“Mirrors are made by using some sort of paint-on glass, right?” Yura asked as they walked.
Tomoko nodded. She produced the key from her pocket before they even reached the shop. “It’s not paint, actually, but mercury. Papa enlightened me with his great knowledge on the subject.”
The Japanese word for glass, “kagami,” Tomoko explained, came from the word “kagemi,” meaning “someone always at one’s side.” It referred to how, in the past, the back was metal, but it was now glass, with both sides treated with mercury.
“That’s why, even without the metal part, if a mirror is made of glass, then each glass surface is a mirror in and of itself, y’know?”
The pair stopped in front of the shop. Tomoko dropped her bag at the door then put the key in the keyhole. The old-fashioned door also had a lock that turned audibly.
“So does that mean the two mirrors are back-to-back?” Yura asked, setting her bag down beside Tomoko’s.
“You’d think so,” Tomoko said as they opened the door and slipped into the shop.
The mirror in question was nearby. It’d been removed from the wall and placed on the floor.
Tomoko grabbed the frame and heaved it into the center of the shop. “Look,” she said, holding the elliptical mirror vertical, then indicating the ellipse’s vertex with one hand, while her free hand pushed the mirror inside.
Just as she said, the mirror spun awkwardly on its axis like a revolving door.
Tomoko moved the mirror so Yura could see it in profile—from the side. She pointed.
“As you can see, this is one.”
Yura pulled a face without meaning to. Tomoko was right. It was just one glass surface, with no seams or anything.
And yet still, there were two surfaces.
“…What is this?”
“Who knows?” Tomoko said indifferently, giving a curt shrug before dragging the mirror back to its original spot. “It really is interesting how it’s made. Wonder how they did it?” she mused, gazing down at it curiously.
Only about half her words reached Yura’s ears.
It’s a double-sided mirror with no seams? Yura wondered, staring dumbfounded at the thought of it. She covertly rubbed the goosebumps forming under her sleeves.
Since Tomoko lived in ignorance, she could laugh. After all, she hadn’t seen what Yura saw the day before.
Double-sided? Maybe…just maybe, the glass’ interior hadn’t been painted. There was a tiny spot from where the sun had been hitting the mirror in its previous position.
“Papa said he’d sell it to you for a deep discount. 50,000 yen,” Tomoko said, staring at the spot. “Or, you could pay me later, when you’re rich and famous. What’ll it be, young miss?”
Tomoko rubbed her hands together and laughed.
Yura responded by clearing her throat.
Her wallet would hurt just spending 500 yen.
“No, thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever be rich enough to pay you back.”
She hadn’t realized it yesterday, but looking at it like this, the mirror was beautiful. She hadn’t thought it was anything but silver, but there seemed to be something metallic shining lightly from within.
It was terribly dirty, so Yura gently wiped it with her finger, displacing some of the filth and letting its true beauty and silvery light shine through.
Going once around the frame, she found some sort of intricate pattern that resembled ivy. There was another pattern that, on a casual glance, wasn’t very noticeable but that Yura caught sight of by sheer coincidence.
Wha…?
Though it was a pattern, it wasn’t solid or consistent. One wouldn’t be able to see it without focusing, but it looked like a trompe l’oeil. Almost like foreign script or imagery within the design. They were long words, appearing to be cursive English. Thinking it strange, Yura pointed to the mirror.
“Tomo-chan, what language is this?” she asked.
“Where?”
Tomoko leaned closer to the mirror, squinting her eyes and examining the spot Yura was pointing at.
“You’re right. What is this? Russian?” she responded after a moment.
She hadn’t seemed serious, but still, the answer felt obvious.
Yura heaved a sigh.
“Isn’t it something closer to Aramaic or something like that?”
Tomoko’s internal world map seemed to include only America, Russia, Japan, and, for some reason, Zimbabwe. She managed to maintain above-average marks in all subjects, but geography was definitely her worst.
Tomoko burst into laughter, and Yura couldn’t help but join her.
So, it’s just a mirror, she thought. Just an average, everyday mirror.
“I can’t believe you noticed something like that,” Tomoko said with admiration. “It’s kinda like 3D, right? I can’t really see things like that.”
They left the shop. They could hear the warning bell in the distance that signaled they had ten minutes until the start of school. Yura panicked. They were running out of time.
They quickened their pace and headed on the path to school. Their school was at the bottom of the steepest hill in their residential district. They could see its square roof amidst all the crowded house roofs.
“When Papa was little, it used to scare him. He tried to take it down, but something popped out at him, like horsehair or spikes or something. He was really afraid of it, even from a young age, thinking maybe it really was haunted or something. So he thought he should give it a home. Taiki laughed so hard, he was on the verge of tears. Isn’t that messed up, laughing at a little kid like that?”
“Wow, it almost sounds like a magic mirror.”
“That would be amazing if it were.”
That child…that boy in the mirror… Yura thought as they walked. He didn’t cause me any harm. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t worried. He just cried, was all. He just looked unsightly. Just stood there with those…beautiful eyes.
But that was over now.
It was in the past, never to happen again. Just a mysterious occurrence, she tried to reassure herself.