Mirrored (3 page)

A lot of teachers, when we did group projects, handed out an evaluation form so students could grade themselves and their peers. The idea, I guess, was that if one person did all the work, he could rat out his partners. Like that would ever happen.

I sometimes gave bad grades, though. I had nothing to lose socially since everyone already hated me. Now, I picked up the worksheet and contemplated it. The first part was easy: evaluating myself. I’d been a joy to work with, of course. Cooperativeness: A; completed assignments: A; creativity: A.

I moved to the second section, where I was supposed to grade my partners. Of course, they deserved an F in every category. They’d done nothing. No, they’d done something. They’d left me alone. About that, they’d been completely cooperative.

I penciled in their names and wrote,
Cooperativeness: A
.

I’d promised, after all. I didn’t like to lie, but they’d met every deadline because I hadn’t given them any. And, as far as creativity
went, I guessed they’d creatively managed to avoid work. I penciled in As for that too.

When Mrs. Davis collected the papers, I handed in mine with a clear conscience. Group projects were stupid. Teachers said they were supposed to teach us how it worked in the real world. I already knew. The real world sucked.

I saw Nick and Nathan hand in their papers, sort of smiling at each other. Of course, they were thrilled to have gotten away with doing nothing and still getting multiple As.

Walking home that day, I saw Greg walking with Jennifer. I’d seen him walk with her before, but I’d told myself it was for the project. Now, the project was over, and he was still with her. Were they going to his house to look at the wrens?

I couldn’t breathe.

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Monday, Mrs. Davis handed out grades for the projects.

Of course, we’d gotten As for neatness, artistry, and accuracy. But when I got to the peer-graded portion, I saw that Nick and Nathan had each given me Fs for the three categories of cooperativeness, completed assignments, and creativity. At the bottom of the page, Mrs. Davis had written:
Overall project grade: C.

I felt my heart actually hammering against my ribs. This was not possible. I’d done all the work, even lied to give them As. That’s what they’d been snickering about in class.

I went up to Mrs. Davis’s desk.

“Stay in your seat, Violet. We’re supposed to be working on our chapter outlines.”

“I did that last night. I have to talk to you about this.” I thrust the
grade report at her and pointed to the Fs with a shaking hand.

She didn’t take it. “Well, if you don’t do the work on a group project—”

“I did the work. I did all the work.” My voice sounded shrill, even in a whisper, and I felt like my face might crack. Everyone was looking up from their papers.

Mrs. Davis glanced around. “Violet, there’s really nothing—”

“They did nothing!” I burst out. “I did it all.”

She sighed. “What grade did you give them?”

“I gave them As,” I admitted, “but that was because . . .” I took a breath.

“Because what?”

I looked at Mrs. Davis. She was almost six feet, big and broad-shouldered, with curly red hair. I bet she’d been picked on in school.

“Because I promised them I would if they left me alone.”

“Left you alone?”

“I hate group projects,” I whispered, knowing every eye was on me. “People are mean to me because of . . . my looks. Nick and Nathan didn’t want me in their group. They bullied me into doing everything.” I knew if I said I was bullied (which was true), she’d take it seriously. The school worried about bullying. Or, rather, they worried about fights. Never mind if people slowly died inside, year after year.

“They said I had to do the whole thing,” I continued. “If you look at the handwriting, you can see it’s all mine. And the project. I brought it in and set it up.”

She took the paper from my hand. “Okay, I’ll look into it. Sit down now.”

A minute later, I saw Mrs. Davis looking at the project. Then she called Nick and Nathan up. After class, she called me back to her desk.

“I changed your grade and theirs. When I confronted the young men with the evidence that yours was the only handwriting on the poster—not to mention that they’d fooled around during all the class time in which you worked on it—they admitted that you had done all the work.”

“Wow, thanks.” I was sort of amazed she couldn’t have figured that out without my telling her. “So what happened to Nathan and Nick?”

“I’m sorry.” She looked down. “I’m not allowed to discuss another student’s discipline with you.”

