Reign (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 4)

“Ooh! Sounds interesting,” Nan smiled and came over to squeeze Mina’s arm.

The hall of mirrors was a white circular room filled with mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Mina had been in there once before. With Jared.

The door they entered disappeared into the white wall, making it almost impossible to detect in the rounded room. The mirrors covered almost every square inch. One was the size of a small moving truck with an illegible plaque next to it. Many had ornate frames of gold or silver; a few had simple wood frames.

Mina walked past an antique mirror, the glass now cloudy with dust. There was no shadow of movement behind it and she briefly wondered if that was because the Grimm it watched had passed on. There was no reason to clean a mirror if you weren’t looking into it every day.

Usually she could see at least the barest glimmer of a silver shadow before it came into focus. But now she noticed more mirrors had no movement behind them. They were just lifeless.

She was drawn to her own looking glass, a smaller handled mirror that hung on hooks on the wall across from them. It took only a moment after her finger brushed the surface for her image to appear in her mirror. This time she didn’t look around searching for the hidden cameras.

Nan had moved over to a large mirror to check her reflection. She was studying the spot on her forehead where there’d previously been a cut, but jumped in surprise when someone else’s image reflected back at her.

Mina turned to see who was in there. A large man in his fifties, wearing a suit, sat eating a bratwurst at his dinner table. The colors of the kitchen and the cabinetry didn’t look American. It must be one of the distant Grimms over in Germany or Europe somewhere.

Something moved near the edge of the frame, catching Mina’s eye. A little brown mouse perched precariously on a wooden ledge, watching the goings on in the mirror closely.

Nan waved her hand in front of the man’s face but nothing happened. “Hey. Hey you!” The man continued eating, oblivious to the fact that he was being watched in the mirror. “This is so creepy.”

Nix had apparently never been in the mirror room and was writing in the dust on all of the old mirrors. When he walked away, they read NIX in capital letters.

“Why’d you do that?” Nan asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Now they will have to be cleaned.”

“Dork,” Nan rapped his shoulder playfully.

“Sprunk.” Nix answered, his face lighting up.

Nan looked taken aback. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“And you think I know what a dork is?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny. That is exactly something a dork would say.”

“Not only are you a Sprunk, but you’re a Feeter too!”

Her eyes went wide, and she called out in a whiny voice, “Ever?”

Ever held up her hands. “Don’t drag me into this name-calling game, or both of you will lose.”

Just then, Mei entered the hall of the mirrors, rejoining them.

Constance moved to a small door near the floor and gave a slight knock. The door opened, and a little white mouse wearing spectacles and a blue robe stepped out.

“Hello, Constance, Mina, and friends,” the small mouse said in greeting. His high-pitched voice was soft and squeaky. Nan squeezed Mina’s arm in unbidden excitement at seeing the talking mouse. He quickly ran up the closest frame, perched at eye-height for Constance.

>“What is that?” Mina asked, wondering if these were the charms her mom wore.

“Pandora’s box,” Mrs. Colbert answered, walking toward Nan with her hand outstretched.

“Like the Greek myth? Where Pandora opened the box to release all of the evil into the world. Is that the same box?”

“No, that box was destroyed. Since then, Pandora has tried to make up for her transgression by collecting the strongest and best attributes in the box as a way to make amends. We’ve been the protectors of this box for over a century now. This is Pandora’s jewelry box.”

Nix moved over to stand closer to the box, highly interested in the other symbols, his lips moving as he read them. Ever kept to the edges of the room as she watched in silence. She had her arms crossed in front of her and leaned against the wall, pretending she wasn’t interested in what was happening.

But Mina could tell. She was as curious as Nix.