Magic Elizabeth (6 page)

Sally turned the page very carefully, because the paper was so brittle that she was afraid of tearing it. But to her disappointment the other Sally had not kept her promise to write every day in her diary at all. Sally turned page after page, hoping that there was more. But it was not until July 10 that she found another entry.

She settled back with a sigh of relief and began to read:

“Mama said that I must take care of Bub and Patience in the garden. Patience is a little girl and I did not want to play with her, and Bub cried a lot. But Mama said that I must, for Patience and her mama were coming to visit. Patience broke the handle of one of my little teacups [so that was how
it got broken, thought Sally, remembering the little cup without a handle in the cupboard downstairs]. I told her I didn’t care, but I really did. And then Elizabeth saved a little hoptoad’s life! She fell over and she made me notice that Tom was trying to catch it, and the toad hopped right into my cup of tea and we laughed. Mama let me light the gas plant at night. I saw Tom holding Elizabeth in his mouth and I made him put her down. That naughty Tom! He thinks that Elizabeth belongs to him!”

Again, the entries stopped for a long time. It was not until December 24 that there was another. But the writing on this page had changed. It sloped down and had grown smaller and rather pinched-looking. Something was wrong, thought Sally, and she began to read:

“Papa took Mama and me in the sleigh to get our Christmas tree from the forest. It is very big. We put Elizabeth on top for a Christmas-tree angel. She looked very beautiful. Mama played the melodeon and we all sang Christmas carols. When I looked around, Elizabeth was gone! We cannot find her anywhere. I miss her very much.”

Sally thought that perhaps a teardrop had fallen on this page, for the ink was smudged toward the end.

She sighed deeply, thinking of what a sad Christmas Eve that must have been for the other Sally, but
she turned the page, confident that Elizabeth would be found the next day. To her surprise, there were no more entries in the little diary. That was all.

“But what could have happened?” she wondered, looking up at the tiny bits of dust dancing in the shaft of sunlight.

“Did she find Elizabeth?” she asked, looking at Shadow. But Shadow only blinked his eyes and yawned.

They
must
have found her! She couldn’t just disappear forever, could she? She must have fallen down among the branches of the tree, and the next day they found her.

But did they?

“I wish I knew for sure,” she said.

She turned and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

“Where
is
Elizabeth?” she whispered to the girl in the mirror.

B
ut the girl in the mirror
did not answer, of course.

Sally stood there in the strange clothes, gazing at her reflected self in the dusty mirror and wondering how it had felt to be the other Sally.

“I do look just like her,” she thought.

She lifted her hand. The girl in the mirror lifted hers. She waggled her fingers at the mirror. The other girl did the same. She smiled. So did the girl in the mirror. She took off her bonnet. The mirror girl took hers off. They both placed the bonnet upon the floor, still smiling at each other.

They straightened and stood looking rather uncomfortably at each other, arms hanging at their sides, fingers twiddling a little.

“I wonder if you really did look so much like me,” Sally whispered at last. “Did you feel like me? Were you ever sad or scared like me? I guess you were when Elizabeth was lost, weren’t you?” And it seemed to her that it might be the girl in the mirror who was asking her those very questions.

She sat down.

The girl in the mirror sat down.

Wouldn’t it be funny, she thought, if that really was the other Sally in the mirror. “Do you think there’s such a thing as magic?” she whispered to the other girl. The girl in the mirror seemed to be asking the same thing. Sally reached up and rubbed a clear space upon the dusty surface of the mirror, and of course the other girl from her side of the mirror did the same thing.

Maybe, Sally thought, that really was the other Sally in there. She leaned closer to the mirror. “There,” she whispered, “can you see me better? I can see you.” Her breath had made a little circle of mist on the mirror. Or was it the other girl’s breath, clouding it from the other side? You couldn’t really tell for sure, Sally thought, feeling as if she’d made an enormous discovery. Did anyone know for sure? Maybe she was a reflection to her. Maybe the other Sally could see her too.

“Sally,” called a voice, very close by.

