Bending over the child, the woman began to ask her questions. What had she done that day? Had she told the truth? Who had she seen? What had she learned that day?

All in all, it could have been a scene in any of a million homes, but there was a difference here.

The room itself was plain, sparsely furnished, no soft, cuddly toys, no dolls, no games. There were iron bars on the windows. There was a desk with neatly arranged books, papers, and pens on top of it. There was a small bookcase against one wall, but there were no childish titles in it. Instead, the books were about runes and symbols, about Druids. And there were many books on women of the past who had conquered countries and ruled nations.

Three of the walls were covered with displays of weapons: old ones, new ones, knives, swords, weapons that needed gunpowder. They were arranged in perfectly symmetrical patterns on the walls, in circles and diamonds, rectangles and squares.

Over the child's narrow bed was an enormous painting based on the tower card of the tarot deck: the card of death.

After a few minutes of questioning, the woman sat on a chair by the child and, as she did every night, she started to tell her the bedtime story. She told the same story every night, never varying it by so much as a line, because she wanted the child to memorize the story and to learn from it.

"Once upon a time," the woman began, "there were two sisters, one named Heather, and the other one named Beatrice. Actually, they weren't really sisters, not by blood. Heather's father had died when she was twelve, and Beatrice's mother had died when she was only two. When the girls were both thirteen years old, their parents married each other, and Beatrice and her father (who had been alone together for a long time) moved into the house that Heather's rich father had left to his wife and only child.

"But even though the girls were only three months apart in age, they were very different. Some unkind souls (and there were a lot of them in that little town) said that Heather had received everything, while Beatrice had received nothing. And it did seem that way. Heather had beauty, brains, talent, and even a bit of clairvoyant power that she had inherited from her great-great-grandmother. It wasn't enough psychic ability to make her a freak, just enough to put her in demand at every party. Heather could hold someone's hand, close her eyes, and tell the person his or her fortune -- which was always good. If Heather ever saw anything bad in someone's future, she kept it to herself.

"On the other hand, Beatrice was quite plain-faced, of average intelligence, had no known talent, and certainly no psychic abilities.

"All through school people loved Heather and ignored Beatrice. In their final year in high school, Heather went to France on a school trip, and she returned a different person. Whereas before she'd been a friendly, sociable young woman and had dated many boys, after she returned from France, she would lock herself in her room for hours at a time and she turned down all invitations. She gave up the lead in the school play; she stopped taking singing lessons. And she stayed away from boys as though they were the enemy.

"Whereas other people thought it was commendable for Heather to become so studious, Beatrice thought it was just plain odd. Why would her sister, who had everything that Beatrice dreamed of having, give it up? Beatrice asked her sister what was going on. 'Boys can't be trusted to behave themselves' was the only answer that Heather would give before she slipped back into her room and locked the door. Beatrice thought this was a very strange answer because she didn't want the boys to behave, but then she was never asked out. 'Too weird' is what the boys said about Beatrice.

"So one day, Beatrice decided to find out what was going on. When she knew that Heather was alone in the house, Beatrice ran in the front door screaming that their dear mother had just been run over by a truck and was right now bleeding to death in the emergency room of the hospital. As Beatrice knew she would, Heather ran out of the house, grabbing the keys to her stepfather's car (he took the train to work), and drove off in a flurry of gravel and tears. Of course Heather hadn't taken the time to lock her bedroom door, so Beatrice knew that she would have a long, uninterrupted opportunity to see what was so very interesting in her 'sister's' room.

"After an hour of searching, Beatrice had found nothing particularly interesting or new -- and Beatrice knew everything in Heather's room, even where she kept her diary under the loose floorboard.

"The only thing new in Heather's room was an old mirror that Beatrice guessed she'd bought in an antique shop in France. All those beautiful French clothes and those beautiful French men, and Heather had probably spent her time poking about in antique shops -- that would be just like her, Beatrice thought.

"But look at it as hard as she could, Beatrice could see nothing interesting about the mirror. But then, sighing -- annoyed that, for once, Heather had defeated her -- Beatrice said aloud, 'I wonder when she'll get back?' As soon as she said the words, there in the mirror was an image of Heather in the car, driving back to the house, her face furious. Not that Heather's anger about the lie worried Beatrice. No, long ago, Beatrice had learned that there were ways to deal with Heather; for, you see, Heather was one of those stupid people who loved. And Beatrice had found out that people who loved could be manipulated. All you had to do is take away -- or threaten to take away -- whatever they loved and that person would become your slave.

"So now, as Beatrice looked into the mirror, she at last knew why Heather had been spending so much time alone in her room. What had she been looking at in the mirror? 'Show me my father right now,' Beatrice said, and immediately there was the image of her father and his pretty secretary in bed together. That made Beatrice laugh, but then she'd always known that her father had married Heather's silly mother for the money her husband had left her.

