Mirror, Mirror

by Robb, J. D.

  “I heard you,” she whispers. “Like a real man. Not a . . . specter.”

  I stare, my mouth agog. A long moment passes.

  “Say something.” She issues a slightly hysterical giggle.

  “Cassandra.”

  Her eyes melt and she lets out a gentle, “Oh . . . You have a lovely voice.”

  I am so stunned I’m frozen. What do I do? What does this mean? Am I still a specter? I look at my hand. It looks as it always does to me. Remote. Familiar but not solid.

  Cassandra’s eyes grow concerned. “You’re still . . . transparent.” Her brows lower. “But you can speak normally, and I can hear you.”

  “Something has changed,” I say. “Something is changing.”

  Her smile is tremulous.

  I step toward her. “Cassandra, I know you. I think I’ve always known you. But I want to know who you are now.” I laugh at the absurdity. “Does that make sense? I want to know Cassandra Carlisle. I want to know . . .” I lift my hand, hold it close to her face, then raise it as if I can stroke her hair, but I stay one inch from contact. “I want to know everything about you.”

  “I know,” she says, wonder in her voice. “I want to know you, too. Not because you’re the Night Prince, though you are. But because something inside of me recognizes you. Something inside has known you since I was born.” She gives a trembling laugh. “Isn’t that crazy?”

  I smile. “Yes! But there’s nothing wrong with crazy sometimes.”

  We laugh together.

  Then something changes in her face. She gets serious—deadly serious.

  “Michael,” she says urgently. “Forgive me if this is wrong, forgive me for this, for what I have to do, but . . .”

  Her eyes are so scared the smile melts off my face.

  “Cass—”

  But the word is cut short, because before I can even ask what she means, she pushes forward, takes my face in her hands, and puts her lips on mine.

  I feel heat first, the heat of her body, the warmth of her aura, then the press of her lips. I am overcome with awareness, perception, touch!

  My hands rise and feel her arms, the coarseness of her sweater. My mouth moves under hers and . . . and it’s as if the whole world has opened up to me, a magical garden of light and air and the bliss of sweet sensation.

  And the scent that clings to her—flowers! I haven’t smelled anything for a score and it hits me like a breaking wave.

  My senses are alive, and they drown in everything that is Cassandra.

  We pull back, staring at each other. Breathing hard. Breathing!

  My hands rise to her face, I cup her cheeks, and they’re petal soft. I slide my fingers into her hair, my eyes scanning her face, the arched brows, the light freckles on her nose, the trickle of tears down her cheek, and the blessed curve of her lips as she smiles up at me.

  “I’m real,” I marvel. “Am I real?”

  Laughing, she says, “Yes!”

  “My God . . . Cassandra . . .” I hold her face in my hands, feel her arms around me, and look at her as if doing so is drinking the magic elixir of life.

  “I love you.” We both say it at once. And we both laugh.

  A split second later an electric shock hits me.

  It’s so unexpected and so powerful I stagger backward, away from her. She cries my name as I hit the floor, banging my head on the hardwood so forcefully that I see stars. It hurts, but the pain is so sweet I revel in it.

  My breath—the breath I haven’t felt in decades—is knocked from my long-unused lungs and I struggle to gasp.

  Cassandra flies to my side, landing on her knees with a clatter, her hands on my chest. “Michael!”

  I close my eyes, willing myself to recover. Could I be brought back to life only to suffocate and die in the presence of the woman I love?

  “Michael, no! Come back to me!”

  I PANIC WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, FEARING IT HAD ALL BEEN a dream. But I immediately feel Cassandra’s hand on my cheek, her tears on my face.

  “Are you back?” she asks in a trembling voice.

  I answer her by reaching up, into her hair, and pulling her lips to mine. My body—my physical body—responds in a way I had nearly forgotten about. My heart thrums, my nerves stand up and reach for contact, and my manhood . . . well, let’s just say I have never been as stimulated as I am now. Every cell in my body is quivering, hungry for her touch, her taste, her skin.

