Smoke and Mirrors, But Mostly Mirrors.
(Out flew the web and floated wide
The mirror cracked from side to side
The curse has come upon me cried
The lady of Shallot)
Enjolras did not always like the small room he rented. There were times when he would've liked to avoid it and never go back. But it wasn't the room, it was the mirror.
The horrible, awful mirror that lied.
And yet it wasn't just this mirror, it was every mirror.
Every mirror he looked in showed him himself but also someone different, standing beside him perhaps, or sitting on the floor looking up at him.
The someone had always been a thin, wretched boy. A boy in dirty crumpled clothes and thick, greasy, dark hair. The boy had large dark eyes that would stare up at him with misery and longing.
And then he saw himself beside the boy. Dressed cleanly and nicely, soft blond hair in a neat ponytail tied back with a blue ribbon.
He had always hated mirrors.
But he'd had a sort of fascination with them too.
As he had grown things had changed. Both he and the boy had grown. On his fifteenth birthday the boy had taken him into his arms and stroked his hair.
And Enjolras had been frightened.
All he knew was that he could feel the boy when he looked in the mirror as well as see him, but when he didn't the boy was gone.
The boy didn't speak either. Neither of them spoke.
Once when Enjolras was younger, perhaps six or seven, and very foolish, he had written a note to the boy and trapped it between the wall and the mirror. But then he realized the boy probably couldn't read.
Now that Enjolras was grown he looked back on it. He wondered where he had left the letter. Maybe he'd burnt it. Yes, that's what he'd done. He'd never had tolerance with that sort of stupidity. Especially not in himself.
But now he was older he *knew* who the boy- now man, he supposed- was. He had *met* the man. At the café. And suddenly all the misery and pity he'd felt over the years turned to hate and disgust.
But he supposed it made sense. Something so low and worthless would be a drunk.
Perhaps the child he'd known so long in the mirror had only existed as a child long enough to make Enjolras care about people who had nothing in the world other than the rags they could barely clutch about what was left of their bodies.
But *how* he hated the man in the mirror. The man who looked pleadingly at him and reached out to touch his hair in a hopeless way as Enjolras jerked away from the touch.
So many years ago the children had been amazed with each other. The two young boys had touched each other's hair and one found it pleasant and silky and the other found it greasy and dirty and stopped touching it. Enjolras had tried to give the boy his hair ribbon but when he left the reflection of the mirror it was tangled in his fingers.
Enjolras now sat on his bed, glaring at the mirror, daring the Grantaire to come.
"Not this time," he thought, "Maybe I pretend to like you in the mirror, but I don't."
Of course he did.
The one night... Working late at the café, barely managing to get to college. Cold to the bone. Body aching. He'd stood in front the mirror and Grantaire had taken him into his arms. Warmth had seeped into his arms. And Grantaire was gentle when he stroked Enjolras's hair and breathed on his hands to warm them and kissed his eyelids to tell him it was all right without words.
He loved Grantaire in the mirror.
He hated Grantaire in the café.
"And I hate you now, you bastard. Why do you always act like that? Why do you mock what I love?"
And then Grantaire gazed at him in the mirror. The way people meet your eyes when a mirror is in front of you both and the person is behind you.
He shook his head a little. Not much at all, barely moving it. His eyes were pleading.
Enjolras should have known better than to talk to Grantaire in the mirror because it had never worked.
He stood angrily and Grantaire, who had been sitting beside him on the bed, stood too, touching his arm.
"Beggar! Worthless, wretched-"
He had never talked to it when he was small. He had always known- and he still knew- that you didn't talk to mirror. His mother had told him it was vain when she'd seen him do it. He knew better, though. She had talked to her mirror.
She had begged with her mirror, yelled at her mirror. The days M. Enjolras was away, that was. She'd even burst into tears. And as much as he tried Enjolras could never meet her eyes in the mirror. She was meeting someone else's. A woman's, Enjolras was sure. A woman's name… he didn't remember what now. He'd forgotten a lot of things now.
His mother had been bitter, jerking him along, telling him it ran in the family, though he knew it didn't. She had told him they'd go mad together. She seemed to take a delight in it.
"I love the woman beside my reflection in the mirror and someday you will love the image beside yours too," she had said.
And when he asked who the woman his mother saw was she had answered, "A better woman than your father is a man. And she's dead now."
"Did you see her before she died?"
"Yes. I've seen her all my life."
"Did she see you in her mirror?"
"No. And she didn't see me in her eyes either."
His mother's tone had hurt him.
Now that he was a revolutionary and his family had disowned him she sent letters mocking what she knew of the boy in the mirror. She would ask if he had died yet. She had asked if they had met yet. She asked if the boy completely despised him and would sooner scorn him than talk to him.
The irony hurt Enjolras more than if this had actually been true.
He hated the letters.
And they always ended asking him if he'd come and talk with his poor mother who was old and suffering from her intolerable husband.
Then Enjolras was even more grateful he'd escaped his father's house.
However, Enjolras had no manner of luck and seemed to be the sort who stumbled from one forest to another.
The café was a new world for him.
At first it had been the world of gentle Combeferre and irritating Courfeyrac, but then a new creature was found.
This was Grantaire, who was more often looking in his glass of wine and stirring it about while he insulted Enjolras than actually looking at the man. Grantaire, who when Enjolras first saw him had captured them both. How they had just stared at each other. And moments had passed. And Enjolras wondered if this drunk could really be the boy who had kissed him and held him gently all his life.
It was meeting a person from a dream or a painting. Like writing letters to someone half your life then meeting him or her and finding out how different he or she is from what you had thought.
And the Grantaire in the mirror had belonged to him, not a glass of wine.
And horror had coursed through him when Grantaire stood, swaying and lifted the glass.
"To Apollo. To Apollo here on earth at last. Does Apollo drink? Would he care to join me in self-debauchery?"
Debauchery… Devastation…
Delight and laughter shattered into pieces.