"Beatrice didn't get to ask any more questions because she heard Heather's mother enter the house downstairs, and Beatrice knew that she had to go down and pretend to be glad to see her. Actually, she had to pretend to have thought that she'd actually been run over by a truck. (Beatrice was careful to make her stepmother think that she was a loving child.)

"It was two nights after Beatrice had discovered the mirror that Heather was found hanging from a beam in the basement. It seemed that she'd climbed onto an overturned bucket, put the noose around her neck, then kicked the bucket away.

"In the town's misery that followed the death of someone so well loved, the town gave Beatrice, for a little while, all the attention she'd dreamed of having. But then Beatrice began to see a couple of people looking at her and whispering, so she asked the mirror to show her the future. It seemed that the undertaker had become suspicious when he'd seen red, raw marks on Heather's wrists and suspected that they were rope burns. It almost appeared as if Heather's hands had been tied behind her back when she'd stepped onto that bucket.

"What Beatrice saw in the mirror was herself being put into a police car, handcuffs about her wrists.

"The next day Beatrice disappeared. No one who'd known her ever saw her again. At seventeen years of age, she began a life of hiding and disguise that would never end.

"What Beatrice had seen in her short life was the power of money. She and her father had been quite poor, but she'd seen how he'd lied, cheated, and borrowed to get good clothes and a good car (he'd stolen that) so he could present himself as an eligible suitor to a rich widow. Beatrice had seen the difference between herself, who had grown up in poverty, and Heather, who had grown up in wealth.

"So for the next years Beatrice used the mirror to amass money. She soon found out that the mirror would show her whatever she wanted to know, whether past or future. But what did she care about the past? Did it matter to her to see her father push her mother out a window? She wanted to see what stocks and companies were going to do well. Eventually, she paid cash for many acres of land in Camwell, Connecticut, and she moved into the small house set on the edge of the acreage.

"But here's where the story turns. You see, the mirror can be tricky. When it comes to viewing the future, the mirror shows what can -- and probably will -- happen, but it makes no comment as to what's good or bad. You have to look far ahead to see that. But since Beatrice had used the mirror only for obtaining money, she didn't know this.

"Eventually, it came to pass that Beatrice was twenty-six-years old and very rich, but she was still a virgin. But because she'd never looked far ahead in the mirror, she didn't know that her virginity was a requirement for seeing the visions in the mirror.

"But her sister, Heather, had known. I told you, didn't I, that Heather was the smart one?

"So one day, Beatrice was looking at the stock market in the mirror when she looked out the window at the beautiful spring day and whispered, 'I wonder if there will ever be a man in my life?' The mirror's vision of the stock market report was replaced with a vision of herself under a flowering pear tree, and she was being made love to by a handsome man. Since by this time Beatrice had somewhat satisfied her craving for wealth, this young man appealed to her. So that day, Beatrice left her isolated house and looked about the countryside until she found the pear tree that she'd seen in the mirror, and for days she spent from early morning until late evening sitting under it and waiting.

"And during those days, she did not look in the mirror, which was a very bad thing, because if she had, she would have seen the result of her tryst.

"Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, the handsome young man showed up. He was hitchhiking across the U.S., as young men sometimes do, but he'd had no luck in getting a ride that morning. He was hungry and thirsty and in a bad temper, when he came around a corner and saw a plain-faced young woman with a full picnic basket sitting under a flowering pear tree. So he stopped, and after his belly was full, he began to make love to her.

"However, something odd happened to Beatrice. While the young man was making love to her, something that she'd wanted for a very long time, she thought, I can't wait to get back to my mirror and to making money. She also thought that the whole process of 'lovemaking' had been highly overrated, and she vowed there and then never to do it again. So, as soon as she could get away from the young man, she ran back to her house and to her beloved mirror.

"But because she was no longer a virgin, she couldn't see the images in the mirror.

"Poor Beatrice. The mirror had finally been something she could love, and it had betrayed her. The rage of the tantrum she threw was so violent that the mirror rocked until it almost fell off the table.

"For weeks after that, Beatrice was ill, and she didn't know what to do to make herself well. It was true that she had more money than she could ever spend, but it was then that she realized that it was the power that she liked, not the money. So she began to think, How can I get the power back? I still have the mirror and maybe I can't read it, but perhaps someone else can.

"That's when Beatrice found that money could buy anything. She easily found men who would kidnap young, virginal girls for her. One by one, Beatrice would set them before the mirror, but if the girl saw nothing, Beatrice 'got rid' of her. She couldn't send her back to her parents, not after what she'd seen, now could she?

