The Crumpled Mirror by Elizabeth Loea

Author:Elizabeth Loea [Loea, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-30T06:00:00+00:00

XVII

Whatever I was expecting when I stepped through that mirror, it was not a diner straight out of the late ‘50s. It was not the sound of Elvis playing on a jukebox, or the smell of french fries.

And yet, there it was. The place itself was the smallest surprise, perhaps because it was so familiar. Grease bubbled in the kitchen and rubber soles squeaked across the tile floor. The teal pleather booths were squeaky clean and smelled like antiseptic.

The customers, though...they were the unusual part of this place.

There in one corner was a woman who looked like the sky, her hair billowing white as clouds while her skin was the flickering blue of a chilly, sunny day. There in the opposite corner was a man like us, but with no pupils or whites to his eyes: just green, green, green. Most people were humanoid, but there were some that I wouldn’t have been able to discern as sentient unless they moved: a person composed of tightly-woven vines, sipping a cup of tea.

And then, at one of the most distant booths, was Mint. His fingers were pressed so hard to the table, the surface had begun to warp around them. He had his chin propped precariously on the top of a cup. His face rippled, back and forth, just a little. Not in the jaw or near the eyes, but around the very bone structure.

Amaranth had warned me about him, but it had a hard time being afraid of Mint when he looked so scared.

“He’s not looking so good,” Lilac observed, starting for him.

“Sick?” I speculated, waving off the diner’s hostess.

“Drunk,” Adrian corrected. “Sick people don’t pass out like that.”

He was right. Sick people pass out as though they’re going to sleep. Mint was just...stationary. Restrained. He looked as though he was afraid to move.

We stood in a semicircle around the man who was supposed to be our mentor.

I reached out to shake him, but Adrian got there first. He grabbed Mint by the shoulder and—

Mint recoiled, his hand up in self-defense, and blasted Adrian across the room. The young man’s back hit one of the square pillars holding up the ceiling and I tried not to flinch as I heard his head slam into the pillar, too.

Adrian slumped to the floor as Indigo and Lilac rushed for him. Ginger and I crowded around, too.

Lilac prodded his cheek with a finger. “If I have to bring him back again, I’m going to be so mad.”

Adrian opened his eyes a few moments later, fortunately not dead.

“Why do I always have to be the one getting magically KO’d?” he grumbled, letting us pull him to his feet.

Mint had recovered from the shock by then. He hauled himself out of the booth as though it pained him. His face smoothed, flattened back to what his features should have been, but there was something different about the slant of his forehead and the shape of his mouth. He had no visible injuries, which was good, but there are plenty of other ways a person can be in pain.

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