Chapter 1 - Memories

Get out of the doorway!

The words boomed like thunder for Claire, now almost thirty years later, with the same intensity and pronouncement they carried the first time she’d heard Grandmother utter them, the first time of many. She smiled vaguely to the memory.

It was vast, this mansion of her grandparents where she had grown up, but Claire didn’t know it at the time; she never questioned what she saw because she’d never known another way of life, she’d never ventured past the end of the formal alley flanked by huge oak trees, hundreds of years old, which led straight to its front doors. For her the mansion and its garden were the world.

The most interesting feature of this large house, and the one that had prompted Claire’s memory, was its entryway. The double doors carved out of solid walnut had stained glass panes set in intricate wood tracery and were so heavy little Claire always needed both hands to pry them open. The doors were flanked by large crystal mirrors, parallel to each other, which ran floor to ceiling and reflected everything and everybody that passed between them into infinity, contours diffracted into rainbows in places by the finely polished bevels around their edges.

She must have been five years old at the time, intensely curious about this exciting new world she’d been born into, wandering around the old mansion whose windows were frequently propped open to temper the sweltering heat of the Louisiana summers and whose broad surrounding porch offered welcoming shade during those afternoons when even the wind stood still.  Nature afforded itself no movements and no sounds then, other than the eerie trilling of the tree frogs. This was her first memory of the mirrors: she was standing between them trying to understand why there were so many of her and why they seemed to get farther and farther away. She could still remember the way the white ribbons of the dress Grandmother had sewn by hand just in time for her birthday moved in the doors’ draft like they were alive. Little Claire had managed to smear cake frosting on the dress, a fact she was trying very hard to hide, and she remembered feeling somewhat relieved that all the Claires in the mirrors were also looking down with guilty expressions on their faces. A razor sharp ray of sun sliced through the stained glass suddenly, with the swiftness of a blade, and hardened the contours around everything, rendering the shadows deeper and softer than black velvet. For a second Claire could almost touch the substance of that shadow, feel its palpable nature. She got scared of it and ran out of the doorway, her frilly white ribbons trailing behind her, and promised herself to listen to Grandmother and steer clear of the doorway going further. Naturally, she forgot her promise the very next day.

Claire’s fascination with this mirror world which she perceived as three dimensional due to its endless patterns of reflection had subsequently earned her many scoldings, but she simply couldn’t resist the attraction it exerted on her; she kept getting drawn to it like a compass needle to the north. Even now the fascination that weird alcove exerted on her made her feel guilty, an absurd emotion for a woman in her mid thirties, even one who was still trying to find herself. 

She decided to work on her assertiveness and stand wherever she pleased, since she was a grown up, gosh darn it, but her ears instinctively tuned in to hear if her grandparents were approaching, so she could get out of there before they saw her. She was grateful for her grandparents’ company and felt relieved to be back home, but she was also kind of embarrassed to move back in with them at her age. She shrugged her shoulders. Life had unexpected ways to steer one’s journey and it had certainly taught her it was easier sometimes to accept them at face value.

The world outside these familiar walls hadn’t turned out the way she hoped, nothing like the overheated imagination of her youth had painted it to be. The real world didn’t end up  being her enchanted playground, quite the contrary, it stubbornly and consistently refused to cooperate. She was too weird for it, Claire learned. She didn’t exactly know how or why, but she didn’t seem to fit in it or understand its ways, the subtle cues and unspoken agreements that function so flawlessly in society and form the basis of common understanding. 

It’s not that her life had been worse than anybody else’s, it’s just that everybody else accepted it the way it was, without unnecessary commentary, while Claire, for whatever cursed reason, could not. She had questions in school which made her teachers uncomfortable, she had questions at work which made coworkers find her difficult, but worse of all, she had questions regarding social expectations that doomed any potential friendships before they even started. She often felt like a car stuck going the wrong way on a one way street with no places to turn.

She couldn’t even remember what prompted her to pack up and come back to Louisiana on this self-imposed sabbatical she took because she didn’t have an alternative to it. 

“Get out of the doorway!” the real voice of her grandmother startled her from behind, and Claire let out a resigned sigh: she had fallen for the spell of the mirrors again and had lost track of herself. She obeyed, out of habit, and stepped out of the little alcove, somewhat disappointed that her endless reflections were now confined to just one body. 

“You never listen, bebelle,” Grandmother shook her head in distress. “Thirty years old and still you never listen!”

“What’s wrong with it, maman?” Claire forgot to subdue the inquisitive streak that never failed to get her in trouble. “Why do you get so upset when I hang around the front doors?”

“It’s bad luck, child! Do you need me to draw you a picture? Why would you want to invite trouble? God knows it is easy enough for it to find you anyway.”

“Please, maman,” Claire besought her in her loveliest cajoling voice, one she hoped the elder would find too endearing to deny, “just tell me!” Grandmother dismissed her with an irate hand gesture, turned her back to the granddaughter and went to the kitchen.   

Claire was still standing in front of the doors, whose intricate stained glass and wood motifs, depicting angels and flowers, were close enough to get caught in the mirrors. They multiplied in ways that confused the eye and made the entire scene absolutely hypnotic.

“Aren’t you hungry, dear?” the soft voice of her grandfather startled her from her second reverie. She felt his hand on her shoulder guiding her gently towards the kitchen. She was hungry, she realized, and weary, and grateful to be cared for again, if only for a while. 

Reviews

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

that was an amazing read. first of all, i loved the description of the setting, i could really start to feel the Louisana heat. my only critique is i wish to read more about it. you have a great style, so show it off! the description of the characters were equally engaging. Describing Claire as a car stuck moving the wrong way is a great metaphor, and it makes me sympathise with her and hope she somehow turns it around (or find a way to be happier with her situation). and the mystery revolving around the mirrors is so inticing. a lot of tension has been built up and i look forward to finding out why there is so much secrecy.