{"id":931,"date":"2011-04-25T12:05:32","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T16:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=931"},"modified":"2011-04-25T12:05:32","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T16:05:32","slug":"the-mirror-girls-gaia-at-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/birthmarked\/the-mirror-girls-gaia-at-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mirror Girls: Gaia at Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a bit story about characters from the world of Birthmarked<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As Gaia\u2019s father and his customer, a bride, stepped out on the porch, Gaia climbed down the loft ladder to gaze at the creamy yellow dress on the tailor\u2019s dummy, admiring the flow of the gauzy fabric and the tiny, delicate embroidery on the bodice.\u00a0 She knew better than to touch it, but she leaned near enough to smell the trace of lavender that clung to it.<\/p>\n

Through the sunny window, her father\u2019s voice dropped into a laugh, and the bride chattered on in the music of happiness.\u00a0 Gaia glanced past the dress to the darkness of the mirror, and caught a glimpse of the dress doubled there.\u00a0 Slowly, she lifted her hand in arc, splaying her fingers, and watched the movement transformed into something graceful and foreign in the glass.\u00a0 Like it belonged to a different girl.<\/p>\n

She liked mirrors.\u00a0 This one that her father kept for his customers was usually folded, draped with a dust cloth, and stored in the closet.\u00a0 It consisted of two, full-length panels connected by hinges, so that the panels could be angled to permit different views.\u00a0 The bride had recently turned before them, and Gaia tried the same motion now, peering over her shoulder at her own back in the reflection.<\/p>\n

The narrow ribbon of her blue dress was tidily tied, and the backs of her sturdy legs were nicked with a few mosquito bites.\u00a0 She tried pointing a bare toe to the side, touching it lightly to the wooden floor.\u00a0 Then she moved nearer to the mirror, watching the world inside it expand with each step, even as she herself grew bigger.\u00a0 There were three Gaias now, the one on her left, the one on her right, and the real one of her breathing in and out of her own nose.\u00a0 She lifted a hand and the other girls did, too, and then, lightly, she began to pull the edge of the mirror closed on its hinge, decreasing the angle of the two panels of glass, so that the reflections multiplied.<\/p>\n

\"\"The world around and behind her shrank away to nothing, leaving only her own body in the world of the mirror, a circle of Gaias, half of them meeting her gaze, the other half always looking away.\u00a0 She loved this world.\u00a0 It was silent in there, and faintly green, and all the other girls obeyed her commands, only moving when she did.<\/p>\n

She shifted to her right, lining up her nose along the edge of the mirror and watched as all the girls in the mirrors became double-scarred.\u00a0 Then she shifted right, so that all the girls lost their scars and had smooth skin on both cheeks.\u00a0 This is what you would look like<\/em>, she told herself, without your accident<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d her father asked.<\/p>\n

She started and stepped back, looking up at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just looking in the mirror,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He was looking at her soberly, and she glanced past him toward the porch to see the bride was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs something wrong?\u201d she asked.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t touch the dress.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave a pained smile.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 Nothing\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 What did you see in the mirror?\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled.\u00a0 \u201cCome see.\u201d<\/p>\n

She beckoned him nearer, and made him stand behind her and put his head above hers, so that when she pulled the edge of the mirror near again, they were in the mirror world together, their faces circling around on each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee?\u201d she said, smiling.<\/p>\n

She felt his hand on his shoulder, warm and still and heavy.\u00a0 She did the thing with her nose, turning her face to show him Gaia-with-two-scars and Gaia-with-no-scars.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s like magic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her father slid out of the reflection.\u00a0 She turned, uncertain, and found him sitting slowly in the chair before his sewing machine.\u00a0 He was still smiling, but his eyes were sad, lonely.\u00a0 She\u2019d seen that expression before, most often when he was lighting the candles for her brothers before dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you want me to play with the mirror?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

He held out a hand to her.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine.\u00a0 Come here, squirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

She climbed up on his knees and he gave her a hug, the big kind that squeezed the breath half out of her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He loosened his arms.\u00a0 \u201cYou know you\u2019re beautiful, don\u2019t you?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

She still remembered the awful day at the Tvaltar when they\u2019d gone for Emily\u2019s birthday.\u00a0 She\u2019d never told her parents about that, but she wondered if Emily\u2019s mother had said anything.\u00a0 \u201cNo, I\u2019m not.\u00a0 Not like Emily or Sasha.\u00a0 I have my scar.\u201d<\/p>\n

He fluffed her hair.\u00a0 \u201cTrue.\u00a0 But you know where real beauty is?\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind you can\u2019t see with your eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t make sense,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He touched his finger to her chest.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s in here, where you\u2019re nice and smart and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like some of the kind that shows,\u201d Gaia said.<\/p>\n

He laughed.\u00a0 \u201cI suppose that\u2019s natural.\u00a0 Does it help if I say you\u2019re beautiful to me?\u00a0 The prettiest girl in all of Wharfton?\u201d<\/p>\n

She tilted her face, regarding her father thoughtfully.\u00a0 He was a good judge of most things, she\u2019d found.\u00a0 He certainly knew how to sew beautiful things.\u00a0 She glanced back at the mirror to find the panel had swung open again and the glass was reflecting her and her father, in the chair, with the dark cabin behind them and sunlight streaming in the window onto the floor.<\/p>\n

They looked happy together, there in the mirror, and she was glad she was in the real chair, in real life, not caught in the mirror circle with no voice. \u00a0Nice and smart and happy. \u00a0That’s how she felt.<\/p>\n

“Well?” her father asked, still waiting.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she said, because it was true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a bit story about characters from the world of Birthmarked. As Gaia\u2019s father and his customer, a bride, stepped out on the porch, Gaia climbed down the loft ladder to gaze at the creamy yellow dress on the tailor\u2019s dummy, admiring the flow of the gauzy fabric and the tiny, delicate embroidery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked","tag-tie-in-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":934,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}