Chapter 1: The Mirror

Baltimore, Maryland

         May Lawson bumped into the doorframe as she steered toward the kitchen, book in her hand. Not averting her gaze from the text, she managed to locate the chair and sit down. She shoved the box of her sister’s favorite cereal aside, making space for the book. Still reading, May reached for the bowl.

         “Hey! That’s mine!” Hailey, her younger sister protested, glaring at May.

         May mumbled something inaudible, not affected by the commotion in the kitchen at all when she was finishing reading. When she read the last paragraph, she took her eyes off the book and put it away, thinking that it was a nice way to start her first day of the summer break. She lifted her head and saw that apparently a little apocalypse came today.

         “Richard, did you pack your toothbrush?” Nancy Lawson, May’s mom, asked in her usual demanding tone.

         “Of course, dear,” May’s dad answered meekly, opening his suitcase and checking if he packed that toothbrush indeed – after all no one wanted to cross his wife. May’s mom was looming above him like an executioner, her blue eyes cold and unforgiving.

         “Better check if you have everything, I don’t want to have to buy you socks in London,” May’s mom nagged, her voice threatening.

         May sighed, observing her parents. Her poor dad was nearly cowering in fear before his wife while the mom kept giving him orders, another normal day in the life of the Lawson family. The contrast between the pair was impossible not to notice – May’s dad was a chubby, plain-looking man with glasses whereas her mother was a killer beauty with her perfect silhouette, blonde hair and exceptionally pretty face.

         May’s parents were about to head to London for a week and the summer morning had been turned into a hectic hell. Richard Lawson was about to lead some important conference and May’s mom was accompanying him as to support him and to control his expenses.  May’s dad, an accomplished history professor, was an absent-minded person, focused on his work and passion for collecting antiques – something his more level-headed wife wasn’t very fond of and was just about to remind him of it.

         “I swear, if you buy any more trash, Richard, you’ll regret it,” Nancy hissed when the doorbell rang.

         May’s dad flashed a shy smile which conveyed the message “I apologize for living” and rushed to collect the package. Nancy Lawson huffed, annoyed, and proceeded with ordering her family members around.

         “Hailey, please eat proper breakfasts and don’t eat too many snacks. Mrs. Hatchets will pop in order to check on you, so be nice to her,” May’s mom offered her younger daughter a smile which vanished instantly when she looked at her husband, who was dawdling in the corridor. Her red high heels clicked as she went to inspect the newest delivery.

         “Richard!” May winced, hearing her mother’s furious scream. “What’s the meaning of this? Why did you buy so many antiques? What are you doing? Leave it, don’t unpack it! We don’t have time for this now,”

         Flushed, May’s mom marched back to the kitchen and filled Hailey’s glass with juice.

         “Hailey, stay at home in the evenings, don’t invite your boyfriend while we’re gone and rest a bit, you deserve it,” May’s mom smiled warmly to her younger daughter, combing Hailey’s blonde locks with her fingers.

         May’s mom scanned the kitchens for the survivors who didn’t get scolded yet. Her gaze slid over her husband and Hailey who was looking like an angel right now to stop on the one person who escaped her attention this morning – her older daughter May who seemed to possess a mystical gift of invisibility and was surprisingly easy to overlook. Nancy Lawson approached her daughter like a hawk who had just spotted its prey.

         “May, I think you should use this summer break to study hard. If you are to get the scholarship and go to Harvard you’ll have to try harder during your senior year. Take your sister’s example; she’s so young and smart already,” May’s mom said harshly.

         “Yes, mom,” May replied in a monotone voice as a vision of grim future flashed in her mind – the prospect of studying instead of relaxing and simply having fun wasn’t what she had hoped for this summer. However, she was already used to the pressure to be the best and being compared with Hailey all the time.

