Doubleborn (21 page)

“Why would they send for you?” asked Tamrin.

Shoddle spat a gout of blood at her.

“Because I’m good. I’m a great tailor. That’s why. Better than you’ll ever know.”

“You should have stuck to that,” she said. “And not tried to cheat with magic.”

He spat again and missed her this time.

Sam looked at the stars.

“Go on,” he said.

“I had a cart,” said Shoddle, “and a pony to pull it. I had bolts of cloth, silk and worsted, linen and fine cotton. I had lace and I had damask. I had brocade. There wasn’t a coat wanted that I couldn’t make. The servants carried it all in and looked after the pony and cart. I had a room to myself, as grand as you could want.”

“Why didn’t they come to your shop?” asked Tamrin. “Why would they want you to be with them in their house?”

“Folk like that don’t go to shops. They bring shops to them. Besides,” his face took on the sly look again, “they were the sort to keep to themselves. They liked secrets.”

“Secrets?” asked Sam.

“All in good time. I have secrets to tell. The lady of the house, she was expecting. The baby was due very soon. I measured the man and took his instructions. Three coats. Three. And leggings and more. I told him it would take a month to do it all. Should I come home and have it sent? He wanted me to stay, so I could make fittings, a tuck here, a dart there. Perfection. I was there best part of a week, and the first jacket was ready for fitting. He came and tried it on, and I made the adjustments. I wanted him to look at it, but there wasn’t a mirror in my workroom. I asked to go to another room, and he brushed me away, saying it wasn’t needed. He could see well enough and it felt right.”

Shoddle paused in his story to look at the mirror to his side. The kravvins still pressed against it, almost motionless now, silent, watchful. The edges had grown blurred.

“Can they see us?” he asked.

“Go on,” said Sam.

Tamrin didn’t like the way the story was going. When she heard of the woman expecting a baby she felt sure it was her mother and equally sure that it wasn’t. She didn’t feel like the child of a rich woman in a big house with a moat and servants. She tried to see if Sam knew that this story was going to be about him as well. He gave no sign.

“Once I saw that there were no mirrors in the house I grew curious. I searched everywhere. Not one. Not in a chamber. Not in a bedroom or a parlour. Not in a corridor. Not a looking glass on a dresser. Even the servants were not allowed a reflection of themselves.

“Above the servants’ rooms there was an attic. I must have been careless. I thought no one had noticed my curiosity. The attic was locked, but needles can do more than sew, and I was soon through the door. You’ve seen attics before?” he asked.

Sam ignored him.

Tamrin told him to get on with his story.

“Attics,” said Shoddle, “embrace lost lives. They hold all the remains of people long gone. Toys and books, unfashionable furniture, dresses too small for women grown stout, letters and bills, boots and shoes, things too precious to throw away, too useless to leave lying around. Not this attic. This attic was empty, quite empty, save for one thing.”

He stopped and put his hand to the scissors.

“Go on,” said Tamrin.

“I have a pain, in my throat,” he said, his voice growing hoarse.

“No you don’t,” said Sam.

Shoddle glared at him.

“How do you know?”

“Because I have the pain in my throat.”

Tamrin had been giving all her attention to Shoddle. She looked now at Sam and understood how he had made the spell to staunch the blood and take away the pain. She saw sweat on Sam’s forehead; his lips were blue. She kicked Shoddle.

“Get on,” she said. “Hurry up or I’ll pull the scissors out and let you die.”

“What was in the room?” whispered Sam. “The attic?”

“What do you think?”

Tamrin couldn’t look at him any more. She stood and joined Sam at the window. She had never seen so many stars. Lowering her eyes, she saw Solder in the street, sitting on his barrel, looking up at her. He waved, not his usual, cheery wave, a tentative question of a wave. She nodded. He half-smiled and folded his arms.

Shoddle coughed. When Tamrin looked round she saw he had sent a fine spray of blood over the gleaming metal of the mirror. The image faded. The kravvins dissolved.

“That was there,” said Shoddle. “That mirror. It was covered with a length of cotton cloth. Poor stuff, but thick enough to keep the light from it. I didn’t know then, of course, what it was. I put my hand to pull the cloth away and look at it. The lady of the house screamed at me to stop. She had followed me up there. It took her longer to climb the stairs, what with her belly big and her legs tired.

