hardly anything to worry about. Almost no one believes their own eyes, and if there any lingering doubts, I can take care of that with a few well-placed spells."
"So you've done this before."
"Of course, and I'll do it again."
"Which means whatever this enchantment is can be broken," Maryann said.
"Or it just means the spell is up." It tilted its head to the side. "What is that?" it murmured.
The rest of the band found themselves in the mirrored corridor. Isabella placed another charm on the faintly glowing door.
"So, this is creepy," Leah whispered. "Where's Maryann? And why doesn't she ever stay put?"
"I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she couldn't stay put," Isabella said.
"That's fair," she agreed. "So, any idea what's going on or how to find her?"
"Well, she didn't fall back out, so she must have gone that way," the blonde replied, pointing away from the door. "As to what's going on, your guess is as good as mine."
"No insight on the mirrors?" Nora asked.
"Oh, there are lots of myths and superstitions about mirrors. There are so many I don't even know where to start," Isabella answered.
"Should I break them?" Leah asked, hefting the emergency kit a bit.
"No! I've told you, violence isn't the answer," the blonde replied.
"No, you've told me violence isn't always the answer," Leah retorted. "Sometimes it damn well is."
"Okay, fine, that's true, but no smashing until I determine that it's okay to do that."
"Define 'okay.'"
"That's kind of the problem, isn't it?"
"I hear voices," Nora said suddenly. "I think it's Maryann."
They were silent as they walked down the mirrored corridor.
The doppelgänger looked at Maryann. "This is most unexpected. Well, there isn't too much they can do once I get rid of you," it said, grinning evilly.
Maryann screamed and tackled the creature which was clearly the last thing it expected.
"Maryann's in trouble!" Isabella yelled, and they ran down the hallway into the round room. In it, they saw two identical Maryanns rolling around on the floor trying to beat each other up.
"Soooo, this is weird," Leah said after a minute.
The two women stopped fighting and stood up.
"An explanation, if you please," Isabella asked, looking at the two. The mirrored room showed all their reflections and still no backgrounds.
"She's a fake! I'm the real Maryann," said one of the redheads.
"No, she's lying! She's a demon! I'm the real Maryann," said the other. Then they both stared at each other angrily.
"I am sure I've seen this in a movie before," Leah said.
"Okay, then how did they figure out who was real?" Nora snapped. "They look identical to me."
"I don't exactly remember that. We can ask them personal questions only the real Maryann would know."
"But she, it, whatever, cast some kind of spell on me to find all that stuff out," one of the Maryanns protested. "It's trying to be me!"
"No, you're trying to be me," the other yelled. "Stop it!" they yelled in unison.
"Isabella, tell me you can figure this one out," Nora said.
Isabella looked back and forth at them helplessly. "This thing has some very strong magic. It's stronger than mine. Their auras look absolutely the same."
"Oh, no!" wailed one of the Maryanns. "It's me, guys! Maryann Ginger Blake..."
"And my little brother's name is Skipper, I mean Jason," the other interrupted.
"You shut up!"
"You shut up!"
"You're a liar and a demon-thing!" one Maryann shouted, almost in tears.
"You're the liar and demon-thing!" the other shouted back. "You've got to figure out which one of us is which, or I'll have to stay here."
"Oh no you don't!" the other said. "I saw that in a movie once. You say you have to stay because it's the only way and then the others think I'm the demon-thing because I didn't volunteer to stay. Don't believe her!"
"Maryann!" Nora roared.
The two stopped shouting at each other and stared at her.
"Be quiet so we can think, okay? We'll get this figured out." She turned to the others. "Ladies, shall we talk a moment?"
The redheads pouted identically.
The other three backed off a few steps and lowered their voices.
"Isabella, there's no way you can magically tell the difference?" Nora asked.
"No. Like I said, this is strong magic. Whatever creature is doing this clearly understands illusion and imitation. The whole damn world is a mirror. I'm sorry; I'm just not powerful enough to see through this kind of illusion."
"What if we smash the mirrors?" Leah asked.
"Um, let's save that as a last resort. We don't want the world to collapse around us."
"Ah, okay. Do you have any idea what kind of thing could do this? The Maryanns keep calling it a demon-thing. Is it a demon? Or what?"