Never again… *never* would he long for something he loved to be real.
All his life until then he had known the boy in the mirror was his companion. They loved each other like nothing else.
Idealistic.
And how he lashed out, hurt and betrayed.
From then on he told himself he hated Grantaire, though he couldn't help watching the man closely. When Enjolras had first come Grantaire had watched the wine or absinthe in the glass. Swirling it with one finger.
But after a while Grantaire actually watched Enjolras.
He always watched Enjolras.
With the dark eyes of always, only different now, daring and sarcastic.
"I've known you all my life. You just *try* and lecture me. I'm a drunk bastard but you wouldn't *dare* lecture me without your Amis."
And for about a month Enjolras left a shirt over the mirror so he wouldn't have to see failure.
Never, *never* again would he want to possess something he loved.
He had now known Grantaire for a year. He had grown used to being mocked and hurt. And grown out of fearing his mirror. Or the letters he got each month. Now he looked away from the mirror, avoiding Grantaire's eyes.
Instead he looked at this month's letter, lying unopened on his desk. He snatched up and tore it open.
"M. Jacque Enjolras
I am ashamed that you are my son. You are a disgrace to my husband and myself. If you stop your ignorant fantasies and come home immediately we will pay for your education. Your disgusting revolution will probably kill your big-eyed lover. Your refusal to be decent is appalling. Or do you not come back because your darling boy is just a filthy beggar in the streets? Does he even notice you or is it that he just knows you because you give him money? Stop chasing wild fantasies and come home. Why are you going to the university if you just kill yourself? And a grateful son would comfort his poor mother. The servants are all against me and barely listen to a thing I say. I am sure they are stealing money. If you were grateful to me for raising you, you'd return and help me. Your father does nothing to help. He is against me too and is going mad I believe. The only one I can trust is you and you're also going insane and shaming my family. My person in the mirror is the only one who listens. I tell but she can't help. Why won't you write or come and help your poor mother? Am I being deserted?
Madame Enjolras"
Enjolras turned it over and glared at the back of the parchment.
"Bitch," he murmured, running a hand through his hair.
He threw down the letter and whipped about to face the mirror.
"What do you want?!" he demanded.
Grantaire looked helplessly at him, reaching out questioningly.
"No! God *damn* it!"
Enjolras threw out his arm forcefully and hit Grantaire across his face. Then man stumbled back then fell. Then Enjolras snatched a rather old book he'd found in his father's library and had always had.
He took the mirror from the wall and carefully crushed the mirror with the book. He was careful; he cleaned every piece from the floor, though few fell. He had been very careful.
When he fell into bed that night he felt alone.
Completely alone.
Alone with his mother's letter.
//Am I being deserted?//
Alone with her insanity.
He had always taken her insanity for granted as he'd grown up.
Now, though…
…it frightened him…
//Or do you not come back because your darling boy is just a filthy beggar in the streets?//
//My person in the mirror is the only one who listens//
Be quiet… please…
Grantaire… please come back…
My life is horrible, please come back…
If only he had a mirror.
If only Grantaire lay beside him, stroking his hair.
And even if his breath stank of absinthe it would still be *him*…
***
Enjolras did not know how he managed to sleep that night, but in the morning he was vaguely amazed to find he had. And he went to classes, but after classes he went to the café. However, Combeferre and Bahorel were there and they got in a discussion and the result was that Enjolras was still at the café and bidding farewell to the two at about twelve.
Then he stood in the door.
And he wondered who he was when he was with his Amis, for he was certainly not the same when he was alone.
"Why did you do that?"
Grantaire's voice was hoarse behind him.
Enjolras turned to look at him and suddenly the world broke like a mirror. Not like the way Enjolras had crushed the mirror in his apartment, but like a mirror dropped, shattering everywhere.
His vision shattered, time shattered, the words Grantaire was speaking now were shattered.
As his world shattered it flipped seven years in the past, his fifteenth birthday, Grantaire's arms, then seven foreword, then another seven foreword and he felt he was smothering under the weight of being a million worlds too low. Then seven years back and he felt a wave of nausea. Then Grantaire's arms were about him and he thought he was fifteen again until he saw the café around them.
He leaned limply against the chest of a man he thought he'd always known.
Grantaire's arms were a little too tight as though he was frightened.
It was forbidden…
Somehow, someone forbade this.
There was something mirrors allowed that the world didn't. How Enjolras could always be in Grantaire's arms in the mirror, but now…
There were barriers, there were standards, there was hell, there was sin…
Somehow, they had always been lovers in the mirror, but it didn't work that way in real life. Mirrors just show light bouncing off things. They don't show truth. They don't show the stench of absinthe around a sot or the sound of a speech by an angel…
Enjolras pushed away, head spinning.
"No-"
"Oh, god, please, Enjolras-"
"No- let me go! Can't you feel this?! Can't you tell something's wrong?!"
Somehow they had to shout to be heard over the shattering of glass in their ears.
"Yes, I feel something's wrong, but I don't know what it is! You'll get splintered like the glass! Please, let me-"
"No! You'll be what splinters me! Don't you see?!"
"Enjolras!"
But Enjolras was gone, stumbling from the café, clutching himself.
The world stopped crashing about. Abruptly the air calmed. The noise in Enjolras's ears quieted.
He miserably started toward his apartment, an awful feeling in him.
He had almost been broken like a mirror.
A mirror caught between two worlds.
The world of Grantaire and the world of Enjolras.
And he was exhausted.
He fell into bed, not able to undress and was asleep almost at once. So tired he didn't notice the box on his desk. It looked like a tea box. More of a crate.
***
Ella sat on the bed she and Jeanne would share. She wondered when her dark-haired lover would arrive. She pulled her knees up and lay on her side on the bed. She was dressed in a white slip.
After a minute or so, she stood and went to the mirror, carefully studying her hair.
She leaned far over the desk to look at herself more carefully.
