Chapter Six
A Mirror Dimly

 

Jonathan sat on the bed and rubbed his face. He always felt better after a shower and a shave, when he didn’t have to worry about the sandpaper-feeling on his jawline, and the Unfamiliar House bathroom had a collection of scented soaps and shampoos that had left him, and his hair, smelling like a bouquet of flowers. And he’d needed it, taking his sweet time to work off the anxiety of the morning, and prepare for the anxiety of the evening. 

Not that he was incredibly worried. Even as a young child, back when he’d be told stories in school, he had always been confused why the heroes in children’s stories had been so scared of being whisked away from home, or of being turned into something else. It never made much sense to him. Didn’t everyone secretly want to be taken to a magical place, filled with strange new things? Didn’t everyone wish they could change shape at will, turn into animals or even different people? It was only when he got older that he’d realized that, no, that had definitely not been a universal experience. So he was mostly excited. Besides, Sarah and Simon seemed more than a little okay with their new forms, so he saw no reason to be all that worried. He just hoped he wouldn’t turn into something too… rough. The thought of turning into a spider or a turtle had popped into his head, but according to Charlie, nobody ever became something that didn’t align with their personality in some way. 

Simon was excitable, playful and full of bouncy energy. Sarah had a tendency to jump head-first into things and had a mischievous streak. He wondered what kind of animal aligned with him. Not that this was the first time he’d even thought about that. He’d wondered what it would be like to fly, or to be curled up to fall asleep in the pocket of someone’s hoodie. As a small animal, the possibilities, both for freedom and for safety, seemed endless. Unless he’d turn into something like a lion, of course. Sarah had told him there were Warlocks whose familiars were bears or even horses! The thought of becoming so large made him uncomfortable. No, he’d rather be small. 

“You doing alright?” Sarah’s voice came from the door, and he didn’t initially realize why he didn’t see her, until he looked down and saw her curiously peeking around the corner, white-furred snout sniffing the air. Even while she was a fox, Jonathan felt a little bashful around her. He nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Just thinking about this afternoon. Well, tonight, I guess.” Sarah nodded and minced into the room, before hopping onto the bed next to him -- without asking -- and sat down, wrapping her giant fluffy tail around her legs. He wouldn’t mind a tail like that, he figured. “Question.”

“Hit me,” Sarah said, and looked at him with eyes that reminded him of tundras and bright blue skies. He had the overwhelming urge to run his hand over her head. 

“Is it always like... Hmm.” He stopped. He didn’t want the question to seem weird.

“What is it?” Sarah shot him a sideways glance, cocking her head. He wasn’t going to get away with not saying it now that he’d started, he knew. 

“Well, do you always… switch all the way between? Or do you keep like… animal features… sometimes?” He was wringing his hands. “I hope that’s not like, too awkward or improper or--”

“I can keep the ears,” Sarah said with a satisfied grin, which was the perfect time for Jonathan to find out that foxes can look very intimidating when they grin. There’s a lot of teeth to bare, after all. “And the tail.” Jonathan blushed, and Sarah winked. “I saw you looking.” She flicked it at his face. “It’s just as soft as it looks, too,” she added, before she jumped down again. “Anyway, I wanted to check on you and let you know that ‘this afternoon-slash-tonight’ is in half an hour. You should get ready.”

Jonathan hopped off the bed. “Is there anything I need to do to prepare?”

“Did you eat anything yet?” Sarah asked, cocking her head. Jonathan was really going to have to ask her how she felt about being scratched behind the ears. The urge to reach out and pet her, even knowing she was a human being, was almost impossible to resist. He shook his head. He’d had a quick lunch -- there was almost always something bubbling in the kitchen -- and had apparently lazed away most of his afternoon, but hadn’t eaten anything since noon. “Good,” Sarah said. “Better that way.”

“Um,” Jonathan said, raising his finger. 

“Yes?”

“Why are you in fox form?” he asked. “Unless it’s to like, make me comfortable with it or something? Or do you just prefer hanging around the house looking all…” 

“Floofy? Naah. Not all the time. I like having thumbs. It’s because Leah is here.” Fox-Sarah flicked her tail and looked out into the hall. Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “Familiars are in familiar form around their mage,” Sarah explained. 

“What, like, it’s mandated? That seems mean.” Jonathan walked out into the hall with her. “Do you get punished if you don’t do it?”

“What? No!” Sarah managed to look offended, even without real eyebrows to speak of. “It’s a magic thing. Whenever you get within like a block of each other you just ‘poof’.”

“Poof.”

