Dark Shimmer Read Free

scrubbed clean. I blow on the top of the stone, just to make sure. Then I remove the tin from the glass piece by piece, arranging them on the limestone exactly as they were on the glass. I’m good at this. I have sharp eyes and a steady hand, not like Venerio.
    No one’s allowed to be around for what comes next except me and Venerio. This is the part that turns his toes and fingers pink, I’m sure, because the boys who roll the tin have ordinary-colored toes and fingers. Someday my toes and fingers will turn pink, too, I bet. That’s all right with me, though. It’s the mark of my profession. I grin. I have a profession, and I’m good at it.
    I open the iron flask and pour the shimmering quicksilver onto a soft goatskin cloth. I quick plug the flask so the remaining quicksilver won’t disappear into the air. It can do that. I left the plug off my first day on the job and Venerio beat me with a stick so I wouldn’t forget again. And I won’t, though it would be easy to, because quicksilver gives off no smell to remind me to plug the flask.
    I rub the soaking-wet cloth over the tin until the quicksilver covers it evenly, dabbing at the loose flakes ever so lightly so nothing moves. A little quicksilver runs off the edges of the tin, but it’s supposed to. It’s important that every bit of tin gets covered, and that’s the only way to make sure. This coat of quicksilver is a little thicker than the coat I tried last time. Venerio and I vary each part of the process, one at a time, so we can find the most efficient formula for making these mirrors. I’m determined to be the one to find that formula.
    The tin and quicksilver merge into one as I watch. I hold the glass over it and look through, lining it up perfectly. I set the glass on top of the tin, edges matching. The fingers of my right hand are dirty with quicksilver; I’ve left prints on the glass, but that’s no problem. The only quicksilver that will stick is the part that touches the tin, because the quicksilver eats through the tin and together they form something new and hard that sticks to the glass. I wipe off the prints with my clean left palm. I spread a strip of wool over the top of the glass, to protect it from scratching, and I layer it with bricks. Sweat drips from my forehead onto the bricks. It’s not that hot today; it’s the concentration…that’s hard work.
    I rub my hands clean with another piece of wool. Then I sit down and look at my work. Venerio will be the one to uncover it in three days. He’ll lift one end of the mirror just a little, and then the next day raise that end a little higher, each day higher and higher, till the mirror is vertical. That way, whatever excess quicksilver didn’t disappear in the air will run off into the box waiting just for that purpose. Then Venerio will cut away any tin that sticks out—but there won’t be any, I’m so careful—run a chisel around the edges, wipe it all down, and paint the back to keep my work from flaking away.
    The result will be good. But probably not perfect. Not yet. Next time maybe Venerio will leave it for four days. Or maybe he’ll use more bricks, make it all heavier. We’ll keep trying until Venerio declares it can get no better.
    I worked hard and finished sooner than I expected. But I mustn’t be seen walking home too early; people should think it took me hours and hours to set a mirror by myself. Let them be in awe of how hard I work. I sit on a low pile of rubble, and the sun feels good. I keep thinking about the idea of Mamma and me living on our own island. You can see tiny bubbles rising from the water below our bridge now and then, so people say a devil lives there. But it’s not a devil, it’s a guard. Royalty have guards. Mamma always calls our home a castle, after all. It doesn’t matter that it’s rotting and crumbling. I’m still a princess.
    That makes me better than the other kids. It’s crazy, but who cares? Being better than them in a crazy