The Beast's Ward

Chapter Eleven: Beyond the Looking Glass

"What do you think, Foxy?" I asked the small dog as I ran my fingers through her long fur. "Can you make any sense out of this gibberish?" Foxy looked up at me with glistening, dark eyes. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth with a yawn. "I didn't think so." I muttered, folding the torn page into a tiny square for the eighth time in the last hour.

I gazed at Christopher's face over the expanse of room that divided us as I sat in a chair by the window. He was sleeping, although not peacefully it would seem. He thrashed around as he slept, fighting with the blankets and muttering random words: roses, wine, shadows, mirror, key, and finally Isabel tumbled from his lips. In fact, my name came up quite often and each time my frown grew deeper. Poor Christopher, how unfortunate he is to have me as his friend. I thought to myself with self-loathing. I glared at Christopher's wounds, memorizing the pattern of the blood stains on each bandage. He would die for me and yet I am too stupid to figure out how to save him even though the answer is in my hand at this very moment. I had not stolen the spell I had originally sought, but Christopher's own curse.

I had it. I had the answer, but it was written in a language too bizarre and foreign for me to understand. Apparently being able to read spells is not one of the traits I had inherited through the Craft bloodline. If I wanted to free either of us, I would need to learn how to read them myself. I snapped shut the book of spells that I had been studying for the past few hours. I had noted some recurring symbols, just as there are in any written language, but I couldn't begin to tell you what those symbols meant or even if they meant anything at all.

Rising from my chair, I laid Foxy at the foot of Christopher's bed. "Stay with him, please. I'm going to get some tea...and perhaps a cookie or two." I added at the sound of an insistent grumble from my empty stomach. The dog curled up on the bed obediently and I quietly snuck away.

I trudged towards the stair case. I rubbed at the soreness in my neck. I had been bent over books for far too long. As my hand reached the railing, a soft, low voice, like the lull of a father's gentle lullaby touched my ears. I stopped, recognizing the tone, the accent, and the slight rasp of the man's voice. "Father?" I breathed, my eyes widening in shock. Half afraid of seeing my father's ghost and half hoping that he would be there; I slowly turned my head towards the opposite door in the hall of the third floor, towards Rosalyn's private study.

The door was wide open and I could see the mirror with its odd, non-reflective glass and the shrine that surrounded it, clearly. The mirror flickered with a soft, golden light, like a candle in the wind. "Isabel." The voice, again sighed. I watched the mirror intently and after a moment, the flickering stilled. Within the golden light, a face began to conjure, forming from a smoky fog until my father was staring back at me. He smiled at me, that smile that I had been longing to see for such an achingly long time. His dark eyes twinkled and wrinkles formed at the corner of his mouth, just as they had always done in life. "My, how you've grown, child. You are even more beautiful than I remember. Truly, you are the spitting image of your poor, dear mother." Like the face, the rest of my father's body appeared and he reached out his hand. However, what I was seeing appeared only as a reflection. No flesh and blood hand reached out to take mine. He was simply my own mirrored image, trapped in that world beyond the looking glass. "Come, Isabel. Take my hand. It's been such a long time. I had feared that I would never see you again." A single tear fell from his eye as he spoke and I felt the wetness of tears on my cheek.

"Father!" I cried, flinging myself towards the witch's room. I knew that it was wrong, that this reflection couldn't possibly be the real him, but in that moment I forgot all reason. All that I knew was that my beloved father was there, before me. I could see him! I could hear his voice! He was calling to me and I must go to him!

I fell before the mirror, crying hysterically. "Father! Papa! Is that really you?" I blubbered, touching the glass, desperate to feel the warmth of his aging skin and the roughness of his beard, to know that he was alive and not a figment of my imagination.