V.

Usually, Death comes when you least expect him. But he also answers to your call.

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The mirror is like some horribly murky lake, bottomless and lightless. Any moment, a fish with bulging, pale eyes and teeth too big for its mouth could swim from the darkness, and Clara would scream because that fish would be her.

Really, the mirror is dark because the curtains in the room are drawn. But Clara doesn’t open them, because that would ruin it.

There’s a story that Anna tells Tup, about the skeleton kids. Clara doesn’t know if it’s true or false; either way, it’s stupid. How it goes is this: the skeleton kids were once normal kids, waiting in purgatory. They had been in there so long that they had all but rotted away. Well, when they climbed up to earth to take a look around, their souls flew away from them because their was no flesh to keep them inside, just ribcages. And it’s pretty damn easy, believe me, Anna would say, for a soul to escape from a ribcage.

So the skeleton kids had lost their souls. You could see the glowing lights floating at night, drifting through the forest like fireflies. And, sometimes, if you looked very hard, you could see the skeleton kids chasing after them, trying in vain to catch their souls.

But it was one thing to lose your soul, as you might lose a puppy or a left sock. It was another thing to drive it out with spurs and burning torches.

The more Clara stares at the mirror, the more its presence grows, until it seems almost alive, the terrible, blank eye of a beast reflecting an even blanker and more terrible beast. Sidling sideways, keeping her eyes on that great abyss, she covertly opens the drawer of the nightstand. Her hand closes around the revolver inside. Quick as lightning, she draws the gun up so it’s pointing at the black, blank mirror.

She fumbles with the hammer and triggering, muttering, “How do you use this thing?”

It goes off. There’s loudness for an instant, a shattering noise, and the mirror is a spiderweb of cracks. Two shards of glass fall to the floor with a chink.

“Oh, my,” she says. “My, my. What an incredible machine.”

A strange thought comes to her mind. Old Jam Camphor, she remembers, was the drunk who told her father about the outlaws running from Branders. Of course, her father had wanted to go after them, because he was a good man.

She cradles the revolver in her hands like it’s her own darling child, and wonders, and wishes. And then she hears a voice behind her.

“Well, was it you askin’ for me?”

She whirls around, and screams. The man she sees is skeletal and half-rotted away, one eye loosely fitted in its socket, all of his teeth spread in a Glasgow smile, and dressed in riding gear that is no real color at all.

“Didn’t make much of an entrance,” he admits, sounding embarrassed (but perhaps it’s just irony). “Now, appearin’ in the mirror, and then steppin’ out when it shattered, that woulda been pretty slick, don’t ya think?”

She doesn’t stop screaming, and throws the gas lamp at him.

“Now listen here, ma’am. I haven’t got much time, so you’d better make it clear what it is you want, okay?” He stretches out his hand to her, and it’s just bone with bits of skin clinging to it.

Then Clara remembers that she’s holding a revolver. She expends the five remaining bullets, two hitting the wall, and three passing through him like sand.

“Well, if that’s how you feel about it, I might’s well not waste my time,” he drawls, stepping up on the windowsill. “Though I got a feelin’ I’ll be seein’ you soon.”

She tries to scream again, but it comes out as a hiccuping sob. He’s opened the window, and she wonders at this apparition that doesn’t disappear in the sunlight.

“See you then,” he says, with a slight incline of his head and a tip of his hat. “At the Crossroads.”

And then he is gone.

Clara puts a hand to her heart, and can feel it fluttering. The revolver lies on the floor, empty of bullets. Light pours into the room, making her eyes ache, because the curtains on the window are drawn back all the way.

“Oh, it is insanity, isn’t it?” she murmurs, and throws herself on the bottom bunk.

Do you know where the Crossroads are, the broken mirror seems to say.

It was six o’clock in the morning on Saturday, still dark, and all seven of Sophia’s brothers and sisters were sleeping soundly. But she was awake; there was no chance of her going back to sleep now. Down the stairs she went, on tiptoe, enjoying the silence of the house and pushing thoughts of pre-dawn monsters out of her head.

Sophia was almost always first up. She had curly brown hair, dark eyes, and was almost the youngest, except for Tasia. She liked doing things for herself, so, after looking at a few picture books, she decided to make some breakfast. With three years tucked under her belt, she thought it would be pretty easy. She was wrong.

The first thing she wanted to make was eggs. Sophia loved eggs, especially the way her nanny Mary made them. Not only that, but it was fun to cook eggs, to watch them sizzle and pop.

She opened the fridge and found the egg carton. It was a bit heavier than she expected, but she managed to place it on the floor. (Sophia knew that Mary and Dad and the big kids cooked on the counter and stove, but she was too little to reach) But as she opened the carton and picked out a nice, white egg, she realized she could not remember how it was that Mary did it. She knew that the egg sizzled and popped and the clear part turned white, but she was not quite sure how it happened. After a little consideration, she thought, To make an egg you have to to crack it. I know that.

So Sophia cracked the egg. On the floor, of, course; the counter was much too high. And there was the egg, spilled out on the floor, but it wasn’t sizzling or popping or turning white. The only part that looked at all right was the yolk.

