My last memory from the night of the fall was looking down on myself as I lay crumpled and unconscious in the hallway, after Savvy had run down to the cellar to switch the lights back on. The girls had sobbed and argued and finally lifted the big antique mirror off me, leaning what was left of it against the far wall. It was ruined – exploded – as if I had dived through its glassy surface mistaking it for water; the evidence of the splash was everywhere. I had dived right through its surface to the other side, and I was lost.
Once they had moved the mirror, the girls gathered round me; shocked, tearful, debating what to do and who should call the emergency services, but I was above it all, impassive, looking down.
I looked like a broken doll. My arms and legs were flung out at slightly improbable angles and my hair was spread out around my head like a crimped, golden brown halo. My eyes were closed as if I were sleeping, but the left side of my face was covered in blood where the broken vase had sliced into my cheek. My skirt had rucked up a little, showing layers of lace and net petticoats, and the red and white roses had fallen across my body like funeral flowers.
Everywhere, glinting like diamonds in the light, were jagged shards of mirror glass. Some were tiny, sprinkled across my dress like a scattering of stars. It looked like someone had sewn them on to the blue, but if you looked carefully you could see the same tiny mirror glass diamonds like dust on my skin, in my hair, on the tiled floor all around me. Some of the shards were huge, like daggers, and these were everywhere too.
Don’t touch, the glass shards warned. Don’t touch, or I will hurt you the way you’ve hurt me.