Magic Mirror

What the ever-loving crap? How long has this been on my forehead? I grab the bar of soap from next to the sink and scrub at the word ‘Lame’ as I try to think when it could’ve been written. I didn’t fall asleep in any classes today. Did I look in the mirror before bed last night? I must’ve, right? Grabbing a washcloth, I soak it under the faucet and aggressively rub the soap off. Odd, the soap and the rag come away clean. Looking back into the mirror my reflection still has the words blazing back at me.

“Hurry up, True!” my roommate yells, banging on our shared bathroom door.

I scrape my fingernail over the ‘L’, nothing happens to it. Warmth glides over my eyebrow and into my eye. Pulling my hand away, I inspect it. There’s blood on my index finger, but my reflection is unchanged. Leaning closer, the me in the mirror smiles widely, tapping a forefinger into my forehead and bringing it back to her lips.

A scream bubbles up my throat. Before even a squeak can escape me, the me in the mirror says, “Oh no ya don’t!” and grabs me by the shoulders, hefting me over the sink and into whatever fresh Hell she’s from.

We land in a heap on a pristine, golden outfitted bathroom. Me. Her. The other me? Untangles herself from me. “Man, you know how long it took me to find you?” she asks, holding her hand out to help me up.

Crab walking out of her reach, I shake my head.

“Forever! Obviously.”

“Wha-what do you want with me? Why were you looking for me?” I stutter. Using a golden tub, I rise to my shaky legs.

“Well not you exactly, but someone like you. You know: flawless skin, strawberry blonde hair, green eyes. Just identical enough to make my grand escape.” She stalks towards me and reaches behind me for a washcloth before wiping the ‘Lame’ from her forehead.

“Where are we? Who are you?” Come on brain, get the important questions out!

“Heretoo. And I’m Tru-” Clearing her throat she tries again, this time perfectly mimicking my meek voice. “I’m Truely. Who are you?” Her grassy green eyes widen and she cowers back from me.

Now that I know she’s not me I can see our differences: her eyes are brighter green, her hair a redder red, lips a bit more plump, and she doesn’t have the freckle at the corner of her right eye like I do. “Truely? What’s Heretoo? I want to go back home.”

Flipping her hair over her shoulder she begins pacing the bathroom. “You sure are whiney. I save you from your boring existence and you don’t even say ‘thank you’.”

Heat courses through me. “My life isn’t boring! I didn’t ask you to ‘save’ me so no, you don’t get a ‘thank you’. Send me back!”

She pouts out her bottom lip and tears well in her eyes. “No. No, you’re supposed to be happy to be here. You get to be whatever you want in Heretoo and I get to be a dull, boring Human.”

“I don’t want to be anything. I’m Truely Love. A normal, boring, sometimes quirky human and I want to continue being that.”

Knocking comes from the door. Other Truely shoves me towards it and hops onto the golden sink. Giving me a finger wave she dives through the mirror. Running to it, I try pushing my hand into it, but whatever she did to make it portal to my bathroom is gone. I look back at myself and poke my nose, then tug my left ear, and cross my eyes. Yup, that’s me reflecting back. She’s gone.

“Talia, enough is enough. Come, the prince is waiting,” a lady around my mother’s age chides me with her hands on her hips.

“I’m not Talia. My name is Truely Love and I don’t belong here.”

“Not this again.” She rolls her eyes and latches a hand on my forearm. “Call yourself whatever you want, the prince doesn’t care as long as the crown fits.”

“Crown?”

“Fine, I’ll play along. The Celestials bestowed crowns to the princes of all five kingdoms, on their eighteenth birthday they will scour the lands for their princess’, the crown only fits the head of the princess specifically chosen by the Celestials to rule beside each prince til the end of all time. Happy? Now let’s go.” Tugging me along we stop in front of a door.

“The crown won’t fit. I’m not a princess!”

“Neither was Cinderella, but look where she ended up. Prince Westley’s favorite color is blue. Chop, chop, into the closet you go.”

With one hand she swings the door open and with the other she forces me in. Light blinks, blinding me and then another hand is pushing me out.

“Don’t you look wonderful!” the lady says, holding a full size mirror.

I stare back at myself. A powder blue dress with a corset top and puffy sleeves lays on my curvy frame. My hair is braided over my shoulder and looks longer than I know it is. Stepping toward the glass, I give it a knock and whisper, “Talia?”

The lady pulls the mirror away and gives me a stern look. “Yes, Talia is in the mirror. You are Talia. You’re exhausting, child.”

Latching onto me again, we leave the room. “Remember to pick up your skirts as you descend the stairs. Don’t forget to smile. Do not speak unless specifically asked a question. And Talia, if you mess this up so help me it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“Will you send me to Earth?”

“Silly girl, Heavens no,” she laughs. Holding me by the shoulders, she looks me dead in the eye. “I’ll behead you.”

She spins my numb body towards the balcony and gives me a pat on the butt. “Go get your prince, darling.”

With shaky hands, I hold the hem of my dress up and carefully take each step down to the main floor. Gold gilded frames line the stairway, projecting my image back at me. Each one is just a little different than the last. This one has her hair in ringlets, that one a green dress, I stumble on the last step as I see the last one: Holding her head that continues to weep tears down her cheeks.

