Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror

Light! The cover has been removed.

“What may I show you today, Mistress?” Little do you know that I cannot display anything that is not already within you as you stand in front of me. Shall I show you your fears, your hopes, your hatreds? Oh, yes, I see them all as you pose, peering into my surface. They are as real and as false as your own thoughts, but you will believe them readily when I reflect them back to you.

“Mirror, I command you to show me the greatest threat to my reign,” the Mistress demands. Not to your kingdom, eh, but to your position upon its throne. Perhaps, for the kingdom’s sake, that would be only your own face. But that is not your question or the answer you desire to justify your actions.

“As you command.” Your fear, it is then. Look upon your face grown old, fading into the face of your stepdaughter who is your current heir. Oh, what a curse to repay my vanity! Once I saw no farther than my own self-delusion as you do, Mistress. I felt no love, no pity, nothing for anyone except myself. And now I am trapped with only a view of the world through the eyes of another, condemned to parrot back only that given me through that narrow peephole.

“Ah, Snow White. I knew it! She plots against me! She sullies my majesty amongst this kingdom’s peasants and peers alike.” Yes, if you think it so, then you will make it so. I do not stare into Snow White’s soul and thoughts, so I do not know. But, at last perhaps, I have learned not to believe in the shallow view of reality bound by one person’s self-centered mind. If I could teach you that lesson, Mistress, I might be free of this curse.

“Well, she simply must go! But, how? How, Mirror, may I rid myself of this troublesome child?” Might I show you your own doubts? See, the people love her, even you know that, Mistress. To harm her is to arouse their ire. But only if they suspect you, you think. Perhaps a trip from which she never returns. Oh, how pleasantly you imagine yourself sending her off in the royal carriage, disappearing into the forests. To meet her future husband and their king, you have told everyone. But, bandits, brigands! The forests are full of them; you will make sure of that by disguising your own men. No, not men; only one man. You can see his face, the wretched poacher you condemned this morning. Mistress, your doubts are too easily defeated by your scheming mind. “Yes, Mirror, that is what we will do.” We? No, Mistress, you have no accomplice in me.

Darkness – Mistress has all she needs of me today.

Or have I abetted her in treachery again? Oh, ancient wizard, I have had enough. I see that I was wrong. Seeing only myself as important hurt those around me. Perhaps I even knew that then, but I did not care, for I was not them. Did they burn from this inability to speak their thoughts to me, only permitted to say what I wanted to hear? They at least could leave my presence and have discourse with other people. But as I isolated myself within that small world that was only me, you have left me alone in the solitude of another’s life, not even my own to control. Will my remorse satisfy your spell?

Perhaps this Snow White deserves the Mistress’ anger. There are evil people in the world, as I well know. Why must my old, scorning habits treat the Mistress with such disrespect? I want to believe I have learned my lesson, but even bound within this torturous prison, I still feel superior to the one person with whom I have contact. I was more beautiful than she, more clever too. Maybe, you should visit the Mistress too, wizard. But you have not yet, so perhaps I was deserving of a fate she has not the villainy to deserve. Hah, I was even better at being bad!

You used my own mirror as your snare, did you not, old man? I have seen it through her eyes – the runes have destroyed its frame, but I recognize it. You were no savior of the people. A lesson, ha! You were not trying to teach me anything.  I had thought to use you, but you were merely a glutton for power and I stood between you and my father's wealth and secrets. You spirited me in here, threw me in a sack, and carried me out of my own home like a peddler of used goods. How long ago did you leave me in the attic of this castle, bundled out of sight? How long before the Mistress found me and, at last, removed the sack?

Ah, that was a surprising discovery for both of us! Suddenly seeing light again, I awoke and looked at my mirror, I thought, only to see somebody else’s face. She was the new young bride, second wife to the old king, unsure of her place in his palace. As she thought about her concerns, I saw them. And scared the daylights out of her as I displayed them upon my surface instead of her simple reflection. Back into the sack she plunged me.

My confusion was joined by my anger. Oh, I still do not know what you did, husband, but I have been piecing it together. Before Mistress returned in curiosity weeks later, I had plenty of time to think. And I have been thinking of you and this enchantment for more than a decade since. I will get free someday. Through reform or revenge, I will find the key to break this spell. If you still exist, wizard, beware!

When Mistress came back, she cautiously uncovered me. She stood to the side where I could not see her, nor could she see my surface. “Mirror, what are you?” she asked.

“Your servant, Mistress,” I replied, hardly believing my own words. I, a servant? That is not what I planned to say in my weeks of awaiting her return. That is what she wanted me to be! I could think and scheme all that I might, but I was ensorcelled to do her bidding.

“And how can you serve me, Mirror?” my Mistress asked as she stepped in front of me. I gazed upon this young and frightened lady and saw her intense determination to overcome any obstacle. It was that fire in her soul which had brought her back to me in her frustration of being the second love of the king. She had known the king’s first wife, although she was only a child when they were married. And only a teenager when the former queen died a year after the birth of her child, Snow White. But her circumstances had changed much between her childhood and her teen years, for her family estates on the frontier had fallen to invaders and her family was slaughtered in the struggle. Her willpower had allowed her to escape into hiding, survive that destitution, grow strong and beautiful despite it, and attract a grieving king’s attention when finally he arrived to reestablish the realm’s authority within her family lands. This I saw and, as it entered my mind, its images played across my surface, to the amazement of both my Mistress and myself.

And now, she was unsure that she had truly captured the king’s heart. I saw her doubts and I fed them back to her. Oh, I was furious with you, husband, as the abasement you had heaped upon my imprisonment and exile dawned on me. I could not tell her what you had done to me, but I could chose to build her doubt into resentment with her own thoughts. The scenes of her flaming home. The reminder of the years before the king responded. Even her memories of the king’s embraces of his first queen and coddling of his infant daughter aided my design for revenge upon husbands, if not my own, well, then any husband would need to do.

Oh, yes, I supposed I was wrong to do it. If becoming a better person was the means to winning my freedom, I threw away the key that day. The Mistress is a clever minx though. Could I really have influenced her into doing anything she would not want to do? She certainly dreamed about it. And soon she schemed, staging her plans upon my surface. Ah, I enjoyed the way her mind worked.

But her revenge has not freed me. Her power has not freed me. Her confidence has not freed me – indeed it has bound me more tightly, for now she uses me for purposes in which I have no interest. She is a petty and mean woman. I would not have looked in her direction when I had a choice. Oh, husband, how do I escape? I might even love you if that would shake off this curse. But I think I would prefer to destroy you.