Smoke and Mirrors (2)

Two

Face the Music

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I disappeared in a way that felt too weird to describe, but for your sake, reader, I'll try.

I disappeared in a whirlwind of swirling stardust--of fading crescendos and thousands of notes hummed expertly by the most silvery voices I'd ever heard. These voices made any siren sound like an amateur. I was carried by a peaceful mist and blanketed by the freshest aroma of an icy pine forest.

It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. Nothing tonight was like anything I'd ever experienced before. And as this strange, wonderful whirlwind of stardust and music and mist and all things enchanting carried me to. . . to wherever, I couldn't help but wonder if there even was a wherever. What if I was trapped here for all eternity?

Slowly, the whirlwind began to recede, like an ocean's wave bringing land some present from the deep. Was that what I was? Something to be presented to a foreign land?

A shudder slid through me.

When I opened my eyes, the room around me was cleared completely of the whirlwind, but it was also cleared of my apartment.

I stood in a castle.

--In my pajamas.

This castle was made of solid crystal. The walls caught the light from outside, throwing it around the shadowed blue floors in jagged rectangles of light. The room smelled like stone after rain, and somewhere, a lone violin played a slow, dramatic tune.

I wrapped my arms around myself and shuddered, but not because I was cold. The room was huge and empty, with wide pillars that appeared to be hewn from crystal, and a mysterious sort of icy glow that settled over everything. Sharp, angled, crystal stalactites hung menacingly from the jagged ceiling above.

I turned to further examine my surroundings, but was startled by a figure who had been watching me in the silence. I couldn't help but let out a scream before I realised who she was. My scream echoed for quite a while around us as I looked closer at the woman.

Her dark hair looked like black oil—from the very color to the way it flowed around her waist. And if her hair was oil, then her music-note dress had to be the sea it settled over. Her brown eyes looked black in the deep lighting. She blinked slowly at me, as if waiting on me to ask the first question. So ask I did.

"What just happened?!" I demanded. "Can you take me back? I'm not trapped here, right?!"

She pursed her lips and glanced away with a sad look in her eyes.

"I have many things I must tell you. Follow me." Her voice was almost like a whisper, and it echoed quietly around us much more gently than my own voice had.

"Why?" I asked, tucking my shaking hands into the pockets of my tan jacket. My voice sounded loud compared to hers. "Where are you going?"

"Some place a little cozier," she replied as she moved softly ahead of me. "I know it will be hard for you, especially after what you've seen today, but I need you to trust me. It is for your safety, Little One."

Little one? She couldn't be older than twenty.

"No way, lady. Not until you tell me where we're going." I crossed my arms.

"As I said—"

"—Yeah, some place cozy. But my mom didn't raise an idiot. You don't follow strangers into dark, creepy mansions—"

"—Palace, actually."

"—and think everything will be all hunky-dory."

"Look"—she turned to face me—"I could just move you again. I did that to bring you here, I can move you just a few rooms away, too."

After a long moment of silence, I sighed and dropped my folded arms. "Fine, lead the way."

She smiled prettily and turned.

We exited the room through a set of silver doors with tall, golden trees etched into them. My eyes didn't stop moving from one object to the next, from the dangling crystal chandeliers, to the sparkling floors, to the lights set inside the crystal walls that set the whole side of some parts of the castle ablaze in light.

We entered some kind of a music room, with violins that hung from holders on the walls, and a tall, stately, crystal harp with silver strings, and a white grand piano that sat in the middle of the room with a small candlestick on top in an ornate holder. Many other instruments were placed around the room, but I could hardly identify them. There were silver flutes, and round crystal disks that sent gentle, pleasing hums through the room while a small waterfall in the wall trickled over them. The sounds from the crystal disks and the waterfall were tranquil inside the echoing room.

"What is this place?" I asked quietly, watching the lights inside the walls flicker and change colors from white, to blue, to soft green, and so on.

She smiled at me and took a seat behind the white piano. "My music room."

A slow, steady sound poured from the piano that put Johann or Beethoven to shame. I stared at her in bewilderment.

"I thought you were going to answer my questions?"

She stretched her arms out against the piano keys as she played, her head angling to the side as her raven hair curtained her face. "Ask away, little one."

"Okay, first off, the name's Tessa. It sounds weird having a twenty year old call me 'little one'. Next—"

"—I am well over twenty, but I will take this as a compliment," she said with a soft giggle. "Do continue."

I cleared my throat and stuffed all thoughts of her age into a mental filing cabinet. "Well, next off, I expect to be returned home. As quickly as possible. Or, actually, just as soon as Mister Silver-Tights gets out. Can you get rid of him, by the way?"

The piano suddenly went an octave deeper, and a chill from the tune pricked my skin. "While it is true that you will be no prisoner here," she began slowly, "you most certainly cannot return home. Not for now, at least. And no, little one. I cannot remove him, however annoying he may be."

"Tessa. And why not?! You zapped me outta there, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but there are certain boundaries that are dangerous to cross with certain royals, and he happens to be at the top of that list. I do not feel like preparing my kingdom for a war we are not prepared to win."

