLER
TH
E GAME
Ophelia was dazzled. If she just risked a peek from under her parasol, the sunshine came at her from all directions: down it streamed from the sky; back it bounced off the varnished-wood promenade; it made the entire ocean sparkle; and lit up the jewellery of every courtier. She could see enough, however, to establish that neither Berenilde, nor Aunt Rosaline were any longer by her side.
Ophelia had to face facts: she was lost.
For someone who had come to the court with the firm intention of finding her place, things weren’t looking too good. She had an appointment to be officially presented to Farouk. If there was one person in the world who absolutely mustn’t be kept waiting, it was certainly this family spirit.
Where was he to be found? In the shade of the large palm trees? At one of the luxurious hotels lining the coast? Inside a beach hut?
Ophelia banged her nose against the sky. She’d been leaning over the parapet to look for Farouk, but the sea was nothing but a wall. A vast moving fresco in which the sound of the waves was as artificial as the smell of sand and the distant horizon. Ophelia readjusted her glasses and looked at the scenery around her. Almost everything here was fake: the palms, the fountains, the sea, the sun, the sky and the pervading heat. The grand hotels themselves were probably just two-dimensional facades.
Illusions. What else could be expected when one was on the fifth floor of a tower, when that tower overlooked a city, and when that city hovered above a polar ark whose actual temperature never rose above minus fifteen degrees? The locals could distort space and stick illusions all over the place, but there were limits to their creativity.
Ophelia was wary of fakes, but she was even more wary of individuals who used them to manipulate others. That was why she felt particularly ill at ease among the courtiers now jostling her. They were all Mirages, the masters of illusionism. With their imposing stature, pale hair, light eyes and clan tattoos, Ophelia felt even more diminutive, more dark-haired, more short-sighted and more of a stranger than ever in their midst. Occasionally, they would look snootily down at her. No doubt they were wondering who this young lady, desperately trying to hide under her parasol, was, but Ophelia certainly wasn’t going to tell them. She was alone and without protection; if they discovered that she was engaged to Thorn, the most hated man in the whole city, she’d never save her skin. Or her mind. She had a cracked rib, a black eye, and a slashed cheek following her recent ordeals. Best not to make things even worse.
At least these Mirages proved useful to Ophelia. They were all moving towards a jetty-promenade on piles, which, due to a pretty convincing optical effect, gave the illusion of extending over the fake sea. By squinting, Ophelia realized that the sparkling she saw at the end of it ended was the light reflecting on a huge glass and metal structure. This Jetty-Promenade wasn’t just another trompe l’oeil; it was an actual majestic palace. If Ophelia stood any chance of finding Farouk, Berenilde and Aunt Rosaline, it would be over there.
She followed the procession of courtiers. She’d wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible, but hadn’t allowed for her scarf. With half of it coiled around her ankle and the other half gesticulating on the ground, it recalled a boa constrictor in full courting display. Ophelia hadn’t managed to make it release its grip. Delighted as she was to see her scarf thriving again, after weeks of separation, she’d have preferred not to shout that she was an Animist from the rooftops. Not until she’d found Berenilde, at least.
Ophelia tipped her parasol further over her face when she went past a newspaper kiosk. The papers all carried the headline:
TIME’S UP FOR DRAGONS:
HUNTERS BEATEN AT OWN GAME
Ophelia found it in extremely poor taste. The Dragons were her future in-laws and they’d all just perished in the forest in dramatic circumstances. In the eyes of the court, however, it was only ever one less rival clan.
She proceeded along the Jetty-Promenade. What had earlier been but an indistinct shimmer turned into architectural fireworks. The palace was even more gigantic than she’d thought. Its golden dome, whose finial darted into the sky like lightning, vied with the sun, and yet it was but the culmination of a much vaster edifice, all glass and cast iron, studded here and there with oriental-looking turrets.
And all this, Ophelia thought as she surveyed the palace, the sea, and the throng of courtiers, all this is just the fifth floor of Farouk’s tower.
She was starting to feel really nervous.
Her nervousness turned into panic when she saw two dogs, as white and as massive as polar bears, coming towards her. They were focusing intently on her, but it wasn’t them that terrified Ophelia. It was their master.
“Good day, miss. Are you walking alone?”