Just then the door opened and Jeanne stood and smiled at her.
"Ella."
"Jeanne."
She stood, blushing and smiling, her long blond hair twisting a little over her shoulder. Her blue eyes were bright with happiness.
"What did you tell your father?"
Jeanne looked rueful, pushing the door shut with her toe and pulling in the box that held her clothes.
"That Mademoiselle Roland had asked me to stay for a few months at her father's manor. And you. What did you say?"
"The same, but I said Mademoiselle Jeanne's father's manor."
Then she went to Jeanne and the two laughed and embraced and kissed.
They had known each other five years, ever since Ella was twenty and they'd met at a play. Jeanne had been twenty-four. She was always wiser, more sensible. And they loved each other like nothing else.
Jeanne escaped from her father's beatings to Ella's arms and Ella escaped immense boredom. They loved being together and laughing and living for once. Surely it would be like this forever.
***
Jeanne sat on the bed, Ella's feet in her lap as she brushed her hair.
"Only a week left…" she murmured.
Ella looked up.
"Only…"
She sighed. "We'll do this again, only in the country next."
"All right."
But they didn't, not in the country, at least.
Ella got a letter, that spring, from Jeanne. Jeanne wanted to meet her at the apartment they had shared before. Ella was confused but arranged to come for a day.
At first she was happy to see Jeanne, then worried at her careful politeness, then distressed.
When she found Jeanne's father was making her marry a rich man she was furious. Her temper blazed. The two shouted at each other, hurt and misery making them angry. And in the end the mirror that Ella had looked at herself in a year ago fell to the floor and shattered.
***
Enjolras did notice the tea crate when he woke up, however, and went over and suspiciously opened it. His body still ached from the evening before, being crunched about.
On the top of everything in the crate was a letter.
"Dear Jacques Enjolras-
You never will come back and save me from those plotting servants, will you? Everyone is against me. The girl in the mirror-"
He threw it onto the chair where all her letters went. He glowered at the crate. He didn't even want to *know* what was in it.
He pulled out two bound, undecorated books and four rolls of letters, tied in sets with twine. He picked up one of the unmarked books. In the inside cover of the shabbier one was written "Jean-Etienne, 26, 1706".
He flipped through the book, deciding it was a diary. He wondered why his mother would have sent it. Then he read a page and knew why.
"December 14th, 1706
Acelin does not see me. It's almost frightening, because I thought I knew what he was like after watching him in my mirror for 26 years. He ignores me constantly. He never meets my eyes and treats me like a servant. I thought I knew him so well. I never talked to him, of course, because that's not the way the mirror trick works, but I never dreamed he'd shun me so. Please, God, rid me of these illusions. I am going mad."
He threw the book down and snatched up the other, feeling a great repulsion but also fascination.
The inside cover on this said "Mariette, 14, 1760".
The first page…
"January 21, 1760
Maman does not like me talking to the mirror. She says I'm being vain and that it's a sin and no way to act. I don't believe her, though, because she always talks to her mirror. I only talk to my mirror because there's a girl like me in it. The girl has dark hair and dark eyes. I've told Maman, but she doesn't believe me. She never believes anything I say, though. Today when Clarence (he's from England) and I danced, he trod on my toes. I told Maman that but she didn't believe it. I don't understand why she never believes anything I say; I don't lie. The girl in the mirror tried to give me a flower today. I thought she had, too, but when I left the mirror I didn't have it any longer. Maman told me to think about fine men such as Clarence instead of things that aren't there. I like her better than Clarence, even if she isn't real. I'll have to decide later whether she is or not. Also there's a light out my window every night before I try to go to sleep. I hate it. It makes me feel I'm being watched."
Enjolras felt a little dizzy. Mariette. That was his grandmother.
***
It was a week before Enjolras brought himself to look in the crate and despite that reading someone's diary made him feel bad, reading someone's letters were even worse.
After the shock of finding that not only his mother saw another person in the mirror, but also his grandmother and perhaps another relation, he did not feel ready for more shocks.
He distracted himself best he could with speeches and books, but finally he went back to it. He decided that this was the worst thing his mother had done yet. But go back, he did.
He chose a rather large pack of letters. All of them were addressed 'to Sarah' save one, which was 'to Catharine' and obviously had been meant to be sent. The letters were not dated which also rather disappointed him.
He chose one randomly.
"Dear Sarah,
I'd agree about poetry being lovely, if only not so many young fools write it to me. I like your poetry much better, though how many times must I tell you that you make me sound much too lovely? I should write about your golden tresses someday. And your blue eyes. You look like your father. How is he getting along? Poor Jean. My deepest sympathies. You must write more often, for I love so getting your letters. Also I decided to try my hand at poetry. (It's a couplet)
A golden river down her back
No water does the river lack
Like a mirror fallen in splinters.
A dancing blue of frosty winters
Demure and her wistful sighs
The blue of flowers in her eyes
Her love to me, she doth pronounce
And then she pounce
I am terrible at poetry. The only lines I like are the last. They really do make me think of you.
All my love, Catharine"
Enjolras felt startled. 'Poor Jean'. Maybe Jean from the diary. He wondered what could've happened to inspire her 'deepest sympathies'.
It so happened that the unsent letter was the answer to the one he had just read.
"Dear Catharine
Many thanks for the poem. I actually believe that some parts are better than my own poem. Keep writing. But don't write about mirrors. I loathe them. A golden river? More like a golden pond. Mother makes me keep my hair up always. Thank you for including father in the letter. I showed him and it cheered him considerably. Still, I'm rather frightened of him. Mother says he was handsome when he was young but now his veins show right through his skin, which is yellowish. And his hands always shake. I cannot eat when I am forced to sit by him or across from him at the table. His hands shake while he cuts his meat and sometimes he accidentally jabs me in the ribs with his elbow. Could you give a few of your deepest sympathies to me instead?
