Chapter Two: Something Unearthly
"I heard his mom died pretty much right after she gave birth. His dad brought him up, but that's the problem. His dad new how to drive a tank and command a battalion. Sure didn't know how to raise a kid, though. He didn't raise a kid. He raised a tank."
--From Eroica with Love: Vacation Orders
The ceremony was to be tomorrow.
It was a completely idiotic waste of time, Major Eberbach thought, his frown deepening and his glare intensifying at the blundering fools who were mangling his proud ancestral home into some sort of monstrosity he had been told was suitable for weddings.
The entire ordeal seemed inane. There were oddly shaped bunches of cloth draped all over the walls, a thoroughly sickening amount of flowers everywhere, and the skull-splintering clashes of furniture being moved and dragged around the old stone castle—long banquet tables, hundreds of chairs…
The Major clenched his fists tightly and tried to resist the urge to shout obscenities at everyone around him. At least he had finally gotten rid of that obnoxious Shenshen who had spent the last half hour clinging to his arm—the very thought made his skin crawl—giggling that inane high-pitched laugh of hers at everything.
"You shouldn't let your emotions show so easily on your face," his father reprimanded him sharply. "Everyone can tell you're not enjoying this."
"Am I supposed to be? This entire thing seems like nothing more than a grandiose waste of time," Klaus said in a tone just short of snapping. He lit a cigarette and continued scowling at the help.
He noticed, out of the corner of his eyes, that the old man seemed tired for the first time that Klaus could remember. The powerful and authoritative tank commander he remembered from his youth was gone, replaced with a weary octogenarian with deep lines etched into his pale face, thin white hair, and gradually darkening eyes.
But his pose and gait were as strong and formal as ever. He looked at his son with a sort of exasperation, but, surprisingly, he refrained from making any further comment.
Despite himself, Klaus was almost tempted to turn to his father and ask what the matter was…but at that moment one of the scores of vases resting on narrow columns (what idiot thought that would be a good idea, anyways?) tipped over, exploding on the cold stone floor of the Schloss Eberbach in a burst of jagged pieces of porcelain, roses, and water.
Roses.
If it had been up to him there wouldn't have been any of that accursed weed! But then, if it had been up to him there wouldn't have been any bothersome flowers period. Not to mention the revolting amounts of frills and ribbons and…things he couldn't find names for, but were equally offensive to the eye. His ancestors would be rolling around in their graves if they knew what was happening within the castle walls.
That God-damned bugger Eroica would probably approve of the grotesque extravagancies, he thought, grinding the cigarette into a nearby ashtray with a little more force than was necessary. Then again, Eroica probably wouldn't, not considering the accompanying circumstances.
The Major was to be married, and that was something that may perhaps finally, forever, deter the damn freak's advances. And that was the only thing about that day which made the Major smile, just a little.
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Heinz von dem Eberbach sighed deeply. He turned to his butler, and over the years a sort of confidante and friend, Conrad Hinkel, with a weary look he could no longer fight from his eyes. "These days should not be some sort of trial of my son's patience. I don't understand. In the days before and after Henrietta and I were to be married everything was a daze of joy and happy festivities."
Hinkel led him quietly away from the crowd of planners and movers and the few guests that had arrived a day early for the ceremonies and were milling about, exploring the ancient castle's spacious rooms and displays of art Henrietta had loved, but her son scarcely acknowledged, and then, acknowledged only with disdain.
But no, the elder Eberbach reminded himself forcibly as he sat shakily in the empty parlour. Klaus was not Henrietta's son, and he could not allow himself to forget again. "Sir," Hinkel addressed him politely. "Perhaps your son does not feel the same way about his marriage as you did about yours."