  She pulls back, light shining in her eyes.

  I begin to unbutton her sweater but she pushes my hands aside and pulls everything, sweater and shirt, off over her head. My palms reach for her skin and the softness of it nearly undoes me. She is everything I’ve missed, everything I’ve ever wanted.

  She leans toward me and kisses me while my hand loops around her back, and with one snap of my fingers I unfasten her bra.

  She pulls back an inch and laughs. “Wow.”

  “Some things I guess you never forget.” I chuckle even as my cheeks burn.

  She begins to unbutton my shirt—my twenty-year-old Brooks Brothers button-down—and I am so certain I never want to see it again I rip the front open. Then, hands around her waist, I lift her to the side, push myself up and land her gently on her back beneath me.

  “Smoooooth.” She grins.

  But I have no words, because my hands are cupping her perfect breasts, and her nipples are standing hard and her body is about the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on.

  I undress her slowly, reveling in the feel of everything from her belt buckle, to the tender flesh of her inner thighs, to the socks she wears with her clogs.

  She pushes my shirt off my shoulders and the feel of her fingers down my naked chest nearly makes me lose it right then and there.

  “Michael,” she sighs, her gaze as tangible as kisses on my skin.

  I slip out of my clothes for the first time in twenty years, flinging them across the room, and lower myself onto her. The sensation of my chest against hers, my hips meeting her hips, our legs entwined, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt.

  This is not just because it’s been a score of years since I’ve touched anyone, though that’s part of it. This is, unquestionably, because I have never made love to a woman I loved.

  My soul reaches out to Cassandra through my skin, and I feel hers reaching back.

  I push myself up on my arms and look down at her. Her face is glowing, her hair spread like an aura around her, and I look into her eyes—eyes as familiar yet fresh as my newly found body—as I push deeply into her.

  Her lips part, her breath catches, and she exhales with a gentle sound. Her eyes crinkle as her legs wrap around my hips.

  “My love,” I whisper, moving my lips to her face and kissing her cheeks, her chin, her nose, her forehead.

  Then nature surges back into my limbs. I thrust deeply, then ever faster, inside of her. She meets me surge for surge and we couple like animals free in the wild, meeting essence to essence, body to body, and soul to soul.

  She cries out, shuddering with pleasure, her body gripping mine and I come, hard as a geyser, emptying my entire being inside of her.

  “I will love you forever,” she says.

  And I laugh, thinking of Asta’s space-time continuum. “I have already loved you forever, and I will love you forevermore.”

  ONE YEAR LATER THEY WERE STANDING IN HER PARLOR, next to the mantelpiece, upon which a garland of pine ran between pictures of Cassandra and Michael together everywhere from Aspen to Paris to their very own kitchen, where they’d taken a picture of themselves having coffee at their newly restored farmhouse table.

  Around them the guests at their engagement party mingled, everybody as happy as the holiday season.

  “So how did you two meet?”

  It was Michael’s great-aunt Amelia asking for the third or fourth time that evening. She was holding on to what had to be her fourth glass of champagne.

  “Amelia, you remember.” Michael’s f
ather put an arm around her shoulders and gently took the glass from her hands. “They met when Michael got back from his assignment overseas.”

  It was the story they’d told everyone. That Michael had been overseas for a year, on assignment, and had just moved back to Georgetown when he met Cassandra on the street in front of her house.

  But the truth was that by the same unbelievable magic that had sent Michael into obscurity, he was brought back to life—to a life that included everything he’d had before, as if he’d never left.

  His father hadn’t aged, nor his aunts, and his career was taking off just as it had been when he’d disappeared back in the nineties. But it was a new century now and everything was as it had ever been for Cassandra, except for the magical appearance of her Night Prince.

  It was mind-boggling to think about—Cassandra and Michael had tried to wrap their heads around it nightly when they first got together—but now they just accepted it. If a fairy could turn him into an apparition for twenty years, then a fairy could make those twenty years disappear for him, yet stay the same for Cassandra.