I blinked. "Royals? Say what now?" I took a few steps closer and narrowed my eyes at her. "Who are you?"

She stood and turned, a smile curling her lips. The piano ended, but its song continued to echo. "I am the six-hundred-and-seventy-eighth Queen of Music."

I blinked again, the words slowly dawning on me as I stood there. In my pajamas. "Should I, uh, bow or something? Or curtsy? I didn't realise—I didn't know. . . How is that even possible?!" She was lying. She had to be. Music was. . . Well, music was music. It had no queen. That was impossible.

She gave a breathy laugh. "You are fine."

"Where am I? Is this, like, some Disneyland attraction or something?" I squinted at the wall. "Is there a camera? I bet I'm on someone's YouTube channel right now, aren't I?"

"That, my Dear, I can honestly say is quite unlikely."

"But not impossible?" I crossed my arms again.

"Nothing is ever impossible." She pulled her hair over one shoulder. "But I do not think you want mere words. You are here for a greater purpose. Sit, please."

I sat on the floor near the waterfall and closed my eyes, running a hand through the water.

The cool water swirled through my hands with a slight chill, but I relished it as I asked the first question that had really been messing with me. "Who was the man? The man who. . . bent the mirrors. What was he?" I grimaced as I remembered the feeling of those mirrors wrapped around my throat like tentacles.

The woman walked across the floor and curled her fingers gently around a silver violin. She placed it beneath her chin and played an upbeat, happy tune. It was almost reminiscent of an Irish jig, but with a sort of tranquil whine on some parts that sort of reminded me of traditional Chinese music--except on a regular violin, of course.

"The man is a king, and he rules mirrors. He. . . has a vendetta against a prophecy, I suppose you could say, and you just happen to be caught in the middle."

My brows furrowed as I swirled a finger through the water. "Mirrors? A prophecy? I'm sorry, what?"

She laughed. "Which do you want an answer for first? The king of mirrors, or the prophecy?"

I blinked down at the small pool of water beside me. "Well, since my life was almost taken, I guess this mirror dude." I sighed and scratched an old mosquito bite on my ankle.

She softened her playing. "There is a king and a queen for everything that has a boundary needing to be controlled. We live in the shadows of an old clock, in the sea's roaring waves, in the hollow of a tree. We are everywhere. Music has me, mirrors have their king, and so on."

"Why do mirrors need to have a boundary? They're not natural or anything."

"Because it's not the mirrors that need controlling. It's what lives inside. And water has always had reflections long before mirrors came to be."

I glanced at her and shivered. "What do you mean?"

She stopped playing and waved a hand towards the crystal disks, stopping their sound. "There are people that live in the realm of mirrors. That is why you can look into a mirror and see someone there. Our world is reflected in mirrors. That is why they have a king."

I half-heartedly punched the water.

So many things ran through my head. I was confused, scared, lost, and afraid, and--did I mention scared?

"That's. . . not even possible," I said slowly. My voice was shaky. "How on Earth could people live inside a mirror?! That's the most. . . ridiculous thing I've ever heard of!"

She sat on a silver stool behind the giant harp and began to play. Did she ever not play an instrument? She gave what looked like a dismissive wave to the violin, and it began to join in with a slow, sort of mournful sound. It was beautiful, especially paired with the harp, and the soft, tinkling disks in the waterfall. As if that wasn't enough, she waved her hand at the crystal disks and they began to play a deeper sound, which blended perfectly with the other instruments. She waved another hand towards the piano, as if gesturing that it was time for it to shine, and it played an extraordinarily beautiful sound that gave me goosebumps. I didn't know what song she was playing, I don't think I'd ever heard them before, but they really were enchanting. I wondered if she'd composed them herself.

"It may not be 'possible', but remember, we are no longer on earth, Little One. You saw first-handed how I brought you here, and how you were bound in the mirror king's ropes. Was any of that 'scientifically possible'? Really, you'd think the last hour of your life meant nothing to you."

She. . . was right. As much as it couldn't--shouldn't--have been possible, it had happened, and here I was.

"So then. . . am I in the mirror?" I asked quietly, but my voice still echoed around us with the music and water.

She laughed and inhaled a breath. "Oh, no. Not hardly. We are in the next kingdom over, if that makes sense to you. From here, you can access all of the kingdoms of Earth. The Seasons, Time, Mirrors, Water, Fire, and there are plenty of others, but those are the main ones."

"So I'm supposed to believe this. . . why?" I angled my torso to face her better, even though her back was to me as she played. Her black, glossy hair reflected the dull blue lighting around us as she moved her head to pluck the harp.

"Because you play an important role in the prophecy I mentioned," she replied. Her voice was still soft, but a note I didn't recognise had crept into her voice. Fear?

I pulled my hand from the water and wiped it against my satin pajamas. "What is this prophecy? Who told it?" And what did it have to do with me?

Now, if my life had been a cheesy, Young-Adult fantasy novel, she would have said something like, "You are the chosen one" or whatever. But this wasn't some cheesy, Young-Adult fantasy novel, so instead, she said something entirely different.

"The prophecy says that you are chosen for a special time in our world. Very special. And. . . you are going to die."