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 Glass. 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 God . . .” 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 Glass. They peered into it. “What?” demanded the old woman. “How? I can’t see anything!” She was shaking, as if the anticipation 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 Glass.
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 Märchen!
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 Glass only seems to answer questions.”
The silk merchant pushed his brother out of the way and approached the Glass. 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 Glass, 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 Glass! 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 Glass 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 Glass and peered into its crystalline face. “Please, Glass, please. We are the bravest, aren’t we? Aren’t we, Glass? 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 Glass 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 Glass 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 Glass, we can know exactly what to do! Move aside!”
So everyone moved aside, and she bellowed,
* * *
Mirror, mirror, tell us true,
To be the greatest, what should we do?
There was a long silence. In the bone chamber, the only sound was the dripping of blood from the body bags overhead and the Others’ frantic, ragged breathing.
Finally, the mirror answered:
Jack and Jill braved terrors en masse
To find, and recover, this sacred Glass.
Ye three have lived a life of sin.
To prove your worth, turn yourselves in.
Go to the guards of the royal throne.
Show them your victims. Show them their bones.
If you can face justice without fear,
Then soon, your own names from this Glass you’ll hear.
The Glass fell silent again. The Others stared at it, frozen.
“Turn ourselves in?” the oil salesman muttered.
Jack and Jill watched the Others’ faces tensely.
“Face justice?” said the silk merchant. “But surely, they’ll put us to death.”
But the old woman raised her voice.
Mirror, mirror, master of fate,
If we do this, will we be great?
And the mirror answered,
Face the punishment, standing tall,
And ye shall indeed be the greatest of all.
“We will be!” the old woman crowed. “We will be!” And then she barked at her two siblings, “Come on!”
She ran from the room. For a moment, the two men continued to gaze at the Glass. Then, slowly, resolutely, they turned and followed their sister.
For nearly twenty minutes, neither Jack nor Jill said a word. They merely stood, stock-still, listening to the pounding of their hearts, praying that indeed the Others were gone.
Finally, the Glass intoned, “Well, that must have been the greatest performance in the history of Märchen.” The frog crawled out of a hole between two rib bones at the base of the altar. He was beaming.
“It was pretty good,” Jack grinned.
“Pretty good? It was great! It was genius! I am a dramatic genius!”
Jack laughed. “You may indeed be a dramatic genius.”
“I am indeed,” the frog agreed. But then he paused. “Still, I can’t believe they fell for it! Why did they fall for it?”
Jill replied, “Didn’t you see how they worshipped the Glass, even before it spoke? Didn’t you recognize that from somewhere?”
Jack said, “I know I did.”
“They are con-fused,” said Jill.
“With the Glass,” said Jack.
The children stared at the Seeing Glass.
“Maybe,” said the frog. “Or maybe I am just a dramatic genius.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Face to Face
Once upon a time, two children walked down a long, dusty road.
Jack fingered the Glass from time to time. He shook his head at it. Its secrets remained locked away.
Jill wondered about the Others. She wondered where they were, and if they were following the mirror’s advice. She watched the road warily.
The children’s stomachs were all tied up in knots, and their throats had lumps that made it hard to breathe. But not just because of the Others. Nor solely because of the Glass.
Their stomachs were in knots and their throats were thick with lumps because, at long last, they were returning to the places they had fled, the people they had run from. They were, at long last, going home.
They came to a fork in the road.
“I go this way,” said Jack.
Jill nodded. “I go this way.”
They embraced.
“Oh,” said Jack. “Do you want the Glass? I don’t know what to do with it.”
Jill shook her head. “You keep it. We don’t need another mirror in my house.”
Jack grinned sideways. “Sure,” he said. And then he whispered, “Good luck.”
“Good luck,” Jill whispered back.
Then they parted.
* * *
As Jack made his way over the small country roads that led to his father’s house, he saw a group of boys playing blindman’s bluff in a field. Marie was the blind man. His eyes were closed, and he stumbled around after the other boys as they dipped and dodged out of his way.
“Hi,” said Jack. Some of the boys turned to him.
“Who’s that?” Marie called, his eyes still tightly shut.
“It’s me,” said Jack. “Jack.”
Marie’s eyes flew open. All the boys were staring now.
Marie asked, “What happened to you?”
Jack grinned. “A lot. Remember when I bought that bean? Well, then—”
“No,” said Marie. “I mean, what happened to your skin? Did you fall in a toilet or something?” The boys exploded with laughter.
Jack looked down at his skin. It did look disgusting. He said, “I got this from going in the stomach of a fire-breathing beast!”
“That’s funny. My toilet breathes water,” said Marie, and the boys roared.
“I did!” Jack insisted. “I did!”
The boys laughed harder.
Jack stood, staring at them. A dim and distant wisdom tickled his brain. He shook it off and turned for his house. He came to the front door. He took a deep breath.
Before he could take the doorknob, the door opened itself. His father stood in the doorway.
A moment of silence.
And then, “Jack?”
Jack nodded.
Jack’s father threw his arms around his son.
* * *
Jack’s father made him some food, he helped him wash himself, and he told Jack to lie down. He needn’t worry about chores for a little while. He looked like he’d had a rough time of it.
“I missed you,” his father said. “I feel bad about how I acted.”
Jack nodded. But he was already staring out the window, watching the boys play blindman’s bluff.
The next day, he was outside with them, going with them down to the river, running with them across the fields.
Soon, that old song came back.
Marie had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Marie had a little lamb whose fleece was black as coal.
“Don’t sing that,” Jack would say. “It isn’t funny.” So the boys would sing it louder.
Everywhere that Marie went, Marie went, Marie went, everywhere that Marie went the lamb was sure to go.
“Please stop!”
It made the children laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and play, it made the children laugh and play to see the lamb follow.
“STOP IT!” Jack wou
ld shout. And the boys would roar with laughter.
Jack tried to just be with the boys. Not follow them. Just be with them. He even tried to tell them of the places he’d been, the things he’d done. But they didn’t believe him. Jack was a dreamer. And a follower. Always was, always would be.
They teased him mercilessly. And when they weren’t teasing him, they were mocking each other. Jack hated it.
And the song. The song would not go away.
Marie had a little lamb, little lamb . . .
And then, one day, Jack had had enough.
Marie had been teasing him for hours, calling him “toilet” for his blisters and scabbing skin, and asking why he followed them around so much. The boys sang the lamb song again and again and again.
Jack stood there, taking it, trying to laugh—as his face turned red and he squinted his eyes against the tears.
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw three ravens fly past. He did not know if they were the talking ravens or not. They could have been regular ravens, for all he knew.
But when he saw them, he remembered something that the talking ravens had said. Something he had not understood at the time. When you do what you want, not what you wish . . .
And suddenly he realized, I wish I could be friends with these boys. But I do not want to be. I do not think I like them at all.
And without another word, he turned around and walked away.
* * *
It was one week earlier that Jill left the frog on the edge of the well and promised she’d come and visit him soon.
He looked unhappily into the mossy, smelly darkness. “You’d better . . .” he said. She smiled.