         May could never compete with her younger sister, no matter how hard she tried. Not that May was lacking in intelligence - quite the opposite. She always scored the best marks in the class and worked harder than anybody else at the expense of her social life; however, Hailey was better. She was three years younger, but she had skipped a grade, took part in national competitions, was even a member of Mensa. She never failed to accomplish effortlessly whatever caught her fancy, while the same things cost May hard work. Hailey was the pride and joy of their family, and May was the other one, always second best.

         Hailey was the perfect daughter, the little prodigy who had the looks, outgoing personality, wonderful friends and even a boyfriend. Everyone seemed to adore her. May tried to be proud of her sister’s accomplishments, but she couldn’t help but to be jealous.

         “Hailey, dear, guess what?” May’s mom asked the younger of girls. “We’ll buy you a new violin in London.”

         “Oh, mommy, you’re the best!” Hailey exclaimed, her sapphire blue eyes sparkling with joy.

         May sighed, frustrated, seeing Hailey and mom fuss over the new violin.

         “Nancy, I believe we have to leave already,” May’s dad called from the corridor and stepped into the kitchen to say good-byes. Nancy Lawson planted kisses on Hailey’s both cheeks and ruffled May’s short, brown hair hastily before grabbing her suitcases. May’s Dad hugged his younger daughter awkwardly and waved to May.

         “May,” he addressed his older daughter. May lifted her head, gazing at her father with hope he would wish her good luck or say he was proud of her achievements. “Unpack the boxes from the corridor. Be careful – some of those contain very valuable antiques. You know how I want them to be catalogued, right?”

         The girl nodded; her face turned into a poker mask and her hand frozen in midair. Soon enough the door slammed shut and as soon as the parent’s car left the driveway, Hailey made a beeline for the table. Just when May opened her book again, ignoring her sister making a mess with her breakfast. She arched her eyebrow, seeing Hailey skip toward the mirror and critically examining her appearance, frowning with dissatisfaction at her still small breasts.

         May straightened her back, looking at her sister who was just flipping her long, blonde hair, as though she was in a shampoo commercial. May and Hailey were siblings, but they were polar opposites – May’s younger sister resembled their mother so much that May began suspecting that she could be a clone; tall and slim, stunningly beautiful,  blue-eyed  Hailey was entrancing everyone with her exceptionally good looks.

         May could be considered quite pretty, but compared to her mother and sister, she seemed to be terribly plain. Her face rarely caught passerby’s attention, and she wasn’t skinny and tall like a model. Having inherited her dad’s perfectly ordinary looks, May never stood out in the crowd of other seventeen-year-old  high school girls.

         The sole things she really liked about her appearance were her green eyes. Her brown hair always seemed to have a mind of its own, refusing to look presentable, so it was shoulder length. Her height was sometimes bothersome too – being shorter than most of her peers, May often got teased when she was younger.

         May observed Hailey march into the living room to seize the TV and decided to move from behind the table to get done with unpacking the delivery.

         The sooner the better.

         “Oh no, not again,” May whined when she saw the corridor. The door was barely visible to behind the boxes of all sizes and shapes. It seemed that her dad went on an antique shopping spree. Actually, May understood why mom despised dad’s hobby so much – not only it consumed over half of family’s earnings, but there was barely enough space in the house for all the new acquirements.

         May began opening the boxes, having decided to unpack everything first and then carry the antiques to the basement. The girl looked at the multitude of packages and afterwards in the direction of the living room.

         “Hailey, come here and help me!” she called, but there was no response. “Hailey!”

         “What?” A rude response from the couch in the living room came. May rolled her eyes.

         “Lend me a hand with dad’s stuff, will you?” she called.

         Hailey turned the TV off and marched down the corridor. She rested her hands on her hips, glaring at May from above; even though she was three years younger, Hailey was already taller than her older sister.

         “I’m tired,” she said, shamelessly faking yawning. “Anyway, dad told that you should take care of his stuff, and I should rest. Now don’t bother me when I’m resting.”

         May looked at her sharply and grabbed Hailey’s shoulder when the younger girl was about.

         “Don’t even think about wriggling out of this,” she said, pointing at the boxes. “Help me or I won’t cook you anything for the entire week.”