"I don't understand," Heinz repeated wearily. "I asked him a hundred times—a million times!—about any woman he was interested in—any at all! After all my years of pointing out the virtues of Jack's daughter to him, I thought he had finally opened his eyes to her and grown to love her himself, but these last few days…"
"Sir," there was a brisk knock at the door and another of the butlers employed at the Schloss Eberbach—an aging man with white hair—bowed and entered. "There is a guest here to see you, Sir. An hysterical British woman is demanding to come in at once—"
"Out of my way!" an almost squeaky voice demanded, and a woman with a mass of blonde curls all but shoved the butler aside and stormed into the parlour. "Are you Commander Heinz von dem Eberbach?"
"Ah—yes—what can I…?"
"Oh! Good. I'm Glinda the—um, I'm the Countess of Gloria," she spoke in a rush of words, so that he could barely keep up, constantly fluttering her gloved hands about in front of her. A few strings of diamonds glittered around her neck, and her dress was something extraordinary—a mass of blue silk gowns.
"Are you a friend of the bride's?" he asked, dumfounded.
"What? No," she laughed, waving a hand at him that glittered with jewellery. She sat in the chair across from him. "Actually, I'm here because—because—because—ha ha ha, well, actually it's—"
"It's…?"
"Mother!" Dorian Red Gloria stepped into the room, shaking his head in exasperation. "In God's name what are you doing?"
"Mother…?" Heinz raised an eyebrow inquisitively at the young woman sitting across from him.
"Ah—a ha—mother—uh, sister—no—I think I'm m—more of an aunt, really…" a nervous laugh. "We—ell—"
"I'm sorry, we were just leaving—" Dorian started.
"No we were not!" the Countess Gloria said, folding her hands neatly in her lap.
"We weren't?"
"No, of course not! That's what I was going to….we need to stay for the ceremony!" she declared suddenly, giving her—companion—a stern look.
"Ceremony?" Heinz began. "You mean my son's marriage…? But I don't even know who you are!"
At that moment, the door to the parlour flew open with a clattering bang that made the Countess jump. All eyes turned to see Klaus standing in the doorway, and the Major's eyes widened in absolute disbelief. "YOU! What in bloody hell are YOU doing here, you degenerate fop!" he shouted at Dorian.
"Ah, you know one another, then…" Heinz said. "I see, than of course you are invited to the—"
"You—DAMN—bugger! What the hell are you doing here! It's not bad enough that you have to get in the way of my missions, you're actually—"
"Hey! You can't talk to my son that way!" the Countess rose to her feet.
"Your son?"
"Ah—my sister gets a little confused sometimes…" Dorian smiled with obvious unease. "We should really be going—"
"No! You're going to stay—" the Countess shoved the Earl into one of the seats with a rather surprising strength. "And I'm going to stay—" she sat back herself, "And we're all going to stay!" she ended with a sort of tone, as though daring anyone to object to her.
The Major was staring at them both as though he was stunned—momentarily—Heinz was simply very, very confused. The two butlers hovered uneasily along the fringes, exchanging worried glances. Klaus looked like he was angry enough to explode—when the door opened yet again, and a skinny brunette in a tight taffeta dress sauntered in. "Oh Klaus, there you are!" odd giggling, "I was looking everywhere for you! Absolutely everywhere! June teased me, saying you snuck back to work when I wasn't looking! This man does love his job so much!"
The Major's eyebrow twitched, and Dorian and Glinda exchanged glances, it seemed clear to them that Klaus was trying very hard to control his anger. Heinz was either oblivious to this, or ignoring it, as he clapped his hands together and rose. "Ah, Miss Shenshen, there you are!" he turned to the butlers. "Please prepare two of the guest rooms for Countess Gloria and her…"
"Nephew."
"Brother."
The Major's eyes darted between them accusingly and brimming with suspicion, as his fiancé dragged him towards the connecting dining room. We'll finish this later, was all-too clearly written on his face.
"Ah, this way, Countess, Earl," Hinkel said gently.
Glinda turned to her son and sighed. "Well, he's cheery fellow, isn't he?"
"Remind me why we're here again?" he hissed under his breath as they followed the poor, flustered butler.
"You don't think it's a good idea?" she asked, wide eyed. "I think it just might be the best idea I ever had!"
