In the House of Mirrors (22 page)

4

“Ten years,” Quincy Black said to him. “This will be all of yours for ten years. On your twenty-ninth and a half birthday, I will come claim what is rightfully mine.”

“
And what's that?” Arthur asked.

“
Think of me, as a ringleader. And I too, have a very big carnival to run. I need people, Arthur, people like you, who are going to take part in it. I need performers Arthur, and I have chosen you to play a very big part in my show!” Black laughed maniacally. “Doesn't that sound fun?”

“
I guess,” a very young, very naïve Arthur Denlax said. “So what do I have to do?”

“
After your ten years is up? Ah, not much. Just train in the ways of the Elduronds, learn their magic in hopes of assembling an army large enough to take over the entire universe!” Quincy smiled again. “Not much at all, my dear boy, not much at all.”

Arthur stared at him, blankly. “I... I don't understand.”

“And the beauty of it is, you don't need to!” Quincy shouted. “Just know, that I will give you what that sad sack of shit, Donald Wilko, will never be able to give you. Understand?”

Arthur remained still.

“This is what your parents would have wanted.”

“
I want to live here longer than ten years. I want to... live forever.”

“
And you will! My dear boy, my dearest Arthur, you will. Just—not in this world. And trust me, in ten years, no one in this world will even give a monkey's tit about a traveling carnival. You'll fail in this world. But the world where you're going! Oh, man! Do they love carnivals! You can perform forever there! You can be the star, and everyone will love you! They'll adore you! Think of the women... they'll line up around the block just to have you touch them. Trust me! It'll be everything you ever wanted and more...” Quincy Black approached him, and this time, Arthur did not retreat. “Your parents, will be very proud of you, Arthur. They will look down at you from Heaven and smile.”

Black touched the boy on his shoulder. A wave of comfort washed over him. Tears streaked down his cheeks. He started to cry, but managed to suppress an outburst of tears in front of this powerful stranger. “Is there really a Heaven?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. There's a Hell too. And a Limbo. There's a place where people look like giant birds, places where bunny rabbits hold conversations in English. There's places made of fire and places made of ice. There's even a place called Garmetal where people live in cities underwater. I've never been to it, but I hear it's nice. There's—” the teenager was in his arms now, and Quincy Black embraced him, smiling devilishly. “There's other worlds than this one, Arthur, and I want to show them to you.”

5

“I'll need a prick of your blood,” Quincy informed him. He pulled a needle out of his jacket pocket. Arthur offered him his finger. Quincy Black jabbed the needle into his finger, and watched as a small red bubble surfaced. “There we are.” He captured a few droplets in a small vial and told Arthur that he was going to be his greatest asset. He also told him that, “A blood pact is the most strongest pact in the entire Oververse, and shall not be broken. Understand?”

Arthur did.

“Good,” Quincy said. “Then, I'll leave you with a present. I got it from this world. It's new. I'm told it's years ahead of its time.” Black produced a camera from his burlap bag. He handed it to Arthur, who stared at it, mystified.

“
A camera?” he asked. Quincy nodded. “I didn't know they made them this small.” Arthur still needed two hands to wield it.

“
Careful with that thing. There's something about camera's I don't like. I can't really put my finger on it. Anyway, enjoy. Oh! I almost forgot,” he said, turning back to his carriage. He opened the door and continued talking, but Arthur could not hear him. He continued to examine the small photograph machine, something he had only heard whispers about. He'd seen one once, at the Picolo Brother's Family Circus, years earlier, while he was doing some research on how other traveling carnivals compared. It was a standing one, and the photographer had to duck under a giant cloth while snapping the picture. He had only heard rumors about hand-held devices such as this, although they were becoming a fairly popular and fairly common commodity. The world was changing awfully fast, and that's when Arthur realized that maybe Quincy Black was right. What would the world be like in ten years? What would happen to traveling circuses like the one his father had successfully created? What would happen to performers like himself, and his friends? Would they adapt? Or die with the art? These were questions he would no longer have to worry about. And for that he was thankful.

“
Ah! Here it is!” Quincy Black produced a big black book from the back of his carriage. It was old and frail looking, too big to hold in his hands. It had three letters etched on the cover in gold. ELD. “This is a magical book. With this, the next ten years will be the most successful, most magical time of your life. Learn it. Do not let it go to waste.”

And with that, Arthur woke up in a bed of hay, next to a naked girl with webbed hands and feet.

6

That morning, the group discovered the dead body of Donald Wilko in the middle of the campground. Someone had sliced his stomach open during the night and removed his intestines. They were strung over a small open fire, like a long string of bloody sausage. No one admitted to committing this disturbing act, and no one seemed to mind much that it happened either. They were thankful not to be victims of a similar fate. Traveling bandits, they decided, were the ones who killed and tortured him, and no one argued or questioned this claim.

7

The group needed to elect a new ringleader. Arthur Denlax won by a landslide.

8

Two years later, the Great Denlax Carnival was on the rise. Whereas most traveling circuses and carnivals were seeing business decline, Arthur's was proving to be pretty popular. He had followed Black's instructions, reading from the Eldurond's book and performing spells during live shows, beneath the nostrils of his peers. They were blind to his new tricks, except for one individual. Frog-Girl! had caught on quickly. Over a short period of time, the two of them had become more than just midnight lovers. They had become lovers in all hours of the day.