“As soon as she told me to leave it alone I tugged at it, before she could get near and stop me. She ran at me and as the cloth fell she stood full in the path of light. Where there had been one there were two. Her reflection was pin perfect. The shine and smooth of the metal were beyond imagining.”

He struggled to his knees, hand at his neck, fingers in the loops of the scissor handle.

“You tell me what happened next,” he said.

“You tell it,” said Sam.

“I won’t. If you want to know, you say it. I’ll tell you if you get it wrong.”

“She fell,” said Tamrin.

“They carried her downstairs,” said Sam.

“Her baby started to come.”

“They forgot about you.”

“Yes, they forgot about me,” said Shoddle. “Clever of you to think of that.”

“The baby was born,” said Sam.

“It was a girl.”

“It was a boy.”

“It was twins,” said Tamrin.

“Stop there,” said Shoddle. “You know that’s not true. Remember the story.”

“Was it a girl or a boy?” asked Sam.

“Yes,” said Shoddle. “It was a baby. I never heard what. She was delivered of only the one. They were clear about that.”

He fell back again.

“My throat does hurt,” he complained.

“It really doesn’t,” said Sam. “You’d know.”

Sam and Tamrin turned together to face Shoddle. They left their examination of the stars and looked inward. They moved forward, two steps, and stood directly in front of the mirror.

Sam looked at his reflection in the polished metal, and he saw Tamrin. Tamrin looked at herself and saw Sam.

Sam reached out his hand to the mirror and his fingertips touched the outstretched fingertips of Tamrin. Tamrin pulled a face and Sam’s reflection pulled a face back at her.

“That’s right,” said Shoddle. “When the house was still and the dark had come I crept to the room and looked at the child. There were two of them. Just as in the first time of magic. Two babies where there had been one.”

“Which one did you take?” asked Tamrin.

“You, of course.”

She rushed forward and kicked him in the stomach. He bent double and coughed blood.

“Which one? Tell me. Did you take the baby that was born or the second one, the reflected one?”

She had to wait while Shoddle coughed out his recovery. He raised a look of hate at her.

“You’ll pay for that,” he said.

“Which one?” she shouted. “Which one am I?”

She had never hated anyone as much as when he gave her the self-satisfied smile that she knew meant he was speaking the truth.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I just took the one that was nearest. I took you and I took the mirror and I put you both on my cart and brought you here.”

Tamrin went back and stood next to Sam. Their reversed images stared back at them.

“One of us isn’t real,” she said.

He pointed to Shoddle, hunched in a wounded crouch, blood-smeared, scissors sticking out from a sack bandage.

“You think that’s real?” said Sam. “Cover the mirror.”

There was a lot of catching up to do, news to share, stories to tell. Solder was halfway up the stairs when they left the room, come to look for Tamrin. Jaimar was waiting for them. She had tidied up till there was nothing left to tidy and then she tidied some more. She hugged Tamrin most and longest. Solder skipped out of the way of her arms and she seized Sam and hugged him even though she didn’t really know who he was.

“But you’re welcome,” she said. “You must be hungry.”

“I couldn’t eat anything,” said Sam.

Tamrin shook her head.

“That’s very kind,” said Solder. “Bacon and eggs is good at any time, I find.”

Tamrin told Sam about the accusations of bullying at the college, about the kravvin attack, about Winny and Smith. Solder interrupted at inconvenient moments to explain his own part in the story.

Sam gave her his account of the journey, and the moment when he had burst through the mirror.

“You mean you were the dragon?” asked Tamrin.

“Sort of. I mean, yes.”

“And where’s the dragon now?”

She watched the worry cross Sam’s face.

“That’s just it,” he said. “No matter how far away he is I’m always there in him. I can always see what he sees, hear what he hears. I can switch from me to him and back again. But since I crashed through the mirror I can’t find him.”

Tamrin hesitated, then she said, “But can you switch to—”

“It’s late,” said Sam. “We need to talk more tomorrow. And we need to make sure Shoddle is properly dealt with.”