“Yup! Usually I know ahead of time, of course, because it can be inconvenient if I’m in the middle of, like, taking a bath and I have to try and climb out while looking like this.” She chuckled as she led him downstairs and to one of the many hallways he hadn’t explored yet. “I mean, it’s not always like that. If a warlock and their familiar become close enough, the familiar can show their true form, but that requires like… hella trust.”

“Hella,” Jonathan said. Sarah paused for a moment and glared at him. 

“Are you making fun of me, short stuff?” There was a little bit of a growl in her voice.

“Wh-- no! I’m… I just… I like the way you said it,” he said, scrambling for a mental foothold. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like--”

“Oh, okay!” Sarah said, and bumped into his leg quite deliberately, jogging him out of his apology. “Just making sure. I don’t put up with bullies, and I’d hate to think you were a bully. Not that you look like a bully. Too soft.  But you know, appearances can be deceiving!” Jonathan didn’t know how to feel about being called ‘too soft’, but he decided that he didn’t mind all that much. He’d rather be considered soft than dangerous. 

They walked in comfortable silence through twists and turns, up short staircases of a house that Jonathan had long accepted was a lot bigger on the inside, and through hallways that seemed to curve in on themselves. Sarah’s claws pattering on the wood floors, Jonathan felt comfortable next to her. It was like walking alongside an elegant dog (not that he would ever dare say that out loud). Finally, they came to a door. He wondered if he’d be able to find his way back, and realized that, yes, he probably would. He’d gone exploring once or twice and he’d always pretty much ended up where he wanted to, like the house itself was guiding him the right way. 

The door opened into a room with a platform in the middle, maybe a foot or so high. On it was a cube, held up by struts. It was almost twice as tall as he was, and it was missing one of the walls on the side, though he couldn’t see it from here.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Charlie said to his left. He gave a little wave to her and the girl he recognized as Leah, who was sitting against the wall. Well, she was flat on her back on the floor, with her legs up against the wall. She waved back at him, and then her face split into a happy smile when she saw Sarah, who bounded over to her, and she got up to wrap her arms around the fox. “Sarah told you about the ritual?” Charlie asked. Jonathan shook his head. 

“Only that I shouldn’t have had any food,” Jonathan shrugged. Charlie put her hands on her hips and was going to glare at Sarah, and found it almost impossible to glare angrily at what was essentially a vaguely dog-shaped cloud of excitement being cuddled by an excited teenager. 

“Well… you’ll be fine.” Charlie huffed. “So maybe I should have asked this first, but… how are you with confined spaces? Like, being in, oh, say…” She nodded at the box. It was larger than many bathrooms he’d been in.

“I’ll be fine,” Jonathan said. “How long will I have to be in there?”

“Oh, not super long. And you won’t be… uh… aware of your environment for all that long.” Her voice had an ominous quality to it. He wondered what that meant. Was he going to be put under? Maybe go into a trance or something? “And finally… this is usually pretty annoying for people your age, but you’re going to have to look at your reflection,” Charlie said. Jonathan cringed. He’d never been a fan of mirrors. They had always always been so disappointing.

“I’ll manage.”

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“Okay, grand. Well, whenever you’re ready, step into the cube. Sarah, do you want to do the honours?” Sarah untangled herself from Leah and minced over to Jonathan. 

“Sarah is coming with me in the box?” Jonathan asked. “Why her? No offense.”

“None taken,” Sarah said happily. “It’s because Leah is doing the ritual, and Simon doesn’t have a warlock yet. I’ll be with you every step of the way, little one.” He wondered why she kept calling him that. Sure, she was taller in human form, but she had to look up at him in her current state. Charlie pointed at Sarah. 

“What she said. Go on ahead, Jonathan. In your own time.”

Jonathan did as he was asked and walked around the cube to the side that was open. He’d expected a bland four-walled room with a chair and a mirror. This was going to be a lot more… surreal, Jonathan realized as he saw that the walls, ceiling and floor of the cube were all perfectly reflective. No chair. With a growing feeling of trepidation, he stepped into the cube, and Sarah hopped in with him. Charlie carefully, and with Leah’s help, closed the fourth wall of the box, and immediately, everything went… everywhere. 

Infinity bounced off every surface. There was a little bit of light in the room, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have other things to focus on. Mostly himself. Himself, with a white arctic fox next to him. An infinity of them, in every direction. It was like floating in an infinite void with just himself. It was almost overwhelming. Everywhere he looked he could see himself, and it was just as unpleasant as he’d imagined it being. Disappointing. 