"It could be a demon, or a fairy, or many other kinds of spirits, or even some kind of human magic-user. These are powerful illusions. This could literally be anything." She frowned thoughtfully. "But I wonder why Maryann, er, Maryanns keep calling it a demon. Maryann knows as well as I do that this could be anything."
"She could be confused. Or it lied to her," Leah suggested.
Isabella's brow remained puckered. "Yes, that's true, but maybe there's something else and she can't tell us directly because this thing will try to confuse us more."
"I have an idea," Nora said suddenly. "Leah, follow my lead."
"Um, sure, I guess."
Nora unfastened the silver cross necklace she always wore and held it in her hand, hiding it from view.
Enormously confused, Leah unfastened her silver crucifix necklace and did the same.
Nora broke away from the huddle and walked up to one of the Maryanns. Leah more hesitantly walked up to the other Maryann.
"Um, so now what?" the one in front of Nora asked.
Nora brought her hand up and held the cross against the Maryann's forehead. It shrieked and stumbled backwards as the holy symbol burned into its flesh.
Leah quickly brought crucifix up to the other Maryann's forehead.
She blinked.
"Just checking," Leah said, and took Maryann's hand and yanked her backwards towards Isabella. "So this is the real you."
"Of course it is! I'm not allergic to holy symbols like evil demon-things!" she said.
The demon-thing snarled and looked up; there was a black cross burnt onto its forehead. "How dare you!" it howled and leaped at Maryann.
Isabella was already in the middle of a kuji-rin and stopped the demon-thing cold with a paper charm stuck to its forehead. However, the demon-thing, now a grotesque reflection of Maryann, started to appear in the mirrors around them as they backed down the corridor, and the reflections didn't have the charm.
"You can't escape my world!" it hissed, and one leaped out of the mirror again towards Maryann.
But Leah was ready for it and brought up a baseball bat into its face. It shattered like glass.
It laughed and another reflection appeared in the mirror. "You are surrounded, foolish mortals."
Isabella thought quickly. "Is it really that simple?" she murmured. "Everyone take a weapon!" she shouted, "and stay together." She got a crowbar, Maryann got an aluminum bat, and Nora grabbed a fireplace poker, and they all put their backs together.
Now suddenly the demon-thing seemed concerned. "What do you think you're doing with those?"
"Well, if superstitions are true, we're about to rack up a few centuries of bad luck," Isabella answered, and smashed a mirror with the crowbar.
The demon-things in the other mirrors howled with pain. "NOOOO!!" it shrieked, and dozens of reflections lunged at the band.
"We're going to get overrun!" Maryann yelled as they swung
wildly. The real creature, it seemed, was still held by Isabella's spell, but until they could destroy the mirrors, the reflections, while fragile, were endless.
"You said violence wasn't the answer!" Leah shouted.
"No, I said it was when I figured it was okay!"
"So what happens now?" Nora demanded.
Then the mirror in front of the broken one shattered seemingly spontaneously.
"That! Just keep them away as best you can!" Isabella said. "We have to wait for infinity to circle back around."
"What does that even mean?" Leah shouted as shards of glass flew around them. "We're going to bleed to death of millions of micro-cuts at this rate!"
Then the mirrors on both sides of the original broken one shattered. And then it happened on the other side of the corridor, and then again on both sides of the newly broken mirrors.
"NOOOO!!" howled the reflections. "You've ruined everything! Go, go, go before all is lost!" The reflections stopped pouring out of the remaining mirrors and seemed to rush into the undamaged mirrors as though to shore them up against spontaneously shattering. The real creature's eyes had turned into mirrors, but it still could not move, although the charm was starting to smoke and curl around the edges.
"Run!" Isabella commanded.
As one mind, they all tore down the mirrored corridor at their top speeds with the sound of breaking glass behind them. Isabella let the other three run through the door first and pulled off the charm as she dashed through. It turned to ash and the one she left on the outside also turned to ash. The glass in the mirror itself stayed black. They took a moment to catch their breath.
"Um, we'd better go before the curator gets here and asks what the hell happened to this thing," Leah said.
They agreed and hurried exited the museum, piled into the van, and headed out.
"It wasn't my fault," Maryann