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"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Dorian groaned, sitting on the edge of the guestroom bed. His mother was pacing, with a thoughtful expression. Although he wasn't sure how much thought she had actually put into this. In fact, Dorian wasn't even sure what she intended to do. She'd practically vanished from Castle Gloria, and a very upset Bonham had nervously explained that she had taken off for Germany—and he had found her here.
Meddling.
"Oh, come off it, what's the harm in a bit of mischief now and then?" she demanded petulantly.
"It's his bloody wedding!" Dorian exclaimed in exasperation.
"And you don't want him to have it, remember?"
"Well what exactly do you mean to DO?"
"And I mean please, as though anyone could be happy with that giggling tart…Did you know I went to school with a girl named Shenshen? Pretty coincidence, I say."
"I still don't understand why you're here," he groaned, burying his face in his hands.
"I don't know…I could, um, make the wedding cake explode or something," she offered, procuring a long silver and blue crystal wand from her handbag.
"You've got to be kidding me. Would you just forget the whole… 'witch' thing, Mum, please?"
"You don't believe me, do you?" Glinda asked, turning and placing her hands on her hips. "Well how do you explain the fact that I haven't aged since you last saw me, huh? And besides, what was that 'my sister gets confused sometimes' stuff about! You're trying to make me look like a bloody idiot!"
"Well what was I supposed to say! 'Excuse me Sir, but my poor old mother is convinced that she's a witch from another planet'?"
"I…ugh! You're impossible! I'm going back to my room, we'll have to discuss this in the morning. Heinz said the ceremony wasn't going to start until later on, anyways."
He didn't care. He really didn't want to be plotting anything with his mentally deranged mother.
An indignant huff and toss of her golden curls later, Glinda the "Good Witch" disappeared into the hallways of the Schloss Eberbach…
The Schloss! Good God, he still couldn't believe he was actually here and that Klaus hadn't hunted him down and strangled him already. Maybe the Major was just distracted with his fiancé…but thinking about that gave Dorian the creeps, so he pushed himself off the bed and followed his mother out the door.
There was no way he was going to get a wink of sleep, not on this night.
But when he stepped out into the hallway, she had already gone. He sighed and leaned back against the closed door. The entire castle seemed shrouded in a thick veil of silence. He was left alone with his thoughts, and right then he really didn't want them because they were confusing and weird.
All these years he had harboured a deep resentment for the woman who had abandoned him at the age of fourteen, and now she was honestly trying to help him—even if she was a bit of a barmy nutter—and he didn't know what to think anymore.
He also didn't know what to do about Klaus' wedding. Part of him just wanted to kill that annoying Shenshen, really kill her, but the other part of his mind hesitated—maybe it wasn't right to destroy this for the Major. Maybe he should just—keep a stiff upper lip and give up on him for good.
Except that he'd never given up on anything he'd really wanted! And the Major was the first man he'd ever really felt so in love with!
"Oh no, what do I do?" he sighed, pressing his hands over his eyelids. "What do I do? What do I—"
Then, through the silence, he heard a strange sort of…singing? He couldn't tell. It was a sound so faint and muffled that…
But it called to him.
It resonated right through everything, fitting its way straight into his mind and dragging him forwards. He hadn't even noticed that he'd walked down the length of the hall until his hand gripped the staircase banister.
It wasn't really like singing. Wasn't like 'music' in the conventional sense of the word, the Earl thought, his feet slowly moving up the stairs. It was something…something like a whole other sense, something deep and stirring and powerful. Something resonating, and tangible. He felt it along the tips of his fingers, and running down his spine.
It was something…unearthly.
The attic was very old. It hadn't been cleaned in a long time either, Dorian noticed. A thick layer of grey-white dust covered everything. Large cumbersome boxes were stacked all over the place, and heavy white sheets were draped over old pieces of furniture, and paintings…
His curiosity whispered in the back of his mind, and he wanted to examine everything, see what fabulous treasures that philistine Klaus had left rotting up here, but at the same time, his feet just kept walking and walking past all of it. Towards…towards…
Then he stood before a large rectangular shape, taller than a man, and flat, covered by a heavy tarp. "Has to be a mirror, I expect…" he swallowed, the backs of his hands were tingling.