Ophelia couldn’t believe her eyes as she recognised those blond curls, those bottle-bottom glasses and that chubby cherub’s face. The Knight. The Mirage without whom the Dragons would still be alive.
He might seem like most little boys—clumsier than most, even—but that didn’t make him any less of a scourge whom no adult could control and his own family feared. While the Mirages were generally happy to scatter illusions around themselves, the Knight would implant them directly into people. This deviant power was his plaything. He’d used it to inflict hysteria on a servant; imprison Aunt Rosaline in a memory bubble; turn the Beasts against the Dragons hunting them; and all without ever getting caught.
Ophelia found it incredible that there was no one, in the whole court, who could prevent him from showing himself in public.
“You seem to be lost,” the Knight commented, with extreme politeness. “Would you like me to be your guide?”
Ophelia didn’t reply to him. She couldn’t decide whether saying “yes” or saying “no” would be the signing of her death warrant.
“There you are at last! Where on earth did you get to?” To Ophelia’s great relief, it was Berenilde. With a graceful swish of her dress, she was making her way through the crowd of courtiers, serene as a swan crossing a lake. And yet, when she slid Ophelia’s arm under her own, she gripped it as tightly as she could.
“Good day, Madam Berenilde,” stammered the Knight. His cheeks had gone very pink. He wiped his hands on his smock with an almost shy awkwardness.
“Hurry along, my dear girl,” Berenilde said, without even a glance at or reply to the Knight. “The game is nearly over. Your aunt is saving our seats.”
It was hard to make out the expression on the Knight’s face—his bottle-bottom glasses made his eyes look particularly strange—but Ophelia was almost certain that he was crestfallen. She found the child unfathomable. Surely he wasn’t expecting to be thanked for causing the death of a whole clan, was he?
“You’re not speaking to me anymore, madam?” he still asked, anxiously. “So you don’t have a single word for me?” Berenilde hesitated a little, and then turned her most beautiful smile on him. “If you insist, Knight, I even have nine: you will not be protected by your age forever.”
On this prediction, offered almost casually, Berenilde set off in the direction of the palace. When Ophelia glanced back, what she saw sent shivers up her spine. The Knight was looking daggers at her, and not at Berenilde, his face contorted with jealousy. Was he about to set his dogs after them?
“Of all the people with whom you must never find yourself alone, the Knight is top of the list,” murmured Berenilde, gripping Ophelia’s arm even tighter. “Do you never listen to my advice, then? Let’s hurry up,” she added, walking faster. “The game is coming to an end, and we absolutely mustn’t make Lord Farouk wait.”
“What game?” gasped Ophelia. Her cracked rib was increasingly painful.
“You are going to make a good impression on our lord,” Berenilde decreed without dropping her smile. “Today we have many more enemies than we have allies—his protection will swing the balance, decisively. If you don’t please him at first sight, you’re se
ntencing us to death.” She placed a hand on her stomach, including the child she was carrying in this statement.
Hampered as she walked, Ophelia kept having to shake the scarf that had wound itself around her foot. Berenilde’s words did nothing to help her feel less nervous. Her apprehension was all the greater for still having the telegram from her family in the pocket of her dress. Concerned by her silence, her parents, uncles, aunts, brother, sisters and cousins had decided to bring their arrival in the Pole forward by several months. They were, of course, unaware that their security also depended on Farouk’s goodwill.
Ophelia and Berenilde entered the palace’s main rotunda, which was even more spectacular seen from inside. Five galleries radiated within it, each one as impressive as the nave of a cathedral. The slightest murmur from the court or rustle of a dress became greatly amplified beneath the vast glass canopies. In here, only the great and the good were to be found: ministers, consuls, artists and their current muses.
A butler in gold livery came towards Berenilde. “If the ladies would care to follow me to the Goose Garden. Lord Farouk will receive them as soon as his game is over.” He led them along one of the five galleries, having relieved Ophelia of her parasol. “I would rather keep it,” she told him, politely, when he wanted to take her scarf, too, perplexed at finding this accessory placed somewhere as inappropriate as an ankle. “Believe me, it gives me no choice.”
With a sigh, Berenilde checked that Ophelia’s veil was properly concealing her face behind its lace screen. “Don’t show your injuries—such poor taste. Play your cards right, and you can consider the Jetty-Promenade as your second home.”
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