Love you dearly, Sarah"
Enjolras gazed at the letter. He was getting the feeling that the whole world was completely insane. But he also knew that finally he was finding out things no one had ever known. Things his mother didn't know before him. Things the others didn't know because the story didn't end with them.
What Enjolras didn't know was how the story began. And that's what he needed to know.
He scooped up a packet of letters, found they bore his mother's handwriting and threw them down again.
The story did *not* begin with her.
The next packet of letters he found he knew was the correct one. He knew because the first thing the first letter said was "Ella, do you remember when we broke the mirror and you said 'seven years bad luck'?"
"Ella,
Do you remember when we broke the mirror and you said 'seven years bad luck'? And how I said I thought it would be bad luck in seven years? Seven years are up now. And you… You're married and your daughter Stephanie is one, right? You haven't written since last year. Please write so that I know you received my letter? Could we see each other some day this spring? Please, Ella, I love you so much and miss you. I'm sorry I'm married to this bastard. Please forgive me, it wasn't my fault. I would have lived forever with you. Ella, I love you… I see you in my mirror beside me the way it was that time in Paris. Please forgive me, Please stop ignoring my letters. Just let me know you exist in more than my mirror and heart.
Jeanne October 28th, 1619"
"Ella, seven years bad luck is now eight. Maybe you were right. My children are happy, though. I still see you in the mirror. I'm going mad. Please at least just write to assure me you got this letter.
Jeanne September 7th, 1620"
"Ella, I love you, please, god, I need you. It's been ten years since we've seen each other. I remember you easily. You're the only thing I have left to live for and you're killing me. Please write to me before I go entirely mad.
Jeanne March 21st, 1622"
There were more like this, begging Ella to meet her somewhere, to write, to do anything to show she existed.
But Enjolras understood what it was.
He understood that 219 years ago two lovers had to separate and broke a mirror. One lover had said seven years bad luck. The other said bad luck in seven years. What neither understood, but what Enjolras finally did was that it wasn't years, it was generations. Despite that he hadn't read the letters he knew were Stephanie's he understood it all.
But did it really end with him?
If it ended with him, who was Grantaire?
Was he just the son of the filth of the streets as Enjolras had thought, or…
…Or was he the bad luck that was supposed to happen?
Did that mean he was related to Jeanne? But Grantaire didn't have a mirror to see Enjolras in. If that even mattered. The world was insane. There was no reason left.
Enjolras took all of his mother's letters, found some string to tie them with and threw all the letters and the two books in the crate.
Then he paused and grabbed the crate and began emptying it. The letters that were Jeanne's, the letters that were Stephanie's, the diary that was Jean-Etienne's, The letters that were Catherine's, the diary that was Mariette's, the letters that were his mother's, and then, at the very bottom, another letter.
This one in a child's hand.
He had not burnt it.
Perhaps his mother had found it and put it in the crate to finish the set of family madness.
The family madness that went with blond hair and blue eyes.
And mirrors.
"Mirror, what is your name? Why don't you ever speak? Are you real? I think your eyes are beautiful. Maman said you do not exist and that I shouldn't talk to my mirror, but I will continue, because you are my friend. Jacques."
Enjolras stared at the letter, amazed.
He thought of how much he'd hated Grantaire when he'd met him. And of how much he loved him. And his mother's insanity. And his own sanity almost breaking like a mirror a week and a few days ago.
Was that that all the fault of those two lovers from 1612?
And, besides. Enjolras did not believe in magic.
But that wasn't an argument, because it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in something if you're actually caught in it. And caught he was. Caught like he was in a room made completely of mirrors. Caught in a vast space of a thousand more rooms that began to darken in a green grey shadow as they reflected away.
And when you shut your eyes you're free again.
It had always been like that.
When Enjolras closed his eyes he wasn't able to feel Grantaire pushing back his hair.
When Enjolras closed his eyes he couldn't see his mother's letters.
Now, however, his eyes were opened: It wasn't his vision he was trapped in; it was his mind.
He had never done anything to deserve this.
To get, all his life, visions. To suffer from a poor woman driven insane by an ancestor from two hundred years ago. Not ever to have what he'd loved so long. How he'd loved the boy in the mirror so much. How he'd die for the boy.
Enjolras dragged himself up.
He'd read both diaries the whole way through as well as all the letters except Jeanne's, because after the first they were all too wretched to make any sense.
Now he put them all away, in the right order, his own letter on top.
Then he wearily found the lid and pounded it down with an ink well.
It was dark outside and he hesitated a little then finally left his apartment with the box and went to the bridge over the river Seine. He gazed down at the black water. He gazed and thought that maybe, two hundred and nineteen years ago, two lovers stood on the bridge and watched the water. And that maybe he was giving the river something it had been waiting two centuries for.
He dropped the box, heard the sound as it fell, heard the splash, watched some bubbles rise as it sank.
Thank God it sank.
Then he heard a sound behind him.
He turned.
"Enjolras. Bonne nuit. How long have you been out here?"
"Grantaire…"
As Grantaire took Enjolras into his arms Enjolras knew that Grantaire had always known of the mirrors and letters.
"I- I see you in my mirror…"
"Really?"
"Had you seen me before?"
"What do you think I see in the wine glass?"
"I thought it was only mirrors."
"It's a mirror."
"Yes… I suppose it is."
"Let's get you home. You're freezing."
Enjolras let himself be led home, though how Grantaire knew where it was he had no idea. And when Grantaire went to sleep at the foot of Enjolras's bed Enjolras had been thrilled. After that Grantaire lived with him, and when he looked in the mirror Grantaire was always there.
But that was because Enjolras's home was his home.
And even in the end if the mirrors would continue their work as they had seven generations with Enjolras's family, they ended then. Neither Grantaire nor Enjolras minded dying too much. The only part they didn't like was that, for all they had imagined, the gunshots felt like broken mirror splinters piercing them.
But in all it was all right, because they were together in the last moments and no matter where they went next, they'd be going together.
