Mirrors. I decided to start there, not only because the title “Queen of Mirrors” is a lot more promising than “Mistress of Thresholds,” but also because I remembered a strange comment that Mira made when she first came to live with us.
“There’s only five mirrors in the whole house,” Mira said, plopping into a chair in the kitchen. “One in each bathroom, one in your bedroom, one in mine, and one in the front hall.”
I remember laughing. “Do we need more? Just how often do we need to look at ourselves?”
Mira didn’t answer, but there was a thoughtfulness in her expression that stayed with me.
Very well. Mirrors. Well, the first one that came to mind was the one in Snow White, the one the Wicked Stepmother uses to spy on the young princess. I checked, and it’s in the original
Grimm’s Fairy Tales,
not just in the Disney movie.
I read the story through, end to end, thinking about it, not just reading it. It’s a strange and nasty story really—about envy and vanity. I think those are two of the deadly sins—or is the one pride, not vanity? At the end, strangely, I found myself feeling pity for the old queen. True, she was willing to commit murder, but her tools were poison. Being forced to dance until dead in red-hot iron shoes … Brr …
And I couldn’t help but think that Snow White was a bit of a twit, for all her goodness and beauty. I mean, the old queen tries to kill Snow White repeatedly, and the dwarves keep warning Snow White, and
still
she eats a slice from the apple!
But I’m getting away from mirrors. It seems to me that there must be more than this example.
I’ve read so many fairy tales that my mind is alive with princess and princesses, wise fools and foolish wise men. I dream about them at night. Strangely, many of them bear Colette’s face.
I’ve learned more about mirrors. One thing is for sure. They’re definitely considered magical. In several stories they’re used to create illusions, usually of a great pool of water or a flashing fire.
Mirrors are magical in myths as well. Perseus defeats the Medusa using the mirror-bright reflection in a shield. Narcissus fades away because he is obsessed with his own reflection. It seems it is dangerous to look at oneself too closely. At least it was for Medusa and Narcissus.
And it seems that spying on others through mirrors wasn’t restricted to the old queen. Sometimes a pool of water is substituted for a mirror, just like for Narcissus. I bet if I was to search around for other references I’d find that pools of water came first, then mirrors, and that our gypsy crystal ball is a relative latecomer.
Mirrors and water seem to be closely related. Mermaids are often depicted with a hand mirror and comb, combing out their long golden hair as they lure sailors to their doom. I bet at first they didn’t bother with the hand mirror, just looked down into the water.
I came across a passing reference in some scholar’s turgid opening to a collection to seven mirrors used in cabalism. That’s some sort of Jewish magic, I think. But that’s all I know. I’ll have to look further.
The more I look, the more I see. I feel like Alice in Looking-Glass Land!
Domingo and I had acknowledged our shared perception of the House as somehow alive for quite a while before we actually discussed it openly. That awareness had been implicit in his earliest statements to me about Phineas House. Only later, as my own perceptions began to unfold and broaden, did I accept that Domingo was speaking more than artistically.
It’s important to understand that when an artist says he (I’m going to say “he” here because I’m talking about Domingo) “sees” a shape or image, whether in a lump of stone or a heap of wet clay or even in a blank canvas, he means what he says. He’s not speaking figuratively. It’s there. The artist simply tries to bring it into a shape that will enable others to share the vision.
That’s why artists are so often disappointed with their own work. That’s why some artists make multiple renditions of the same theme. They’re reaching for that illusive transformation.
So I never made the mistake of thinking Domingo was talking figuratively about Phineas House “wanting” certain things. Where I made my initial error was in thinking that the House was a passive lump of wood, stone, odd bits of metal, all coated in a rather monochrome paint job. I didn’t realize that not only did it “want” that garish paint job, it needed it if it was to reach something like its full potential.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Domingo and I first discussed the House’s role in what we were doing one morning in late August.
Those promised monsoon rains had not materialized as they should have some time in late July. The monsoons and how much rain they generate varies throughout the southwest, but the basic pattern is that clouds back up against the mountains and the initial rains start there. Evaporation cycles build more and better clouds, and soon the rains fall pretty much daily.
They’re regular, too, Domingo reminded me. Rain often falls hard and steady for a half hour or so sometime in the late afternoon, then the skies clear back to their usual blue, all but for drifting clouds that herald the next-day’s storm.
I had this all by hearsay, though. Like most children, when I was young I’d operated on a different sense of time. Rain happened, was a nuisance or a delight depending on my mood, but was not something to be measured and calculated. Since my arrival in New Mexico, my life in Ohio had been warring with my awareness that the local drought wasn’t a good thing. I couldn’t get enough of the bright, clear days, but as I watch Domingo hand-carry water to his garden, saw the Gallinas River (which runs through town) dwindle to a narrow damp thread, I knew something wasn’t right.
“At least,” I said to Domingo one morning when we were having our now traditional sweet rolls and coffee together, out in the back garden, “the lack of rain is letting us get the painting done. We haven’t lost a day, and the place is looking astonishingly good.”
Domingo nodded, but his expression was unwontedly solemn. Usually where matters regarding Phineas House’s adornment were concerned, he all but glowed with quiet contentment.
“I hope,” he said, “that the House itself is not contributing to the drought. It so wishes the painting to be done—and selfishness is a very hot thing and heat chases away the clouds.”
I felt uncomfortably certain he was right. Child of a rainless year. I thought of Colette and her perfect centeredness, and wondered.
Instead of voicing this, I asked, “Why do you think it is so important to the House that it be painted? It has been a long time without this paint. In fact, it may never have been this colorful in all its history. I remember it as greyish white. We haven’t found anything like this level of color when we’ve scraped.”
