I’m about to rise when she reaches out and grabs my wrist. “Wait.” Desperation in the press of her fingers. I look at her. Still shaking her head at me. Not with anger anymore. With a kind of wonder. A tear drips from her eye. “How did you see all that?”
Maybe I gave her the words she wanted after all.
“It’s all here,” I say, stroking her cheek softly. And then I recall the Treatment Room last night, the spa woman’s hands on my face in the eucalyptus fog. It’s all here, she said. Stroking my face just like this. Offering me the terrible mirror of her eyes. What I saw there.
“What?” the woman prompts now, bringing me back to the dressing room floor. “What should I do?” I’m on my knees with this stranger who’s also on her knees. I’m crushing her cheeks between my hands, giving her a fish mouth. She’s gazing hungrily, fearfully, into the mirror of me with bloodshot eyes. I see her soul, shattered like so much glass. Yet the shards are sharp and hungry, whispering feed, feed. Looking into her eyes, I feel a flicker of awful recognition. And then it’s gone.
“Mirabelle!” Sylvia shrieks, pounding on the door, rattling the handle.
“Boleros,” I whisper. “Or a blazer maybe.”
The customer stares at me. Her pink gloss is a slash across her face. Her ringlets have gone limp. “What?”
“They really finish a look. Especially in spring.”
I turn to look in the mirror. My reflection’s back, locked in. Blinking when I blink. That’s nice to see. But I don’t appear to be in the dressing room anymore. Not even at Belle of the Ball. When I look in the glass, I see myself standing at the gates to a house on the cliff. The house on the cliff where the red roses grow. The roses are swaying gently around me in an ocean breeze. I can smell them from here. I can hear the waves and I can hear the chimes making a lovely music. I’m smiling at myself with my very red lips. I’m telling myself it’s time to go.
16
The darkness is thick as the mist over my thoughts, but in a way that’s very pretty. The red shoes lead me right to the house along the winding path, along the cliff’s edge. The chimes play all around me, like a music of the spheres I’m hearing, like I’m privy to the vibration in all things. The damp, twitching grass, the shivering palms, the movement of clouds over water—a kind of hum of the world and my own clicking feet part of its pulse. Not sure what happened back there exactly. The woman on her knees in the fitting room. Sylvia rushing in, telling me to go, just go. And I did go, even though the woman kept calling after me to come back, please come back. Tell me more. Like I was some sort of awful oracle. Like we were an oracle, me and my reflection. Never had word slips like that before. Never had such a glitch. Almost like what’s inside and outside are just a little bit scrambled now. I’d be troubled by it, very troubled, if it weren’t for the pretty mist over my thoughts, making it already feel so faraway, farther with each step. And the promise of my reflection, being reconnected with her, hurrying me along. Funny to think of reconnecting with your own reflection. What is she doing at the house, I wonder?
When I arrive at the gates, all is dark. I can’t see anything beyond the glass walls of the house. Not the great chandelier or the glittering people or the Depths. Only my glowing reflection in the glass walls looking so happy to see me, so very happy we came. I can see her smile from here. I’m smiling too, so happy to see her, so lovely she is. Of course I have questions. Why does she keep wandering away from me? Why are we having these glitches? Why did she lead me back here? I push at the gates, but they’re locked. The red roses in the front garden sway behind the black bars, looking alive as ever. Apart from the flowers and my reflection beaming at me, all is still. Empty-looking. Like no one lives here. Odd, I think. Lots of people live here. The woman in red, for example. The young girl in black with the shape-shifting face. I danced with her backward around the tank, her pale eyes burning like twin flames. Those twins in the black veils, stroking my face with their gloved hands. Telling me they knew Mother and they knew me, too, Daughter of Noelle, oh yes. Mother’s friends, they all are. My friends too now, right? I’m gripping the black iron bars. Trying to shake the gates, but they can’t be shaken. I should be on the other side with my smiling reflection. I should be inside, not outside, shouldn’t I? I watch her wave at me and then disappear into the wall of the house.
“Wait!” I call out. “Where are you going? Don’t go, please.” Later, when all the mirrors right themselves, when this glitch goes away, I’m going to laugh about that. How I called out to myself glowing like a moon in the dark. Told myself not to go, please. Please stay. Don’t leave me here on the other side, gripping the gates. I’m going to laugh and laugh. Because it really is funny, isn’t it? Right now I’m not really laughing at all, though. Right now I feel something else watching her, watching myself walk away like that. Leaving me alone here, the sound of chimes still humming all around.