The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen - Delia Sherman [22]
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me about Bl—”
Espresso’s hand clamped over my mouth. “Don’t! Just don’t.”
I wiggled my eyebrows to show I wouldn’t. Espresso withdrew her hand. “What’s with you guys?”
“We don’t want to take any chances,” Stonewall explained. “Saying her name might call her up. She usually appears in mirrors, but lots of things reflect. Liquids, picture glass.” He glanced up at the bowling dwarfs.
“The changelings from Spanish Harlem call her the Angry One,” Mukuti said helpfully.
“Okay, tell me about the Angry One.”
Everybody leaned in real close and whispered at me, more or less at once.
“She’s a nightmare.”
“She comes out of the mirror and rips your face off.”
“She scratches you with her long claws.”
“She kills you dead.”
Most bogeys just hide under your bed and moan. My stomach felt cold. “Why summon her, then?”
Stonewall sat back. “She’s supposed to show you your future, if you stay alive long enough to ask.”
“If she even shows up in the first place,” Danskin added. “She’s not exactly predictable.”
I took a mouthful of dirty milk and examined my choices. If I backed out of Tiffany’s challenge, I’d be safe. And Tiffany would have some new names to call me, like “coward” and “dealbreaker.” I’d rather risk having my face ripped off. Especially since I didn’t think it would really happen. If Tiffany thought she could handle this Bloody Angry Mary person, then I could, too.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine what?” Danskin asked. “Fine you’re going to tell her you changed your mind?”
“Fine, I’m going through with it. If I don’t go through with it, Tiffany will get even more unbearable than she already is.”
Chapter 7
RULE 653: STUDENTS MUST NOT INVOLVE THEMSELVES IN INTER-FOLK CONFLICTS WITHOUT A TUTOR’S SUPERVISION.
Miss Van Loon’s Big Book of Rules
“Well, you certainly can’t wear it to the Equinox Reel.”
Astris smoothed the skirt of my spidersilk dress. It was ripped where I’d caught it on a branch falling out of the mulberry tree that morning.
“I thought spidersilk was the strongest cloth there is,” I complained.
“It was made with summer magic,” Astris said. “The strength’s gone out of it.”
I fingered the soft material sadly. The dress had survived all the wear and tear of a magical quest without so much as a rip or a wrinkle. Now, one lousy tumble off a not-very-high branch and the skirt was in shreds. Plus, the spidersilk had lost its glow and the leaves and flowers woven into it had turned brown and brittle.
“Don’t worry,” Astris said soothingly. “A fairy godmother can always come up with something to wear to a dance—it’s what we do, after all.”
I ran upstairs, changed into jeans, and ran down again, expecting a ball gown. What I got was dinner. While I was eating roast chicken, mushroom pie, and peas from Satchel, Astris nibbled cheese and told me about her afternoon boating with Mr. Rat. Just as I was about to burst with impatience, she handed me a silver walnut.
“Oh, wow, Astris. A Dress Silver as the Moon!”
Astris’s whiskers twitched. “I found that walnut at the back of a drawer. Judging from the state it was in, it’s been there a lot longer than a year and a day. There might be nothing inside but dust.”
The nut didn’t so much crack as disintegrate. One minute, I was holding a nut; the next my hands and arms were overflowing with fabric, heavy, slippery, and cold.
“Well, it’s not dust, at any rate,” Astris said.
The dress was a kind of dull iridescent pewter color with black streaks, and it smelled sharp and acrid. “It’s more like a Dress Gray as Rain.”
“Once something magical tarnishes, it’s never quite the same,” Astris said. “Do you want to try it on?”
We struggled with the mass of slithery fabric, looking for the top and the sleeves and then fitting me into them. The dress rustled and sighed, stretching and shrinking so it would fit me. When it was still, I spun around. The skirt belled out, then slapped heavily shut around my legs.
“Well?” I asked anxiously. “How do I look?”
“It’s a dress fit for a debutante,