Domingo looked at me, his gaze very clear but slightly vague, as if he were listening. Then he said, “I think the need for color has something to do with you, Mira. I don’t know why, but it was shortly before your coming that the impulse to repaint became very strong. Before that I had restrained myself to trim and such, but the work on the front began that winter.”
“Before I even knew I was coming,” I said. “Before Aunt May and Uncle Stan had their accident. It couldn’t be.”
But I felt uncomfortably that Domingo might well be right. Did that mean the House had known Aunt May and Uncle Stan were going to die? That was ridiculous. A house couldn’t know. But I felt that uncomfortable sensation again, and wasn’t at all sure.
“The House,” Domingo said, “wants something. I don’t know what it is. Of one thing, though, I am certain. It does not want to go back to being a dull house with boarded windows. It wants to be open and …”
“Alive?” I suggested when he trailed off.
Domingo gave another of his eloquent shrugs. “And whatever it is becoming now. For your mother it was a house filled with mirrors. For you it is becoming a house of many colors.”
“And still filled with mirrors,” I said, for I had never taken them down. They belonged as much as did the carvings around the windows and the silent women.
“So it is,” Domingo said. “But I have no idea why.”
Thinking of what I was reading in Aunt May’s journal, I had a slight idea, but I didn’t say anything then.
I admit. After reading Aunt May’s first section on mirrors, I skimmed ahead, looking for more on the same topic. I couldn’t forget how important mirrors had been to Colette—as important to her, it seemed, as color was to me. Aunt May didn’t find anything immediately, but when she did, it was pure gold.
I went over to Mr. Gillhoff’s new-and-used bookstore today after dropping Stan’s suits and my blue wool dress at the cleaner. I know I could hand-wash the dress, but it has so many pleats! I just couldn’t face the pressing.
Mr. Gillhoff is getting used to seeing me come in. If it’s not something for me, I’m looking for something for Mira or Stan. So he’s pretty friendly.
“I’m looking for a book that will tell me the ways that stories relate to each other,” I said, feeling rather flustered. “What I mean is why the same stories get told over and over again—like in fairy tales. I think there must be some root they all spring from.”
“Maybe so, maybe not,” Mr. Gillhoff replied, but he didn’t laugh at me, or worse, look completely lost like the librarian at my local branch had when I’d tried to ask the same thing.
“Maybe so, maybe not?” I repeated. “I realize I didn’t ask very well, but …”
Mr. Gillhoff shook his head and peered at me over the tops of his half-glasses.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Fenn,” he said. “My answer was to the latter half of your comment. I meant that maybe stories do all come from one root. However, maybe they grow from something more general—a common impulse to explain the inexplicable. What you want is a book on comparative mythology and legend lore. The classic work of that type is, of course, Sir James Frazer’s
The Golden Bough.”
I stared at him. “Is it difficult to understand?” I asked, adding apologetically. “I only finished high school.”
“In parts,” Mr. Gillhoff said, “but it’s fascinating reading, just the same. Frazer doesn’t concentrate on fairy tales, of course.”
“That’s fine,” I said, thinking that though Colette did rather seem like an evil witch queen from a fairy tale—at least as I envisioned her—that couldn’t really be the case. “Mythology and legends. That sounds promising.”
“And magic,” Mr. Gillhoff said, almost as an afterthought. “Frazer considered magic an important part of the entire picture because it was how ‘primitive’ people tried to control their environment.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering if Stan would mind having a book on magic in the house, then thinking he probably wouldn’t. Then I had another thought. “Is the book very expensive?”
“Not at all,” Mr. Gillhoff assured me. “Frazer’s work has been in print a long time, through many editions. I can sell you a used copy of the abridged edition—that’s as much as you’ll want at first, I think, for a few dollars.”
He went to find me a copy while I browsed, and when he came back, he had two other volumes with him. They were quite thick.
“I ordered these for a customer who later decided he didn’t want them. They might interest you. They’re essentially a dictionary listing symbols, images, and people from myth and legend. None of the entries are very long, but they might help you get through Frazer—give you something to cross-reference when he refers to someone you’ve never heard of.”
I looked, knowing already that I wanted those books, but dreading what they would cost.
“How much?” I asked.
The figure he named was much lower than I had envisioned.
“I’m willing to sell them to you at the publisher’s discounted price,” Mr. Gillhoff explained. “You’re saving me sending them back and waiting for a refund.”
I didn’t quite believe him. I knew kindness when I heard it, but I accepted his price anyhow. I wanted those books, and I could just stretch my allowance to meet the price, especially if I went without a few of my usual indulgences.
I dove into the Frazer as soon as I got home, and instantly found myself overwhelmed. Who was Adonis? What was this about a priesthood of Diana? Hadn’t Diana been a Roman goddess—one of the virgin ones? Wouldn’t she have had priestesses? I turned to the mythology dictionary with something like relief and when next I looked up, an hour had passed in browsing.
Hurrying into the kitchen, I propped the book on the counter while I cut vegetables for dinner. This time I was more efficient. I turned directly to “Mirror,” and to my delight found a long entry.
In its own way, it was nearly as cryptic as Frazer. Single words indicating things mirrors were apparently symbols of or associated with were listed, among them a few I thought might apply to Colette. “Courtesan” and “vanity” leapt out at me. I saw that my guess had been right, that mirrors did have a long tradition of being associated with divination. There was a final listing of more specific important mirrors, important to magic.
I wondered if Colette had mirrors she used for magic. I wondered if that was what Mr. Hart had meant when he called her the Queen of Mirrors.
I wondered, too, if I was crazy to even think such a thing.