  Michael had told Cassandra about Aunt Malva’s curse that he die, and Aunt Amelia’s amendment that he only “sleep,” but it was difficult for Cassandra to fully comprehend how such a thing could happen—even though she’d only known him as a ghostlike presence for their first few months together.

  It wasn’t until they escaped into the kitchen during the party, on the pretext of refilling a tray of canapés, that Cassandra got her own taste of the dark side of that magic.

  By chance—or perhaps by someone’s magical design—the caterers were all out serving and they had the kitchen to themselves for a moment. Michael took the opportunity of grabbing her and pulling her toward him. As she reached up for his kiss, his hands slid under her shirt, and just as she did every time he touched her she reveled in the feel of his warm, solid hands on her body.

  Suddenly a tornadolike breeze blew into the kitchen and Cassandra gasped as a woman with wild red hair and an outlandishly sexy outfit appeared in the middle of the room.

  Don’t let him do it, sweetheart. He was doing the exact same thing to another woman the night I caught him. He doesn’t stick to just one woman, you know.

  Her voice was slick as oil and caustic as battery acid.

  Cassandra turned in Michael’s arms, and felt them tighten around her as she said, “You must be Deirdra.”

  The fairy looked shocked, then quickly composed herself and put her hands on her hips.

  Don’t believe a word he’s told you about me. He’s a lying dog who deserves to pay for what he does to women.

  “Great,” Cassandra said. “Then let him pay for making me the happiest woman on earth.”

  Behind her, Michael chuckled before releasing his hold on her waist and stepping beside her.

  “Go back to wherever it is you came from, Deirdra. I’ve learned my lesson. There’s nothing you can do to me now.”

  What do you mean, nothing I can do? Have you forgotten what I did to you for twenty years? Have you forgotten how it felt to be nonexistent?

  Michael laughed grimly. “Hardly.”

  Do you doubt that I could do it again?

  Her voice got shrill, almost ear splitting, and Cassandra had her first moment of doubt before spotting something shimmering near the farmhouse table.

  “There she is,” Cassandra whispered to him, pointing toward the sparkling glow. “Tell her, Astrid. Tell her she can leave us alone now.”

  Astrid spoke. You’re powerless here, Deirdra. And do you know why?

  Michael took Cassandra’s hand in his and kissed her fingers, his eyes not leaving Deirdra. “She knows.”

  What? Deirdra actually shrieked. What do I know??

  Astrid’s sparkle warmed to a fiery glow.

  He loves. Deirdra, he truly loves. Cassandra has saved him.

  “No.” Cassandra shook her head, and turned to smile at Michael. “He saved me.”

  Oh for God’s sake—Deirdra spun in a circle and flung a tiny twister at the floor, where it sputtered and died out.

  So it’s real then? He’s woken up?

  Deirdra cast a skeptical eye at Astrid, who shot beams of pure white light out in every direction.

  She woke him up.

  It’s real.

  Deirdra crossed her arms over her chest and stomped one foot.

  And I suppose they’re going to live frickin’ happily ever after now?

  Her voice carried the sulk of a ten-year-old.

  That’s right. The curse is broken.

  After a second of frowning, Deirdra flung her head back, shook out her hair, then put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. Giving Astrid a broad smile, she said cheerfully, Then I guess my work here is done!

  Cassandra had barely registered her words, let alone her sudden change of demeanor, when the evil fairy whirled into a tornado and disappeared.

  Astrid glowed brightly another moment, warming them both, then popped off like a lightbulb.

  But her voice echoed throughout the kitchen:

  And they did live . . .

  Happily . . .

  Ever . . .

  After!

  THE CHRISTMAS COMET

  MARY KAY McCOMAS

  For Ruth and Tom Langan—

  and their own special fairy tale

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Hope you’re right about all that magic Christmas Comet stuff.” The mix of hope and doubt in the young woman’s voice was a distraction. Natalie watched her most recent cell mate shrink herself into a men’s wool dress coat like a turtle in its shell. Her street name was Paisley but everyone in the police station called her Cindy-something. “I could use a little magic right now.”

