Page 35 of Spring's Arcana
What the hell?Nat set off down the hall. The picture turned clearer and clearer as she approached, as if she could step through and gingerly cross the slick frozen wooden sidewalk innocent of any deicer. The streetlamps were all wrong, too—they were old-fashioned, and tiny flames burned in their bulbous heads.
Gaslamps. Even the buildings were subtly, cruciallywrong,and there wasn’t a car in sight. A sleigh with a high prow jingled past,drawn by a set of matched bays, and Nat could see every stitch in the driver’s black knitted muffler.
“Mama?” she whispered like a three-year-old, but her mother didn’t hear. The picture vanished, and Nat let out a small, hurt sound, glancing wildly to either side.
More passages, each with a glowing sheet of glass at the end. Nat’s ribs heaved. “Mama,” she whispered again.Oh, come on. Show me something else. That was her in the old country, I’ll bet anything.
The thought that maybe shehadbet everything by going to see de Winter, and was furthermore about to lose the wager horribly, drifted through her aching head. She hadn’t even had a chance to drink the damn coffee, although that was probably a mercy.
Who knew what that guy had put into it?Thesorcerer. Like Baba wastheGrandmother, and Mom wastheDrozdova.
All right. If this was a story, Nat would know what to do. So she licked her dry lips and tried to think. “Show me my mother.”
The mirrors shivered in their seatings, tinkling prettily. She carefully avoided touching them, edging towards the one which brightened most.
There was her mother, lying on her back in a green sunny field. Nat could almost smell the crushed grass. Mama’s belly was high and proud, probably with baby Nat, and Maria Drozdova stroked the curve lovingly as her lips moved. Daisies nodded in ankle-high grass, turning their faces towards the plaid blanket Mama reclined on.
Next to her, a dark-haired man with his face turned away was propped on his elbow, reaching for a dandelion. The stem broke silently, and Mama’s expression soured between one moment and the next. There was no sound, but Nat could very well imagine the cutting remark slipping between her mother’s pink-glossed lips.
The screen darkened and Nat was off again, walking towards the next brightening. Her skirt brushed the glass to her left and a thin fragment of green cloth whispered free, but she didn’t notice.
Mama, creeping down a dark hall Nat recognized because she’d been there yesterday; it led to Baba de Winter’s office. Her mother was pregnant, but not nearly as heavily—just rounded a bit, likeLeo’s midlife potbelly. On her it looked natural, beautiful, andright. The baby bump pulled up the skirt of her yellow flowered dress, and her bare feet had pink-polished toenails.
Nat watched, spellbound, as her mother crept into de Winter’s office. The only light was from the huge windows, bathing the room in the dusky, dusty orange of a moonless summer night in the city. Mom obviously knew where she was going; she headed to the left instead of the huge bar on the right Dmitri had revealed just yesterday.
It felt like a million years ago.
Soft and stealthy, Nat’s mother pressed on the gleaming black wall, her fingers moving in a tortuous pattern. A slice of the wall pulled back; Mom stiffened, glancing over her shoulder.
The picture faded just as Mom was reaching into the wall cabinet. Nat’s heart pounded so hard her head felt hollow and swollen. It was work to turn away, looking for the next screen.
A baby-blue, 60s-adjacent Mustang zoomed down a two-lane highway, rolling grass on every side. Mountains were a purple smudge on the horizon, and the only other landscape feature was a giant, twisted tree in the middle distance, roots diving into a pile of bright yellow sand, tangled branches loaded with pink blossom.
Wait a minute. I know that car. Mom talked about it all the time, but the Mustang was lost and only the ancient black Léon-Bollée remained. Nat reached for the mirror, yanked her hand back just in time. Her fingers stung anyway, and she gasped.Hey, no fair! I didn’t even touch it!
Now both her hands were bleeding and the injustice filled her throat, hot and acid as bile. She once more considered kicking the goddamn glass, swallowed her rage with habitual speed but without the usual ease, and looked for the next glowing picture.
Nothing. Three avenues branched away, and all three were dark.
“That’s all I’ll give for free.” The sorcerer’s voice filled the passageway, tugged at her hair and skirt with a dry hot breeze. “Now you must ask, Drozdova. Choose wisely, choose well—and hurry.”
Ask? Askwhat?
The popping noises were getting louder. Mirrors creaked, likeskyscraper windows on windy days. The vibration met her shoes and ran up through her bones, settling in her teeth.
Whatever Mom had stolen was in parts. Was this the man who believed in the future, who was supposed to give her directions to the first piece? If not, why had he scooped her up from the party?
Except he wasn’t really living up to his end of the deal, if that evenwasthe deal. A good daughter would figure out how to negotiate, how to hold him to his bargain. But he was a fuckingsorcerer,he had her trapped in a mirrored labyrinth, and had anyone thought to warn her? Of course not.
Nat’s hands were fists. Hot blood slipped between her fingers. She tried to glare down each hall at once. “This is bullshit,” she muttered. Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she inhaled hard and screamed. “This is fucking BULLSHIT!”
Cracks spiderwebbed along the darkened glass on either side. The floor rumbled, groaning, and Nat swayed, terror igniting behind her breastbone.
The scary thing wasn’t the thought that she had somehow caused it. No, the absolutely terrifying thing was that sheknewshe had.
And it felt good.
More popping, cracking sounds. She realized what they were just as a mirror exploded behind her, glass smashing across the hallway to pepper its opposite twin. Nat flinched, and the screen to her left flickered.
