Unnatural Creatures

“Cast off!” cried the sailors.

“And do not disturb me till we get there,” said the skinny grey man. “I have had a bad day today, and my head is killing me.”

The grey man took the third piece of mirror to his cabin, but he was too ill to fit the fragments together. So he put the last piece on top of the trunk, swallowed several aspirins, and lay down.

SEVEN

On the greyest, gloomiest island on the map is a large grey gloomy castle. Stone steps lead up from the shore to the castle entrance. This was the skinny grey man’s gloomy grey home. On the following grey afternoon, the ship pulled up to the bottom of the steps, and the grey man, leading two bound figures, walked up to the door.

Later, in the castle hall, Amos and the prince stood bound by the back wall. The grey man chuckled to himself as he hung up the two-thirds completed mirror. The final third was on the table.

“At last it is about to happen,” said the grey man. “But first, Amos, you must have your reward for helping me so much.”

He led Amos, still tied, to a small door in the wall. “In there is my jewel garden. I have more jewels than any man in the world. Ugh! They give me a headache. Go quickly, take your reward, and when you come back, I shall show you a man living through the happiest moment of his life. Then I will put you and your jewels into the trunk with my nearest and dearest friend.”

With the tip of his thin grey sword he cut Amos’s ropes, thrusting him into the jewel garden and closing the small door firmly behind him.

It was a sad Amos who wandered through those bright piles of precious gems that glittered and gleamed about. The walls were much too high to climb and they went all the way around. Being a clever man, Amos knew there were some situations in which it was a waste of wit to try and figure a way out. So, sadly, he picked up a small wheelbarrow lying on top of a hill of rubies and began to fill his pockets with pearls. When he had hauled up a cauldron full of gold from the well in the middle of the garden, he put all his reward in the wheelbarrow, went back to the small door, and knocked.

The door opened, and, with the wheelbarrow, Amos was yanked through and bound again. The grey man marched him back to the prince’s side and wheeled the barrow to the middle of the room.

“In just a moment,” said the thin grey man, “you will see a man living through the happiest moment of his life. But first I must make sure my nearest and dearest friend can see, too.” He went to the large black trunk, which seemed even blacker and larger, and stood it on its side; then with the great iron key he opened it almost halfway so that it faced toward the mirror. But from where Amos and Jack were, they could not see into it at all.

The grey man took the last piece of the mirror, went to the wall, and fitted it in place, saying, “The one thing I have always wanted more than anything else, for myself, for my nearest and dearest friend, is a woman worthy of a prince.”

Immediately there was thunder, and light shot from the restored glass. The grey man stepped back, and from the mirror stepped the beautiful and worthy Lea.

“Oh, happiness!” laughed the thin grey man. “She is grey too!”

For Lea was cloaked in grey from head to foot. But almost before the words were out, she loosed her grey cloak, and it fell about her feet.

“Oh, horrors!” cried the thin grey man, and stepped back again.

Under her cloak she wore a scarlet cape with flaming rubies that glittered in the lightning. Now she loosed her scarlet cape, and that too fell to the floor.

“Oh, misery!” screamed the grey man, and stepped back once more.

For beneath her scarlet cape was a veil of green satin, and topazes flashed yellow along the hem. Now she threw the veil back from her shoulders.

“Oh, ultimate depression!” shrieked the thin grey man, and stepped back again, for the dress beneath the veil was silver with trimmings of gold, and her bodice was blue silk set with sapphires.

The last step took the thin grey man right into the open trunk. He cried out, stumbled, the trunk overturned on its side, and the lid fell to with a clap.

There wasn’t any sound at all.

“I had rather hoped we might have avoided that,” said Lea as she came over to untie Jack and Amos. “But there is nothing we can do now. I can never thank you enough for gathering the mirror and releasing me.”

“Nor can we thank you,” said Amos, “for helping us do it.”

“Now,” said Jack, rubbing his wrists, “I can look at myself again and see why I am Prince of the Far Rainbow.”

He and Lea walked to the mirror and looked at their reflections.

“Why,” said Jack, “I am a prince because I am worthy to be a prince, and with me is a woman worthy to be a princess.”

In the gilded frame now was no longer their reflection, but a rolling land of green and yellow meadows, with red and white houses, and far off a golden castle against a blue sky.

“That’s the land of the Far Rainbow!” cried Jack. “We could almost step through into it!” And he began to go forward.

“What about me?” cried Amos. “How do I get home?”

“The same way we do,” said Lea. “When we are gone, look into the mirror and you will see your home too.”

“And that?” asked Amos, pointing to the trunk.

“What about it?” said Jack.

“Well, what’s in it?”

“Look and see,” said Lea.

“I’m afraid to,” said Amos. “It has said such dreadful and terrible things.”

“You, afraid?” laughed Jack. “You, who rescued me three times from the brig, braved the grey swamp, and rode the back of the North Wind!”

But Lea asked gently, “What did it say? I have studied the languages of men, and perhaps I can help. What did it say?”

“Oh, awful things,” said Amos, “like onvbpmf and elmblmpf and orghmflbfe.”

“That means,” said Lea, “ ‘I was put in this trunk by a wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him.’ ”

“And it said glumphvmr and fuffle and fulrmp,” Amos told her.

“That means,” said Lea, “ ‘I was put here to be the nearest and dearest friend to all those grim, grey people who cheat everybody they meet and who can enjoy nothing colorful in the world.’ ”

“Then it said orlmnb and mlpbgrm and gruglmeumplefrmp—hic!”

“Loosely translated,” said Lea: “ ‘One’s duty is often a difficult thing to do with the cheerfulness, good nature, and diligence that others expect of us; nevertheless…’ ”