Horten's Incredible Illusions (7 page)

WHO ARE YOU?

Stuart picked up the frame and turned it over but there was nothing written on the back. As he returned it to the easel, he got the sudden feeling that something was wrong—that he wasn’t seeing something that he
should
be seeing. For a second time he picked up the frame, and realized with a chill that there was no answering movement from the reflections: all those rows of Stuarts had remained perfectly still …

He walked over to the arch. He could see his own face in each mirror, brightly lit in front of a dark background. He could see the blue of his T-shirt and the dirty smudge that he appeared to have on his right cheekbone. But when he lifted a hand to his face, no hand appeared in the mirrors. He moved closer. The images in the mirrors weren’t painted: they had depth, they were alive, they were breathing, but they weren’t
reflections
. It was as if each were a TV screen, showing a continuous program of himself: The Stuart Channel. But each program was slightly different—one Stuart was smiling, another was biting his lip as if perplexed, a third seemed to be looking off to the left.

“Weird,” said Stuart. He was still holding the picture frame, and on a sudden impulse he placed it flat against the arch. The mirrors that made up the surface were exactly the right size for the frame.

“So do I have to choose one?” he asked out loud.

He glanced from image to image, wondering what he was supposed to be looking for. Stuart after Stuart grinned, sneezed, stared, blinked, and shrugged at him.

And, he reminded himself, there were all the mirrors on the other side of the arch as well; he ought to look at those, too. He started to walk around it and then found that he couldn’t: his feet were moving, but he made no progress, as if he were walking on a treadmill or an ice rink. After a couple of minutes of panting effort he gave up; clearly he was supposed to stay where he was.

“Okay,” he muttered. “I’ll just have to pick one on this side. They’re all me, anyway.”

He reached out randomly toward a Stuart who was yawning hugely. The mirror came away after just a single tug. There was a black gap in the arch where it had been.

What now?

Stuart walked back to the easel, fitted the mirror into the frame, and put the frame back on the little ledge where he’d found it.

And in an instant the mirror in the frame disappeared.

Stuart looked at it, startled, and even stuck his hand through the hole, just to make sure. And then he went back to the arch. The black gap had filled up again—he couldn’t even tell where he’d taken the mirror from.

“So that was the wrong choice,” he muttered. “I must have to pick out one in particular—”

“I’m bored,” said a voice behind him.

Stuart spun around and saw—

Himself.

He yelled.

Blue T-shirt, smudge on cheek, jeans, scuffed sneakers, hands stuffed in pockets.

“I mean, what do you even
do
here?” asked the other Stuart, ignoring the yell. “This is the dullest place I’ve ever, ever been to, and I didn’t even bring any money with me, so I can’t buy anything, even if I found a shop.” He had a slightly whiny, irritating voice.

Do I really sound like that?
thought the real Stuart, still reeling from the shock.

Bored Stuart yawned again. “I mean, it’s dark, there’s nothing to see, there’s nowhere to go, there isn’t even anything to sit on, I can’t put on any music, I can’t—”

“
Shhhh!
” said the real Stuart. He could hear another voice somewhere, calling his name. He strained his ears.

“I mean, there’s only another two weeks left of the summer vacation,” droned Bored Stuart, “and if I have to spend it in this place, then—”

“Will you please
be quiet
,” said Stuart. He could hear the other voice again, and this time he was certain that it was April.

“I CAN JUST ABOUT HEAR YOU!” he yelled. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

A moment passed, and then he heard her distant answer: “IN FRONT OF THE ARCH. OPPOSITE WHERE YOU’RE STANDING, I THINK. HAVE YOU DONE IT YET?”

“DONE WHAT?”

“CHOSEN THE RIGHT MIRROR AND PUT IT IN THE FRAME?”

“NO, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO. WHICH ONE’S THE RIGHT ONE?”

“THE ONE THAT’S YOU.”

“BUT THEY’RE ALL ME.”

“NO, THEY’RE NOT.”

“YES, THEY ARE.”

“NO, THEY’RE
NOT
. IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY, YOU’LL SEE THAT THEY MIGHT LOOK A LOT LIKE YOU BUT THEY’RE NOT
ACTUALLy
YOU. ALL EXCEPT ONE. IT ONLY TOOK ME A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO PICK THE RIGHT ONE, BUT THEN, OF COURSE, I’M USED TO SEEING PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE ME BUT AREN’T ACTUALLY ME.”

She sounded (Stuart thought) a bit smug.

“I’m just so bored,” said Bored Stuart.

“
Shhh
.”

“I can’t remember being as bored as this
ever
, not even when—”

“Just
SHUT UP
,” snapped Stuart.

“WHAT?”

“I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU, APRIL.”

“WHO WERE YOU TALKING TO, THEN?”

“SOMEONE WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE ME BUT WHO ISN’T.”

“I mean,” continued Bored Stuart, “there isn’t even a book or a magazine or anything, so how am I supposed to …”

Stuart turned and stared at his almost-twin as he driveled on about how there was nothing to do. He examined every inch of the boy’s face and tried to compare each feature with what he saw in his own mirror every morning. But the trouble was, he hardly ever looked in his own mirror: four seconds for combing his hair, a quick glimpse of his teeth after brushing, and that was it. The truth was—and the realization made him feel more than a little uneasy—
he didn’t really know what he looked like
. And he just happened to be in a place where there wasn’t a mirror.

