CHAPTER 13

The Woman in the Glass

Marrill had recognized her immediately, though she looked different than she’d ever seen her. The laugh lines around her eyes were deeper set, her skin papery thin and creased with soft wrinkles. Her white hair was tucked up in a loose scarf with a few wisps drifting across her face in the soft breeze. She sat on a bench outside what looked like a museum, and she was smiling, her hands clasped tight against her chest as she tilted her head back in a laugh.

It was Marrill’s mother. Alive. Healthy. Old.

Beside her sat Marrill’s father, also much, much older than when Marrill had left them. He held a book, and his eyes twinkled as he read aloud from it. Then he paused and glanced up. Marrill couldn’t see what had caught his attention, but he stood, grinning widely. Her mom opened her arms, beckoning someone Marrill couldn’t see to come in for a hug.

That’s when Marrill knew. It was her. Marrill herself. Right there, just out of sight.

Her eyes blurred with tears, and her knees wobbled, threatening to collapse. It was all so perfect. So beautiful. Her heart almost burst with the desire for it to be real. She reached out, desperate to brush her fingers against the scene. But her touch hovered millimeters above it. Because she knew all she’d feel would be glass, and it would be proof that this possibility was beyond her reach. She couldn’t bear that.

A pang of longing splintered in her heart, so sharp it was practically physical. Beside her, Fin shifted. Marrill swiped tears from her eyes as she turned to him. “It’s my mom,” she said again, almost choking on the word. She could see the heartbreak and sympathy in his eyes. The sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Didn’t he understand, though? There was nothing to be sorry about. A laugh bubbled inside her, and she let it escape. “Fin,” she said, “this is great news! It means my mother is still alive! She’s… healthy.”

“In this possibility, at least,” Serth said quietly, coming up behind them.

Marrill’s eyes drifted back to the mirror, greedily taking in the image of her mom as an old woman. “How do I make it real?” she asked.

“It can be done,” the wizard told her. “With a great deal of effort, possibilities can become realities.” A touch of reverence entered his voice. “That’s what magic is all about.”

Next to her, Fin chuckled. “Wow, look at you.”

She shot him a glare, but he wasn’t looking at her. Not here her, anyway. Instead he was craning his head, spinning slowly as he took in the mirrors around the ship. “Is that a two-eyed Karnelius as a kitten?” he asked, pointing.

She looked up. Sure enough, in a small mirror off to her left, a tiny orange kitten lounged on its back in a sun patch. As she watched, he stretched, back toes curling and arms stretching far overhead. With a mrrrrp he yawned, both eyes going wide as though surprised by the size of it.

She’d recognize Karnelius anywhere, but she’d never known him this young. Beside him, in another mirror, he bounded around her parents’ bedroom, both eyes still intact but sporting a bobbed tail.

“Look at you!” Remy squealed. “So cute with pigtails!” The babysitter was looking at a mirror showing Marrill dancing with a baby chimpanzee. In the background a sign read BANTON PARK LIVE-IN ANIMAL RESCUE RESERVE AND PLAYGROUND FORTRESS. It’s where she’d been planning to go before her mother got sick again, forcing them to stay in Arizona.

Marrill peered at this alternate self. She seemed happy, definitely. But there was still a small spark of loneliness in her eyes that she’d never realized was there. If they’d gone to the Banton Park Animal Rescue Reserve, she realized, she’d have never found her way onto the Pirate Stream. She’d have never met Fin, never found a best friend.

She shook her head, clearing the thought. Her eyes drifted back to the mirror with her mom as an old woman. A healthy old woman.

Remy touched her arm lightly. “Marrill, honey, we have to keep moving.”

Marrill shook her hand off. “Wait, just a minute longer.” The splintered railing pressed into her hips as she leaned against it, trying to get as close as possible to the scene in the mirror. As though she could somehow fall in and become a part of it.

After another moment, Fin cleared his throat. “Marrill—”

“Just hold on,” she snapped.

The silence behind her was strained, but she didn’t care. This might be the last chance she ever got to see her mother alive and healthy. To watch the laugh lines around her eyes crinkle, to experience the love in her smile. Tears blurred her vision. She swiped them away, wanting nothing to mar the perfect scene unfolding in the reflection.

But even after drying her eyes, the image of her mother appeared dull, blurred along the edges. The color seemed to drain away. The trees that had been blooming so brilliantly in the background grew limp, leaching to a monochromatic gray.