Why did it have to be a mirror? Surely a canvas would have similar dimensions. But he just knew it—he just knew it!
Very faintly he wondered what he was doing up here, in the dirty old attic, drawing the covering off of this antique piece of furniture, and then it was too late for wondering any more. The heavy sheet fell to the ground in billowing mounds, and the ancient mirror was unveiled.
He didn't see the frame, although it was probably something gilded and heavy and ornate. He didn't see any of the attic, any longer, either. He only saw the smooth, perfect, looking-glass. Only it wasn't smooth any longer, it was melting.
Melting.
Melting.
The mirror was melting!
He tried to back away, but at the same time, he couldn't help raising a hand to touch this incredible, wondrous sight. It was just so unearthly, it enthralled him. And what had been melting and shifting like liquid, was becoming mist, and his hands past through it effortlessly.
And then Dorian wasn't standing in the old attic any longer. He was standing in a castle, but it wasn't Klaus' castle, it wasn't the Schloss Eberbach any longer.
A cold chill ran down the length of his spine. The walls were black grimy stones. The floor was covered in a thick layer of filth, and there were tables all about him cluttered with cruel looking instruments—vials of bubbling liquids, and books, books and pieces of parchment everywhere—ancient, crumbling, filled with archaic writing and diagrams and symbols. The place was lit by a mess of candles, dripping long rivers of wax all over the tables and floor.
There were windows, narrow slits like the sort archers could use to shoot arrows from in times of a siege, but all they revealed was the thick blackness of night. His breath shaking, Dorian stumbled to the wall, and leaned against it dizzily.
He had this horrible feeling. "I—I don't think I'm in Germany anymore…"
Something moved. Something bumped into the table. The old rotten wood shook, and all the glass vials and things clattered about. Dorian felt his heart beating wildly in his chest. Something was scrambling about in the shadows. Something smaller than a person, but sure as hell bigger than a mouse.
And suddenly, it was nearly on top of him, palely illuminated by the flickering light of the candles. At first, he thought it was some sort of hideous monster and only years and years of training as a thief had kept him from screaming, because it was hideous. Like some sort of horribly deformed shrunken hairy person.
Then, catching his breath, his brain kicked back into gear and he realized, monkey, just a monkey, sure you don't see one everyday, 'specially not creepin' about in the shadows of some crazy alternate mirror-world bangin' into tables full of weird occult crap but still, a monkey's just a monkey…okay, so it's got wings.
Wings. Wings. The monkey had honest-to-God WINGS. Fucking. Wings. On a damn. Monkey! He dug his fingernails into the stone wall behind him until it hurt, and stared at the bizarre creature with wide eyes.
It stared back.
He felt like his eyes were going to fall out of his head. His knees trembled. What the HELL was going on?
The monkey tilted its head a little and stared at him. The wings ruffled. Finally, it scratched its head and skittered back into the darkness.
Dorian let out the deep breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding in. The mirror was still there, it was the only thing in the room that hadn't changed. It was all he could do at this point to reach shakily towards it and hope and pray this was just some weird, horrible dream and that he would wake up and forget it. Just wake up and forget it. Just wake—
The world turned hazy and misty around him, and seemed to convolute—turn in on itself and flip over—and then he was sprawling on the ground, in the attic of the Schloss, breathing like he'd just been running for his life, and tangled in the sheet that had once hung over the looking-glass.
When he could stand again he left the attic as quickly as he could. He did not look at the mirror. But strangely. Horribly, strangely. He had the oddest sensation, that it was looking at him.
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"I'm telling you there was a—a—a MONKEY in the mirror!"
Klaus paused outside the door to the dining room. It was first thing in the morning. He wanted his Nescafe, damn it! But the reminder that that degenerate pervert was infesting his estates, seemingly under the consent of his father, made him lose his appetite. And what was that idiot rambling about now? Had he gone insane as well as perverted?