Which was how I knew they’d really gotten reamed.

Sure enough, when I got to language arts class, I heard one of the Jennifers saying she’d seen Nick and Nathan going into I.S.S. I smiled.

That afternoon, I was walking home, smiling at the knowledge that my grades were again perfect. I walked alone, trying not to notice Greg taking off in the opposite direction with Jennifer, probably heading to her house. It was near Halloween, and the air had gone from summer-hot to chilly. A gust of wind swept up the empty street, and I shivered.

Then, suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me.

At first, they were distant. I resisted looking back, though I wanted to see if it was maybe Greg. It wasn’t Greg. It wouldn’t matter if it was Greg. There was no Greg for me.

The pounding steps got closer. And harder. I could tell now there were two pairs of feet. Boys’ feet. Another gust practically knocked me over, sending leaves and dirt into my face. Usually, no one else walked this way, toward the outskirts of town. I sped up. As soon as I passed Salem Court, I knew they’d part from me. They had to be going there. I matched my step to the rhythm of theirs. Yet they grew closer. My backpack was heavy, digging into my shoulders, slowing
me down, and my sneakers cut into my heels.

I, then they, passed Salem Court. They didn’t turn. They were following me. That was the only explanation. No one was outside, no one to help me. There was one house, dark and lonely, with peeling, once-white paint. They said an old lady lived there, an old lady or a witch, but I’d never seen her. No kids, though.

Someone yelled, “Hey, ugly!”

I turned to see who had shouted. Nick and Nathan. They broke out laughing. “Look at that!” Nathan yelled. “She answers to ugly.”

They were following me. And they were angry. I broke into a run. My sneakers were like blades, slicing into my heels, but I ran. I ran!

And, behind me, I heard them running too. Something hit the side of my head, hard. A rock. It stung, and I dropped my backpack to run faster, dropped it even though I knew they’d take it, knew they’d steal my books and scatter my papers to the wind. I ran as fast as I could.

Another rock hit me. “Stone the ugly witch!” And they were on me, pushing me to the pitted pavement, slamming my head to the hard ground. Their fists rained on me, on my face, into my stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fight them. The world should have gone black, almost did go black with the blows to my face, but instead, I stared upward at the blue sky. A bird, a black crow or maybe a grackle, sat on one bare tree branch.
Help me,
I thought.

Strangely, I remembered that day in grade school, the day I’d first spoken to Greg.
Help me.
Then, I was floating, no longer inside my body, but above it. I was the bird, perched high in the tree branches, waiting. I opened my beak and gave a mighty caw, spreading my wings and showing my black feathers to the sun. With my beaded eyes, I looked down at the girl, the ugly girl on the pavement, being beaten by two big boys. She looked tiny, shriveled. I cried out again.

Suddenly I wasn’t alone anymore. And the sky was no longer blue. It was black with the wings of dozens, no hundreds of birds, blackbirds, grackles, crows, ravens, even larger birds, birds I’d never seen before, lunging and diving below, pecking at my attackers, at their faces, their eyes not stopping even as the boys ceased beating me and began to beat at the birds. Their beaks pecked the boys’ hands, their arms, drawing blood, and I watched from my tree branch, spreading my wings in joy.

Finally, the boys stumbled up and ran, the birds pursuing them down the street. Only one remained, a single crow, glossy wings reflecting the light in purple and green.

I watched from above.
I
was a bird. Then, I was a girl again, a small girl. In my body, on the ground. I gathered myself up. I felt no pain. I stood and walked over to get my forgotten backpack. The crow stood, unmoving, as if it had something to say to me in some secret crow language. Still, I walked around it, gingerly, carefully. I picked up my backpack. The street was again deserted. Nick and Nathan were truly gone. I wondered if I looked like I’d been beaten. I ran my fingers through my hair. Even though I was ugly, I hated to be messy. Why make it worse than I already was? My mother had taught me better. Finishing that, I trudged toward home.

“Hello?” A voice came out of nowhere.

