Three Mirrors

The Mirror World noticed their silence, and it began to feed.

It started on the third day, in the quiet of the afternoon, when the three of them were crossing a flat gray plaza that had once been a Boston square. There was a fountain in the middle, dry. There were benches. A row of pigeons sat along the rim, motionless, and when Zoe passed they all turned their heads at once, in unison, to watch her go.

"Don't," said Jin, softly.

"I'm not."

"They're just birds."

"They don't have eyes," said Zoe.

It was true. Where the eyes should have been, in the little gray heads, there was only smooth feather. She walked on with her arms folded tight across her chest. Archie, a pace behind, saw her shoulders shaking. He wanted to say something. He could not think what. He had not found a word to say to her in three days that was not a wound.

The first mirror stood at the corner of the plaza.

It was not a shop window this time. It was a free-standing glass, seven feet high, in a plain black frame, set into the pavement as though someone had planted it there like a signpost. It reflected the plaza. It reflected the sky. It reflected the three of them walking toward it, small and bedraggled and gray.

And it reflected one other.

…

"Hello, Jin," said the mirror.

Jin stopped.

The figure that stood in the glass was not Jin. It looked like him: the same thin frame, the same narrow face, the same round glasses. But it was older. Much older. The black hair had gone to iron. The face was seamed with lines of bitter cold. It wore a dark suit, immaculate, buttoned to the throat, and it stood very straight, with its hands clasped behind its back, in the manner of a man who has never once in his life been wrong.

It spoke in Korean.

Archie did not understand the words. He understood the tone, which was low and level and very cold, a voice that did not need to be raised. He understood from Jin's face, which went suddenly, terribly blank, as though a shutter had come down.

"Don't," Jin whispered.

The figure in the glass went on.

"What is it saying?" said Zoe.

"Nothing."

"Jin."

"It's, it's my grandmother." He swallowed. His voice was thin. "It's talking about my grandmother. She raised me. After the fire. She worked in a laundry and she never complained, not once, and I—" He stopped. "It says that I wasn't there. When she died. That I was at the lab. That I was in a coding sprint and I didn't take her calls. That she died alone in a hospital room in San Jose with a nurse holding her hand, and I was eating noodles at my desk."

"That's not true," said Zoe. "Is it?"

"It's true."

"Jin—"

"It's true!" he cried. He had put both hands over his ears. "It's true. I was. I was there for the funeral. That's all. I wasn't there for the dying." His whole body shook. "It's saying that I'm just like my father. That I'm cold. That I leave people. That I'll leave you, too."

The figure in the glass stopped speaking. It turned its head. Its gaze, dark and level and utterly without pity, settled on Archie.

And it smiled.

"You," it said, in English. "You'd know. Wouldn't you? You left yours."

…

He did not remember the next minute clearly.

He remembered that Zoe had dragged Jin away from the glass by his sleeve, and that Jin had let himself be dragged, white and shuddering, with his glasses fogged. He remembered that the pigeons were turning, one by one, to look. He remembered that there were other mirrors now, at the corners of the square, hundreds of them, rising out of the stone like a forest of black frames, and in each was a face.

In the nearest, a man in a gray suit with a paper cup.

In the next, a thin pale figure with his hands in his pockets, wearing a hospital gown.

In the next, a boy on a crutch.

"Archie," said the man in the gray suit. His voice was gentle, amused, tired. "You've come a long way. You've done so well. I'm proud of you." He sipped. "You left the boy, though."

"Stop."

"Left him in the dirt. Walked through a door. It's what I'd have done, you know." The smile widened. "We're the same, you and I. You and me. We know when to walk away."

"I said stop."

"Your mother and father didn't choose to leave you," the mirror went on, kindly. "It was an accident. A truck. They didn't want to go. But you, Archie. You chose." He raised the cup in salute. "That's a rather different thing, isn't it?"

Archie stood motionless. The words entered him one by one, like nails.

"You left him, Archie. You left Venn. He called your name. He said it was all right. And you looked at him, and you did the arithmetic. One against three. And you walked out."

"Stop it."

"You said you were saving the group. You always say that. It's the story you tell. But it's not the truth. The truth is that it was easier." The gentle voice dropped. "It's always easier, isn't it? To be the one who goes. To be the one who isn't left."

He turned and walked away. He walked as fast as he could. He did not know where. Behind him the mirror's laughter followed, soft and affectionate, and the boy on the crutch in the next frame lifted his hand and waved.

…

"Don't walk away from me!"

It was Zoe.

She had caught him at the edge of the plaza, in a narrow street between two windowless buildings, and she had caught him by the arm, and swung him round. Her face was red. Her eyes were blazing. She was breathing hard.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare walk away from me. Not again."

"Zoe—"

"Say it."

"Say what?"

"Say you're sorry." Her voice rang off the walls. "Say you made a mistake. Say you'd do it differently. Say anything. Say something true."

He stared at her.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"That's not it."

"I am. I'm sorry I left him. I'm sorry for, for all of it—"

"But?"

"But I'd do it again."

The words hung in the narrow street.

Zoe's face changed. It went very still. All the color drained from it, slowly, from the forehead down, until it was the color of paper. She took a step back. Her hand fell from his arm.

"What?"

"I would." His voice cracked. "I would, Zoe. It was the right call. If we'd stayed, the door would've closed. We'd all be stuck back there. Sera would've been bound to the Tree for ever, and Jin would've died, and you." He gestured helplessly. "I did the math."

"The math."

"Yes."

"Venn is not a number."

"I know that."

"He's not a, an equation. He's a person. He's twenty-four years old and he runs in the park at five a.m. and he's afraid of the dark. He called me gorgeous." Her voice was rising. "You looked at him, Archie. You looked right at him. And you walked out."

"I had no choice!"

"You always have a choice!"

"Not that time."

"Every time!"

"Zoe—"

"That's what I don't understand about you." She was weeping now, angrily, hard, with her fists clenched. "You were so brave. At Thornkeep. You stayed. You walked into the dark with your hands open. I thought, there's a man who knows what a person is worth. I thought you were different." She dashed her sleeve across her face. "But you're not. You're exactly the same. When it gets hard, when there's a cost, you retreat into the numbers. You do the sensible thing."

"Because someone has to."

"No! No! Nobody has to!" She was shouting now. "That's the lie! That's the lie you tell yourself! That you're being responsible! You're not being responsible, you're being scared!"

He said nothing.

Down the alley, the mirrors had begun to gather. He could see them at the mouth of the street, a dozen tall black frames, standing in a ring. In each was a face. In each, a pair of eyes, watching.

"Say it," said Zoe, very low. "Say you were scared."

"I was."

"Say it again."

"I was scared." His voice was a whisper. "I was so scared."

"Of what?"

"Of losing you."

She went white.

She stared at him. Her mouth opened. Closed. Her chin trembled. She looked, for a moment, like a child who has been handed something very heavy, and does not know where to set it down.

"That's not fair," she said, in a small cracked voice.

"I know."

"That's not fair at all."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't say you're sorry!" She turned away, with her hands pressed over her face. "Don't. Just don't. Not now. I can't. I can't breathe."

She walked to the end of the alley and stood with her back to him, her shoulders heaving. He stood where he was. He did not follow. In the silence, he could hear the faint reverberating laughter of the mirrors, soft, intimate, satisfied.

Good, they seemed to say. Good, Archie. Very good.

That's exactly what we wanted.