Wilhelmina Through the Cracked Glass

Welcome to The Spot Writers. The prompt for this month is to write a story involving a mirror.

This week’s contribution comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara is an Italian author and currently lives in Berlin, Germany. She writes fiction, with a focus on children’s literature and science fiction.

 

 

Wilhelmina Through the Cracked Glass

by Chiara De Giorgi

Created with Canva

Elsa Mon, the beloved author of paranormal romance novels, was browsing through the stalls at the local flea market. She was looking for inspiration for her new novel, The Clock that Broke the Spell, in which a vampire in love with a witch had been cursed by his own family to forget her. The witch, annoyed that he didn’t recognize her anymore, had thrown an old cuckoo clock at his head. Between the blow from the edge of the little birdhouse and the cuckoo itself popping in and out seven times shouting “cuckoo!”, the vampire suddenly regained his memory and ran away with his witch. Only Elsa wasn’t quite sure about the cuckoo clock. She was certain it had to be some kind of antique object, the one that finally broke the curse of forgetfulness,  so the flea market was the right place to find the right idea. 

Among chipped teacups, oil paintings darkened by time, and yellowed lace bedspreads, Elsa spotted a mirror leaning against a vendor’s table. Long and oval, with a dark bronze frame and a thin crack running down the center, it immediately caught her eye.

She stopped in front of the mirror, mesmerized. She couldn’t look away, not even when she flipped the price tag and saw that it was outrageously expensive: it cost as much as two months of her intern salary at the Willow Gazette, the town newspaper—from which she had, incidentally, just been dismissed. With the bank breathing down her neck over the payments for the house she had inherited from her grandmother, and her only income coming from the creative writing class she taught three evenings a week at the library, it was definitely not the time for a reckless splurge. But that mirror… it seemed to be calling her.

“Forget it,” said a voice nearby. It came from a porcelain figurine of a horrible shepherdess carrying a basket full of flowers and a little lamb on her shoulders.

“Stranger! What are you doing here?” Elsa asked the figurine, which was in fact the Stranger, a magical creature that could take the form of anything or anyone it wished.

“Don’t take that mirror. It’s cracked down the middle. Seven years of trouble, guaranteed.”

“Oh, come on, such a silly superstition. This mirror is… magnetic. I can’t leave it here; it’s like it’s calling me.”

“Then it’s more than seven years of trouble, I’m telling you. When a mirror calls you, there’s always something shady going on. And anyway… weren’t you looking for an object for your novel about the vampire and the witch? A mirror is hardly the best choice; your cursed vampire can’t even see his reflection!”

“It doesn’t matter. The cuckoo clock will do. I don’t care. The only thing I want is to take this mirror home.”

The Stranger huffed. “Do as you please. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

It wasn’t easy for Elsa to carry that old mirror home by herself. The Stranger had transformed into a dragonfly and bailed on her. 

Once home, Elsa propped it up in the living room and went to change into her pajamas. It was only five in the afternoon, but Elsa Mon always did her best in pajamas.

When she returned to the living room and saw the mirror, her heart skipped a beat. It reflected the image of a woman, but there was no one there. Then she burst out laughing and shook her head.

“Stranger! For a moment there, you really had me.”

“I’m right here,” replied the Stranger, in the form of a calendar hanging on the wall.

“But… if you’re here… who’s inside the mirror?”

“Don’t make me say, I told you so.”

Elsa stepped closer to the mirror. The woman staring back at her looked a little lost.

“Who are you?” Elsa asked.

“Oh! You can see me? Finally!” the reflection sighed with relief. “For centuries I’ve wandered from mirror to mirror, hoping to stumble across a kindred soul. I’m Wilhelmina, pleased to meet you.”

“Um… welcome…” Elsa said, unsure how to react. The calendar on the wall refused to help: it was sulking.

“Thank you! Come on now, quickly, get me out!”

“Of course, I… I’ll get you out… Just a moment, I need to consult with my, uh, calendar…”

Elsa took the calendar off the wall and carried it into the kitchen.

“Stranger!” she whispered. “What should I do? Help me!”

The Stranger transformed into a rubber duck and stayed silent.

“Come on, don’t sulk! I need you! Seriously! And Wilhelmina needs you too.”

The rubber duck replied, “Ugh, how should I know? I’m not a spirit. Take her to the Squatters and ask them for help.”

“Right!” exclaimed Elsa, smacking her forehead with her hand. The Squatters were a friendly community of spirits living in the haunted house just outside Willow, the small town where Elsa lived. “Will you help me carry the mir—”

The rubber duck took off and flew out the open window.

Sighing, Elsa hoisted the mirror onto her shoulder and carried it to the haunted house.

 ***

“Mmmh, how interesting,” remarked Sister Elena of Cremona, inspecting the mirror from top to bottom.

“Yes, fine, but are you going to get me out or not?” complained Wilhelmina.

“Not so fast!” declared the nun. “First, you must tell us who you are and why your spirit is trapped inside a mirror.”

“I was a witch, back in my day,” Wilhelmina replied. “They arrested me, but while they were taking me to the square to burn me at the stake, I tripped and rolled down a hill. Since my hands were tied behind my back, I couldn’t stop, and I reached the bottom with a broken neck. Oh well, better that than the stake, no complaints there. But I landed on the shards of a broken mirror, my spirit entered it, and since then I’ve been wandering from mirror to mirror, looking for someone who could set me free. Your Elsa is the first one who’s ever seen me. You don’t count, of course—you’re spirits.”

“Mmmh,” Sister Elena said again, pondering. “I need some holy water for a kind of exorcism. But I finished it on my last… well, never mind.”

“Why not use this?” suggested Olga, the retired Russian assassin and Sister Elena’s best friend. She handed the nun a bottle of vodka.

“You think it’ll work?”

“Absolutely!”

Sister Elena shrugged and opened the bottle. Then she began spraying vodka over the mirror, dancing around it and chanting words in Latin. Olga joined in her exorcising dance, while Elsa watched with eyes full of question marks. Had she really done the right thing entrusting Wilhelmina’s eternal fate to this band of weirdoes?

Her question was answered when Sister Elena and Olga collided, sending the mirror flying. A moment later, Wilhelmina was shouting ten different things from ten different shards.

The shouting drew the rest of the Squatters, who immediately began arguing at the top of their voices, each suggesting possible solutions.

“Bring me two bolts and some Teflon tape! I’ve got this!” boomed Tony the plumber, who never missed a chance to remind everyone that, when he was alive, he’d unclogged Al Capone’s toilet.

Elsa was growing more and more worried for the poor witch who had put her trust in her.

“Everybody stop!” she shouted loud enough to rise above the noise. When silence finally fell, and even the ten Wilhelminas had stopped sobbing in their Scottish accents, Elsa picked up the largest shard and smiled at the woman on the other side of the glass.

“You called me. No one else for centuries. Clearly, I’m the one who has the power to set you free from this broken mirror.” After a moment, she asked, “Wilhelmina the witch, do you want to be free?”

Wilhelmina shouted “Yes!” at the top of her lungs, and a second later, she was standing right beside Elsa.

The Squatters erupted in cheers, and Olga and Sister Elena were the first to personally congratulate Wilhelmina and invite her to join them.

Wilhelmina winked at Elsa. “Now, let’s talk about your novel. Honestly, throwing a cursed cuckoo clock at a vampire? Totally ineffective. Try hitting him with a rocking chair instead. Works every time.”

 

 

 

The Spot Writers:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/