CITY ISLAND LINES
One of Celia’s first memories was of sitting between her mother and her grandmother in an old red canoe. As was often the case, the two were bickering about something, and the agitation in their voices was causing the old boat to wobble on the water. Celia looked toward the bank and saw a tall, elegant, grey heron leaning forward with its slender beak as if to lightly kiss another heron who reached its beak upward from below the water. As she scanned further, she noticed a slightly muted mustard-coloured sun that appeared to glow from below the surface. Arrayed around this sunken sun were several puffy upside down clouds. How funny that there should be this watery world so similar to her own. As her gaze shifted, she was startled to see a little girl looking directly at her. She reached her right hand toward this new friend, who, in turn, extended a left hand to touch her fingertips. As their hands connected, Celia was delighted to feel a gentle tug, and she slipped effortlessly into the watery wonderland below the boat. As she adjusted to the pale, green ambient light, she looked up to see the bottom of the wobbly canoe. Instead of being bright red, it had a darker rusty hue. Peering further afield, she could see the bottoms of other boats in the distance. How strange, she thought. Here they use their boats upside down. No wonder she could see no passengers: they must all have fallen out. Just as she was preparing to explore a bit more, she felt a violent yank on her collar, and she was hoisted wriggling and spluttering out of this intriguing new playground. ‘What is the matter with you?! Are you mad?!’ her mother was screeching. ‘I met another little girl, and she invited me to play,’ Celia replied, not sure what all the fuss was about. ‘That’s not another little girl! That’s your reflection! That’s you!’ ‘Reflection?’ Celia said, perplexed and a bit annoyed. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ her mother spluttered. ‘Don’t you understand?! You could have drowned!’ In honesty, her mother looked so fraught and frantic and was so drenched and disheveled that Celia imagined her mother to be the one at risk of drowning. ‘Now, now, don’t be so hard on the child,’ came her grandmother’s soothing voice. ‘I think she’s just learnt about her reflection.’ Years later, as Celia stood in her grandmother’s bedroom, she remembered these words and the way her grandmother had wrapped her up in a picnic blanket and tried to explain about mirrors, and reflections, and reality and its mimics. Downstairs, her mother was stomping from room to room, muttering, ‘the maddening old cow! Where could she have put that ring?! I am sure she did this on purpose just to spite me!’ The one piece of jewelry her grandmother had left by the time she died was a bold, beautiful diamond set in a solid gold band. It was her engagement ring, given by Celia’s grandfather. Celia could remember admiring it as a child and thinking that it looked like a thousand miniature mirrors reflecting the light of a million brilliant moons. She turned her gaze to the sturdy old framed mirror that still stood in her grandmother’s room. As she stared at the reflection, she noticed a face at the door behind her. She turned her head quickly, but there was no one there. Looking back at the mirror, the face reappeared. Celia moved closer to see more clearly and put her hand to the mirror’s surface. Instead of a cool solid pane, she felt a warm mercurial vapour. And suddenly she had slipped directly through the surface. As she did so, she was met by her grandmother, who said, ‘We must be quick. Time is short. Look behind the mirror, and you will find what you’re looking for.’ Then she was gone. Celia looked backward and noticed that, on this side, the back of the mirror was the side that was visible. When she looked more closely, she could see a bright twinkle in the bottom left corner. Hurriedly, she eased back through the mirror’s frame. She could hear her mother clomping up the stairs, cursing under her labored breath. Celia ran her fingers behind the bottom of the mirror to the lower left corner but found nothing. ‘Your grandmother must be laughing at me from her grave,’ her mother growled from just outside the bedroom door. Celia corrected herself and ran her hand to the bottom right hand corner. There she flicked a small hard object into her palm and curled her fingers around to protect it. ‘What are you doing gawping at yourself in the mirror?’ her mother barked peevishly. ‘Oh, nothing, said Celia. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve learnt my lesson about reflections.’ 2 January 2018
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