The Countess and the butler were both trying to calm him down. "Honey, I don't understand what you're—"
"In the mirror! The mirror upstairs! There is—there was this—thing! This THING! Like a monkey—only—you know—with wings!"
Then, to his surprise, he heard the voice of his father: "The…the old mirror, you say? The old one in the attic?"
Through the crack of the slightly adjourned door, the Major saw the Countess turn to face his father, a deeply concerned expression on her face—well, she should be concerned if her relation's seeing bloody winged monkeys.
"Dorian, what were you doing in the attic?" she asked.
The thief looked genuinely surprised at this. Then a bit puzzled. "I…well I don't know! Isn't that odd? I just…"
Finally, Klaus had heard enough. He marched into the dining room, glared at the mess off idiots who were wasting his time with babble about mirror-monkeys and drinking his Nescafe. "I'll tell you what he was doing up there! Stealing something, most likely."
Heinz looked rather appalled. "How can you be so rude to our guest? And I thought he was a friend of yours, too."
"He's no friend of mine!" the Major sneered. "It's beyond me what he thinks he's doing here in the first place—"
"Alright, alright, I want to hear more about this mirror," his father said dismissively, turning back to the Earl.
Klaus stared at his father, the former tank commander, in absolute shock. He had no idea how to respond, so he simply sat down. Lord Gloria was trying to tell his story again.
"Well, like I told you…I was in the attic, right? I don't—I don't know why, I just found myself up there. It was like something was calling to me. Except there weren't any words…it just…it just felt right, like I should go up there—"
The Countess and his father exchanged equally concerned glances, almost like they knew what the thief was babbling on about. Or maybe they were just both concerned for his mental health. Whatever.
"And—and there was this mirror—a great big old one, behind a sheet, and—"
"Oh dear God…" Heinz breathed. "It can't be, after all this time… You didn't look at it, did you!"
"And when I touched it, the surface got all—I don't know, misty—"
"You have one!" the Countess gasped, leaping out of her seat, her hands squarely on the table, leaning over his father. "Heinz Eberbach, you have one!"
"And then—and then I wasn't here anymore I was—I was somewhere else! Somewhere dark. There were these tables and candles and things—and this creature—leapt out at me—"
"You have a one of the Magic Mirrors, Herr Eberbach? How did you get one! I thought there were only the two in existence—the ones my husband used!"
"You know about them?" Heinz asked, gasping in surprise. "You know the other world to which they lead?"
"What in God's name are you all babbling on about?" Klaus snapped, glaring at the lot of them.
The Countess and his father once again exchanged long glances. Then the senior Eberbach slowly rose. He seemed to have grown considerably paler. He was almost trembling, and Klaus couldn't remember ever seeing the commander tremble.
"I—Excuse me, there's something I must do."
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The aged Heinz von dem Eberbach found himself staring into the black depths of the ancient mirror. It had been in the family for generations, going back to the time of Tyrian Persimmon, a thing to which many vile rumours were attached. Some said it was haunted, others cursed. He had thought such things foolish nonsense. After all, he had been a soldier, a commander, he had faced death countless times, watched friends and family ripped to pieces before his own eyes.
But he had not been able to confront this—this unearthly thing. This mirror that was not a mirror, but a portal, a key. He had stored it away up in the attic and forbidden even the servants from entering to clean it. He had not looked at it for years—not since the birth of his son.
The mirror.
She had come through the accursed mirror! And now, standing before it, he felt his entire body trembling violently. He raised a hand shakily. He could not—he never had been able to—take that one step. Move through the solid glass. But he could do this much. Now that he knew it was still possible. Now that he had been reminded of its immense power.
He pressed the thin folded sheet of paper up to the foggy pane, and watched it slide through the mist, and disappear.
I know we haven't seen each other in years. But your son is getting married today. I thought perhaps you should know.
--Heinz
To be continued in Chapter Three: Stranger in the Wide-Brimmed Hat