“GOOD LUCK,” he heard April shout faintly. “THE LIGHTS ARE GOING OUT ON THIS SIDE. I THINK I’M ON MY WAY BACK NOW—ACTUALLY, I CAN HEAR SOMETHING ODD. I CAN HEAR A SORT OF CLICKING SOUND IN THE …” Her voice faded away.

“APRIL!” he yelled. “APRIL?”

But there was no reply. He was completely on his own.

“I am
so
bored.”

Well, nearly on his own.

CHAPTER 11

Stuart peered from one image to the next, frowning, comparing, worrying, while Bored Stuart grumbled on in the background. Mirror after mirror showed a boy with shortish hair, grayish eyes, a roundish face, and a few brownish freckles. An ordinary sort of face, with an ordinary array of expressions: puzzled, amused, tired, interested—

“Bored. I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored in my whole entire life.”

“Please,” said Stuart, “I’m trying to think.”

“There is
nothing
to do in here.”

“You could help me work out which of these images is actually me.”

Bored Stuart glanced at the wall of mirrors and groaned. “But there are
loads
of them. It’ll take
ages
.”

“You’re not exactly doing anything else, are you?”

Bored Stuart sighed and wandered over to the arch. “That one,” he said almost immediately, pointing to a mirror on the bottom row.

“You sure?” asked Stuart. “Why that one in particular?”

Bored Stuart shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You’re just guessing, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Stuart stared at the image; it looked just as much like him as all the others. There was nothing to lose. He pulled the mirror off the arch, fitted it into the empty frame, and put the frame on the easel. Instantly the mirror disappeared.

Behind him, there was a grunt. “How many of these can you do in one minute?” demanded a voice.

Heart sinking, Stuart turned. Another Stuart was doing a series of one-armed push-ups.

“I can’t do any of those at all,” said Stuart.

“There’s no point in being short
and
unfit,” said the other Stuart, a bit breathlessly.

“I’m not unfit.”

“Okay, how about some arm wrestling?”

“No,” said Stuart.

“Arm wrestling’s really
boring”
said Bored Stuart.

“Are you saying I’m boring?” demanded Fit Stuart, leaping to his feet.

Stuart put his fingers in his ears and walked over to the arch again. It was hopeless. He couldn’t tell one image from another, so he’d just have to get lucky. He started pulling off mirrors until he had a huge stack of them, and then, one by one, he put them in the frame….

“Bad idea,” muttered Stuart to himself, a bit later.
“Bad
idea.”

The darkness around the arch was filled with Stuarts. Studious Stuart was reading a history textbook. Jokey Stuart was making farting noises with his armpit while Serious Stuart made a disapproving face. Fit Stuart had organized a hurdles race, using Lazy Stuart, Sleepy Stuart, and Bored Stuart as hurdles. Boastful Stuart had told everybody beforehand that he was superb at running, and he had just now lost rather badly to Silent Stuart, who hadn’t said anything at all but had so far won the hurdles, the arm wrestling, and the prize for the largest number of jumping jacks in five minutes. The prize had been a spider in a matchbox, donated by Nature-Loving Stuart. Moany Stuart had complained about the amount of noise they were all making.

Stuart slapped another mirror into the frame. It disappeared.

“There are one hundred and thirty-seven mirrors in that arch,” said a voice behind him, “which is one of my favorite prime numbers.”

“Hello,” said Stuart, not bothering to turn around. “So, you’re a Stuart who likes math, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are the chances of me finding one particular mirror, if every time I choose wrongly a new one appears?”

“Infinite.”

Stuart nodded dully. “I thought so,” he said. Suddenly feeling exhausted, he sat down and put his head in his hands.

“I don’t know what to look for,” he muttered. “What makes me
me
? What am
I
best at? I’m not sporty or mathematical or really studious or jokey.”

“Got anything to eat?” asked Greedy Stuart, prying open Stuart’s lunchbox and then making a face when he saw the healthy contents. “Is this all you’ve got?” he said disgustedly. “
Salad?
And
fruit
?”

“It’s healthy,” said Stuart.

And he remembered the letters his mom had written—one to his dad all about making sure Stuart was eating healthily (
much love to my kind, clever husband
), and the other to himself (
much love to my brave, energetic son …
)

So maybe that’s who he was—Energetic, Brave Stuart. But how could he see those things in a mirror? And anyway, just because his mom had said them, that didn’t make them true; moms were always boasting about their kids, and half the boasts were exaggerated. By
energetic
his mom only meant that he was more eager about
doing
things than
thinking
about them. (His report card always said:
Stuart is an energetic boy.
As if that wasn’t a very good thing to be.) And by
brave
she was probably referring to the time when he (aged four) had apparently dragged a stepladder halfway across the yard to try to rescue a cat that had got stuck up a tree. She was always telling people how the cat had scratched little Stuart, and then he’d fallen off the ladder and landed on his chin, and how if you looked carefully …

Stuart sat up straight and slapped a hand to his chin.
If you looked carefully … you could still see a little scar where he’d had two stitches.

He scrambled to his feet, ran across to the arch, and began to peer at the mirrors.

“What are you doing?” asked Bored Stuart in a bored voice.

“Looking for a Stuart with a tiny scar like the one I’ve got on my chin. Can you help?”

“Sounds a bit boring.”

“
I’ll
be able to find it,” said Boastful Stuart. “I’m really, really observant—in fact, my teacher says I’m the most observant child she’s ever met. She put that in my report card.”

“Well, get on with it then,” said Stuart, still searching.