Through the Mirror

[Rissa M]

Through the Mirror: One

RhyDin, December 2022 …

Splat!

Mira blinked in surprise as a snowball splattered the front of her cloak, followed by a gaggle of childish laughter.

“Are you going to hide in the woods all day or come out and play?” taunted the tall, dark, and handsome man who was her older counterpart’s mate and father of said children.

“I’m not hiding,” Mira countered, as she stepped out of the trees. At least, not anymore. There wasn’t much point in trying to hide when the little family of weres could pick up her scent from miles away anyway.

“Maybe you wanted to play Hide and Seek,” Emrys suggested with a playful smirk.

“No, I …” Mira trailed off, gnawing nervously at her lower lip. “I just wanted to watch,” she explained with a half-shrug. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. How was she supposed to explain how envious she was of their happiness without making them feel bad?

“It’s okay, Mira,” Emrys reassured her, the smirk turning into a fond smile. “I’m just teasing.”

Mira frowned at the mention of the name they had decided would be hers. She wasn’t sure why it mattered, but sometimes it felt like it wasn’t just her name that no longer belonged to her, but her entire existence. She’d felt like that ever since the other Marissa – the one from the future – had come back in time and decided to stay.

“He’s always teasing,” that other Marissa interjected, nudging her mate’s shoulder with one of her own. “Why don’t you take the little ones inside and make them some hot cocoa?” she suggested with a sweet smile.

“Now you’re just trying to get rid of me,” Emrys replied, with a cheeky wink at both women. “Come along then,” he said, turning to round up the trio of little ones. “Your mama wants to speak with Aunt Mira in private.”

“Wha’s pride-vet, Papa? ‘Zat like when you an’ Mama wanna snuggle?” three-year old Dai asked, sliding his little hand into his father’s much bigger one.

“No, silly,” interrupted his sister Cerys, who at five years old thought she was so much older and wiser than her little brother. “Pri-vet jus’ means they wanna be alone.”

“Oh,” Dai murmured, pausing to think on that a moment before adding, “But why? Do they wanna snuggle, too?” The little boy was rarely at a loss for questions these days.

Emrys chuckled as he steered the children back toward the house. “I’ll explain over hot cocoa and cookies, okay?”

If the cheer that went up between them was anything to go by, it seemed their father’s answer was more than sufficient.

Mira watched them go, frowning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spoil the fun.”

Marissa waved a dismissive hand her way. “Nonsense. You’re not spoiling anything. Hot cocoa with their father is just as much fun as a snowball fight.” The fond smile she’d had for her family faded as she turned her attention to the younger woman. “But I have a feeling you didn’t come here to play in the snow. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I just …” Mira shrugged, unsure how to explain. “I’ve tried, but I just don’t feel like I belong here anymore.”

Marissa mirrored the frown. It wasn’t too hard to understand why the younger woman was having trouble figuring out where she belonged. She was, after all, just a younger version of herself. Marissa had hoped she could spare Mira the troubles of her own past, but maybe it wasn’t that simple. “I felt like that once, too, you know. Before I met Emrys.”

“Yes, but that’s just it,” said Mira. “You have Emrys. You have a family. You have purpose.”

“You have family, too, Riss,” Marissa pointed out, using the nickname she had always preferred for herself. “There are lots of people who care about you and call you family.” She didn’t bother to name names. They both knew family was more than just Marissa and Emrys. There were their siblings, who they were just getting reacquainted with, and there was the pack who would always be like family. And then, there was the adoptive family they’d been raised with, but at least one of those people was missing. Maybe that was it, or at least, part of it.

“It’s Kirin, isn’t it?” Marissa asked. It wasn’t hard to guess when the search for her adoptive mother was in part what had started her own journey through the Nexus.

Mira nodded, afraid to speak lest her voice betray her feelings.

“I miss her, too,” Marissa quietly admitted, reaching for the younger woman’s hand. But she had said her goodbyes, and there was no more going back - not for her, not anymore.

“But you’ve seen her. You’ve been there. You know how to get there.”

Marissa frowned, unable to argue with that. Who was she to deny her younger counterpart what she herself had already done? “You can go see her, too, you know. It’s a little tricky. You’ll have to go back before the portals closed. That means not just a portal jump, but a time jump, too. If you aren’t careful, you could end up too far back or not far back enough.”

“But it’s not impossible,” Mira ventured.

“No, it’s not impossible,” Marissa admitted. Few things in RhyDin ever were. “But I can’t go with you. You’ll have to go alone.” There was a price to be paid for meddling with the Nexus, after all. She had risked the journey one too many times, and she couldn’t afford to risk it again.

