In A Glass Grimmly Part 23

The old woman slid up to Jack and lifted her face to his. "You have an hour to make the Gla.s.s work. Our patience has expired."

And she swept past him, past Jill, and out of the chamber of bone. The silk merchant flashed Jack a smile. For the first time, Jack noticed that his teeth were like pins, tiny and sharp, sticking up from blue gums. Jack shuddered. The silk merchant laughed and left. The oil salesman followed him.

Jack and Jill walked up to the Seeing Gla.s.s, now clean and clear. They brought their faces before its shining pane.

In the Gla.s.s, Jack saw a boy. His face was lined with sweat and caked with filth. His mouth was set in fear.

In the Gla.s.s, Jill saw a girl. Her hair was wet and matted to her forehead. Her skin was blistering and deathly pale.

Above their faces, along the top of the Gla.s.s, ran a strange script. It read, "Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father."

"What does it mean?" whispered the frog, peering from Jack's pocket.

Jack and Jill shook their heads.

"This is it?" asked Jill. "It just looks like a mirror."

Jack picked it up from the bone altar. "Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father," he muttered. Then he shrugged. "How do you think it works?"

Jill rubbed the silvered pane. Nothing happened.

Jack shook the Gla.s.s. Nothing.

The frog begged it: "Please do something! Please! Please?" Of course, nothing.

"I don't understand," said Jack. "Begehren said it was the greatest treasure in the world."

"Even Meas said it was worth looking for," Jill agreed.

So they redoubled their efforts. They tried everything they could think of to make it work, from singing to it to wearing it like a hat. Nothing helped.

The hour was nearly gone.

"I give up!" Jill cried at last. "Forget it! It's just a stupid mirror!"

"Now she says it's a stupid mirror," says the frog. "Now that we've gone to the sky, and underground, and are trapped in a room of bone by psychopathic cannibals. Now it's just a stupid mirror."

Jack muttered, "They'll kill us. They'll kill us."

The children sat down. Above their heads, the body bags swung slowly at the end of creaking twine. A few drops of blood fell to the bone floor between the two children.

"Oh G.o.d . . ." Jill groaned.

"Okay, that's it, good-bye," said the frog. "I'm going to go hide. They've never seen me, as far as I know. As far as I know, they don't know I exist. So I'm just going to hide. Sorry, guys. Good luck to you. Good-bye." He hopped from Jack's shirt and began looking for a place to stow himself until the carnage was over. "I'd stay and die with you," he added, "but this was not my idea. In fact, as you recall, I counseled you against this course of action about, I don't know, a thousand times."

"They've never seen you . . ." Jack murmured.

Jill let her head collapse in her hands.

"They've never seen you," Jack repeated, standing up.

"So?" said Jill.

"So I'm going to survive this thing yet!" announced the frog.

"They've never seen you!" Jack grinned.

Jill and the frog looked at Jack like he was crazy.

Ten minutes later, the Others slid back into the room. Their faces were dark, but their eyes were bright.

"Well?" said the silk merchant. "Have you prepared yourselves?"

"With salt and rosemary, perhaps?" the oil salesman smiled.

Jack and Jill spun from the mirror at the same time.

"It works!" they both cried excitedly. "It works!" Jill ran to the old woman and grabbed her arm. "Come see!" she cried. "Come see!" Jack was standing by the mirror, grinning madly.

The three Others rushed to the Gla.s.s. They peered into it. "What?" demanded the old woman. "How? I can't see anything!" She was shaking, as if the antic.i.p.ation of this moment was too much for her. "Show me!" she barked. "Show me!"

Jill said, "Step back."

All three Others stepped back at once, their eyes glued to the Gla.s.s.

And Jill said, Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all?

And, from deep within the altar of bone, a voice resounded: In eye, in cheek, in hair, in hand, The queen is the fairest in the land.

"IT WORKS!" the Others screamed. "IT WORKS!" Their cries rumbled from the pits of their bellies and ended in a screech so high it hurt Jack's and Jill's ears. "IT WORKS!"

