Mirror

Tery

After school, I made up my mind to go see Danny, but only for a short while because I wanted to be home in time to make dinner for the family. Ms. Gilbs was a little distracted so she didn't offer very much resistance when I showed up on her doorstep asking to come in.

"Litty?" Danny asked from his room as I was coming up the steps.

"Yep," I replied and opened his door. "I have some questions."

Danny was sitting on the edge of his bed with a few books open in front of him. "Sure. What about?"

"About the shadows. What are you doing?"

"Thinking about the last three charms. These are books from Mirror. I brought legends today. Tomorrow I'll look into historic documents."

"Aren't there eight?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"The charms. Aren't there eight? The amulet chain only has seven clasps, but the creation legend says there are eight."

Danny nodded slowly as if that hadn't occurred to him. "Yeah, there are eight. One of them must not be a charm like the others."

"I guess that doesn't really help much," I said and Danny shook his head. "I wanted to talk to you about the shadows. There's something I don't really get."

Danny shifted uncomfortably on his bed. "Okay. I might not be of very much help, but ask away."

"The creation legend mentioned that shadows fed from the river Life as well as the Beautiful creatures, but the shadows took more than their fair share. What was their fair share? And does that mean that initially river Life was plentiful enough to support both the Beautiful creatures and the shadows?"

Danny seemed to think it was an odd question. He signaled for me to sit next to him while he mulled over the answer. I did and then pulled him up onto my lap, turning him slightly so I could still see his face. "Initially, Cantery underestimated the amount of energy Life needed that's why he had to dig it deeper again, but, if you remember, when he saw it was fading the first time he spent one-hundred and fifty-three days ensuring it would have enough to support all of the life in Mirror, including the shadows. The one-hundred and fifty-three days was a very precisely calculated number. It provided enough energy for every living being to survive one hundred years without needing another source."

"Another source?"

"Uh, like meat."

"Oh," I said, "Okay, I get it. Cantery didn't want their to be any kind of conflict, so Life was strong enough to give every creature a decently long life without ever having to turn violent against other living things."

Danny nodded. "More or less, yes. However, the shadows got greedy and wanted to live longer, feel stronger, be better, or something, so they tried to blockade the beautiful creatures from the river. That worked until Avril made it poison for them."

"I remember that part. So only the shadows got greedy? None of the beautiful creatures wanted to live longer than one-hundred years?"

"No," Danny answered far too quickly. "Only the shadows are evil."

"And their only desire is to thrive. They only want to live a long time and become as strong as possible?"