It started with a girl, as trouble often does. She was a small thing and when she was smaller still, her mother told her that freckles were kisses from the sun. So Emily decided that the sun must love her very much, for she had many of those. But the sun didn't love her, or at least no more than it could love the flowers or another child, for beings as great as that can not see anything so small.
Every year, at the turn of the Summer season, a fair would come to town. Emily had seen the fair often, from a distance, but never before had the chance to go. Her father was a God fearing man and thought the event too crude in its origins, while her mother was a doctor and much too busy to take her daughter to the fair. This year though, Emily was twelve. And twelve is such a very large number.
The fair was like fire, crackling under the night sky. Carousel horses danced away from their posts and a prince presented his lover with a cotton-candy cloud, charmed down from the sky. It was a magical kingdom, just waiting to be discovered and Emily was the brave explorer. She paid her fee at the gate and passed through alone, her feet crunching on discarded candy wrappers and the first leaves of autumn.
In the distance, behind a canopy of strobe lights and flailing limbs, the Big Wheel stood on top of it all and it was there that Emily's eyes led her.
“Let me guess, the big wheel.” The voice barely registered as Emily stared up at the swinging carriages and the laser beams shooting out like bicycle spokes. The Big Wheel would take her so high that she'd be old before she came down again. She'd step into the carriage and she'd step out somewhere else, at Cinderella's ball with admonitions to be home by midnight, which she would obviously fail to keep.
“Yeah, you're just the kind of girl to be drawn in by flashy lighting.” He snorted and this time the words landed and Emily turned around with a glare. In one long, contemptuous look, she knew him to be a fair worker, from the cap pulled down over his floppy, blonde hair to the bells on his grass green coat. Emily knew that fair workers were tricksters who were only after your money, and they weren't like real people at all.
“Oh yeah? And let me guess, you want me to try out your poxy, little attraction instead?” Emily was not a rude child, but she knew that if you weren't rude, the fair workers would never go away. Besides which, it did look like an awful waste of money. The cardboard wall behind him was painted in faded red and yellow stripes, looking less enticing than a mud hut with a straw roof. It was like deciding between the hopscotch or the monkey bars, as if there was any competition.
“The Hall of Mirrors can be exciting too,” the boy insisted. “But that's okay, you run along. Some people just aren't supposed to see the truth.”
“What did you say?” Emily blinked her big, brown eyes and backed off a step. The truth? Was she supposed to be afraid of the truth? Now reader, you may think this a poxy, little thing to be afraid of, but Emily was, yes. Emily was very afraid of the truth.
“You heard me. But that's okay, girls are always too afraid to enter the Hall of Mirrors. I'd even offer to go inside with you, but I know that even then, you'd be too afraid.”
“I am not!” Emily insisted and she took a step forward and then again. Emily was just as brave as any boy, especially one with floppy, blonde hair and a nose as big as a mountain. The fair boy smiled and he reached down to lift up a small card-board sign. The handwriting was poor and hard to read but Emily could just about tell that it promised to be back in ten minutes. The boy secured it in the window of his cardboard hut before stepping out.
“Very well then, miss. If you will follow me.” He bowed and then struck a gallant pose, holding his arm out for her to take. Emily hesitated, this boy was a stranger and her father had warned her against them. But. He had promised that he would be back in ten minutes and that was hardly enough time to look around the attraction and certainly not long enough for anything else to happen.
“So... we're being nice now?” Emily hesitated before accepting the arm.
“If you like,” the fair boy said. He twitched the curtain aside and led her into a hallway lined with mirrors and lit by glowing panels on the ceiling. Emily glanced at the mirrors suspiciously but after four or five, all of which did something different to her shape or size, she let out a nervous giggle and started to enjoy herself.
“This one makes your nose look even bigger!” Emily exclaimed, looking to her left.
“Oh gee, thanks,” the boy drawled, his eyes fixed straight ahead.
“You're not looking!” Emily realised with a gasp. “Are you scared, is it because you're afraid?” She covered her mouth as a giggle tried to escape and then pulled hard on his arm, trying to turn him around. The boy didn't resist and came face to face with the mirror, his disdainful expression matched by the other boy's.
“We didn't come for these mirrors,” the fair boy explained. “We came for the one that tells the truth.”
Emily fell silent and allowed him to lead her through a maze of mirrors and doors. The further in they walked, the darker it got as some of the lights started to flicker and others failed entirely. Emily pressed herself closer against the boy and tried not to look in the mirrors which held shadowy figures and grasping hands. After one turn, they came upon a mirror so suddenly that Emily walked into it and felt the glass hard and cold against her cheek. Her eye stared into the depths of the eye reflected back and she thought she saw a face there. A face with freckles and eyes as dark and wicked as coal. But when the boy steadied her, she realised it was only herself.
Emily thought hard about what the boy had said. He was leading her to a mirror that told the truth. But it wouldn't be scary, no. Emily had convinced herself that it would be a normal mirror. A mirror that showed her, as she was. Just her. Nothing scary about that. And, she felt smug because the boy had forgotten to ask her for any money so it didn't even matter that this was lame and not scary at all.
“Through here,” the boy said, pushing hard against one of the mirrors until it swung inward on hidden hinges. Beyond, the room was dark and a cloud of dust swirled out causing Emily to cough.
“In there?” she asked apprehensively.
“Come on.” The boy climbed through and reached back to take her hand, pulling her in after him. Surprised, Emily stumbled down a step, sliding against the door and falling into her companion who laughed and pulled her further in.
“I... I bet it's just a plain, old mirror,” Emily said bravely.
“No, it's not. I wouldn't bring you all this way for that. Wait, stand here.” The boy dropped her arm and moved away, stepping behind a great big dust sheet. “This mirror was so scary and so terrifying, that it had to be removed from the attraction,” the boy explained, lifting the bottom corner. “Anyone who looked in it was never the same again because they had seen... the truth.” He whipped the sheet away dramatically and Emily was almost afraid to look. But she had come so far. And it was there, right in front of her. But what was there?
It looked at first like any mirror. The frame was gold and engraved with leaves and the glass fit snugly inside, dusty but clear enough to make out her reflection. Pale skin, dark hair pushed back by a red headband. Skinny legs and spindly arms sticking out from the lace trimmings of her best, red dress. Every detail was exactly correct, right down to the fading bruise on her left forearm. There it was, reflected on the mirror girl's left arm.
“I don't see-” Then the arm reached out and Emily realised what was wrong. Ordinary mirrors didn't show the truth. They showed everything as it was, but the wrong way around. But not this mirror. This mirror was not showing herself, but another girl, a girl who looked just like her, standing across from her, as if she had a twin. And the girl reached out and pulled Emily in.
“Come,” the fair boy said, holding his arm out to the girl in the mirror. “Come and let me show you what this world is like.” And out she stepped in her red, buckle shoes. She looked up at the fair boy and smiled wickedly.
And that night, Emily stepped on to the Big Wheel, but the girl who stepped off wasn't Emily at all and she certainly didn't make it home before midnight.
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