Jenna Leigh Design Co.

This story is inspired by the works of C.S. Lewis, particularly The Great Divorce, which I had just read when the idea for this story came to me. The question that sparked the idea was this: “What would it be like if we really knew what people think of us?” This is not a pure allegory, but some aspects of it are. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it makes you think. Stay tuned for Part 3! If you’d like to know whenever I publish a new blog post, feel free to subscribe to my email list.

The Mirror

I didn’t know why we were running until I looked back and saw an armed guard chasing us. He was gaining, too, but as we came around the corner of the tower we ran through another part of the line, and in all the jostling and confusion he lost us.

“Where are you taking me?” said I, in between breaths.

“I told you, I’m taking you to the tower.”

Several people in the line next to us gave us hard glances.

“If you’re not in line, scram,” said a woman with glasses. “Hah!” she added, under her breath but loud enough to be heard. “He thinks there’s another way in.”

Once we were out of earshot, I asked, “Is there another way in?”

“Oh, of course,” said my strange guide. “The only reason they want you in through the front door is that they want you to sign the paper.”

“Oh,” I said, no less confused.

“Look,” he said, pointing at the ground. A square wooden door lay before us, slightly raised on one side where the earth rose steeply upward, about a stone’s throw from the tower. “This way.”

And he opened the door, gesturing me into the darkness.

Before I stepped in, I asked him: “How can I trust you?”

He sighed. “You can trust me because I’ve walked the path you nearly took, and I’ve passed through to the other side. It is my dearest wish in this life that by sharing my sufferings, I might somehow spare others from the pain that I endured. Your journey has just begun. You came to a fork in the road, and you chose wisely, much more wisely than I did. Against the urgings of all the others, you chose the untrodden path. Now perhaps your own footsteps will guide the way for another.” He held out his hand. “My name is Lewis. Please, after you.”

We descended into the dark.

Lewis lit a lantern, and I examined my cramped surroundings. We were in a tunnel of sorts—hardly tall enough to stand up in, but wide enough to contain dozens of trunks and boxes of every shape and size, which were stacked against the stone walls in a haphazard fashion.

“This is the cellar,” said Lewis, whispering though it was just the two of us. “Follow me.”

We crept along for a few minutes in silence. I kept looking behind me, for I had the feeling of being watched, but beyond the light from the lantern the shadows were too thick to penetrate.

“Here.” Lewis handed me the lantern and reached up to the ceiling, drawing down a trapdoor exactly like the one through which we had entered. He climbed up, and after handing him the lantern, I did the same.

I found myself standing in a musty, ill-lit room, unused by the look and smell of it. Whatever objects or furniture it contained were covered by canvas cloths, and they formed clusters of lumpy, indiscernible shapes in every corner.

A single door faced us on the other side of the room.

“Come.”

I followed Lewis toward it and, putting a finger to his lips, he opened it just a crack and peered through.

“All clear,” he said, and beckoned me onward.

Beyond the door was a hallway with many adjoining doors on either side. Lewis hurried over to one—three doors down on the left—and I followed him.

Voices drifted down the hallway.

“In, quickly!” said Lewis, and we darted through the door, bolting it fast behind us.

Once again the lantern illuminated our close, dark quarters. The door opened directly to a stairwell, in which there were no windows, and blindly we began climbing. Our steps echoed, despite our best efforts to tread lightly, and I knew we must be climbing to the very top, for the stair wound straight up without stopping and the ceiling was very high.

“Lewis,” I whispered, and my voice thundered in the quiet.

He stopped and looked back at me. “Yes?”

“Are you sure we won’t be caught?”

He nodded firmly. “We will try very hard not to be.”

By the time we reached the top, my lungs were crying for air. Lewis paused before the door.

“There’s always a few seconds between each person. We should have just enough time to run in and hide.”

“Hide where?”

But he was listening with his ear to the door, and a moment later he jerked his head toward me, flung open the door, and slipped inside. 

“The curtains,” he told me quickly, and without another word we ran to the other side of the room, where thick drapes hung over windows which stretched halfway up the twenty-foot ceiling. In my haste I could not take a good look at the room, but I saw that it was circular, ornate, with some kind of marble pedestal in the center and nothing else.

Just as we settled ourselves behind the curtains, another door swung open, and I heard two people enter.

“Right this way, madam,” said one. I peered through the crack between the drapes and saw another man in uniform—one of the tower officials, it would seem.

“Thank you.” The other speaker was a woman who wore pearls and a high-collared dress.

The official gestured her toward the center of the room. “I will leave you in peace to behold the Great Wonder. When you’re finished, I will escort you out. Enjoy!”

He left the room with a bow, pulling the door shut behind him.

Slowly the woman approached the pedestal in the middle of the room. A wide, gleeful smile spread across her powdered face. As she drew near, she reached out her hand, seizing something which lay flat atop the pedestal.

I squinted, peering more closely. 

The woman held it up to her face. It was a mirror.

I glanced toward Lewis, but his eyes were fixed on the woman, and he motioned me to watch.

Almost in an instant, the glee on her face turned first to terror, then to horror. She stared at it for several seconds before her arm began trembling, and she threw the mirror aside with a loud, anguished cry. It skittered across the floor but did not break.

The woman staggered away from the pedestal, writhing; her hands clawed at her body; she wailed; she groaned. At last she fell to the floor, heaving for breath, her hair falling in stringy clumps across her face. 

The official walked in briskly, as if on cue. He seemed unperturbed by the grotesque attitude of the woman on the floor. Leaning down, he collected her, pulling her to her feet. As she rose, I caught a glimpse of her face, and a gasp escaped me.

Who—what—she was, I do not know, but she was hideous, indescribably dreadful. Her face was that of a creature I have only seen in my nightmares, and only seconds before, pleasant and powdered—

Lewis’s gaze shot daggers at me, and I froze.

The official’s head snapped up, and he looked around the room, eyes narrowed.

“Come on,” he said sharply to the woman. “I must take care of you first.”

The second they had disappeared, we ran for the stair.