“Careful, love,” a true prince charming says as he catches me in his arms. “You wore blue. My favorite color. How cute.”

“Westley?”

“Don’t forget the prince, hun. Come on let’s get this over with,” he says haughtily and basically carries me to a ballroom lined with masked people.

Horns blare and the crowd cheers as we head to awaiting thrones. Westley turns us to the crowd, bows and then drops into a seat, pulling me down next to him. The room goes silent.

A robed person carrying a velvet pillow with a tiara prances towards us.

“Prince Westley, I’m not Talia,” I whisper.

“Not Talia, I don’t care. Hush. I have places I want to go after this charade is over with.”

The robed figure stands before us. Westley rises from his chair. “Thank you all for coming to bear witness to my princess being crowned,” he shouts with an air of boredom.

Snatching the tiara off the pillow, he places it on my head. “Wow. Umm. Yeah, so that’s that,” he says with a look of astonishment. Turning back to the crowd he says, “Princess of the West, Talia Forbot.”

The room bursts into a chaos: tables and chairs are placed, musicians appear with their instruments, waiters place dishes and trays on the tables.

I sit in utter confusion. I’m a princess? Does that mean I’m stuck here?

“Twenty minutes and then you’re going to feign feeling overwhelmed. Being the dutiful love of your life, I will whisk you away from these paupers. Once we’re in the carriage you can have the driver take you wherever you want,” Westley whispers conspiratorially.

“Is Earth a choice?”

“Don’t be like that, Talia. I promise to make all your dreams come true in the future. I just already have plans tonight.” He glares down at me and I don’t know what I said to make him so mad.

I wander my lonely palace, taking in the paintings of West and my life together. The cherub faced babies are all grown and gone. West and his partner, Josef, are frail and declining. They call me the Miraculous Princess who will rule til the end of time. I don’t want to rule forever. I still see the college freshman looking at me in the mirror every morning and I want to finish that life that was promised to me. Did Talia have the decency to pretend to be me for my parents? For my little sister who idolized me? Did she age at all? I stopped counting how long ago that fateful day was.

The years here in Heretoo were horrible, but they weren’t what I wanted. Loveless and demanding is how I’d describe them. Talia had promised I could be anything. Happy obviously was the only thing not allowed.

“Your Majesty, the last shipment is here.”

Turning away from the chronicle of my life, I thank Pearl, and walk slowly to the room I’ve dubbed the Hall of Mirrors. When I realized I wasn’t aging, I demanded every mirror in all the kingdoms to be collected and brought to me. None of them were the magic one though. Witches, Wizards, Fae, I’ve spoken to them all. Not one was able to recreate the portal that Talia seemed to so easily manifest. Thousands upon thousands of mirrors later and it’s finally the last ones in all of Heretoo. I should feel guilty that there are people out there that have never gazed upon their own reflection because of my own greediness, but I stopped caring long ago.

Porters arrange the mirrors along the sheeted wall of the others. After they’ve left, I walk to each one and inspect my reflection. Then, when I’m sure it is just me, I push on the glass. When I don’t fall through, I heft the sledge hammer and shatter each and every one of them.

I guess now my only choice is to accept my fate. Kicking my shoes off, I gather my skirts in my hands, and run through the palace, out the backdoor and into my gardens.

I land in a heap at the edge of the pond. Tears pour over my cheeks and down my neck. I must look a mess. I wish I could say West would be disappointed, but he never saw me in that light anyway. Laying in the grass, I run my fingers over the water thinking how I could have easily filled this and every pond on the property with my tears over the many years.

“Ow!” I shout, snatching my hand from the water.

Leaning close, I try to find the culprit that bit me.

No thought about it, I plunge into the pond.

Soaked, I land on Talia –the real Talia– in the park just around the corner from my parents house. Earth. I’m home. Sobs rack my soaking body.

“Hello to you too,” she says, pushing me off of her.

I open my mouth to curse her, berate her, something. But no words escape. She looks the same as the last I saw her. Inhaling a deep breath, I ask, “How long?”

“I dunno. Earth time is so slow. I’m bored. Truely Love is the most uninteresting life I have ever stolen. I’m surprised you lasted, guess I finally got the words right on that spell.”

“If the crown hadn’t fit, I would’ve been beheaded!”

“But it did fit. You die there, I get sucked back. Didn’t you see the rejects? You aren’t very observant.”

“How long?” I scream.

“Chill. Like a day or so? I wandered your apartment. Your roommate is super lame, wanted to study or something. Your mom asked me to babysit a little cretin. And now I’m here.”

“Sixty some odd years and you haven’t even gone to bed?!”

I’m not sure if I cracked or if she jumped, but there was a huge splash and she was gone.

“True?” a heartbreakingly familiar voice whimpers.

“Everly?” I search my surroundings for my little sister.

The sight of her fiery hair emerging from a bush is the best thing I’ve ever seen. Spreading my arms wide, she races into them.

“Who was that? What are you wearing?” she asks, clutching me tightly.

“I’ll tell you as a bedtime story sometime,” I whisper into her hair.