The End.
(Out flew the web and floated wide
The mirror cracked from side to side
The curse has come upon me cried
The lady of Shallot)
Enjolras did not always like the small room he rented. There were times when he would've liked to avoid it and never go back. But it wasn't the room, it was the mirror.
The horrible, awful mirror that lied.
And yet it wasn't just this mirror, it was every mirror.
Every mirror he looked in showed him himself but also someone different, standing beside him perhaps, or sitting on the floor looking up at him.
The someone had always been a thin, wretched boy. A boy in dirty crumpled clothes and thick, greasy, dark hair. The boy had large dark eyes that would stare up at him with misery and longing.
And then he saw himself beside the boy. Dressed cleanly and nicely, soft blond hair in a neat ponytail tied back with a blue ribbon.
He had always hated mirrors.
But he'd had a sort of fascination with them too.
As he had grown things had changed. Both he and the boy had grown. On his fifteenth birthday the boy had taken him into his arms and stroked his hair.
And Enjolras had been frightened.
All he knew was that he could feel the boy when he looked in the mirror as well as see him, but when he didn't the boy was gone.
The boy didn't speak either. Neither of them spoke.
Once when Enjolras was younger, perhaps six or seven, and very foolish, he had written a note to the boy and trapped it between the wall and the mirror. But then he realized the boy probably couldn't read.
Now that Enjolras was grown he looked back on it. He wondered where he had left the letter. Maybe he'd burnt it. Yes, that's what he'd done. He'd never had tolerance with that sort of stupidity. Especially not in himself.
But now he was older he *knew* who the boy- now man, he supposed- was. He had *met* the man. At the café. And suddenly all the misery and pity he'd felt over the years turned to hate and disgust.
But he supposed it made sense. Something so low and worthless would be a drunk.
Perhaps the child he'd known so long in the mirror had only existed as a child long enough to make Enjolras care about people who had nothing in the world other than the rags they could barely clutch about what was left of their bodies.
But *how* he hated the man in the mirror. The man who looked pleadingly at him and reached out to touch his hair in a hopeless way as Enjolras jerked away from the touch.
So many years ago the children had been amazed with each other. The two young boys had touched each other's hair and one found it pleasant and silky and the other found it greasy and dirty and stopped touching it. Enjolras had tried to give the boy his hair ribbon but when he left the reflection of the mirror it was tangled in his fingers.
Enjolras now sat on his bed, glaring at the mirror, daring the Grantaire to come.
"Not this time," he thought, "Maybe I pretend to like you in the mirror, but I don't."
Of course he did.
The one night... Working late at the café, barely managing to get to college. Cold to the bone. Body aching. He'd stood in front the mirror and Grantaire had taken him into his arms. Warmth had seeped into his arms. And Grantaire was gentle when he stroked Enjolras's hair and breathed on his hands to warm them and kissed his eyelids to tell him it was all right without words.
He loved Grantaire in the mirror.
He hated Grantaire in the café.
"And I hate you now, you bastard. Why do you always act like that? Why do you mock what I love?"
And then Grantaire gazed at him in the mirror. The way people meet your eyes when a mirror is in front of you both and the person is behind you.
He shook his head a little. Not much at all, barely moving it. His eyes were pleading.
Enjolras should have known better than to talk to Grantaire in the mirror because it had never worked.
He stood angrily and Grantaire, who had been sitting beside him on the bed, stood too, touching his arm.
"Beggar! Worthless, wretched-"
He had never talked to it when he was small. He had always known- and he still knew- that you didn't talk to mirror. His mother had told him it was vain when she'd seen him do it. He knew better, though. She had talked to her mirror.
She had begged with her mirror, yelled at her mirror. The days M. Enjolras was away, that was. She'd even burst into tears. And as much as he tried Enjolras could never meet her eyes in the mirror. She was meeting someone else's. A woman's, Enjolras was sure. A woman's name… he didn't remember what now. He'd forgotten a lot of things now.
His mother had been bitter, jerking him along, telling him it ran in the family, though he knew it didn't. She had told him they'd go mad together. She seemed to take a delight in it.
"I love the woman beside my reflection in the mirror and someday you will love the image beside yours too," she had said.
And when he asked who the woman his mother saw was she had answered, "A better woman than your father is a man. And she's dead now."
"Did you see her before she died?"
"Yes. I've seen her all my life."
"Did she see you in her mirror?"
"No. And she didn't see me in her eyes either."
His mother's tone had hurt him.
Now that he was a revolutionary and his family had disowned him she sent letters mocking what she knew of the boy in the mirror. She would ask if he had died yet. She had asked if they had met yet. She asked if the boy completely despised him and would sooner scorn him than talk to him.
The irony hurt Enjolras more than if this had actually been true.
He hated the letters.
And they always ended asking him if he'd come and talk with his poor mother who was old and suffering from her intolerable husband.
Then Enjolras was even more grateful he'd escaped his father's house.
However, Enjolras had no manner of luck and seemed to be the sort who stumbled from one forest to another.
The café was a new world for him.
At first it had been the world of gentle Combeferre and irritating Courfeyrac, but then a new creature was found.
This was Grantaire, who was more often looking in his glass of wine and stirring it about while he insulted Enjolras than actually looking at the man. Grantaire, who when Enjolras first saw him had captured them both. How they had just stared at each other. And moments had passed. And Enjolras wondered if this drunk could really be the boy who had kissed him and held him gently all his life.
It was meeting a person from a dream or a painting. Like writing letters to someone half your life then meeting him or her and finding out how different he or she is from what you had thought.
And the Grantaire in the mirror had belonged to him, not a glass of wine.
And horror had coursed through him when Grantaire stood, swaying and lifted the glass.
"To Apollo. To Apollo here on earth at last. Does Apollo drink? Would he care to join me in self-debauchery?"
Debauchery… Devastation…
Delight and laughter shattered into pieces.
