“It’s the only way to explain the consequences of you staying trapped in this dream,” Alice said. “And what Cerené’s real role is.”

“Cerené?” Shew considered. Even in her darkest hour, she couldn’t resist knowing more about her enigmatic childhood friend. “You have my attention,” she nodded.

“It’s a simple story, just like any other fairy tale,” Alice said, “only much darker.”

“Loki likes those,” Shew mused. “I’m all ears.”

“Since the beginning of time, a mysterious artifact called the Anderson Mirror has been of interest to the forces of the so called good and evil sides,” Alice said.

“Why are you calling them ‘so called’?”

“Because there is no absolute good and evil,” Alice said.

“Also, mirror and glass hadn’t been invented until recently, Alice” Shew interrupted again.

“In our world, yes,” Alice said. “But not in the cosmic world. The Anderson Mirror has existed since long ago. It’s even rumored that Justus Von Liebig, presumably the first man to invent a shiny silvered mirror, was actually trying to replicate the Anderson Mirror,” Alice stopped for a breath. She started walking back and forth in the bathhouse like a teacher in a lecture, lacing her hands together. “No one ever knew who created the mirror or  what its purpose was. All we know is that it reflected the worst in people.”

“The worst? You mean the way the mirrors in my room show my mother’s true ugly nature?” Shew asked.

“Not exactly,” Alice said. “Ordinary mirrors show the Queen’s nature because that’s what mirrors are supposed to do. The Anderson Mirror shows a person’s darker side whether he is good or bad. It just shows the worst in people. Period.”

“Why would the world fight over such a mirror, then?” Shew wondered.

“The quest for the mirror wasn’t as bloody in the beginning as it is now, before it fell into the hands of the devil,” Alice explained.

“Oh, there’s even a devil in this story,” Shew didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“He’s an ugly troll. Long story short, the devil broke the mirror accidentally and its splinters spread all over the world,” Alice explained.

“So?” Shew shook her shoulders, disinterested.

How could this have anything to do with me?

“The splinters, tinier than a grain of sand, entered people’s eyes and hearts,” Alice said. “Each person with a splinter carried part of the darkness of the mirror within him, and so an army of darkness spread all over the world,” Alice continued.

“This really sounds like a dark fairy tale,” Shew said. “Why does it sound so incredibly familiar?”

“Because, the story was briefly hinted at in Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen,” Alice said. “Hans was another famous fairy tale writer like the Brothers Grimm,” Alice said.

“So the Anderson Mirror is named after him, and its creator isn’t necessarily called Anderson?”

“True,” Alice said.

“I thought our world was only related to the Brothers Grimm?” Shew speculated.

“Our world is related to everything, trust me,” Alice said. “But that’s beside the point. Anderson could have hinted to the story, or even forged it like the Brothers Grimm. My version is the accurate and real one, if you‘ll stop interrupting me.”

“Go on, then,” Shew said. “Let’s see where this is going,” her liking of Alice decreased with each passing minute.

“The carriers of the darkness usually have a golden tinge in their eyes. It shines very briefly and goes unnoticed unless you look hard enough. The children of those carriers inherited the darkness, and so the army grew all over the world,” Alice stopped, gazing sharply at Shew. “Do you understand what I‘m saying? The only way to identify the carriers is to look in their eyes for a splinter from the mirror.”

“Winter in their eyes!” Shew almost jumped, uttering the phrase. “It wasn’t ‘winter’ but ‘splinter.’ The huntsmen in Furry Tell were looking for children who were carriers of the darkness,” Shew was certainly interested now.

“And they were sending them to the Queen so she could have a bigger army and complete the darkness,” Alice nodded.

“Carmilla,” Shew sat on the edge of the window. Her mother wasn’t just a vicious Queen feeding on young girls. She was collecting the darkness from all over the world, wanting to become the Queen of All Darkness. “And you said forces of the so called good and evil wanted this mirror?”

“True. Imagine how powerful you’d become if you owned such a mirror. If a good person gets hold of it, he could rid the world of a great pain. If a bad one, like the Queen, gets it, well….I think you know what she’d be capable of already. It would greatly help her quest to find the Lost Seven.”

“But the mirror is broken into pieces,” Shew said. “Searching for those children with splinters in their eyes all over the world is absurd. It’s impossible.”

“Searching is what the Queen did until she found a better solution, and believe me, she’s very close to getting her hands on it,” Alice said.

“What kind of solution?”

“It’s been told that the nameless creator of the mirror created what he called a ‘clue’ on how to find it,” Alice said. “A clue that if found, will grant its discoverer the power of all splinters and thus all carriers of the darkness in the world.”

“What kind of clue? A scripture, maybe?” Shew suggested.

“No one knows what the clue is yet, but a few people in the world know where the clue is hidden,” Alice said, her eyes oozing with seriousness.

“Where would you hide a clue that grants power over all the darkness in the world?” Shew rubbed her chin. She was killing time, really, until Alice answered her.

Alice stood still, not answering, waiting for Shew to put the puzzle together.

“Would they hide it in the pit of a deep volcano in Hell?”

“No, Shew,” Alice said. “The creator of the mirror is much more sophisticated than that. The creator hid the clue inside a girl.”

“I’m not following?” Shew was about to make fun of Alice, but then she swallowed hard. The answer hit her and it felt like a ball of fire burning in her chest. She raised her eyes slowly to meet Alice.

The answer was on the tip of Shew’s tongue, but Alice uttered it for her, “the clue is inside a girl called the Phoenix, a teenage glassblower from Murano who can create life by blowing into a pipe,” Alice said. “Cerené holds the clue to the Anderson Mirror.”

“That’s why Bianca told her she was like Pandora’s Box,” Shew said absently. “Cerené holds the key to the darkness of the world.”

29

An Insurmountable Spirit

“So it’s not just about Cerené being one of the Lost Seven. She holds something very precious to my mother,” Shew said.

Alice nodded, “the Queen has no idea of how your relationship with Cerené blossomed two hundred years ago. You and Cerené were secretly best friends because no one would have accepted a princess befriending a Slave Maiden. The Queen had always kept Cerené safe from the bathhouse slaughters, though, because she’d been told that Cerené might hold the clue, although she could never prove it at the time.”

“Since I hid my relationship with Cerené from the Queen, who told her about the clue?” Shew wondered.

“Bloody Mary,” Alice said.

“What does Bloody Mary have to do with it?”

“I heard she has a personal history with mirrors, but I don’t know what it is,” Alice said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s connected to the Anderson Mirror. She is a prisoner of a mirror, remember?” Alice said.

“Makes sense,” Shew replied.

“And now that Carmilla is watching the dream—probably watching us now—she’s learned about your story with Cerené. She knows about Cerené’s abilities, her history, and that she is the Phoenix. All she needs is to find Cerené in the real world and track her life’s beginning in Murano. The clue Cerené is holding inside her should be revealed in Murano.”