They said she was afraid of her own shadow. She tells them that's an imminently sensible thing to be afraid of. Staring into her mirror, she is...well, satisfied is the wrong word. She is not appalled. Her hair a little gray cap, her eyes a soft brown that on another might be called soulful, but on her, dart around with the curious terror of a fawn.

It is time to open. She goes quietly, running her eyes and fingers over the displays in the dark. Here the exoskeleton of the Ferris wheel, (lovers' photos are free), here the carousel with its absurd creatures (she paid a small fortune for the wyverns), in the lead a bright white unicorn. She prefers for people to go joyfully, smiling straight into the mirrors. It is less distasteful that way. Never being allowed to stay anywhere for long, it is important to make a good impression to the end.

The calliope she turns on for pure caprice; she doubts anyone here will actually recognize it, but a part must be played to the hilt and let no one say she does not commit. The tents are spread open, the cabinet of oddities beginning to rust, she will need to find a replacement for the mermaid bones soon. She does the mirrors last, turning the key carefully with her eyes tightly closed, her breath held, knowing it is open by the tiny, polite click. Maybe there will be no one foolish today. There always is.

She hangs the sign just as the streetlamps of the town switch off and the sun gets caught in the fog:

Land of Shadows

Marguerite Fauvel, Operator

Her name in this town is Fauvel. The crew arrives in dribs and drabs. They mutter over coffee. She thinks about pouring herself a cup, then decides she would rather not look them in the eye. Temporary workers, most of them. Only a handful travel with her. Ariana who does not hear, and Maxim who does not see, Jeanne-Marie, who joined with her in a village up north twenty years ago and has yet to utter a word. They have keys like hers, to wind the calliope and open the mirrors. No one else.

The crew take their places. The redheaded girl pops behind a screen and emerges a witch in a tall, pointed hat, white make-up staining her face. She sits behind a screen with decks of cards and polishes her crystal ball. The boy in the black jacket becomes a magician robed in blue shot through with gold threads, a bedsheet he has stolen and dyed for this purpose.

The customers arrive slowly, too. It's early for curiosity, but the first customers are always children. They are timid at first, but who can resist a carousel with wyverns? They have their fortunes told. The witch is under strict orders: only happy ones for the young. Ariana hovers near the Ferris Wheel, waving them up. Their laughter is the only sound that reaches Ariana's ears, so she waves them up, and when they run toward the mirrors, she waves them away.

The adults begin to trickle in around eleven. It's a weekend, so they are looking to let their down. They pick up the curiosities, holding the skull of the two-headed goat up to the light, pausing to snap a photo.

"It's so retro." they say, "like an old freak show. Look, this is is supposed to be a mermaid." The blonde who picks up the mermaid bones looks surprised when one of the legs snaps off in her hand.

"Cheap stuff." she says, putting it back.

Marguerite Fauvel, her name in this town, taps the blonde's shoulder.

"The house of mirrors is starting soon. You should go before it gets too crowded."

Off the blonde goes. It will not be a loss to the world.

The customers begin to stream in, with their coffees and pastries steaming in the early morning wind. The old ones who smile, she lets them. Marguerite Fauvel (in this town) is not heartless. The old who can still smile are to be loved and nothing else.

Jeanne-Marie sees the big woman first. If she could speak, she would raise her voice, but as it is, her eyes go wide. The woman has come in alone. Her clothes hang awkwardly over a large middle, her black hair scraped back, hiding itself. She has bought a ticket and is coming toward them, where Marguerite hovers and Jeanne-Marie stares, wordless. She looks first to Marguerite, and the woman's eyes are a desert from which Marguerite must, as all others before have done, look away.

The woman leans in and whispers to JeanneMarie, who steps back, her hand fluttering at her throat. The woman makes signs in the air. Jeanne-Marie shakes her head. With a huff, the woman strides off, a resoluteness in the set of her hips that Marguerite admires in secret. Fishing in her pocket, Marguerite pulls out a scrap of paper and scribbles to JeanneMarie, "What did she say to you?"

JeanneMarie plays with the neckline of her uniform and stares down before scribbling, "She asked which way to the mirrors."

She looks up, and the woman's decisive step has led her to the door of the house of mirrors. Marguerite makes no move to stop her. She lets her go inside. People with desert eyes belong there.

Instead, she presses her eye to the spy-hole in the door, made for this purpose when she could still bear to watch, as the woman walks directly into the mirror, as she fractures, multiplies, as her anger grows wings to sharpened blades and lashes the air around her face, cutting into her cheek, her fear turning into a cloud of flies that cover her face in black and stuff her mouth. The woman does not stop. She runs into her own crushed face in the mirror. Marguerite cannot hear, but she knows the voices are calling the woman, too, the same that have called her.

The child's voice, her own and never hers again, who cried out under the weight of the hundred tiny cruelties and the one so immense that speaking it will break. Still, the woman runs. She runs into the voices as the hairy hands of her nightmares tear her clothes and leave trails oozing between her shoulders, pulling her by the hair down, down, breaking her into a million lights, stars each winking out one by one. She runs, and her regrets wrap their softness around her, squeezing the life out of her with all the wistful softness of "might have been." The pillowy sorrow that begs her to give it all up again and again. She runs, and then the door is opening, and she is stumbling into Marguerite, she is through and alive and breathing hard and demanding "Were you spying on me?"

And Marguerite, weeping, does not see where the first cracks in the mirror begin to show.