Mickey's Halfway House

Magic Mirror

Magnifico hardly believed the cloaked figure of the woman in black. Her back was to him but the dark hair was tied off in a familiar long braid. In her fair hand she held a green drink, which she finished off.

Magnifico approached with his heart in his throat. Reaching for her shoulder, he began, "Is it really you . . . . "

No sooner had his hand made contact when the woman's hair turned white and her shoulders sagged. She turned, and Magnifico saw not the face of his beautiful queen but a leering old hag. The king jerked away his hand. "What . . . . Who - ?"

The hag burst into a cackle. "Expecting someone else, your majesty?" Then she cackled again.

"I'm . . . . Sorry," Magnifico stammered. 

"Ah . . . . " The hag stepped closer to the king. He realized as she reached a now haggard hand to his neck that she was staring at his mirror. "What a pretty thing you have here . . . . May I hold it?"

It was a taunt, not a question.

"I can't take it off, ma'am," Magnifico replied.

The hag sneered. "Too fond of your own reflection, I see? Vain is thy beauty, I suppose."

Magnifico turned from her, but she gripped his wrist with ice-cold fingers. He felt her tugging at his ring - the one Amaya had given him the night they were married. "Another pretty accessory," the hag croaked. "Where is the fair one who wears its pair?"

"That's enough." The king pulled back his hand, but the hag's grip sent through him a chill that froze him where he stood. 

The hag glared at him. "I know what you're doing with the wishes," she rasped. "The others are fools, they think you're actually granting them. But they'll turn on you the moment they discover the truth, won't they?"

Before Magnifico could use his magic to loosen her grip, the hag caught the king's free hand and crushed it in her iron grasp. "Of course," she continued as the king exhaled sharply. "You do as I say, you grant my wish . . . . " She pulled the king down to face her with a strength unsuspected and in her death throttle of a voice whispered, "Otherwise they'll destroy you like your spoiled citizens did."

The hag flung Magnifico against the wall - she was a titan in the body of a poor peddler. The blow knocked the air out of the king's lungs, and when he gasped for breath he inhaled the hag's coldness; she stood over his doubled-over figure and seemed to take him by the throat with a death's grip as she clutched Magnifico's mirror. Staring into the looking glass that served as the king's eternal prison, she croaked: "Slave to a mirror in my hand, I wish you'd tell me that I am the fairest in the land!"

She held the wish in her heartless bosom. Magnifico reached for it - 

 - the moment the wish was on his fingertips, he flung his other hand at the hag and sent a jolt of green light into her. The force wrenched her grip off the king and flung her to the floor. A sharp pain shot through Magnifico himself, but he stood over the hag's body and pressed his foot against her chest as she cried out.

"You," the king panted. "Will never be the fairest in the land!"

The hag squirmed and coughed beneath him, but Magnifico pressed down harder. In her eyes he saw more visions - of a child lying at the feet of a queen who held an axe over the child's body. Despite the queen's regal appearance, in her heart was the hag's loathing. 

Sickness swirled within Magnifico. The rage of the Curse was rebuilding up in his veins, carrying the same poison that flowed throughout the café and that sparked in the hag's bulging hazel eyes.

The king drew in a deep breath. He stepped off the wretched woman and held her wish over her.

"If you ever again approach me with evil intent, I will destroy this," Magnifico said before the wish disappeared into his person.

The old woman's face had gone blank. In fact, the whole café was quiet again. Magnifico felt the villains' stares falling back on him.

Then the sound of Hades relighting his hair prompted the resuming of idle chatter.

When Magnifico saw the old woman stand and be off toward the bar, he released his breath and steadied himself against the wall. He felt for his mirror - it was still there, despite his hopes against better sense that the hag had somehow managed to rip it off him. 

Once you join with the Curse, there's no coming back from it. It lives inside you forever.

And the mirror was his weight to bear.

The king became lost in thought as he ran his fingers along the rhombus sides of the mirror. He didn't notice the Evil fairy watching him from among the throng of evil-doers.

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