Sophia found another egg. If it didn’t work the first time, maybe it would work the second. She cracked it open, less carefully than the first, and the clear fluid and yellow yolk spilled out. Now, she may have forgotten how to cook good eggs, but she remembered one thing: raw eggs were slimy, and tasted nasty. And she was angry at the nasty raw eggs for not turning into nice cooked eggs like they were supposed to.

Maybe it only works if you crack it on the counter, she thought. This was a frustrating thought, since the counter was so uncomfortably high. She picked out a third egg and looked at it gloomily. Then she had an inspiration; she could throw the egg at the counter. Sophia had never seen Mary throw an egg before, but at this point, she was willing to try anything. Swish went the egg into the air, and crack! it hit the edge of the counter. The raw egg plopped down to the floor.

Sophia watched it carefully for any signs of sizzling or popping or turning white. But the nasty raw egg just sat on the floor, looking more and more not cooked the more she looked at it. Now she was mad, really mad. She picked up the egg carton, three round white eggs left inside, and tipped them out onto the floor.

Crack! Crack! Splat! went them all, and Sophia, her vengeance satiated, decided that if eggs were not going to work, then cereal would have to do. She knew that cereal was easy because even Janae who was six could make it.

It wasn’t difficult to find a box of Honey-Nut Cheerios in the pantry, but the milk was a different matter. Only because it was half-full was Sophia able to drag it out of the fridge onto the floor. Panting and sweating, she sat down, trying to remember how to make cereal. Well, she thought, first you have to pour the cereal. 

So she poured the cereal. The Honey-Nut Cheerios mounded up on the kitchen tiles. Already Sophia had an inkling there was something not quite right, but she had been denied her breakfast too long to care about specifics. Next she poured the milk, which was much more difficult. She ended up just tipping the container over and spilling the milk all over the floor, but some of it spilled into the Cheerios. Which ought to work, Sophia thought.

But it didn’t. There were the Cheerios, scattered on the floor, and there was the milk, running all over the kitchen and filling the cracks between tiles, but still it did not look like how cereal ought to look. And then it dawned on her. A bowl! Of course, that was what she needed. 

But, oh, the unfairness of the world. The bowls were in the high kitchen cupboards, even higher than Mary could reach—Dad altitude. Just my luck, thought Sophia.

But in the end Sophia got her breakfast. Janae and Eric woke up an hour later, and everyone had some waffles. Janae spilled a little syrup on her chair, but no so much, only enough that her waffle got stuck to it. Then they all played Nest, which was gathering all the blankets and pillows into a big pile and then jumping inside.

After a long while, some of the older kids came downstairs. They seemed very, very angry that there were eggs and cereal on the floor. And Dad looked especially tired when he woke up that morning.

But Sophia didn’t really understand why. She had just wanted to make some breakfast.

Note: I remember waking up one morning and finding such a mess in the kitchen that I went back upstairs instead of trying to clean it up. This story is inspired by that day, when Sophia's weekly attempts to make breakfast early on a Saturday mounted to the biggest mess yet. Later on, when she was about eight, Sophia described her “breakfast-making” thought process to me: how she felt as a three-year-old trying to make her own food. I elaborated a bit, but it is all based on what she told me.

It woke to tumbleweeds and mesquite and the sound of wind that has traveled for miles without touching human life. The sand and the rocks, dry as the thing itself, stretched to the horizon.

The thing became aware of its limbs, head, and fingers, and figured out how to work them. It shook the dust off of itself, and discovered that the right half of itself was a set of disjointed bones loosely connected by an outer shell of thin, peeling skin. The other half was made of a complex network of wires, circuits, and mechanical parts. The thing took this into consideration, and then set about the business of learning how to stand.

As it was just discovering that its legs bent at the knee, it became suddenly aware of a ferocious scrabbling inside of itself. This was a most unpleasant sensation, and the thing immediately thrust its hand into its chest, breaking the skin, going in between the ribs where the feeling was coming from.

There is something Else inside of me, the thing realized. It was not sure it liked the idea.

The thing grabbed at the something Else, but in vain, writhing as the something Else scurried from its rib cage to its neck and head. The thing, desperate to get the something Else out of its body, slid its hand out of its ribs, and tore away the skin covering the hole in its skull.

The something Else paused a moment, but then, finally, crawled out of the thing's skull.

The thing sighed in relief. Then, curiosity overcame it. It turned its head, wondering what sort of creature this something Else was. At first, it did not see the something Else, because it was the same color as the sand and dust, but as it made out the shape, it noted a long tail, four limbs with three clawed fingers each, and a fat, triangular head. The something Else was oriented on to move on its belly, not to move while standing vertically like the thing.

You need to be called something, thought the thing, To distinguish you from me. The something Else licked its lips in response.

The thing thought for a while, its left side making soft mechanical whirs, its ride side silent as death. Then, as an experiment, it turned a certain circuit in its left side, and was surprised by a strange hissing sound. It soon discovered that the circuit blew air through the teeth on his right side, making this sound that was both pleasant and unpleasant.

You, you something Else, are both pleasant and unpleasant, the thing thought. This sound shall be what you are called.

It made the sound again, and the something Else jerked its head up as if it was listening.

I think, the thing thought, I need a sound, too.

Such was the first step into a marvelous world. As the thing decided on its name, it stood, and walked out into the desert.