Never again… *never* would he long for something he loved to be real.
All his life until then he had known the boy in the mirror was his companion. They loved each other like nothing else.
Idealistic.
And how he lashed out, hurt and betrayed.
From then on he told himself he hated Grantaire, though he couldn't help watching the man closely. When Enjolras had first come Grantaire had watched the wine or absinthe in the glass. Swirling it with one finger.
But after a while Grantaire actually watched Enjolras.
He always watched Enjolras.
With the dark eyes of always, only different now, daring and sarcastic.
"I've known you all my life. You just *try* and lecture me. I'm a drunk bastard but you wouldn't *dare* lecture me without your Amis."
And for about a month Enjolras left a shirt over the mirror so he wouldn't have to see failure.
Never, *never* again would he want to possess something he loved.
He had now known Grantaire for a year. He had grown used to being mocked and hurt. And grown out of fearing his mirror. Or the letters he got each month. Now he looked away from the mirror, avoiding Grantaire's eyes.
Instead he looked at this month's letter, lying unopened on his desk. He snatched up and tore it open.
"M. Jacque Enjolras
I am ashamed that you are my son. You are a disgrace to my husband and myself. If you stop your ignorant fantasies and come home immediately we will pay for your education. Your disgusting revolution will probably kill your big-eyed lover. Your refusal to be decent is appalling. Or do you not come back because your darling boy is just a filthy beggar in the streets? Does he even notice you or is it that he just knows you because you give him money? Stop chasing wild fantasies and come home. Why are you going to the university if you just kill yourself? And a grateful son would comfort his poor mother. The servants are all against me and barely listen to a thing I say. I am sure they are stealing money. If you were grateful to me for raising you, you'd return and help me. Your father does nothing to help. He is against me too and is going mad I believe. The only one I can trust is you and you're also going insane and shaming my family. My person in the mirror is the only one who listens. I tell but she can't help. Why won't you write or come and help your poor mother? Am I being deserted?
Madame Enjolras"
Enjolras turned it over and glared at the back of the parchment.
"Bitch," he murmured, running a hand through his hair.
He threw down the letter and whipped about to face the mirror.
"What do you want?!" he demanded.
Grantaire looked helplessly at him, reaching out questioningly.
"No! God *damn* it!"
Enjolras threw out his arm forcefully and hit Grantaire across his face. Then man stumbled back then fell. Then Enjolras snatched a rather old book he'd found in his father's library and had always had.
He took the mirror from the wall and carefully crushed the mirror with the book. He was careful; he cleaned every piece from the floor, though few fell. He had been very careful.
When he fell into bed that night he felt alone.
Completely alone.
Alone with his mother's letter.
//Am I being deserted?//
Alone with her insanity.
He had always taken her insanity for granted as he'd grown up.
Now, though…
…it frightened him…
//Or do you not come back because your darling boy is just a filthy beggar in the streets?//
//My person in the mirror is the only one who listens//
Be quiet… please…
Grantaire… please come back…
My life is horrible, please come back…
If only he had a mirror.
If only Grantaire lay beside him, stroking his hair.
And even if his breath stank of absinthe it would still be *him*…
***
Enjolras did not know how he managed to sleep that night, but in the morning he was vaguely amazed to find he had. And he went to classes, but after classes he went to the café. However, Combeferre and Bahorel were there and they got in a discussion and the result was that Enjolras was still at the café and bidding farewell to the two at about twelve.
Then he stood in the door.
And he wondered who he was when he was with his Amis, for he was certainly not the same when he was alone.
"Why did you do that?"
Grantaire's voice was hoarse behind him.
Enjolras turned to look at him and suddenly the world broke like a mirror. Not like the way Enjolras had crushed the mirror in his apartment, but like a mirror dropped, shattering everywhere.
His vision shattered, time shattered, the words Grantaire was speaking now were shattered.
As his world shattered it flipped seven years in the past, his fifteenth birthday, Grantaire's arms, then seven foreword, then another seven foreword and he felt he was smothering under the weight of being a million worlds too low. Then seven years back and he felt a wave of nausea. Then Grantaire's arms were about him and he thought he was fifteen again until he saw the café around them.
He leaned limply against the chest of a man he thought he'd always known.
Grantaire's arms were a little too tight as though he was frightened.
It was forbidden…
Somehow, someone forbade this.
There was something mirrors allowed that the world didn't. How Enjolras could always be in Grantaire's arms in the mirror, but now…
There were barriers, there were standards, there was hell, there was sin…
Somehow, they had always been lovers in the mirror, but it didn't work that way in real life. Mirrors just show light bouncing off things. They don't show truth. They don't show the stench of absinthe around a sot or the sound of a speech by an angel…
Enjolras pushed away, head spinning.
"No-"
"Oh, god, please, Enjolras-"
"No- let me go! Can't you feel this?! Can't you tell something's wrong?!"
Somehow they had to shout to be heard over the shattering of glass in their ears.
"Yes, I feel something's wrong, but I don't know what it is! You'll get splintered like the glass! Please, let me-"
"No! You'll be what splinters me! Don't you see?!"
"Enjolras!"
But Enjolras was gone, stumbling from the café, clutching himself.
The world stopped crashing about. Abruptly the air calmed. The noise in Enjolras's ears quieted.
He miserably started toward his apartment, an awful feeling in him.
He had almost been broken like a mirror.
A mirror caught between two worlds.
The world of Grantaire and the world of Enjolras.
And he was exhausted.
He fell into bed, not able to undress and was asleep almost at once. So tired he didn't notice the box on his desk. It looked like a tea box. More of a crate.
***
Ella sat on the bed she and Jeanne would share. She wondered when her dark-haired lover would arrive. She pulled her knees up and lay on her side on the bed. She was dressed in a white slip.
After a minute or so, she stood and went to the mirror, carefully studying her hair.
She leaned far over the desk to look at herself more carefully.
Just then the door opened and Jeanne stood and smiled at her.
