“Tell you?” Tell you what? I hear a faint swelling of those chimes. The mist over my thoughts grows thick. “I think you better tell me first.”
“Well.” And the goblin man clears his throat. He looks very pale. “It looks like all her debts—”
Beside me on the wall, one of Mother’s many mirrors shines and I can’t help but look into it. I’m a little nervous to look, I have to say. The way both these men are gaping at me, you’d think I have tentacles growing out of my face or something, haha. But when I turn to the mirror, I’m pleasantly surprised. Very pleasantly. My, my. Look at that.
“Belle, did you hear me?”
“What was that?” I’m still looking at my reflection, my face, which looks really very—
“I said, it looks like all of your mother’s debts have been paid off.”
“Paid off?”
“Yes. She’s totally cleared.”
“Cleared,” I say to my glowing face in the glass. Looking into my own shining eyes. “Unbelievable. Well, that’s wonderful, isn’t it? A very pleasant surprise.”
“It is. But—”
“What? Cleared is a good thing, isn’t it?”
A very good thing, my mirror eyes say. Now I look at the goblin man in the glass, though it’s hard. Very hard to look away from my own reflection just now, which is smiling at me like of course cleared is a good thing. The best thing. The happiest turn of events. He’s still staring at my face with that strange, scared expression. Why scared? Shouldn’t I be the scared one? Doesn’t he look even more goblin-like in the mirror?
“Of course,” he says. “I was just very surprised. I was under the impression… I was under another impression… about your finances.”
“Another impression.” I stare at his face in the mirror. Definitely he looks more like a goblin there. And his mouth movements don’t quite sync up with his words. Sort of like there’s a lag, if that makes sense, how funny. Maybe I’m still a bit out of it from last night. Or maybe there’s a glitch in the glass. My eyes or the glass? Can’t be my eyes, because I can see myself so incredibly clearly. And what I see. What I see is so—
“So you cleared her debts, then?” goblin man asks.
And the answer that comes to me right away is Yes. Definitely. I cleared them. In the glass, I feel my reflection nodding. Definitely, we cleared them. I’m nodding with her, of course. Nodding at both men because they’re looking at me like they can’t believe my face, let alone my words. “Definitely I cleared them. If not me, then who, right?”
“You really did?” the pretty squeegee man asks me softly. He looks incredulous. “When did you do that, Belle?” He knows my name, so I really must know his.
“Who is this man?” the goblin says, pointing at squeegee man, who’s still staring at me like he’s enchanted, a little afraid. Mouth open. Eyes wide. Really very like a merman if he weren’t wearing jean shorts. What is he doing out of the sea? Nothing to be scared of, Tad. Tad, that’s right.
“That’s Tad, of course,” I say, like I knew all along. “He’s Mother’s boyfriend. He cleans the windows.”
The goblin frowns. “Boyfriend?”
“He does a wonderful job, don’t you think? Each day he washes the dust and the spray and the grime that collects over the course of the day before. Washes it all away—right, Tad?”
“Yes,” he says quietly.
“So that everything is always wonderfully clear. So that it doesn’t even look like there’s glass there. Nothing at all between you and the sea.” I smile at Tad in the mirror. “Which creates such a pretty effect. But also a little scary. Maybe that’s why you look a little scared.”
He’s still staring at me like he’s in a trance.
The goblin’s still frowning. “Belle, about the debt. Can I ask where you got the money?”
“The money?” In the glass, I can still feel my reflection smiling, though she’s getting a bit annoyed with these questions now. So am I. “I found a chest of black pearls,” I tell them. Yes, I can feel her thinking. Funny that I can feel her thinking.
The goblin and Tad exchange looks. “A chest of black pearls. Where?”
“In the lagoon,” I say, staring at my face in the glass. Shining and nodding. Definitely. It’s a little joke, of course. A pretty way to say, Stop asking me ugly money questions on this lovely morning, please. Because I don’t know the answers, sirs. I only know cleared is a good thing. I only know this Glow I’m seeing in the glass is really quite something, can you go away so I can look more closely, more freely at this Brightness? Like someone turned a light on inside me. Right beneath my skin. No wonder I’m smiling like that. Haven’t smiled like that in a long time, I think.