Sally jumped and looked toward the attic stairs.
Her heart turned over. “It’s Aunt Sarah!” she thought. But there was no one in the attic but herself and Shadow, sleepily watching her from his patch of sunlight. The slow drowsy dust was drifting, rising, falling. Shadow yawned. The deep pink cavern of his mouth widened so that it seemed he might swallow the attic — trunks, cobwebs, Sally, and all. She yawned too, and rubbed her eyes. She felt very stiff, and she stretched and yawned again. “I must be imagining things,” she told herself.

When she turned back to the mirror, she saw that the reflected girl was looking over her shoulder too, just as if she had heard the voice.

It was a moment before Sally realized how strange this was.

There was a cold, prickly feeling along the back of her neck. “But I’m not looking over my shoulder now,” she said aloud. Tick, tick, tick, said the grandfather clock from the hallway below. Tick, tick, tick. How loud it was suddenly.

It was just then that the girl in the mirror spoke. “What is it, Mama?” she asked quite clearly, and with her profile still turned to the astonished Sally, she looked up and smiled.

Sally stretched a trembling hand out to the mirror. She placed her palm against it. She could feel only its cold smooth surface.

But just as if she were not aware that she was only
a reflection in a mirror, the other girl was now standing up. She reached a hand up, still smiling, and another hand reached down, clasped hers, and helped her to her feet.

Sally stood watching on the other side of the mirror. “This is the strangest thing that ever happened to me,” she told herself. But even as she said it, something else happened. Quite suddenly,
she
was the girl in the mirror. It was
her
hand in the hand of the lady who stood smiling down at her, a lady who looked somehow like a much younger and far more pleasant Aunt Sarah!

“Come,” said the other Sally’s mother, and Sally could see quite clearly — for of course she was now seeing everything from
inside
the mirror — how the lady’s eyes seemed to be smiling too, in the sparkly way that eyes do sometimes. How pretty she was! Her red hair was exactly the color of her daughter’s. “Come along down to the kitchen,” she said. “I have a surprise for you!”

“A surprise!” cried Sally — for now there was truly only one Sally. “What is it?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?” answered her mother in a teasing voice. “Come along. Don’t forget Elizabeth.”

And Sally bent to pick the doll up from the floor, where she had been lying all the time, just behind her.

Sally could see now that they were not in the attic at all, but in her bedroom. “Now how could I have thought I was in the attic?” she wondered as she followed her mother to the door, skipping a little as she went and hugging dear old Elizabeth close to her. “How funny,” she said, pausing at the door and looking back around the room. “What’s funny?” asked her mother impatiently.

“Oh, I don’t know — the room, I guess — the walls look so blue —” She yawned. “Excuse me,” she said.

“Gracious!” said her mother, staring down at her. “Of course they’re blue! They’ve been that way for years. Maybe the light at night makes them look a little different.”

“Yes,” said Sally. “The lights — they look strange to me too — it’s as if I never noticed them before — the little flames — the way they dance and sputter under the glass.” She laughed and looked up at the familiar gas fixtures on the wall. “Isn’t that funny?” she said. “They look so new to me, and my bowl and pitcher — do I really break the ice on my bowl in the morning before I wash my face? It seems like such a queer thing to do.”

“Goodness gracious!” said her mother, placing a cool hand upon her forehead. “Are you feverish? No, just a bit warm.” She glanced over at the fire
crackling in the little green fireplace. “I expect you’ve been sitting too near the fire for too long.”

“I guess I was dreaming,” said Sally. “I think I must have fallen asleep by the fire just before you came in. Yes, I
was
dreaming — I remember now — I think I was dreaming that I was living in another time — but in this house — and I was scared. I think I was scared of a witch!” As she looked up at her mother, she could feel her lips trembling.

Her mother laughed and gently smoothed her hair. “My little dreamer,” she sighed. “I hope you smiled your prettiest and made the witch disappear.”

Sally shook her head. “I don’t remember,” she said.

“Well,” said her mother briskly, “it’s no wonder you were sleeping. It’s very late. You really ought to be in bed. Now come, please; no more nonsense if you want to see the surprise.”

Sally gave a little hop of pure pleasure. The dream was almost forgotten. “Let’s go now,” she said. But just as they were leaving the room, the edge of one of the windows caught her eye. “Why, it’s snowing!” she said.

