Mary's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The sealing had held for a day. Mary knew this because she had watched the statue's dark seam every hour and found it still closed. What had not held was inside her. When she passed a window that morning, her reflection lagged. Only a beat. But her reflection was her craft, and a beat was a crack. She went to her room and sat at the black dresser. The oval mirror above it had shown her face without trouble her whole existence. Now it showed her red hair, her white dress, her stare — and behind her left shoulder, a smear of pale grey that was not in the room. She turned. The room was empty. She turned back. The smear was still there, riding her like a second coat. A coat that doesn't fit, called skin. She had said those words about other people. She had not planned to wear them. She understood what had happened. When she and Void sealed the crack, the vapor had drawn back — but not all of it. A trace had stayed in her, in the part that looks. If it grew, she would read every face through it. She would see her own smear on strangers and call it their truth. Her work would become a lie. She needed a mirror that could not lie back. She left the mansion and walked to the reflective structure at the edge of the grounds, the one stained with red streaks that never washed off. Inside its entrance hall she took from her satchel the small framed glass Void had given her weeks ago — the one with the burned red-and-black mark seared into its center. A mirror that already held a corrupted image could not be tricked by another. She set the small mirror against the wall so its burn faced her. Then she stood between it and the tall reflective panel opposite. Two mirrors, one behind, one ahead. She made herself look forward. Her reflection in the tall panel carried the grey smear. She turned her eyes to the small mirror. Its burn held steady — no smear crossed it, because the glass was already claimed. The trace in her had nothing to grip. She watched the smear in the front panel thin. She kept her eyes on the burn and did not blink. On a branch outside the doorway, a white owl with amber eyes watched her without moving. She used its stare to steady her own. When she looked back at the tall panel, the smear was gone. Her reflection matched her body again, beat for beat. She wrapped the small mirror and put it away. Her sight was hers again. But she had learned something she did not want to know: the book had not only pulled things out of her in the chamber. It had left something in. Whatever else it had planted, she would not find by refusing to look. She would have to open it on someone who could not close.