         Hailey’s blue eyes widened when she heard the ultimatum. May’s face was serious – she had no intention of giving into  her sister’s whims this time, although usually she had to since dad and mom kept defending Hailey.

         “If you do that, mom will ground you for a month,” Hailey retorted, but the unsure look on her face betrayed that she wasn’t too confident.

         “Fine by me.” May shrugged her shoulders; after all, she’d be stuck at home studying anyway.

         Hailey bit her lower lip, weighing her options, the battle between a week without dinners versus an hour of effort raging in her mind.

         “Okay,” she grunted eventually and got to work, huffing angrily when she saw May’s triumphant smirk.

         The both girls were unpacking the various items from the boxes, wondering why their dad would need most of them. The oriental vase was truly beautiful, but the African sculpture was hideous. Richard Lawson had a weak spot for various items connected to occult and foreign religions. The antiques came from all over the world and May suspected that they were a substitute for traveling – her dad always wanted to visit the historical sites, but his wife consistently denied it.

         “If a vampire got into our house, the poor guy wouldn’t stand a chance,” May stated, discovering that one of the boxes contained over twenty different crosses.

         “What’s that?” Hailey asked, holding up an artwork which looked like it had been painted by Picasso on a bad day. May shrugged.

         “No idea, check this out,” she said, showing Hailey a long parcel which turned out to hide a genuine sword in its sheath. The weapon was orange from rust; the elaborate decorative pattern was barely visible now.

         “Is it sharp?” Hailey asked. May smiled – she wanted to find it out too. She pulled the handle, but the sword didn’t budge. No matter how hard she tried the blade refused to leave the sheath. Hailey sighed, disappointed. “It’s because of rust.”

         The younger of the girls took a piece of paper packed together with the sword and winced.

         “Gosh, what a waste,” she said after she read the price. She looked a look at the other information. “Country of origin: Ireland. History… let’s see… it says here that someone killed a dragon with this piece of rust.”

         May smiled.

         “A dragon, huh? I think it was rather someone’s mother-in-law,” she commented, putting the heavy sword aside and reached into yet another box. She opened it with the knife and took the document with price and description of the item while Hailey reached inside to remove the bubble wrap.

         “Country of origin: Norway. History… now that is interesting. Listen to this, Hailey,” she read, smiling. “According to the description it’s some mystical mirror. It is said to have the  power to switch souls of two people if they glance into the mirror at the same time. Even so, it will only work if the people have the similar souls. I don’t quite get it.”

         Hailey put a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear.

         “I think it’s like the Everett interpretation,” she said, leaving the rest of the bubble wrap in the box.

         “What?” May asked, not knowing what Hailey meant.

         “Everett's interpretation, you know, the many-world interpretation?” Hailey looked at May expectedly, but when the older of girls  was still staring blankly at her, she decided to give a more thorough explanation. “I guess that talking about quantum mechanics would be pointless, so I’ll explain it to you in a more science-fiction fashion. It’s about the parallel universes, different dimensions, that kind of stuff. For example, in another universe you could be born in Britain. So, if you from here and you from Britain looked into the mirror in the same time, you would switch souls.”

         “And you’d get a sister who would be talking with a funny accent,” May said, more or less understanding. Hailey nodded.

         “Right, I think that it should work that way. However, if it did, we could sell the mirror and buy an island,” she said, looking with distrust at the parcel which still waited to be unpacked. “Maybe I’ll go make a sandwich.”

         May smirked, seeing her younger sister move away from the supposedly mystical mirror.

         “Are you scared that your soul will be switched?” May teased. Hailey flushed as though she had just been caught red-handed.

         “Don’t be stupid, May!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms on her chest and pouting childishly. “I’m not superstitious. However, if it works, you won’t be missed, unlike me.”

         May clenched her teeth, glaring at her younger sister who, smirking mockingly, skipped to the kitchen to raid the fridge.