"Ella."
"Jeanne."
She stood, blushing and smiling, her long blond hair twisting a little over her shoulder. Her blue eyes were bright with happiness.
"What did you tell your father?"
Jeanne looked rueful, pushing the door shut with her toe and pulling in the box that held her clothes.
"That Mademoiselle Roland had asked me to stay for a few months at her father's manor. And you. What did you say?"
"The same, but I said Mademoiselle Jeanne's father's manor."
Then she went to Jeanne and the two laughed and embraced and kissed.
They had known each other five years, ever since Ella was twenty and they'd met at a play. Jeanne had been twenty-four. She was always wiser, more sensible. And they loved each other like nothing else.
Jeanne escaped from her father's beatings to Ella's arms and Ella escaped immense boredom. They loved being together and laughing and living for once. Surely it would be like this forever.
***
Jeanne sat on the bed, Ella's feet in her lap as she brushed her hair.
"Only a week left…" she murmured.
Ella looked up.
"Only…"
She sighed. "We'll do this again, only in the country next."
"All right."
But they didn't, not in the country, at least.
Ella got a letter, that spring, from Jeanne. Jeanne wanted to meet her at the apartment they had shared before. Ella was confused but arranged to come for a day.
At first she was happy to see Jeanne, then worried at her careful politeness, then distressed.
When she found Jeanne's father was making her marry a rich man she was furious. Her temper blazed. The two shouted at each other, hurt and misery making them angry. And in the end the mirror that Ella had looked at herself in a year ago fell to the floor and shattered.
***
Enjolras did notice the tea crate when he woke up, however, and went over and suspiciously opened it. His body still ached from the evening before, being crunched about.
On the top of everything in the crate was a letter.
"Dear Jacques Enjolras-
You never will come back and save me from those plotting servants, will you? Everyone is against me. The girl in the mirror-"
He threw it onto the chair where all her letters went. He glowered at the crate. He didn't even want to *know* what was in it.
He pulled out two bound, undecorated books and four rolls of letters, tied in sets with twine. He picked up one of the unmarked books. In the inside cover of the shabbier one was written "Jean-Etienne, 26, 1706".
He flipped through the book, deciding it was a diary. He wondered why his mother would have sent it. Then he read a page and knew why.
"December 14th, 1706
Acelin does not see me. It's almost frightening, because I thought I knew what he was like after watching him in my mirror for 26 years. He ignores me constantly. He never meets my eyes and treats me like a servant. I thought I knew him so well. I never talked to him, of course, because that's not the way the mirror trick works, but I never dreamed he'd shun me so. Please, God, rid me of these illusions. I am going mad."
He threw the book down and snatched up the other, feeling a great repulsion but also fascination.
The inside cover on this said "Mariette, 14, 1760".
The first page…
"January 21, 1760
Maman does not like me talking to the mirror. She says I'm being vain and that it's a sin and no way to act. I don't believe her, though, because she always talks to her mirror. I only talk to my mirror because there's a girl like me in it. The girl has dark hair and dark eyes. I've told Maman, but she doesn't believe me. She never believes anything I say, though. Today when Clarence (he's from England) and I danced, he trod on my toes. I told Maman that but she didn't believe it. I don't understand why she never believes anything I say; I don't lie. The girl in the mirror tried to give me a flower today. I thought she had, too, but when I left the mirror I didn't have it any longer. Maman told me to think about fine men such as Clarence instead of things that aren't there. I like her better than Clarence, even if she isn't real. I'll have to decide later whether she is or not. Also there's a light out my window every night before I try to go to sleep. I hate it. It makes me feel I'm being watched."
Enjolras felt a little dizzy. Mariette. That was his grandmother.
***
It was a week before Enjolras brought himself to look in the crate and despite that reading someone's diary made him feel bad, reading someone's letters were even worse.
After the shock of finding that not only his mother saw another person in the mirror, but also his grandmother and perhaps another relation, he did not feel ready for more shocks.
He distracted himself best he could with speeches and books, but finally he went back to it. He decided that this was the worst thing his mother had done yet. But go back, he did.
He chose a rather large pack of letters. All of them were addressed 'to Sarah' save one, which was 'to Catharine' and obviously had been meant to be sent. The letters were not dated which also rather disappointed him.
He chose one randomly.
"Dear Sarah,
I'd agree about poetry being lovely, if only not so many young fools write it to me. I like your poetry much better, though how many times must I tell you that you make me sound much too lovely? I should write about your golden tresses someday. And your blue eyes. You look like your father. How is he getting along? Poor Jean. My deepest sympathies. You must write more often, for I love so getting your letters. Also I decided to try my hand at poetry. (It's a couplet)
A golden river down her back
No water does the river lack
Like a mirror fallen in splinters.
A dancing blue of frosty winters
Demure and her wistful sighs
The blue of flowers in her eyes
Her love to me, she doth pronounce
And then she pounce
I am terrible at poetry. The only lines I like are the last. They really do make me think of you.
All my love, Catharine"
Enjolras felt startled. 'Poor Jean'. Maybe Jean from the diary. He wondered what could've happened to inspire her 'deepest sympathies'.
It so happened that the unsent letter was the answer to the one he had just read.
"Dear Catharine
Many thanks for the poem. I actually believe that some parts are better than my own poem. Keep writing. But don't write about mirrors. I loathe them. A golden river? More like a golden pond. Mother makes me keep my hair up always. Thank you for including father in the letter. I showed him and it cheered him considerably. Still, I'm rather frightened of him. Mother says he was handsome when he was young but now his veins show right through his skin, which is yellowish. And his hands always shake. I cannot eat when I am forced to sit by him or across from him at the table. His hands shake while he cuts his meat and sometimes he accidentally jabs me in the ribs with his elbow. Could you give a few of your deepest sympathies to me instead?