Tamrin took the hint and shut up. When Sam said they should go back to Shoddle’s and sort things out she agreed without question and suggested that Solder could finish his eggs and bacon while they were away.

He waved a cheerful fork at them and Jaimar told him to mind his manners before she told Sam and Tam to be careful.

They didn’t speak in the street. Sam pushed the tailor’s door open and let Tamrin go through first. The bell jangled.

Nothing remained of the appearance of a thriving business. Piles of sacks were everywhere. The walls were grey with dirt, yellow with neglect, black with mould. Only the solid wood of the tailor’s bench was unaffected by the unravelling of the magic. It shone with the deep polish of long use. Shoddle lay on the bench, stretched out, covered with sacks, his head to one side in a crazy posture of surprise.

Sam had removed the scissors and staunched the wound. He had not been able to repair the damage to the tendons in the neck, and Shoddle’s head hung to one side, flopping like a spaniel’s ears if he turned. Not that he could sit or turn, fastened as he was with the bonds of sack.

Sam tested a knot.

“He’s safe enough,” he said. “For now.”

“I’m safe enough,” said Shoddle. “I’d look to yourself, if I were you. There’s no safe place for you.”

Tamrin leaned close to him, ignoring his stinking breath.

“Who were those people?” she asked. “Where did they live? What happened to them?”

“Gone,” he said. “Long gone. I told you. I went back, just the once. The house wasn’t even there. I don’t think it had ever been there.”

Tamrin pushed the side of his head so that it lolled in the other direction. Shoddle yelped.

“Don’t hurt him,” said Sam.

“He’s a liar.”

“I know. But sometimes even liars tell the truth.”

“How can a house just disappear?”

Shoddle laughed so loud that he coughed and cried out in pain.

“Leave him,” said Sam.

He led Tamrin upstairs. The mirror was veiled. Sam walked around it, looking at it from the back.

Tamrin kept to one side, careful not to be in line with the surface, even obscured. Positioned in this way they couldn’t see each other.

“Go on,” said Sam.

“I’m afraid to.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes, we do,” said Tamrin. “You know we have to.”

“I’ll close my eyes,” said Sam.

“I’ll leave mine open.”

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

And they switched.

Sam looked through Tamrin’s eyes.

Tamrin opened Sam’s eyes.

Now she was looking at the back of the mirror and he was looking at the veiled front.

An observer would have seen no change, no difference.

“Back,” said Tamrin.

They switched.

She gasped and walked away, over to the window.

“It’s terrible,” she said.

Sam stayed where he was, unable to see her.

“As long as I can remember,” said Tamrin, “I’ve wanted to know who I am, where I came from. I knew I was a twin. I felt it. I knew it. And I wanted to know about that. And then you came along last year, to the college, and I knew it was you.”

She waited for Sam to say something and carried on when she found he wasn’t going to.

“And you didn’t know you were a twin,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“No, you’re not. You’re me.”

“You’re me.”

“I can’t remember what you can remember,” said Tamrin. “If I was just you, I’d know everything that you know, wouldn’t I?”

“This is new to me,” said Sam. “I don’t know all the answers. Ask a different question.”

Tamrin moved back to the front of the mirror.

“What’s this?” she said. “Where’s it from?”

“I’m just going to try something,” said Sam. “See what you think.”

As Tamrin looked at the mirror she began to see it from the back as well as from the front. It was difficult to fix the images at first. She tried to separate them and lost them both. She was seeing through her own eyes and through Sam’s both at the same time.

“Stop looking,” said Sam.

She allowed her eyes to relax and saw both sides clearly. It lasted just a few seconds then flipped back to seeing just the one side.

Sam walked round and joined her.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“I learned it by looking through Starback. It gets easier the more you try, but it always takes some effort.”

“Will I be able to see as Starback?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“Go back.”

Sam went back behind the mirror.

“I’m going to do it,” said Tamrin.

“Look out of the corner of your eye.”

Tamrin found the way to do it and she saw as Sam did.

“That’s enough,” she said.

He joined her again.

“So we can switch,” she said. “And we can overlap. Is that right?”