  Natalie’s lips tipped upward and her brown eyes warmed. “They call it a once-in-a-civilization occurrence—a comet fifteen times brighter than a full moon with a glorious tail that will cover half the sky. That’s something. That’s special. I feel good things coming. I do.”

  Cindy-Paisley looked her up and down and then gave her a short, considering nod before she turned to the man who’d posted her bail and headed for the exit.

  Natalie’s smile sagged—the young woman’s legs were bare; her cheap flats were no protection against the biting cold outside. There were lots of labels for and opinions about people like her . . . Natalie’s was human being.

  A throat cleared deeply to reclaim her attention.

  “So? Where are my matches?” Natalie scowled at the officer behind the booking desk at the city jail, her possessions scattered out between them. “My box of matches? I always carry stick matches and they aren’t here.”

  The tall, thin, and laced-up-proper-looking young man appeared to be exhausted from a long night of admitting and releasing lawbreakers who were—one could only hope—far more monstrous than her. But at the moment she wasn’t inclined to have mercy on him.

  Last night one of his brothers in blue deliberately spilled seventeen quarts of beef stew—that cost her $33.76 to make—into a Dumpster behind Danny’s Den of Drag downtown. And then he arrested her for trespassing. Again.

  “And I wasn’t trespassing, Officer . . . J. Reese,” she read off his name tag. He was new and clearly unaware of her circumstances. “I had Danny’s permission to use the alley behind his club. He lets me use it all the time because I’m always done and gone before dark.” She sliced air with her hand, then let it drop on the counter and added in a more doting tone, “Usually. But even if I’m there a bit longer than expected, none of the artists care, and they’re the only ones who use the back door. They’re great people. Some of them bring me their old clothes. Not their costumes, of course. Warm clothes. In fact, most of the nice suits I keep for the men to use on job interviews are from them. They’re snappy dressers on and offstage.” She gave a half-laugh at her amusing comment on the drag queens and waited for Officer J. Reese to do the same. His eyes had glazed over.

  She made a dis
approving noise. “Fine. But I wasn’t trespassing.”

  “Streets and alleys are public property, ma’am, and not exclusive to building owners or leaseholders and are, therefore, subject to city rules and regulations—including those that pertain to the ban on the outdoor feeding of homeless people.”

  “A ban that is a clear violation of the First Amendment, by the way. And I would love to feed them inside—somewhere out of the wind, somewhere warm. Unfortunately, I don’t have those kinds of resources . . . yet. But I have been through the food safety program and I do have a permit, so I was not breaking any laws.”

  “Except for trespassing on public property that isn’t zoned for outdoor meals.”

  “Hardly a meal. How long would you last on twelve ounces of soup and two slices of bread?” He stared at her. “And where are we supposed to go? All the way over to the other end of Dover Street to the Takes-a-Village shelter that, in case you are totally oblivious to the displaced population in this town, has a strict policy on families with children under sixteen only.” She reconsidered her overcritical tone. “They’re great about opening up to everyone on holidays though. And if they could afford to do more I know they would but . . .” She looked up and into the officer’s eyes. She’d seen apathy before; it challenged her. She started gathering up her stuff. “Do you know that eight out of ten homeless people would sell their souls for your job? Do you know that one in four is a veteran of the United States military? Do you know that—”

  “Do you know that you’re holding up the line?” asked a man standing in the open doorway that led out of the building, to freedom. It was another uniformed policeman; he wasn’t as tall as J. Reese but he was bulked up and thick with muscles that he used more for intimidation, she knew, than for serving and protecting.

  He struck a wooden match to light the cigarette he held between his narrow lips—blew the smoke out the door. He smirked, looked down at the little red matchbox, and shook it to show it was empty before tossing it in a nearby trash can. She didn’t need to see this one’s name tag. Officer P. Morgan had arrested her . . . and stolen her matchsticks.