“Please, Marissa,” Mira pleaded with tears in her eyes. “I need to see her again. I need to know what happened to her. I need to know she’s okay.” And maybe, just maybe, figure out what she was supposed to do with the rest of her own life.

“Mom is fine, Riss. She met someone and fell in love again. She made a life for herself. She’s happy there. She wanted to stay,” Marissa assured her, though she knew it probably wasn’t enough to satisfy her younger counterpart's curiosity.

“But you can’t know that for sure. You have no way of knowing what happened after you left,” Mira pointed out.

“No, but …” Marissa’s frown deepened. “If you go, we’ll have no way of knowing what happened to you either.”

“You mean, if I decide to stay,” Mira said.

“Like I said, you’ll have to go back before the portals closed. If you stay too long, you’ll have no way to come back,” Marissa explained. She considered a moment longer before adding, “Use the mirror. It’s the safest way, but once the portals close, even that won’t bring you home.”

Mira nodded. “Okay, I understand.” Their mother had told her about the mirror and how it was sort of a failsafe, but it seemed not even that was foolproof.

“I was a little younger than you the first time I went through the Nexus,” Marissa confessed. “I know I should have gone back to my own time, but I thought it would be okay. I thought maybe we could be like sisters, you and me. And then, after I met Emrys …” She sighed, feeling guilty for having been so selfish. “I’m sorry, Riss. I never meant to take your place.”

Mira blinked, startled by the unexpected confession. That wasn’t what this was about; at least, not entirely. “Don’t be silly. If you hadn’t stayed, you wouldn’t have met Emrys. Your children wouldn’t have been born, and we wouldn’t have met. You saved Seren and Duncan and Mara. Who knows what might have happened if you hadn’t stayed, if you hadn’t tried to change things. You made the right choice. You made a difference. You’re still making a difference. You were meant to stay. You belong here, but I …” She trailed off a moment, gnawing at her lower lip again. “Maybe now it’s my turn.”

Marissa sighed. Once again, there was no arguing with her. In a way, the past was repeating itself, but who was she to deny her younger self what she had already accomplished? “We’re going to miss you,” she said, just now realizing how much.

Mira smiled at last. “I’m going to miss you, too, but we’re part of each other. We’ll see each other again someday. One way or another.” Either in this world or the next; she had to believe that.

Marissa nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Just do me one favor," she managed to murmur.

“Anything.”

“Don’t leave until after our birthday.”

Mira laughed. Was that all? “I can do that. Can you believe I’m going to be twenty-one?” she asked with a grin.

“Can you believe I’m going to be thirty?” Marissa replied with a groan, as if that was ancient.

“You’re so old,” Mira teased. “I hope I look like you when I’m thirty.”

“You will. It’s in the genes,” Marissa pointed out. They were practically twins, after all, even if they were nine years apart. There was only one difference, and that had been a matter of personal choice.

Marissa gave the younger woman’s hand a gentle squeeze. “We’d better go inside before Emrys gets worried.”

Mira nodded in agreement. There was still a lot to discuss, a lot to prepare, a lot of goodbyes to make, but at least, it was a start. It was time for the younger Marissa to leave the only place she’d ever known to seek her future beyond the Nexus, just like the older Marissa had done before her.

[Rissa M]

RhyDin, a few weeks later ...

"I don't understand," Skylar murmured with a puzzled frown. Marissa - no, Mira - had been trying to explain why she was leaving RhyDin, but her older sister just couldn’t seem to understand. "Why are you leaving when we're just getting to know each other?" she asked, clearly distraught.

Mira mirrored her sister's frown. She'd known this was going to be hard, but she couldn't very well leave without at least trying to explain. "Sky, you're going to be fine. There are plenty of people who care about you. You have Dante and Marissa and Emrys and the pack. You're not alone. You're never going to be alone."

Skylar’s frown only deepened at her sister’s reply, which was clearly not what she’d wanted to hear. "But they aren’t you. All my life, I’ve felt like a piece of me was missing, and that piece was you. I don't understand why Mom decided to separate us in the first place. So your DNA was tampered with, so what? You're still my sister. Nothing is ever going to change that."

Mira sighed. There were some questions about the past they might never have answered, and this was only one of them. "Mom did what she thought was best ... for all of us,” she said. It wasn't like their mother had planned on dying, but she'd known from experience that it was best to be prepared for any and all possibilities, no matter how horrible. "She left a journal, you know. Marissa has it. You should read it." Mira knew their mother's journal wouldn't answer all her sister’s questions – nothing would – but it was better than nothing.