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I started. It was a woman, standing as if she’d always been there. Yet, I hadn’t seen her before. The streets had been quiet, empty.

“Hello?” she repeated. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

So she had seen? But how? There had been no one there. No one! The boys would never have thrown rocks at me with witnesses. They were dumb but smarter than that. Bullies always knew how to hide it.

Finally, I spoke. “I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“I see that.” She stepped closer. I noticed the crow was gone. It had been exactly where the woman now stood. “You don’t have a scratch on you. How is that . . . Violet?”

A chill wind rippled through the trees. “How did you know my name?”

She shrugged. “Lucky guess, I suppose. Was I right?”

“You know you were.”

She smiled. She had long, black hair and wore a dress of sheer, iridescent material, first black, then purple, now green, flowing around her. Her hair caught the strained sun and seemed to do the same. I couldn’t determine her age. She was beautiful. “You look like a Violet, I suppose.”

“No, I don’t.” First off, no one was named Violet. If you wanted to guess the name of a girl at my school, you might choose right with Jennifer, Kathy, Lisa, or Michelle. But I was the only Violet. “Violets are pretty, with their little faces turned to the sun, hopeful. I’m not pretty. I’m not hopeful either.”

She walked closer. Her black hair blew around her face. “You could be anything you want to be.”

I laughed. That sounded like something a mom would say. Anyone’s mom but mine. “I can only be what I am.”

“Sometimes, what you are is more than enough. How did you get those birds to come?”

“They just showed up.”

“Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say? Ever hear of birds attacking anyone like that?”

“In a movie once.”

“You won’t hear about this time either. The boys will consider telling their parents, but, eventually, will decide it makes them sound guilty. Or crazy.”

There were no cars anywhere. We were alone. Her eyes were a strange bright green, like a Sprite bottle.

“How about you?” she asked. “Have you had any other experiences with birds?”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Kendra. I live here.” She pointed at the house
on the hill, the one I was sure was abandoned. “I’d ask you in, but, of course, your mother would disapprove of your coming inside a stranger’s house.”

Now her eyes seemed brown.

“Actually, I doubt she’d care.” I knew the second I said it that it was the wrong thing to say. What if she was a kidnapper or something? But it just popped out. Besides, I’d never heard of a woman kidnapper.

“Ah, so she knows.”

“Knows what?”

“That you can take care of yourself. And, of course, she’s right. You can. Self-sufficiency is one of the few benefits of being lonely.”

“How did you know . . . ?” I stopped. I was going to ask how she knew I was lonely, but of course, I knew: Anyone as ugly as I was would be lonely.

I started to walk away, then turned back.

“Once, I saved a bird.”

I expected her to react with surprise or, at least, interest. Social interaction wasn’t a huge thing with me, but I thought the normal thing to say was, “You did?” or “How did you save it?” Instead, she just nodded, as if unsurprised.

Maybe I should have walked away. Yet I always felt I owed people an explanation, so I told her the story. “I guess I didn’t really save it,” I concluded. “It just sort of felt like—”

“No, you did save it,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I was there. You were ten years old.”

The hairs on my arms stood on end. How was that possible? I remembered the bird, the one I’d seen watching me. Then, the birds today, attacking Nathan and Nick. Were they related? Was it possible that the bird that day somehow remembered me, had told the other birds?

Crazy.

But the woman—Kendra—repeated, “I was there.” Then she waved her hand in the air and disappeared. Where had she gone? A crow cawed from somewhere. I looked down. It was right where Kendra had been standing. Then, in a heartbeat, the crow was gone, and Kendra was back.

“How did you do that?” I felt breathless.

I knew the answer, though. Magic.

“There are people in this world who have powers, Violet.” The sun was already beginning to set, streaking the sky behind her in strange shades of purple and orange. “I am one of those people. And so are you.”

“That’s crazy. If I have powers, why can’t I . . . ?” I stopped, unsure, for once, how to express the thought: Why did everyone hate me, if I was so powerful?