The old woman grabbed Jill. "Do it again! Ask it another question!"

Jill took a deep breath.

Mirror, mirror, tell me, sing, Of the giants, who is king?

And the mirror replied, Great of arm but weak of head, Aitheantas was. Now he's dead.

"IT KNOWS!" the old woman shrieked. "IT KNOWS EVERYTHING!"

"How does it work?" the silk merchant demanded, grabbing Jack by the arm. "How did you get it to work?"

"The same way you cleaned it," Jack explained. "Call it 'Mirror, Mirror.' Then rhyme your question."

"That's it?" exclaimed the oil salesman. "That's all there is to it?"

Jack shrugged. "That's all."

"Out of the way!" the oil salesman bellowed. He pushed Jack and Jill aside. He took a deep breath.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Make me the king of Marchen!

Jack looked at Jill. She tried to suppress a smile. "Uh," Jack said, "that didn't rhyme."

"What?" the oil salesman demanded. "It didn't?"

"No," said Jill. "And it wasn't a question. The Gla.s.s only seems to answer questions."

The silk merchant pushed his brother out of the way and approached the Gla.s.s. He said, Mirror, mirror, king of men, When will my life come to an end?

The mirror was silent. A drop of sweat slid down the side of Jack's face.

But finally, the mirror spoke: Obey this Gla.s.s, through good and ill, And die? Oh no, you never will.

"I KNEW IT!" shrieked the silk merchant, leaping into the air with a scream of demented joy.

The old woman howled: "LIVE FOREVER! We'll LIVE FOREVER! We've done it! We've done it!"

The Others began to dance around the bone chamber, spinning and leaping and hugging themselves. The silk merchant banged the bones of the wall with his fists and shouted. The oil salesman slapped himself in the face over and over again.

Finally, the obscene celebrations stopped, and the old woman approached the altar. She wiped the sweat of joy from her brow and intoned, *

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who is the cleverest of them all?

The mirror paused. And then it replied, Up a stalk or down a hill, None is as clever as Jack and Jill.

The Others were about to begin leaping and whooping in celebration again when they caught themselves.

"What?" demanded the old woman. "What did it say?"

Jack and Jill looked at each other, apparently befuddled. "It said we were," Jill shrugged.

"That's not possible!" barked the silk merchant. "We have the Gla.s.s! We, who have been seeking it for a thousand years! We have it!"

"You're asking the wrong question!" the oil salesman exclaimed. "Here, let me try."

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who is the bravest of them all?

This time the Gla.s.s did not hesitate.

Up a stalk or down a hill, None is as brave as Jack and Jill.

"NO!" screamed the Others, all together. "NO! It isn't possible! How could it be?"

"We are the cleverest!"

"We are the bravest!"

"Aren't we?"

"Aren't we?"

"Aren't we?" they all howled.

The oil salesman came right up to the Seeing Gla.s.s and peered into its crystalline face. "Please, Gla.s.s, please. We are the bravest, aren't we? Aren't we, Gla.s.s? Aren't we? Tell us we are!"

"Let me ask!" the silk merchant demanded. Everyone moved back, and he chanted: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who is the wisest of them all?

And the voice of the Gla.s.s rang out like a brazen trumpet: *

Up a stalk or down a hill, None is as wise as Jack and Jill!

The chamber resounded with a scream so heart-wrenching and terrible that it would have brought you to your knees. "No!" the Others howled. "Tell us it isn't so! Say it is not so!"

But it was so. The Gla.s.s had decreed it.

"How is it possible?" the Others screamed. "They are children! Stupid children!"

"They are not clever!"

"They are not brave!"

"They aren't even smart!"

"Not wise like us! None is as wise as us!"

And then Jack said, "You can ask why it thinks we're so brave and wise and clever."

"Or," suggested Jill, "maybe it can tell you how to be even better than us?"

The old woman looked at her, eyes burning and demented. "Yes!" she cried. "Yes, of course! Now that we have the Gla.s.s, we can know exactly what to do! Move aside!"

So everyone moved aside, and she bellowed, *