         “Brat,” May commented and reached for the mirror. She removed all the bubble wrap and looked at the antique looking glass curiously. She shook her head, amused by Hailey’s reaction. The mirror had a strange pentagonal shape, but other than that it was perfectly normal and non-magical.

         May flipped the mirror over and examined it. Its shape was odd; it was of a rather medium size, with a plain wooden frame and seemingly old. May took a breath and looked at her reflection. Of course, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. The mirror showed what she expected to see - her own plain face staring back. The same green eyes, the same slightly too wide nose, which wasn’t her favorite part of her face, the same childish cheeks and the same brown hair. The same… only longer. Shocked, May looked once more.

         There was no doubt! The May that was reflected in the mirror had long hair, much past her shoulders, though she could not say how long exactly. The girl felt something welling up in her stomach. The mirror reflected the sheer terror on her face. She tried to toss out the mirror, and scream for Hailey, but her voice wouldn’t come out; her body was frozen. She desperately tried to loosen her grip on the mirror’s frame, but she couldn’t move them. It was either the fear that had paralyzed her or some unknown force that didn’t want to allow her to avert her gaze from the mirror. She couldn’t do anything as her surroundings started to blur. It felt like the world was disappearing, or perhaps  she was.

         May had her gaze still fixed on the face in the mirror, staring in horror at the same face as her own, but somehow another’s. She observed as the reflection returned to normal, her reflection’s hair becoming shorter, like her own. The world around her was beginning to look more real and not so blurred anymore. May took a deep gasping breath, realizing that she must have been holding it, and finally managed to flex her fingers. The mirror fell on the floor. Her knees bent under, and she had to use her hands to prevent her face from meeting ground. She gasped in shock as her long hair fell like a curtain around her, and then she drifted into the unconsciousness, limply falling to the floor.

Elsewhere

         “Lady,” a maidservant called.

         “You may come in,” a quiet, demure voice said. The maidservant opened the door and came in, bowing deeply.

         Inside sat a young noblewoman, the Lady of the respectable Thoen family, Maewyn. She looked as if she was deep in thought. Her long brown hair, now undone, fell softly around her reaching to the floor as she sat on a cushion. Her green eyes had a slightly melancholic look in them. The Lady was adorned with a multi-layered dress made of the finest silk looking every inch of her status. She looked at the maidservant, who was still bowing in front of her. The Lady smiled gently and told the woman in her sweet voice to face her.

         “What brings you here, Astrid?” Meawyn asked.

         The young servant gasped as she heard her name being remembered by the Lady... The woman held out a package. Lady Meawyn glanced at it curiously.

         “What would that be?” she asked.

         “My Lady,”  the woman called Astrid answered. “It was sent by lord Abrran to Lady Maewyn as a gift to commemorate the engagement.”

         A blush begun to show on Lady Maewyn’s face as, she cautiously took the package that was handed over to her. Lord Abrran was the man she was going to marry in a matter of weeks; the man to whom she would pledge loyalty and love; the man who would become the father of her children. Her destiny, her everything. She couldn’t wait to be married to him. That was the purpose of her life – to become the wife of such a powerful man, and she would more than glad to accept it.

         Maewyn held the package closest to her heart, wondering what gift her beloved Lord had sent her. Her heart was beating faster as the maidservant took her leave. Once the servants were dismissed for the night, she stood up and sat on the edge of the large bed, anticipating to see the gift.

         The Lady began to unwrap the package. Inside was a plain-looking mirror. Maewyn was a bit disappointed but told herself that the gift was given from the bottom of the heart, so it shouldn’t be judged. She held the mirror in front of her face, glancing at her own reflection. Suddenly, the Lady stiffened. It was not her reflection. From the mirror, another person was looking at her. She had her face, but she was not here. The other one had noticeably shorter hair, like some village girl, not the knee-length Lady’s tresses, and she didn’t have the royal air about her, like Maewyn.

         “Lord Abrran,” the Lady whispered, horrified, “Why would you send me a demon sealed in a mirror? Why?”

         That was Maewyn’s last thought before she slipped into unconsciousness.