"Her journal isn't going to tell me why she split us up," Skylar argued. It had always been a point of contention with her, whatever their mother’s motives. As the eldest, she’d always felt the burden had been left to her to take care of the others, but how could she do that when they weren’t together? "There’s so much I don’t understand,” she murmured to herself. Reading their mother's journal wouldn't bring her back, and it wouldn’t explain how she'd died either. There was no coming back from that kind of death, no matter how many lives you might have. The authorities had called it a tragic accident, but explosions like that didn’t happen by accident.

“I know,” Mira replied, frowning. “I don’t understand either. I don’t think I ever will.” But at least, she’d made peace with it. The same could not be said for her sister, it seemed.

“I’m going to find out what happened to them,” Skylar said, for the first time voicing aloud what she and Dante had been secretly planning for what seemed like forever. “Once and for all.”

Mira blinked in surprise at her sister’s unexpected announcement. Then again, it made perfect sense. If anyone was to unwind the mystery of their parents’ deaths, it would be Skylar and Dante. “Just be careful,” Mira warned. How did the old saying go? Let sleeping dogs lie. There was no telling what they might uncover if they decided to open that particular can of worms. Not even Marissa had dared dig into that one. “Some things are better left alone,” she murmured warily.

Skylar bristled a little. Who was Mira to tell her what to do when she was abandoning them to her own adventures? “Point taken,” she muttered, half under her breath, though she was making no promises. “So, what are you going to do? Go skipping through Time like Marissa did?” she asked, with just a hint of bitterness in her voice.

“No, nothing like that,” Mira replied. If she’d noticed the bitterness in her sister’s voice, she chose to ignore it. She didn’t expect anyone to understand why she’d decided to leave, but she hoped they’d at least try to accept it.

“I still don’t understand why you’re leaving,” Skylar said again, all the anger going out of her, replaced by sadness.

“I know, and I can’t really explain,” Mira replied with a shrug of her shoulders. “It’s just – it’s just a feeling, that’s all. It has nothing to do with Marissa or you or anyone else. I’ve just never really felt like I belong here.”

All at once, Skylar reached for her sister’s hands, clutching them tightly between her own. “Riss, stay here with us. Dante and I are going to pilot our own ship, travel the stars. It’s our legacy. It’s in our blood. It’s in your blood. There’s so much to do, so many places to go. There’s a whole multiverse out there. Stay here and we’ll go together. We’ll make our own adventures together,” Skylar pleaded, giving her sister’s hands a hopeful squeeze.

But Mira only shook her head. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I have to follow my heart, and my heart is leading me elsewhere.” She didn’t bother to say where. In a way, Mira was merely repeating the past – her older counterpart had done this all before - but things would be different this time. They had to be. There would be none of the dangers that Marissa had faced, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be risks. No one could ever really predict what might happen beyond the Nexus, not even those who had been there. “Besides,” she added, “you don’t really need …”

“Don’t you dare say it!” Skylar interjected. “Don’t you dare say I don’t need you!” she scolded, stabbing a finger at her younger sister, eyes filling with tears of hurt and anger and confusion. “I feel like I just got you back, and now you’re …”

“You still have Marissa,” Mira reminded her gently. “There will always be a part of me here with her.”

“She’s not you. Not really,” Skylar argued. “She’s you in ten years or something. My little sister has become my big sister,” she added with a roll of her eyes. Skylar chuckled, but there was no humor in it. If she didn’t laugh, she was afraid she was going to cry. “Am I ever going to see you again?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Mira frowned. “I don’t know,” she replied as honestly as she could. She might have a doorway into the past, but no one could predict the future. There were too many timelines and too many possibilities. “But I promise, one way or another, I’ll send word.” She wasn’t sure yet how, but somehow she’d find a way. Any more than that, she couldn’t really promise.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Skylar murmured. Giving way to her tears, she lurched forward and threw her arms around the little sister she was only just getting to know. “Be careful, Riss. Every place has its dangers, no matter how peaceful it might seem.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Mira replied, returning her sister’s embrace, tears in her own eyes. It wasn’t that she wasn’t going to miss her family and friends, but there was something inexplicable tugging at her heart urging her to leave that she just couldn’t explain. It was like she knew she was needed somewhere else, but she wasn’t sure why. “It’s going to be okay,” she told her sister, reassuringly. “You’ll see. You and Dante are going to be great. I just know it.”

Skylar nodded, sniffling back tears. She wasn’t so sure about that, but she didn’t want to waste time arguing anymore. “When are you leaving?” she asked, needing to know how much time they had left before she might never see her little sister again.

“Not for another few weeks,” Mira replied. There were really no deadlines when it came to time travel. In a way, she had all the proverbial time in the world, and yet, the longer she waited, the harder it was going to be to leave. “I still have some packing to do and some people to see before I go.” She wanted to make sure that when she left, she left without any regrets because in all truth, she had no way of knowing if she’d ever be back.

