Chapter 20

By the time I get to Belle of the Ball, I can see and think very clearly. Clear as a bell. Just like my name, Belle. Just like my shop, Belle of the Ball. There's Mother in the shop glass. Mother, I'm so glad you're here. To be honest, I thought you left me there back in my bedroom, left me for your garden world. I wouldn't have blamed you. But it's good to see you here in the window display, and look, you took your pretty garden with you. Wearing a dress red as its flowers, just like I am, the same red shoes to match. I chose it after Tad left me to get some fruit for a juice I don't even need to drink. And he never came back, can you believe that? Mother can't. Once more, she's shaking her head just as I'm shaking mine. Or is it something else you can't believe, Mother? Mother, why do you look so horrified?

Then I see, of course. Why she looks horrified.

There's something else in the window display, something else with Mother in her garden. A horrible obstruction that hurts my eyes like the light. Hurts Mother's eyes too, it looks like. A row of gray headless… are they scarecrows? Garden statues? They look like corpses. Standing all around you, Mother, oh god. Almost as if on ghoulish display. Each one backlit and wearing some sort of sack dress and… is it chunky silver jewelry? I know it sounds crazy. Because who would do something like that, right? Mother, no wonder you look so upset. What are these wretched creatures? They must be statues. And yet they look so much like corpses, I can't help but whisper to them: When was the beheading? And why wasn't I here, protecting you from the guillotine? Who dressed you in these fashion sacks? Who put chunky silver jewelry around your necks like chains?

Thank god I'm here now. Have to fix this immediately, right, Mother? Put the Belle back in Belle of the Ball where she should be.

"Can I help you?" says a voice. A woman poking her head out of the shop door. Grim face. Fish eyes. Red glasses hanging from a red chain around her neck. She looks a little afraid of me, like Tad did.

"Can I help you?" she repeats. Which is funny. Because we're the ones who work here, aren't we, Mother?

"We should really be the ones asking you that, Esther," I say to her, and smile. She has a name tag, that's helpful.

Esther looks around, confused. We? She must not see that I'm with you, Mother. She must not see you in the shop glass or she must think we're one and the same. We look so much like each other today, it's true. Esther doesn't seem to see very well. Completely immune to the abomination in the window display.

"How can we help you, Esther?" we say in our best salesperson voice. I say it; Mother mouths it along with me in the shop glass with her very red lips. We make the delight drip.

"I work here," Esther says.

She does? Oh god, then things are even more not pretty than I thought. Mother, did we really hire this woman? With the dead-fish eyes and the resting bitch face, who's scared of Beauty? But we can't let on that we forgot her.

"Of course you do." We smile. "Sorry we're late, Esther."

"Late?" Esther says. "How can you be late? You don't even work—"

"We were pursuing our Most Magnificent Selves," I say. "But we went a little too far with the mists. You know how it is." Probably Esther doesn't, but it's always good to banter with your staff like this. "First chokeberry blossoms, then Orpheus flowers… the ocean of your mind roaring along with the chimes." I laugh and Mother smiles. "Always trauma—I mean tricky to get out the door, isn't it? But we're here now. We're here to sever. Serve of course." And we bow like we don't own the place. "Have we been bury? Busy?"

Esther just stares at me. She's standing in the doorway sort of blocking our way to the shop. "I'm not really supposed to let you in, Mirabelle. I'm sorry."

I look at Mother in the shop glass. She's horrified. Just as horrified as I feel, she looks.

"Not supposed to let us in? To our shop? Esther, that's crazy. You need us now more than ever." I squeeze by her, making my way inside. But Esther's dogging my heels. She scurries past me and runs behind the counter as if to block me from it, can you believe this, Mother? I look up at Mother in the mirror behind the register. She can't believe it either.

I turn to Esther and smile. "Why don't you go on your lunch break?" It would really be best to get her out of the way for the plans we have. Not necessary, but best.

"Sylvia says I'm supposed to be on the floor," Esther says, hands on the counter.

Sylvia?Who the hell is Sylvia? "Well it can be our little secret. I won't tell if you won't, Esther."

"I can't. Sylvia said."

"Esther, do we really need to do everything ‘Sylvia' says in this life?"

Esther says nothing. She reaches for something under the counter. A gun? A phone. She's texting something quickly, what is she texting, Mother? Making me nervous, but in the mirror, Mother looks just fine in her garden. She's picking red flowers now. Gathering them into a basket crooked in her arm. A pretty black bird alights on her shoulder and they appear to be singing to each other softly. You're right, Mother. It's not for us to be nervous. If anything, Esther should be nervous. Texting on the floor in front of her bosses like this.

"If you want to stay here and text, you go right ahead," I tell Esther. "We'll just wander around the floor." In the glass, I see Mother's already starting to drift away along the mirrored walls of the shop. Mother, wait!

"I think you better stay here at the register with me," Esther shouts limply.

