“Mirabelle!”
I turn to find a little blond woman standing behind me. Clutching her pearls. Looking aghast. Of course we would have a customer pestering us just now. Always when you’re in the middle of something.
“Just a moment, please. We’ll be right with you, okay?”
The woman just gapes at me. She’s looking at me like she knew me once (I must have severed her before) and she can hardly recognize me now. “My god, Mira.” She shakes her head. “Is that really you? You look…,” but she doesn’t finish that thought. Her mouth just stays open. Taken aback by the Glow, I suppose. Our Brightening—or is it our Lift?—has cut out her tongue. Not very nice or polite, but that’s retail. Sometimes you have to finish people’s sentences. Sometimes their thoughts.
“Thank you. I’d tell you my secret, but here’s the thing: everyone’s Journey is different. Very perilous. Personal,” I whisper. “So what works for me may not work for you and so forth.” Right, Mother?
But when I look in the window glass, I just see the garden. A black bird sitting on the basket of red flowers. Mother, where did you go?
“Mirabelle,” the woman says, and closes her eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”
A nosy one, I guess. Some customers are. “Just doing some deranging in my shop.”
“Your shop? Your shop!”
“It didn’t always look like this, promise. We’ve had some real issues with staff lately, but we’re sorting them out, definitely.”
“I need you to get out of that window display now.”
“Well, as you can see, you’ve caught me at a bit of an awkward time.” And I hold up my headless corpse. “But I’ll be with you in just a minute, all right? Unless maybe you’d like to purchase one of these dress sacks? Take them off our hands? We’re having a sale, just announced. And I see you’re already a fan.” She’s wearing one, the little woman. Swallowed by an asymmetrical sea of slate.
“Mirabelle, this has gone too far. Far too far, do you understand?”
“Oh have you soured on the sack, then? Can’t say I blame you. They’re not very pretty, are they? Not my idea,” I whisper. “I think some person named Sylvia is responsible. Probably she was the one who severed you. I’m very sorry. I wouldn’t trust her in the future, not a drop. I think she also may be responsible for this,” I say, pointing to the corpses. “Call it a hunch. Now I have to go bury them in the basement I didn’t know we had, can you believe this job? Retail. Not for the faint of heart.” And I laugh. Mother isn’t here to laugh with me just now. So I laugh for both of us because it’s really very funny. Retail. I know she’d laugh if she were here.
But the little woman doesn’t laugh with me. “Listen, I know you’re grieving. And I know grieving can be difficult but—”
“Grieving? Oh no, I hardly know them.” I smile sadly.
“Mira, I really think you need to see someone, do you hear me? Talk to someone. If not me, then someone else. Who can help you.”
“Help us?” That’s very funny too. Makes me laugh again all by myself. Because it’s this woman, clearly, who needs all the help she can get. If only Mother would come back from her wandering in the other world, she could explain for both of us. That we don’t need any help. “That’s silly. When we’re supposed to be helping you. Speaking of which, I’ll just go into the back room and see if I can find something for you there.” And when I step forward with the corpse in my arms, the little blond woman backs away immediately. She looks very afraid. Understandable. Retail, like Beauty, can be scary sometimes.
When I get to the stockroom, what I see makes me drop the corpse: my sisters. Alone in a dark corner. Stripped of their lovely clothes, their finery. They used to be out front in the display window, I remember. Now imprisoned back here. Standing still as you please, the picture of elegance even in their fallen state. I know they’re my sisters because they look exactly like Mother. And Mother looks exactly like me. Of course, Mother’s not here just now. But when she comes back and sees us all together, she’ll smile at how we all have the same Brightness.
“Sisters,” I say, and I curtsy before them, “I’m so sorry you were left here in the dark. I’m so sorry I didn’t rescue you sooner. I don’t know what witch put you back here, but I have an idea who it might be. Don’t worry, I’m here now. I’ve taken the corpses out of the window. I’m putting you back out on display where you belong.”
But what will they wear? I think. Oh look, here are some dresses, hanging on a rack. Dresses we used to sell that we apparently don’t sell anymore. Dresses of silver and of gold. Dresses of starry midnight and dresses white as snow shimmering under the sun. I dress one sister in gold, one in starry black, one in silver. And me wearing a dress red as blood completes the picture. My sisters smile at me with their eyes. Thank you so much, Sister, they seem to say. Their golden irises come alive. Their red lips, too. Oh Mother, I wish you could see.
“Mirabelle,” screams someone behind me. That pesky blond woman again. Looking even more outraged and afraid than before. That’s right, I was supposed to help her find a dress. But this is far more important, sorry. These are my sisters, after all. “I’m sorry but your dress is just going to have to wait. This is a family emergency, I’m afraid.”
She looks at me gripping my sister’s shoulder. “Mirabelle, please. If you just leave now, I promise I won’t press charges, okay? I won’t file a complaint. I’d hate to do that given my friendship with your… given everything. But if you don’t leave right now, if you continue to harass my staff and terrorize my customers and destroy my merchandise, you’ll be tying my hands. Do you understand that?”
Her staff? Her merchandise? And it hits me. This woman isn’t a customer. She’s the infamous Sylvia herself. The one who beheaded the corpses, who locked my sisters in this back room. And now she seems to think this is her shop, can you believe this, Mother? Mother’s gone, must remember. When I look in the nearest mirror, there’s no one in the glass, just the garden that looks nearly underwater now. The flowers seeming to sway like sea flowers on a seafloor. The sky is a blue of light-filled water. And Mother nowhere in this ocean world. But she’ll come back, surely? I look at my sisters. Won’t she?
They stare at me with their eyes so golden and sorrowful.
“Mirabelle, did you—?”
“Sylvia, if anyone should be pressing charges, it’s me. You’ve destroyed my shop, my family.” I wrap my arm around one of my sisters tight. I look right at Sylvia, her mouth gaping at me. “I’m afraid you’ve given me no choice but to let you go.”
“That’s it,” she roars. “I’m calling the police!”
She’s about to storm out, but there’s a man standing in the doorway, blocking her path. He’s wearing a hat and a dark blue suit. He flashes something like a badge very quickly. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Speak of the devil,” Sylvia says, wiping her eyes. I can feel her wondering if she summoned him with her thoughts. “Officer?”
The man nods imperceptibly. You could say he nodded or you could say he just stood there. He looks like he walked out of one of your old movies, Mother. His dewy face all shadows and sharp angles. A scar on his cheek curved like a hook. Familiar. Where have I seen him before?
“Officer, thank god, I was just going to call.”
“What seems to be the trouble here?”