And with that, the conversation turned to other matters, both sisters hoping to make the most of whatever time they had left together.

[Rissa M]

The Brownstone
RhyDin, Spring 2023

Mira couldn’t remember the last time she’d opened the door to her mother’s dress shop, and yet, everything was exactly the way she remembered it, exactly the way Kirin had left it. If it wasn’t for the white cloths draped over the furniture, she might even believe her mother had never left.

She recalled spending so many happy hours here with her mother, playing with her dolls while her mother worked. So many outfits her mother had lovingly made for her and her other children over the years. Mira’s heart felt heavy with the memories. There was no denying that her mother was missed, but with any luck, she would see her again soon and perhaps then all her questions would be answered.

“This is it,” Marissa said, dragging her younger counterpart’s thoughts back to the present.

Mira turned to find her companion tugging away a white cloth to reveal an antique, floor-length mirror, almost tall enough to reflect her whole body.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall …” she murmured, fingers tracing the smooth surface of the glass, almost expecting it to ripple and shimmer at her touch. But no, that wasn’t right. This mirror was more like the one in Alice through the Looking-Glass, though Mira hoped she wouldn’t find herself in a backwards world when at last she stepped through.

“That’s not how it works, you know,” Marissa pointed out, looking amused. “You don’t think all you have to do is touch it, do you?” she asked, as she stepped closer. Side by side, the pair looked nearly identical, except for the fact that Marissa was clearly the older of the two by nearly a decade.

“No, I imagine there's a trigger of some sort,” Mira guessed, as she contemplated their reflections, alike and yet so different. Mira was dressed all in black beneath a red hooded cloak – one Kirin had made for her – looking a little like Red Riding Hood going to visit her grandmother. Well, her mother anyway.

“I’m not sure I’d call it a trigger exactly,” Marissa replied. Activating the portal that was part of the mirror was a little more complicated than merely touching it, after all. “There’s a series of words and gestures that activate the portal, but the real magic is inside you,” she explained, only confusing Mira further.

“Don’t try to think about it too hard,” Marissa continued, sensing her younger counterpart’s confusion. “As you know, there are multiple realities, multiple universes, multiple timelines within the Nexus, all existing simultaneously, each a little different from the others."

Mira nodded. That much she knew. The Nexus was where all those other realities and universes converged, much like the center of a spider’s web. One could conceivably travel from one reality or time to another, if only one knew how, but that was the tricky part. “But I don’t understand how it will take me to Mom.”

“Simple,” Marissa said with a shrug. “Unlike the Nexus portals, the mirror will only take you to another like it.”

Mira blinked, realization dawning. “It will take me to Mom because she has a mirror, too. Like walking from one room to another."

“Well, there are several,” Marissa pointed out, without listing them. “But going where you want to go is in good part intent. Somehow, the magic knows your heart’s desire and simply takes you there.”

Mira furrowed her brows, looking skeptical. “You mean all I have to do is think about Kirin and it will take me to her?”

“That’s a bit oversimplified, but yes,” Marissa replied, holding up a hand before Mira could ask any more questions. “Don’t ask me how it works exactly because I don’t know. That’s a question for Kirin. What I do know is that it should take you to her, to a time before the portals there closed.”

“You know because you’ve been there,” Mira surmised aloud. She knew Marissa had brought Duncan Mallory and his family through some portal to RhyDin, but she didn’t know the details or how often Marissa had actually traveled that path back and forth.

“Yes,” Marissa confirmed. She had been to that other place before - more than once in fact - but she had no intention of going back. It was too risky, and these days, with a mate and children, she had too much to lose. “You should know that time is different there. I’ve never been able to calculate the difference, but the important thing is that if you want to come back, you need to come back before the portals close. And I can’t guarantee when exactly you’ll arrive. You might have a few years or you might have a few days.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Mira murmured with a worried frown.

“I’m sorry,” Marissa said, mirroring her counterpart’s expression. “Duncan drew a map and I’ve made some notes, but that's the best I can do, I’m afraid.” In truth, they’d been over all this already. Marissa had made sure her younger counterpart was better prepared than she’d been when she’d made the same journey nearly ten years earlier. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” she pointed out for what seemed like the umpteenth time. “There’s still time to change your mind.”

“Yes, I do,” Mira was quick to reply. If anyone would understand her reasons for leaving, it was Marissa. After all, in a way, she was only repeating what her older counterpart had already done.

“All right then. If you’re ready …”

((I’m a slow writer these days, so this is probably going to come out in fits and spurts. Thank you to anyone who’s reading along. More to come, hopefully soon!))