“Think of what you know of witches. Does anything you have heard or read lead you to believe they are universally beloved?”

Witches.
I turned the word over and over in my head, not understanding at first, as if it was a foreign language.

I thought about witches in books, the old woman in the gingerbread house, the green-faced crone in
Wizard of Oz.
But they were evil. The gingerbread witch had tried to bake Hansel and Gretel. The Witch of the West had captured Dorothy with an army of flying monkeys.

Kendra said, “I was ten when I first started noticing my own powers. But nothing big happened until I was thirteen. How old are you now, Violet?”

Thirteen.
But I didn’t, couldn’t say it. I stepped back. If this woman was a witch, would she try to kidnap me? Bake me? Hold me hostage? I wanted to turn and flee. Yet my feet felt suctioned to the ground.

And I wanted to stay. I needed to hear what else she had to say.
Was she saying that she was a witch? Or that I was?

Kendra chuckled, not a high witch cackle, but a low sound from the bottom of her throat. “You think all witches are evil, yes?”

I didn’t know what to say. If she was a witch, I didn’t want to insult her—especially if she
was
evil. I noticed the street I’d just passed, Salem Court, named for a place where women were hanged as witches. In school, we’d learned they weren’t really witches. Now, I wondered.

“I’ve only read about witches in books. Are they real?” I said to the woman who’d changed from a human to a bird. “Are they evil?”

“Witches are all different, just like everyone else. Some are nice, some not. What we all are, however, is lonely.”

Lonely.
The word washed over me like summer rain.

“But occasionally,” Kendra continued, “I meet a kindred spirit, and when I do, I keep my eye on that person.”

“Keep your eye on me? Have you been spying on me?”

I expected her to deny that, but instead, she nodded. “Since that day at the playground, I’ve watched you.”

“As a bird?”

“Or with this.” From the air, she produced a shining object, a mirror, surrounded by silver curlicues. She held it out. I cringed at my ugly face.

But she said, “This is a magical mirror. With it, you can see anything, anyone.”

“How?” I reached for the mirror.

“Just ask.”

“Ask.” I had a hard enough time talking to people. What would I say to a mirror? They’d always been my enemies.

“Think of someone, anyone in the world you want to see, and the mirror will show you.”

Without hesitating, I said, “Show me Greg.”

My hideous face faded from view. The image changed to a room, a house I didn’t know. Greg sat with Jennifer, books spread out before them, studying. Or, at least, Greg was trying to study. Jennifer was babbling on. I searched Greg’s face for signs of annoyance. Greg took studying seriously, like I did. He’d once threatened not to study with me when all I’d done was ask if he wanted a glass of water!

But now, Greg smiled, then laughed—laughed!—at something Jennifer had said. He pointed at the math book just as Jennifer was trying to turn a page. Their hands touched. Greg turned away, blushing. He always blushed. I knew why he didn’t mind Jennifer’s chatter. Jennifer was beautiful, unlike me. Jennifer was everything I wasn’t. The light gleamed off her blond, straight hair. I could feel my own frizz curling on my neck. Jennifer turned her fair, unblemished cheek toward Greg, and I could feel the hurt of the zits on my own cheek. Greg leaned toward her and then . . .

He kissed her! Greg actually kissed Jennifer!

The mirror fell from my hand and clattered to the ground. It shattered like ice against the black pavement. I jumped when a shard cut my ankle. “Oh!”

I knelt down in the splintered glass, not caring if the bits and pieces embedded themselves in my hands and knees. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, but I hate mirrors. I didn’t do this on purpose, though.” I picked up one of the larger fragments. It caught the waning sun, reflecting it into my eyes. I saw my own face in it, red, blotchy, a tear dripping from my too-light blue eyes.

And then, the fragment moved. I almost dropped it a second time, but I reached over with my other hand and caught it. The moving fragment sliced my palm. I wanted to cry out, but I didn’t, couldn’t speak, for at that moment, I saw what was happening.

