Chapter 138 The Glass Mirror
A mirror doesn’t show you who you are. It shows you who you are afraid to become.
The bridge is gone.
It didn't break. It didn't fall. It simply turned to grey ash and drifted into the violet water. The river clicks louder now. It sounds like a thousand hungry insects. I stand on the bank, my white eyes watching the world flicker.
Gable walks across the water. He doesn't sink. His feet are made of violet glass. They click against the surface of the river. He looks like a doll made of frozen lightning.
"Cassia," he says. His voice is a chorus of a hundred voices. "You look so pale. The mountain took your color. But it gave you the truth, didn't it? You see the light now. You see the code."
"I see a monster," I say.
I reach for my camera, but it is gone. I dropped it in the pool. My hands feel light. Too light. I have no box to trap the world in anymore.
"Monster is a word for things people don't understand," Gable says. He reaches the bank and steps onto the red soil. The grass under his feet turns to glass. It shatters with every step. "The Father is coming, Cassia. He is the Architect. He is the one who built the garden. He is just coming home to pull the weeds."
He looks at Evan.
Evan is still playing the silver whistle. His face is a mask of sweat. His chest is heaving. Every breath is a struggle. The dirt on his skin is starting to flake off. The gold light of his soul is vibrating so hard it makes the air hum.
"Stop playing, Evan," I whisper. "It’s hurting you."
"I... can't," Evan gasps. He keeps the whistle to his lips. "If I stop... the clicking... it takes the village."
Julian, the Librarian, steps forward. He raises his hand. The silver disc in his eye glows. "Gable. You are a violation. You are a ghost that has overstayed its welcome."
"And you are a book with no pages left, Julian," Gable replies.
Gable raises his hand. A beam of violet light shoots from his palm. It hits Julian in the chest. Julian doesn't fall. He turns into a cloud of letters and numbers. For a second, he is a man. Then he is a poem. Then he is a list of names.
"No!" I scream.
I run toward Gable. I don't have a weapon. I don't have a camera. I only have my white eyes.
I focus. I don't look at his glass skin. I look at the light inside him. It is a jagged, purple mess. It is full of holes. It is a soul that was put together in a hurry.
"You're not real, Gable!" I shout. "You're just a recording!"
"A recording that can kill," Gable says.
He turns toward me. He reaches for my face. His fingers are cold. They feel like ice. "Let me show you the vision the Board wanted for you. Let me show you the perfect world."
He touches my forehead.
Suddenly, I am not in Willow Lane. I am in a city of pure light. There is no hunger. There is no pain. There is no death. I see myself. I am wearing a beautiful dress. I am holding a camera made of diamonds. I am taking a photo of a man.
It is Evan. But he isn't a musician. He is a statue. He is perfect. He never ages. He never sleeps. He never speaks.
He is a thing.
"This is the lie!" I scream in the dark of my mind. "This is a cage!"
I push back. I don't use my hands. I use the white light in my eyes. I find the jagged hole in Gable's light and I pour my own fire into it.
Gable screams. It is the sound of a hundred glass windows breaking at once.
He stumbles back. His violet skin cracks. A piece of his shoulder falls off and turns to ash.
"You... you gave up your sight," Gable gasps. "How can you still fight?"
"I don't need to see the world to know it's being robbed," I say.
I turn to Evan. He has stopped playing. He is slumped on the ground. The silver whistle is glowing white.
"Evan!" I run to him.
He looks up at me. His eyes are dim. The gold is fading. "Cass... the note... It's done. The bridge is... It's stuck."
I look at the sky. It has stopped flickering. But it isn't the sky of 1924.
Half of the village is gone. The bakery is a pile of ash. Mr. Miller is gone. The road is half-dirt, half-steel. We are trapped between two times.
"Well, that’s a fine mess," Mrs. Higgins says. She is standing on her porch. She is holding a broom. She looks at the violet glass man and the steel towers. "I suppose I’ll have to sweep up the future as well as the past."
"It’s not over," Gable says. He is standing up. His body is repairing itself. The glass is growing back. "The Father is at the door. He doesn't need a bridge anymore. He has the resonance."
He points to the silver whistle in Evan’s hand.
The whistle is vibrating. It is making a sound like a heartbeat.
"What is it doing?" I ask.
"It’s a beacon," Gable says. "The Architect is using the whistle to find his way home. He isn't coming to save you, Cassia. He is coming to finish the 'Final Image.' He needs a world that is perfectly still."
Suddenly, a massive shadow falls over the village. It isn't a cloud. It is a giant hand. It is made of the same violet ink as the Source.
The hand reaches down and touches the Great Oak tree. The tree doesn't burn. It turns into a statue of silver. Every leaf is a blade of metal.
"He’s here," Evan whispers.
He stands up. He looks at the silver whistle. Then he looks at me.
"Cassia. There is one way to close the door. But it requires the 'Human Salt' the Librarian talked about."
"What do you mean?"
"The Architect needs a heart to anchor his world," Evan says. "If the heart is already full, he can't get in."
He takes my hand and places it on the silver whistle.
"We have to make a choice, Cass," Evan says. His voice is urgent. "We can destroy the whistle. If we do, the Father stays in the dark forever. But the bridge will collapse. The village will be gone. We will be stuck in the grey space between times."
"And if we don't?"
"Then the Father comes home. He makes the world perfect. He fixes your eyes. He makes us stars again."
"But we wouldn't be real," I say.
"No," Evan says. "We would be masterpieces."
I look at the giant violet hand. I look at the glass man. I look at the half-steel bakery.
"Evan," I say. "I'd rather be a smudge in a dark room than a diamond in a cage."
"I knew you'd say that," he says.
He raises the whistle. He is about to smash it against a stone.
But then, a voice speaks. It doesn't come from the sky. It comes from the whistle itself.
"Wait," the voice says. It is a woman's voice. It is soft. It is familiar.
"Mother?" I whisper.
"No, Cassia," the voice says. "It’s the version of you that stayed behind. The one who lived a hundred years."
The whistle glows with a soft, green light.
"There is a secret the Architect kept from you," the voice says. "The Father isn't coming to fix the world. He is coming because he is dying. He needs the 'Replacement' to take his place."
Evan freezes. "He wants me to become the Architect?"
"He wants your heart to power the machine for the next thousand years," the voice says.
Suddenly, the silver whistle turns into a small, sharp needle.
"One of you must go," the voice says. "One of you must enter the Bridge and lock it from the inside. The one who stays will be human. The one who goes... will be the New Architect."
Evan looks at me. I look at him.
The giant violet hand is inches from the ground. The glass man is laughing. The village is screaming.
"I'll go," Evan says.
"No!" I shout. "You just became human!"
"That’s why it has to be me, Cass," he says. "A heart of earth is the only thing that can hold the door shut."
He raises the needle. He is looking at his own chest.
"Evan, don't!"
But before he can move, Mrs. Higgins steps off her porch. She isn't holding a broom anymore. She is holding a small, old photograph.
"Move aside, children," she says. "I’ve had a hundred years to think about this. And I’ve got a bone to pick with the man who ruined my garden."
Mrs. Higgins is stepping into the line of fire, and the choice of the Architect is about to be stolen. If the neighbor takes the needle, what happens to the balance of the world, and what is the secret she’s been hiding in that old photograph?