“Oh my goodness, I do declare!” cried her mother, stopping and placing her hands on her hips, and looking down at her with a perplexed frown creasing her forehead. “Why, you’re still half
asleep.” She sighed and brushed at the front of Sally’s dress. “And your dress is all wrinkled. Of course it’s snowing! You know very well it’s been snowing for days and days. We’re very nearly snow-bound.”

But Sally was still gazing in wonder at the fat swirling flakes of snow, which seemed to her to be exploding from the darkness beyond the window.

“I had a sort of summer feeling,” she said.

“Well, I’ve told you not to stay so near that fire,” scolded her mother. “Now come along before you fall asleep again!” And they went out of the room, across the flower-covered carpet of the upstairs hall, and off down the stairs, while the grandfather clock ticked and ticked. Sally’s dream faded away to nothing as they went down and down. They passed the stone angel, holding aloft her little flaming lamp (Sally touched her cold foot and, as always, a pleasant shiver went through her as she did so, as if the angel, in some secret way, had spoken to her); they pushed through the bead curtains and on through the parlor, where the gaslights on the walls sputtered a pleasant little tune to the faint accompaniment of the melodeon, which whispered its usual greeting at their approach. In almost every room of the house a fire purred like a living thing. And all around, the snow was falling, softly and softly, upon the garden and upon the roof, and no doubt upon
the little schoolhouse down the road and the church and the big red barn. It was piling up along the edges of the windows; and far off beyond the muffling snow, there was the faintest tinkle of sleigh bells. How cozy and pleasant it was in here, with the fire crackling in the fireplaces, throwing leaping shadows on the walls, and the little gas flames winking at her, and how lovely it was to be hurrying toward a surprise. “What do you suppose it is, Elizabeth?” she asked, hugging the little doll. But Elizabeth, if she knew, did not say.

“Will I like it?” she asked her mother.

“I think so,” said her mother. “I rather think you will.”

“Is it something to eat? Is it hot chocolate?”

But her mother only laughed and hurried her on through the dining room, her long skirts whispering over the floor as she moved. As they passed the round dining-room table, Sally caught a glimpse of herself reflected in its shining surface, and she wondered, with just the edge of her mind, what if the girl in there was a real girl and she was just a reflection?

“What funny things I’m thinking tonight,” she said to Elizabeth.

By then they were pushing through the door into the warm kitchen.

The front of the black iron wood stove glowed
red. The comfortable smell of simmering soup swirled about the kitchen from the iron kettle at the back of the stove. A tremendous crackling and crashing of logs issued from the flaming throat of the stone fireplace. If the smaller fireplaces purred, this one roared. The ticking of the little church clock on the mantel could not even be heard.

Sally’s father was kneeling on the hearth, his back to her. He was bending over something that she could not see.

“Where is the surprise?” she asked her mother eagerly. But her mother did not answer at once.

White-haired Aunt Tryphone sat in her rocking chair, her wrinkled old hands quiet upon the knitting in her lap, her gold-framed spectacles slipping down her nose. She was gazing down at the hearth, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. Plump Mrs. Perkins was holding Sally’s baby brother Bub in her arms. His pink fists were waving in the firelight, his eyes were closed tight, and his mouth was screwed up and making the odd bubbling sounds for which he was famous. Mrs. Perkins was also looking at the hearth. “The little dears,” she was saying in a happy trembly sort of voice. “Just see the little dears.”

“Here she is,” announced Sally’s mother as they approached the group around the fire. “I’ve brought Sally down to see.”

“But where is the surprise?” Sally asked again, feeling as if she would burst into sparks like the fireplace logs if they did not tell her soon.

Sally’s father turned his head and grinned at her over his curly black beard. Aunt Tryphone said in her shaky old voice, pointing a trembling finger at the hearth, “It’s right there. Just see, Sally dear.”

Mrs. Perkins said, “The little dear tiny things.”

“My dear papa once spoke with Mr. Washington,” said Aunt Tryphone. “And even that blessed man never saw dearer, I can assure you.”