The fragment,
all
the fragments, moved in the air like shimmering leaves, catching the light. As they fluttered together, my slice of
glass slid from my hands. It joined the others, forming a silver oval. Then it flew into Kendra’s hand.

I felt my mouth hanging open. I closed it. “How . . . ?” My finger had a heartbeat.

Kendra laid her hand upon mine. “Think about it. I’m sure you can work it out.”

I flinched under her touch, but somehow, I couldn’t remove my hand. When she finally pulled hers away, the cut had disappeared.

“What did you do?”

“Shh. People use too many words nowadays, always talking on the phone, in person. There is a place in the world, I believe, for thought.”

I started to say something else, but I couldn’t. It was almost as if someone was covering my mouth.

“Silent thought. One minute. Begin now.”

I didn’t want to think. I wanted to run. And yet, I couldn’t because, more than that, I wanted to know. The mirror. The cut. The birds. Kendra was telling the truth about being a witch. And if she was telling the truth about herself, was it true about me too?

What did it mean?

I stared at Kendra. Her eyes looked green again. Finally, she said, “Are you willing to speak now?”

I tried to put it into words. “If I’m a witch, can I make things . . . ?” What was the word I wanted?

“Better? Maybe. Different? Yes.”

“Happen. Can I make things happen?”

“Depends what you’re asking for. World peace? End to hunger. Because, no, you can’t do those things. No one has enough power for that.”

Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “I want to be beautiful. Can that happen?”

It sounded so bare, out in the open like that, out in the empty street. Yet, it was the only thing I wanted, had ever wanted. Well, that and Greg. I knew beauty was nothing. But it was also everything.

“Yes, yes, I can do that. Or, rather, you can.”

“How?”

She stared into the distance. The street was silent, no cars, no people, only that wind that picked up the dead leaves and whirled them around, finally sending them skittering away like so many winged insects.

Eventually, she said, “Not all at once. Changing things too quickly is how one gets discovered. But slow changes are fine. I’ve found that most people are stupid and unobservant.”

“So how—?”

“Come here tomorrow.” She pointed at the boarded-up house. Again, I remembered my mother—or probably someone else’s mother—saying not to go with strangers. And yet I knew my mother wouldn’t mind. If this woman could make me beautiful, she’d think it was a risk worth taking.

I said, “Can I see the mirror again?”

She drew it back out from the folds of her gown. Her eyes were brown now “Don’t break it.”

“I won’t.”

I grasped it and brought it up to my face. I studied myself, crooked nose, freckles, frizzy hair, everything.

“Can I . . . can you change
one
thing now?”

She smiled. “Something small?”

“Something big. My nose. Can you make it smaller or, at least, not have a bump on it?”

She laughed. “Funny how society stereotypes witches as having long noses. In fact, it’s the first thing most witches would change.”

I noticed her nose. It was adorable, tiny, and turned up.

“Very well,” she said. “Close your eyes. It will only be a moment.”

I closed them. Around me, I heard the wind pick up, felt the dirt and rocks pelting my ankles. I wondered what she would do to my nose and, for the first time, I wondered what she
could
do. Make me even uglier? How could I trust someone I’d never seen before?

And yet, I knew I had nothing to lose. Still, I held my arms around myself, shivering in anticipation and maybe fear.

A moment later, she said, “Okay.”

I opened my eyes. She was holding the mirror toward me. I stared at it.

It was my face, still my face, ugly, pale, blotchy, chinless. I still had no eyelashes and horrible hair. No one would notice the difference.

But there was a difference. The bump on my nose was gone.

“Oh.” I turned sideways to admire it. “Oh, thank you.
Thank
you.”

“Now do you trust me enough to come back tomorrow?”

I nodded. I still held the mirror in my hand, not wanting to stop looking at it. Finally, I handed it back to Kendra.

She smiled. “Power can be a wonderful thing, Violet, a wonderful, terrible thing.”

I was still thinking about the mirror, about me, my face. I wanted to ask her how it could be terrible. But, when I looked up, she was gone.

I thought about power. A chill ripped through me.