One day, before a big show in New York, Frog-Girl, also known as Veronica Silk, approached her man and asked him why he read from the big black book every day, and sometimes spoke in a language she had never heard before.

“It's magic, baby,” Arthur told her. “Real magic.”

He never elaborated, and she never pushed the subject.

9

Five years later, the Great Denlax Carnival had peaked. They were selling out two shows a night. Money poured in. There was enough of it to go around, twice, three times. Even the guy who cleaned the horseshit out of the trailers was considered to be wealthy by most middle-class standards. Things had never been better, even when Arthur's old man ran things. He knew it had to, but Arthur didn't want the ride to end. Only five more years left. Five more years before he'd be forced to give it all up. One night, after they made passionate love for the second time that evening, Arthur faced Veronica in a bed that was no longer made of hay.

“If someone came to you and said you could have anything you ever dreamed, but you could only have it for ten years—what would you do?” Arthur asked her. “Would you do it?”

She giggled. “Arthur! That's silly,” she said.

“Just answer the question,” he said, smiling, but she could tell he was serious.

“
Anything I want, but only ten years to enjoy it?”

“
That's right. After that, you... I don't know. Die.”

“
I'd want to live longer than ten more years, Arthur.”

“
Even if those ten years were perfect?”

“
Wouldn't matter. I wouldn't want to die,” she said. “I want to live forever.”

Arthur couldn't fall asleep that night. In fact, Arthur didn't do much sleeping at all after that night.

10

Arthur became obsessed with the camera. Two years later, on a night of relaxation, while the rest of the crew were out on the town drinking and indulging in promiscuous activities, Arthur sat alone in his room, dissecting the camera. He wanted to know how the tiny device worked. It took him a few hours to figure it all out—that it was all about how light passes through the lens (which looked like a tiny mirror) and is able to trap the image onto a tiny piece of film. He was astonished by this discovery. This, to him, was real magic. Sure the spells and nightly chants from the black book had brought him successes beyond his wildest expectations, but this—this was something very different. It wasn't something out of a book that came from unworldly beings who possessed special powers. The camera had been created by human hands. It had come from this world, a world that was rapidly changing, one Arthur began to lose faith in. The camera, though, had revitalized his faith in humanity. It proved to him that magic existed in this world, and that maybe this world was worth fighting for, rather than abandoning in three years.

“What are you doing, Arthur?” Veronica asked. She had entered the room without Arthur taking notice.

“
Look at this,” he said, waving her over. “I figured out how it works. See this tiny little mirror,” he said, holding up the lens. “Light passes through it when the button is pressed, and then the image is captured on this film. Isn't that fabulous?” he asked.

“
Yeah, baby.”

She asked him to join her and the others for a drink, that they had good reasons to celebrate tonight. He asked about what they were drinking to and she wouldn't tell him. He said he was too busy with the camera, and that she could fill him in later, when she and the others returned. She left, dejected, wishing he changed his mind.

When she returned, Arthur had finished reassembling the camera.

“
Pose for me.”

She looked at him bashfully, and put one finger over her lips, as if she had a secret to tell.

“Perfect,” he said, as light passed through the tiny mirror and captured the image of his lover forever.

11

After he finished carving the name “Denlax” into the camera's hard plastic shell, he sat down on the bed. “So what was it you wanted to celebrate?” he asked.

“
I'm pregnant,” she told him.

Two things were decided that night; the child's name (either his father's or his mother's, depending on gender); and that he wanted to find a way out of his deal with Quincy Black, for he didn't want his child to go through the same life he did—without a parent. 

12

Nine months later another Denlax was introduced to the world. Only there were complications. Veronica delivered a dead fetus. The umbilical chord had wrapped around the baby's neck hours before it was to be born. This was a common thing nowadays, or so the nurses at the hospital told both would-have-been parents. Arthur cried for the first time since his father passed away.

He promised his wife that they would try again and succeed, that he would make sure of it this time. She said she would have to think about it, that she wasn't sure if she could go through with it again.

He vowed to give her a child.

He also blamed Quincy Black for the death of his first-born.

And vowed to null the deal which would leave him lifeless in two short years.

13

With less than two years left, Arthur moved the Great Denlax Carnival to New Jersey. Permanently. The show had suffered the same losses that other traveling performances had; a lack of an audience and dwindling funds. Arthur Denlax decided to set up a stationary carnival, and with the support of his performers, they were able to buy a nice chunk of land, perfect for housing their nightly presentations. Arthur and Veronica bought a piece of property deep within the woods, in a secluded section of Red River.

They would build a house in the woods, a one of a kind establishment.

Veronica was weary when her husband suggested they build the inside of the house entirely of mirrors. She told him that a house of mirrors would drive her mad. In every room she would see herself and hated the idea. However, Arthur remained adamant. And like most arguments with his wife, Arthur Denlax won.

He forgot to mention that the mirrors were gateways to other worlds, a mirror for each. Arthur feared if he clued her in on this madness, she would leave him.

14

He explained the situation to her like this:

“
I don't care if you don't believe me. In less than two years, someone is going to come for me. He's going to try to kill me. But this house, this House of Mirrors, will help us escape. I can't explain everything to you right now, but you have to trust me. Don't you trust me?”