"Oh, we can't have three of us crowded behind that register. That would be such a waste." I walk away from her, my red shoes leading me along. And in the glass along the shop wall, Mother's red shoes are doing the same.

"Where are you going?"

"Here and there." But we know exactly where we're going, right, Mother? Mother knows. Mother's already far ahead.

"Sylvia says we're not supposed to change anything!" Esther blurts after me, almost like she anticipates our plans.

"Does she?" I sing over my shoulder. "How interesting." And then I run to the display window. Why do I feel like I need to do this in a hurry? I don't really. Not doing anything illegal. This is our shop, isn't it? We've let it fall into the wrong hands, obviously. Hired Esther for some reason, what were we thinking? And now this woman Sylvia to contend with, apparently. Where have we even been? Don't know, isn't that funny? Anyway, we're here now. To put things back, to make things right.

Mother's already there in the window glass, waiting. Smiling at me among her tall red flowers, though she's surrounded by such violence again. Her smile says, Surely you know what you have to do here.

Of course I do, Mother.

First things first: get rid of these gray headless monstrosities. I say monstrosities because when I look at them straight on, I see they're just ugly dress forms. And yet when I look in the window glass where Mother is, they're most definitely corpses. So which are they, Mother? Dress forms or corpses? Mother's face says potato potahto, and I have to agree in this case. The point is really to get them out of her garden. So I topple them—one, two, three. Because they're already dead, they don't feel a thing. I gather one of them into my arms. Surprisingly light and silvery she is. I'll have to bury her, all of them, somewhere, I guess, right? Or should I call the undertaker? Who is your next of kin, ladies? But that's such an absurd question. How can they possibly answer it? They don't have lips because they don't have heads. And dead on top of that, remember? Can't forget.

"Mirabelle!"

I turn to find a little blond woman standing behind me. Clutching her pearls. Looking aghast. Of course we would have a customer pestering us just now. Always when you're in the middle of something.

"Just a moment, please. We'll be right with you, okay?"

The woman just gapes at me. She's looking at me like she knew me once (I must have severed her before) and she can hardly recognize me now. "My god, Mira." She shakes her head. "Is that really you? You look…," but she doesn't finish that thought. Her mouth just stays open. Taken aback by the Glow, I suppose. Our Brightening—or is it our Lift?—has cut out her tongue. Not very nice or polite, but that's retail. Sometimes you have to finish people's sentences. Sometimes their thoughts.

"Thank you. I'd tell you my secret, but here's the thing: everyone's Journey is different. Very perilous. Personal," I whisper. "So what works for me may not work for you and so forth." Right, Mother?

But when I look in the window glass, I just see the garden. A black bird sitting on the basket of red flowers. Mother, where did you go?

"Mirabelle," the woman says, and closes her eyes. "What the hell is going on here?"

A nosy one, I guess. Some customers are. "Just doing some deranging in my shop."

"Your shop? Your shop!"

"It didn't always look like this, promise. We've had some real issues with staff lately, but we're sorting them out, definitely."

"I need you to get out of that window display now."

"Well, as you can see, you've caught me at a bit of an awkward time." And I hold up my headless corpse. "But I'll be with you in just a minute, all right? Unless maybe you'd like to purchase one of these dress sacks? Take them off our hands? We're having a sale, just announced. And I see you're already a fan." She's wearing one, the little woman. Swallowed by an asymmetrical sea of slate.

"Mirabelle, this has gone too far. Far too far, do you understand?"

"Oh have you soured on the sack, then? Can't say I blame you. They're not very pretty, are they? Not my idea," I whisper. "I think some person named Sylvia is responsible. Probably she was the one who severed you. I'm very sorry. I wouldn't trust her in the future, not a drop. I think she also may be responsible for this," I say, pointing to the corpses. "Call it a hunch. Now I have to go bury them in the basement I didn't know we had, can you believe this job? Retail. Not for the faint of heart." And I laugh. Mother isn't here to laugh with me just now. So I laugh for both of us because it's really very funny. Retail. I know she'd laugh if she were here.

But the little woman doesn't laugh with me. "Listen, I know you're grieving. And I know grieving can be difficult but—"

"Grieving? Oh no, I hardly know them." I smile sadly.

"Mira, I really think you need to see someone, do you hear me? Talk to someone. If not me, then someone else. Who can help you."

"Help us?" That's very funny too. Makes me laugh again all by myself. Because it's this woman, clearly, who needs all the help she can get. If only Mother would come back from her wandering in the other world, she could explain for both of us. That we don't need any help. "That's silly. When we're supposed to be helping you. Speaking of which, I'll just go into the back room and see if I can find something for you there." And when I step forward with the corpse in my arms, the little blond woman backs away immediately. She looks very afraid. Understandable. Retail, like Beauty, can be scary sometimes.