"Finally, after a year or more, Beatrice found a little girl who could see visions in the mirror, so Beatrice kept the child for quite a while. But the girl's visions were vague; she couldn't see half as much as Beatrice had been able to see. 'Who can see better than you?' Beatrice demanded of the frightened child. The little girl thought that if she worked really hard -- looking into the mirror made her head ache -- and found someone else to look into the mirror for 'the witch,' as she referred to Beatrice in her mind, then 'the witch' would be sure to send her home. And, indeed, that's what Beatrice promised the trusting but not very bright little girl every day.

"So the child looked and asked, and asked and looked, and, one day a clear vision came to her. Beatrice wrote down every word the child told her.

"The child said that the one who would be able to see clearly into the mirror was a girl whom Beatrice would kidnap. She saw Beatrice stealing a child from a store and told her in detail what the child looked like, where the store was located, what the child would be doing, and how Beatrice could trick the mother. She told her everything she saw. She even saw Beatrice branding the child with a mark on her chest. 'Branding?' Beatrice said, then shrugged. Why not?

"So Beatrice sent the child 'away' because she'd seen much too much, then Beatrice did everything that had been seen in the mirror.

"However, it wasn't until after she'd branded the screaming brat that she was told by a follower that she'd kidnaped a male.

"Once again, the rage that Beatrice felt was horrifying. She couldn't get that wretched child who had seen the vision to clarify it, because that girl was 'gone.' This time, protecting herself in case she should need him again, Beatrice had the worthless boy put into a metal box while she considered what to do next. It took her a whole day to figure out that the boy she'd kidnaped must have a sister. Hadn't the mirror shown that the kidnaping would lead to the girl who could read the mirror? But how to get the sister? It took only one trip into New York to see that the boy's parents were now surrounded by police.

"Since Beatrice was so very plain, no one seemed to notice her. She was only twenty-seven now, but she was stooped from years of bending over the mirror. She easily slipped into the service entrance of the fancy apartment building with a few maids and soon found out which one of them worked for 'his' parents.

"It was also easy for her to 'dispose' of the regular maid, then put on her uniform and go to the apartment. But it was in the elevator on the ride up to the apartment that she found out that the boy she'd taken was an only child. For a few moments of panic, Beatrice thought that the mirror had lied. But then she smiled because she realized that the mother must be pregnant with a daughter. Her daughter. The female child that was Beatrice's, the one who could read the mirror.

"So Beatrice went to the apartment and said that her cousin, their regular maid, was too upset to work because she loved the little boy so much. The boy's father had looked at Beatrice hard, too hard for her liking; then he'd nodded that it was all right for her to come in. He seemed to know that Beatrice had something to tell him, and he wanted to hear what she had to say.

"After that, it was very easy. When Beatrice finished cleaning -- and she didn't do a very good job -- an opportunity presented itself and Beatrice handed the father a note. It told where he and his wife were to go the next day. She left the apartment as unnoticed as if she'd never been there.

"The next day, as directed, the plane carrying the little boy's parents landed on Beatrice's private airstrip. The man was dispatched instantly, as he was of no use for anything, and the plane was taken apart, piece by piece, and buried or burned. But the woman, who was indeed pregnant, was kept in relative comfort -- although she did not appreciate it, Beatrice thought -- until after the child was born; then she, too, was sent to join her husband.

"And, in the end, Beatrice was left with a pretty little female child whom she raised in luxury and comfort. And, true to the predictions, the child could see the visions in the mirror as clearly as though she were watching television.

"And Beatrice knew that, if she could not read the mirror herself, she had the next best thing. The only flaw in her plan was that the brat of a boy child had escaped from the metal box where she had put him. Who would have thought that a child that young would be clever enough to be able to unfasten a catch that intricate and strong?

"For months after the boy escaped, Beatrice followed in the newspapers and on television what she could about the child who had been found wandering in the Connecticut woods. He had been covered in deer ticks and running a fever and had been hospitalized for a while. But when Beatrice learned that the brat remembered nothing that had happened to him, she relaxed and turned her attention to the little girl who now belonged to her.

"She soon found out that the little girl, whom she named Boadicea, after a warrior queen that Heather had written a paper about but that Beatrice had turned in as her own, was very intelligent. She thought of seeing things in the mirror that Beatrice had never tried to see. Gradually, Beatrice began to use the mirror, through Boadicea, as a way to gain power, not just as a way to make money. Beatrice began to control people and businesses.

"And, most of all, she used the mirror to look for other magic items, because what Beatrice had decided that she wanted was immortality. If it could be had, she was going to get it."

That had been the story she told to the child, and all had gone well for many years. Beatrice had a sizable following of people who lived for nothing more than to do her bidding. She owned several important people, and she'd found a formula for immortality. Beatrice had collected six of the nine objects needed when the mirror showed a snippet of a girl, a skinny little thing with blonde hair and blue eyes and a left hand with nine moles on it, who was going to be the end of her.

After that, Beatrice's only goal in life was to get rid of that skinny little girl.

Copyright © 2002 by Deveraux, Inc.