She pulled the hem of her shirt over her hand, leaning forward to wipe at the mirror’s surface, thinking that maybe she’d gotten too close—that she’d smudged it or her breath had fogged it.

Just before she touched the mirror, long fingers wrapped around her elbow. “Don’t touch it,” Serth commanded, pulling her away.

She whirled on him, blood raging hot. But the words died in her throat when she saw the dead certainty in his black eyes. Saw the terror on Fin’s face beside him. Saw Remy standing frozen, staring toward the stern.

A horrible feeling seeped into Marrill’s stomach. In the distance, back where they’d come from, the Mirrorweb had grown darker. The light that had once blazed within the lush jungle behind them had dimmed.

Turning dull. Gray.

Marrill’s heart froze. Not dull, she realized. Metallic.

The Iron Tide.

“I do not know if the Tide can take us in here,” Serth said, “but I strongly suggest we not find out. Captain?”

Remy jolted into action, sprinting toward the quarterdeck, shouting, “Full sail, now!”

Serth waved a hand, and an unfelt wind filled the sails. Tackle squealed as the Ropebone Man tightened the lines. The Kraken began to shift, her hull shuddering as she scraped against the mirror beside them.

The mirror with Marrill’s mom.

Already they were pulling away. “Wait!” Marrill wasn’t ready to say good-bye. Not yet.

“I’m sorry, Marrill,” Fin said, “but we don’t have time.”

She glanced back at the oncoming Tide. It washed across the mirrors behind them, coating everything with metal. Turning whole worlds to iron. Erasing possibilities.

Soon it would erase her mother—erase the possibility of Marrill saving her.

No! This was what Marrill had come to the Stream to find! This was why she’d stayed to fight the Master in the first place, instead of going home when she’d had the chance. If the Iron Tide took this mirror, then everything she’d done had been for nothing.

Another groan echoed from the bowels of the ship. The railing along the mirror splintered even more as the ship strained forward.

“I think there’s a gap up there,” Fin called to Remy, pointing. Marrill didn’t even bother looking. She couldn’t take her eyes off her mother. Even though the mirror had begun to tarnish around the edges. Even though the sky in the world had shifted from a deep blue to a menacing gray. Even though red lightning rippled through clouds as they closed in fast.

Marrill’s heart screamed. The Kraken had started to inch forward, forcing Marrill to shuffle along the railing to stay with the reflection of her mother. She couldn’t leave it—she wasn’t ready to say good-bye. She wanted to pry the mirror from the web and carry it with her. If only there was some way to cut it free!

“Hold on!” Remy called. Without Marrill and Fin to help navigate, the Kraken banked against another mirror, and the deck listed hard to port. Fin grabbed Marrill as they stumbled to keep their balance. Their legs tangled and something solid whacked against her knee with a crack.

She winced, and when she looked to see what had struck her, she noticed the glass sheath at his hip.

Her eyes widened. The Evershear. A blade that could cut anything. Of course!

She acted before she even thought about it. She reached for the bone handle. Fin yelped, leaping back as she drew the blade free. She could hear the sails billowing, feel the ship gaining speed. The mirror with her mom was sliding away.

Marrill raced down the length of the ship after it. She was almost at the stern when she caught up. Already the Iron Tide had crept into the frame. It oozed in the distance behind her mother, seeping toward her.

The blade practically sung as Marrill swung it through the air.

“Marrill!” Serth shouted.

The edge of the mirror burst in a shower of golden sparks. Energy vibrated up her arm, setting fire to the tips of her nerves. There was a shattering sound, so loud it sent a shock wave rolling through her. She swung again, the booming growing louder with each strike.

She was dimly aware of someone shouting her name. It was Fin, standing several yards away. Too afraid of the Evershear to come any closer. “Watch out!” he cried, pointing.

The rumor vines twined around the stern railing repeated his warning.

She looked up as the large mirror she’d been attacking let out a thunderous groan. It tilted toward her with a series of loud pops, as if pulling free from the very fabric of reality itself.

The world around her seemed to slow. Marrill stood frozen with her head thrown back, staring at the reflection above.

Her mother pushed herself up from the bench, one hand outstretched toward future Marrill, just outside the frame. A hand entered the picture, then a wrist and an arm. Marrill sucked in a breath, waiting to see herself. But the Iron Tide got there first. It took the figure standing outside the frame—freezing future Marrill’s fingers into an outstretched iron claw.