Love you dearly, Sarah"
Enjolras gazed at the letter. He was getting the feeling that the whole world was completely insane. But he also knew that finally he was finding out things no one had ever known. Things his mother didn't know before him. Things the others didn't know because the story didn't end with them.
What Enjolras didn't know was how the story began. And that's what he needed to know.
He scooped up a packet of letters, found they bore his mother's handwriting and threw them down again.
The story did *not* begin with her.
The next packet of letters he found he knew was the correct one. He knew because the first thing the first letter said was "Ella, do you remember when we broke the mirror and you said 'seven years bad luck'?"
"Ella,
Do you remember when we broke the mirror and you said 'seven years bad luck'? And how I said I thought it would be bad luck in seven years? Seven years are up now. And you… You're married and your daughter Stephanie is one, right? You haven't written since last year. Please write so that I know you received my letter? Could we see each other some day this spring? Please, Ella, I love you so much and miss you. I'm sorry I'm married to this bastard. Please forgive me, it wasn't my fault. I would have lived forever with you. Ella, I love you… I see you in my mirror beside me the way it was that time in Paris. Please forgive me, Please stop ignoring my letters. Just let me know you exist in more than my mirror and heart.
Jeanne October 28th, 1619"
"Ella, seven years bad luck is now eight. Maybe you were right. My children are happy, though. I still see you in the mirror. I'm going mad. Please at least just write to assure me you got this letter.
Jeanne September 7th, 1620"
"Ella, I love you, please, god, I need you. It's been ten years since we've seen each other. I remember you easily. You're the only thing I have left to live for and you're killing me. Please write to me before I go entirely mad.
Jeanne March 21st, 1622"
There were more like this, begging Ella to meet her somewhere, to write, to do anything to show she existed.
But Enjolras understood what it was.
He understood that 219 years ago two lovers had to separate and broke a mirror. One lover had said seven years bad luck. The other said bad luck in seven years. What neither understood, but what Enjolras finally did was that it wasn't years, it was generations. Despite that he hadn't read the letters he knew were Stephanie's he understood it all.
But did it really end with him?
If it ended with him, who was Grantaire?
Was he just the son of the filth of the streets as Enjolras had thought, or…
…Or was he the bad luck that was supposed to happen?
Did that mean he was related to Jeanne? But Grantaire didn't have a mirror to see Enjolras in. If that even mattered. The world was insane. There was no reason left.
Enjolras took all of his mother's letters, found some string to tie them with and threw all the letters and the two books in the crate.
Then he paused and grabbed the crate and began emptying it. The letters that were Jeanne's, the letters that were Stephanie's, the diary that was Jean-Etienne's, The letters that were Catherine's, the diary that was Mariette's, the letters that were his mother's, and then, at the very bottom, another letter.
This one in a child's hand.
He had not burnt it.
Perhaps his mother had found it and put it in the crate to finish the set of family madness.
The family madness that went with blond hair and blue eyes.
And mirrors.
"Mirror, what is your name? Why don't you ever speak? Are you real? I think your eyes are beautiful. Maman said you do not exist and that I shouldn't talk to my mirror, but I will continue, because you are my friend. Jacques."
Enjolras stared at the letter, amazed.
He thought of how much he'd hated Grantaire when he'd met him. And of how much he loved him. And his mother's insanity. And his own sanity almost breaking like a mirror a week and a few days ago.
Was that that all the fault of those two lovers from 1612?
And, besides. Enjolras did not believe in magic.
But that wasn't an argument, because it doesn't matter whether or not you believe in something if you're actually caught in it. And caught he was. Caught like he was in a room made completely of mirrors. Caught in a vast space of a thousand more rooms that began to darken in a green grey shadow as they reflected away.
And when you shut your eyes you're free again.
It had always been like that.
When Enjolras closed his eyes he wasn't able to feel Grantaire pushing back his hair.
When Enjolras closed his eyes he couldn't see his mother's letters.
Now, however, his eyes were opened: It wasn't his vision he was trapped in; it was his mind.
He had never done anything to deserve this.
To get, all his life, visions. To suffer from a poor woman driven insane by an ancestor from two hundred years ago. Not ever to have what he'd loved so long. How he'd loved the boy in the mirror so much. How he'd die for the boy.
Enjolras dragged himself up.
He'd read both diaries the whole way through as well as all the letters except Jeanne's, because after the first they were all too wretched to make any sense.
Now he put them all away, in the right order, his own letter on top.
Then he wearily found the lid and pounded it down with an ink well.
It was dark outside and he hesitated a little then finally left his apartment with the box and went to the bridge over the river Seine. He gazed down at the black water. He gazed and thought that maybe, two hundred and nineteen years ago, two lovers stood on the bridge and watched the water. And that maybe he was giving the river something it had been waiting two centuries for.
He dropped the box, heard the sound as it fell, heard the splash, watched some bubbles rise as it sank.
Thank God it sank.
Then he heard a sound behind him.
He turned.
"Enjolras. Bonne nuit. How long have you been out here?"
"Grantaire…"
As Grantaire took Enjolras into his arms Enjolras knew that Grantaire had always known of the mirrors and letters.
"I- I see you in my mirror…"
"Really?"
"Had you seen me before?"
"What do you think I see in the wine glass?"
"I thought it was only mirrors."
"It's a mirror."
"Yes… I suppose it is."
"Let's get you home. You're freezing."
Enjolras let himself be led home, though how Grantaire knew where it was he had no idea. And when Grantaire went to sleep at the foot of Enjolras's bed Enjolras had been thrilled. After that Grantaire lived with him, and when he looked in the mirror Grantaire was always there.
But that was because Enjolras's home was his home.
And even in the end if the mirrors would continue their work as they had seven generations with Enjolras's family, they ended then. Neither Grantaire nor Enjolras minded dying too much. The only part they didn't like was that, for all they had imagined, the gunshots felt like broken mirror splinters piercing them.
But in all it was all right, because they were together in the last moments and no matter where they went next, they'd be going together.
The End.