“Sit down,” Sarah said. “It helps with the disorientation.”

“I’m not that disoriented,” Jonathan said, almost defensively. 

“Look up. Or down. It doesn’t really matter all that much in here,” she said. He did, and felt himself looking up and down at himself, infinitely, meeting his own gaze up and down. He hit the ground before he even realized his legs had given way. Everywhere he looked, he saw his own eyes, critically observing him. Everywhere. It was almost too much. And then the infinite nothing between the versions of him grew darker. Deeper. Sarah nudged him. “It’s starting,” she said. “Leah is doing her thing. Try not to keep looking at yourselves. Look beyond them.” There really was something there. Not a person or a sight, but a feeling. Sarah looked at him intently. “It’s there. Search your feelings, Jonathan. You know it to be true.”

“You’re a dork.” 

“You know it. Now focus. Who you are is out the--”

She had been about to say more, when the corners and the borders of the mirrors fell away. There was nothing. No more little magic light. No floor. No borders. No imperfections to the mirrors. Just infinity, and infinite Jonathans and infinite Sarahs hanging in the air next to him in a void, stars twinkling vaguely in the distance. And out there, an infinity away, there was a version of him, a feeling or a shape that wasn’t looking at him, that he wouldn’t hate looking at or feeling like, and he reached out. It stretched back to him in a perfect mirror image of that searching feeling. He touched it, and grabbed a hold of it. 

“Don’t let go,” Sarah whispered, next to him. He wasn’t planning on it. He pulled it toward him and felt it rapidly approaching, an infinity away but coming closer, exponentially faster, until it hurtled towards him at speeds beyond the realm of the possible. Before it was even visible, it slammed into him and he felt himself… invert, like he was being pulled into every direction at the same time and being pushed toward himself. 

The walls of reality closed in on him again, and then, almost like waking up, the mirrors slammed back into place and he hit the glass mirrored ground again with a little “oof”. He looked up at Sarah. She towered over him, and from this angle, she looked a lot more fierce. “Eep,” he said, except that’s not the sound that came out of his mouth. 

“Kitty!” Sarah said, and nudged him with her nose. What? What had she just said? He was a what? He tried to get up and felt all of his muscles move differently than they had before, but it was like instinct took over, and he pulled himself up on all fours. That was new. It took him a second to get over the feeling that he was sticking his ass up in the air, but that was kind of to be expected. He looked behind him and saw the tip of his tail. He tried to get a better look but it disappeared out of view. He took a few steps, and barely got a view every time. “Uh, Jonathan,” Sarah said. 

“Hmm?” he said, but it came out as a much higher-pitched squeak. His voice was definitely weird now, and he couldn’t help but wonder why. After all, Simon’s voice had stayed the same. 

“You’re chasing your own tail. That’s supposed to be a dog thing.” He wanted to make an annoyed noise at her, playfully, and found himself hissing, and immediately recoiled. Sarah just laughed. “Alright, fine, be that way. Leah!” she had yelled the last part.

“Yah!” Leah’s voice came from outside the box. 

“We’re done!”

“Okay!”

The walls of the cube lowered, and finally, for the first time, Jonathan looked at himself in one of the reflective surfaces. He really was a cat. And he wasn’t even very big! He was short, with long black hair, except for, it seemed, his feet, the tip of his tail, and his nose, making it look like he was wearing little white socks. 

“I look…”

“Cute!” Leah said when she saw him. Well, she wasn’t wrong. Cats were cute. It was weird that he was the one who was cute now, but it was something he was going to have to live with. And his tail was very fluffy now, which was a definite plus. Leah was practically bouncing with energy, and Charlie shot her a concerned look. 

“Hey, Leah, do you and Sarah want to go for a run in a bit?” 

“Yeah!” Leah exclaimed, and Sarah definitely seemed excited to go too, if the wagging was anything to go by. 

Charlie turned to Jonathan, beaming with a mixture of relief and pride. It was strange to be so excited about that, but he genuinely was glad to see that he hadn’t let her down somehow. “Well, don’t you look handsome,” she said. Jonathan pawed at his head. He didn’t feel like he looked like one of those regal, handsome cats. He felt more like a cozy curl-up-in-a-ball-with-his-own-tail-as-a-pillow cat. 

“Meow,” he said, and he was again surprised by how high-pitched his voice was. 

“Hey, Jonathan,” Sarah said as she walked over and sniffed him experimentally. 

“Yeah?”

“Why are you a girl now?”

“I’m a what?” Jonathan squeaked.