“You don’t seem to mind my price. So let me be quite clear: As soon as the vixen puts her first child into your arms, that child is mine. You can take your time with your payment, but pay you will.”
No.
No what, Jacob?
“Why should her first child be mine? We are friends, nothing more.”
Spieler now looked bemused, as though Jacob had tried to tell him the world was a flat disc. “Oh, please! You’re talking to an Elf. I know your most intimate wishes. It’s my business to fulfill them.”
“Name another price. Any other.” Jacob hardly recognized his own voice.
“Why should I? This is my price, and you will pay it. Your vixen will make beautiful children. I hope you don’t take too long.”
How love suddenly tasted of guilt, all wishes of treason. How clear one’s own desires become once they are made impossible. All the nonsense he’d convinced himself of—that he didn’t love her in that way, that his yearning didn’t really mean anything... Lies. He wanted her forever by his side; he wanted to be the only one in her life, the only one who mattered, the only one who’d give her children, the only one who’d see her grow old.
Never, Jacob. Forbidden. He’d sold his future. That he’d sold it to save her life was little consolation.
“Payment is due only in the world where the deal was struck.” It was a pathetic attempt.
“Into which I shall never return lest I want to be turned into a tree? Ah, yes. I’d forgotten about that small detail. But I have to disappoint you again. We shall return. Soon. Some of us, at least.”
The Elf stood by the window.
Get out of here, Jacob.
There were two doors. And then what? If the Elf was to be believed, they were on an island. There were a few islands in the East River, and swimming through those dangerous waters was not a very enticing prospect, especially with a broken arm.
Spieler had his back to Jacob. He was talking about the Fairies, about their vengefulness, about human ingratitude. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice. Who else would listen to him? He’d mentioned others. How many had escaped? Jacob’s eyes were drawn to a mirror leaning against the wall near the sculpture of the Elf frozen into the tree. The mirror was even larger than the one in his father’s study. The frame sprouted the same silver roses, though this one had magpies sitting among the thorny vines.
Spieler was still looking out the window, and the mirror was just a few steps away. Jacob reached it before the Elf could turn. The glass was as warm as an animal, but no matter how hard he pressed his hand over the reflection of his face, the mirror still showed the same room.
Spieler turned around.
“Even your kind can make a sheer endless number of all sorts of mirrors. Do you really believe we are any less inventive?” He went to the desk under the window and leafed through some papers. “Fairy and Alderelf. They once belonged together, like day and night. Did you know that? Our children were mortal, but always exceptional. They would be crowned, declared geniuses, revered as gods. In this world, we can have children with mortal women, but those are often shockingly mediocre.”
Jacob stayed standing in front of the mirror. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn away from it. It was as though the glass were peeling layers off his soul.
“It’s stealing your face,” he heard Spieler say. “Ironically, it was a mortal who came up with the idea to use our mirrors to create more reliable helpers than your kind seemed able to provide. Show yourself.”
The air in the room grew warmer, and the sunlight coming through the window broke around two figures of mirrored glass. The whole room was reflected in these figures—the white wall, the desk, the chair, the frame of the window. Their bodies became clearer as the faces took on the color of human skin and the reflections turned into clothes. The illusion was perfect, except for the hands. This time the girl wasn’t even wearing gloves: Glassy fingers with silver fingernails rose to touch Clara’s face. The boy by her side looked younger than Will, but who could tell how old they were?
“Just a few weeks old,” Spieler said.
Could the Alderelf read all his thoughts?
“You’ve met Sixteen. Seventeen has even more faces than she does, but I thought it might be useful to give him yours as well.”
Jacob pushed the girl away as she reached out to him. Her brother, if he could be called that, didn’t like it, but Spieler shot him a warning glance, and Seventeen’s body turned reflective again until it was as invisible as polished glass. Sixteen did the same, but only after giving Jacob a parting smile from Clara’s lips.
“It’s an interesting place, that hospital where I stole your brother’s bride’s face. A good place to watch Death at work. Mortality is such a mystery.” Spieler pulled a medallion from his pocket. It contained two mirrors, each the size of a clock face. One was clear, the other much darker. “All I had to do was put the medallion on the table in the nurses’ station. You humans love mirrors. You have to constantly make sure you still have the same face. Nothing scares you more than if someone changes it.”
Spieler changed into the man whom Jacob had met in Chicago. Norebo Johann Earlking. “The stunted growth, the green eyes...Oberon, the Elf whose Dwarf-sized body was the result of a Fairy curse. I admit I had expected you to catch that allusion. The name was so obvious. I stole the face from an actor who played Oberon on stage. I’ve always found it entertaining to play with the images your kind has created of us, and of yourselves.”
The Alderelf’s faces came and went. Some were familiar to Jacob; some weren’t. Until he was suddenly looking at a face that for a long time he’d known only from photographs.
Spieler brushed John Reckless’s graying hair from his forehead. “Your mother never noticed the difference. I was very fond of her. Too much, I have to admit. But I fear that I, like your father, failed to make her happy.”
A Visitor for Clara