Tales of Monsters and Angels

7. The Truth of Mirrors

A sharp pinching at the back of her head and the sight of the garden spinning – not spinning assured Paige of one thing. The bottle in her hand was empty and it was no one's fault but hers.

Empty bottle, no empty bottle. In the dew soaked grass bottle. Green bottle. Red wine. Green grass. Red blood.

A flood of red blood gushing down the stairs. Not gushing. Dripping. Drip drop from stair to stair.

No. No blood. Just wine.

She giggled and clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the sound.

Too much wine. She tried to stand up, but the garden and porch started their spinning again.

"Such a good, sweet girl you are, Paige. I'm afraid a few of the guests noticed you drinking a bit much wine, but we won't let them worry us. It's not every day a girl turns nineteen!" Mrs. Canterby sat on the porch swing with a wheezing sigh. Her years were on that inexorable march upwards into dizzying heights.

Paige couldn't imagine ever being that old – much like every old person must think when they are as young as her. The spinning slowed. Paige leaned against the rail from her seat on the steps.

She was Paige and only Paige, she realized with surprise. She hadn't been only Paige since the day she arrived.

The majestic house had intimidated her that day. So many rooms, so much furniture, so many hidden corners and inexplicable noises. Mrs. Canterby was a collector. Stacks and stacks of notebooks full of inky scratches, dolls, cat figurines and doilies.

And mirrors. Paige scared herself at every corner that first day when she came face to face with a pale skinned girl staring back at her.

The next day, when she woke up, she was Beverly. Full of hatred and murderous rage.

"I'll kill that decrepit bitch. I'll kill her. Push her down the stairs. Slice open her wrinkly neck with a razor. Shove scissors in her eyes. I'll kill her. It will be so much fun."

Paige always managed to step in and prevent Beverly from hurting the old woman. Old Mrs. Canterby who was so kind to her.

"Call me Mother, my dear. It's official on paper, I don't see why it shouldn't be official between us. I always wanted a daughter," Mrs. Canterby said. At the time, she had been dusting her porcelain cats.

Papers, ink and words didn't make mothers and daughters. Paige had agreed, though.

Beverly raged.

"Lies and deceit. The bitch pretends to be so goody-goody. I'll fucking tear her heart out. I'll bash in her head with the fire poker!"

Christina, on the other hand, never said anything at all. On the days she was Christina, she would read and write. She studied the old woman's notebooks, searching for rhyme, reason or riddles in the slashes and spirals that filled them. She found a few empty ones and wrote words.

'They cut out my tongue' was what she wrote the most often.

Paige would ask or try to find out who did that when she came back, but by then Christina was hiding in dark corners. She skittered out of reach when Paige looked for her. But she'd catch glimpses of Christina's white-blue skin and blood smeared chin in the mirrors once in a while. Or of Beverly's sunken, hating eyes.

What an odd coincidence that the three girls had the same orange-red hair and fair skin with freckles.

Mrs. Canterby was nothing by kindness itself. She kept Paige's favorite foods on the table, sent out for the latest jazz records to play, and gave her fine clothes and perfume to wear.