When I get to the stockroom, what I see makes me drop the corpse: my sisters. Alone in a dark corner. Stripped of their lovely clothes, their finery. They used to be out front in the display window, I remember. Now imprisoned back here. Standing still as you please, the picture of elegance even in their fallen state. I know they're my sisters because they look exactly like Mother. And Mother looks exactly like me. Of course, Mother's not here just now. But when she comes back and sees us all together, she'll smile at how we all have the same Brightness.

"Sisters," I say, and I curtsy before them, "I'm so sorry you were left here in the dark. I'm so sorry I didn't rescue you sooner. I don't know what witch put you back here, but I have an idea who it might be. Don't worry, I'm here now. I've taken the corpses out of the window. I'm putting you back out on display where you belong."

But what will they wear?I think. Oh look, here are some dresses, hanging on a rack. Dresses we used to sell that we apparently don't sell anymore. Dresses of silver and of gold. Dresses of starry midnight and dresses white as snow shimmering under the sun. I dress one sister in gold, one in starry black, one in silver. And me wearing a dress red as blood completes the picture. My sisters smile at me with their eyes. Thank you so much, Sister, they seem to say. Their golden irises come alive. Their red lips, too. Oh Mother, I wish you could see.

"Mirabelle," screams someone behind me. That pesky blond woman again. Looking even more outraged and afraid than before. That's right, I was supposed to help her find a dress. But this is far more important, sorry. These are my sisters, after all. "I'm sorry but your dress is just going to have to wait. This is a family emergency, I'm afraid."

She looks at me gripping my sister's shoulder. "Mirabelle, please. If you just leave now, I promise I won't press charges, okay? I won't file a complaint. I'd hate to do that given my friendship with your… given everything. But if you don't leave right now, if you continue to harass my staff and terrorize my customers and destroy my merchandise, you'll be tying my hands. Do you understand that?"

Herstaff? Her merchandise? And it hits me. This woman isn't a customer. She's the infamous Sylvia herself. The one who beheaded the corpses, who locked my sisters in this back room. And now she seems to think this is her shop, can you believe this, Mother? Mother's gone, must remember. When I look in the nearest mirror, there's no one in the glass, just the garden that looks nearly underwater now. The flowers seeming to sway like sea flowers on a seafloor. The sky is a blue of light-filled water. And Mother nowhere in this ocean world. But she'll come back, surely? I look at my sisters. Won't she?

They stare at me with their eyes so golden and sorrowful.

"Mirabelle, did you—?"

"Sylvia, if anyone should be pressing charges, it's me. You've destroyed my shop, my family." I wrap my arm around one of my sisters tight. I look right at Sylvia, her mouth gaping at me. "I'm afraid you've given me no choice but to let you go."

"That's it," she roars. "I'm calling the police!"

She's about to storm out, but there's a man standing in the doorway, blocking her path. He's wearing a hat and a dark blue suit. He flashes something like a badge very quickly. "That won't be necessary."

"Speak of the devil," Sylvia says, wiping her eyes. I can feel her wondering if she summoned him with her thoughts. "Officer?"

The man nods imperceptibly. You could say he nodded or you could say he just stood there. He looks like he walked out of one of your old movies, Mother. His dewy face all shadows and sharp angles. A scar on his cheek curved like a hook. Familiar. Where have I seen him before?

"Officer, thank god, I was just going to call."

"What seems to be the trouble here?"

"Oh, this is so difficult. So very difficult." She sighs and shakes her head like it's all too much. "This," she says, gesturing at me, "is the daughter of a friend who passed away recently, you see. A dear friend. I don't want to press charges, but she's been harassing my staff, destroying merchandise. She gave one of our customers a nervous breakdown just the other day. And she seems to think she still works here."

He nods. "I'll take care of it. Belle?" Acting gruff, but there's a softness to how he looks at me, speaks my name. I see a rickety white bridge over the Pacific. A hotel room in the half-dark. The smell of whiskey and flowers and smoke. His face very close to my face, like he wanted to kill me. Kiss me? Wanted something, anyway.

"You're not going to arrest her, are you?" Sylvia says. "I don't want anything to happen to her, I just don't want her in the shop. I'm afraid she's not in her right mind. Maybe you could call a psychiatric hospital?" So concerned, when just a moment ago she was ready to throw me out of my own shop.

"That won't be necessary, Miss Holmes."

Sylvia raises her eyebrows. How does he know her name? "Have we…?"

"No, but I'm familiar. Belle, would you please come with me?" Gray eyes full of dark water. I know that his lips taste like roses—why do I know that? I don't necessarily want to go with him, but I also don't want to stay here with Sylvia. In the mirror, no Mother. No ocean garden anymore. Nothing now in the glass but my three sisters. Looking at me with their golden eyes. Myself standing between them, gripping one by the shoulder. There's a gray dress form on the floor at my feet. "I'm not leaving without my sisters," I say.

Sylvia looks at him like you see, you see?

The man ignores her. Stares at me. "So bring them along."