The Water Mirror Read Free Page B

of bugs that bit your skin while you were asleep.
    â€œIt looks as though we’ve been lucky,” Junipa said.
    â€œWe still haven’t met Arcimboldo.”
    Junipa raised an eyebrow. “Anyone who takes a blind girl from an
     orphanage to teach her something can’t be a bad man.”
    Merle remained skeptical. “Arcimboldo is known for that—taking
     orphans as pupils. Anyway, what parents would send their child to apprentice in a place
     that calls itself the Canal of the Expelled?”
    â€œBut I can’t see, Merle! I’ve been nothing but a
     millstone around people’s necks all my life.”
    â€œDid they make you think that at the home?” Merle gave Junipa
     a searching look. Then she took her narrow white hand. “Anyhow, I’m glad
     you’re here.”
    Junipa smiled in embarrassment. “My parents abandoned me when I was
     just a year old. They left a note in my clothes. They said that they didn’t want
     to raise a cripple.”
    â€œThat’s horrible.”
    â€œHow did you land in the home?”
    Merle sighed. “An attendant in the orphanage oncetold me that they found me in a wicker basket floating on the Grand Canal.”
     She shrugged her shoulders. “Sounds like a fairy tale, huh?”
    â€œA sad one.”
    â€œI was only a few days old.”
    â€œWho would throw a child into the canal?”
    â€œAnd who would abandon one because it couldn’t see?”
    They smiled at each other. Even though Junipa’s blank eyes looked
     right through her, Merle still had the feeling that her glances were more than an empty
     gesture. Through hearing and touching Junipa probably perceived more than most other
     people.
    â€œYour parents didn’t want you to drown,” Junipa
     declared. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have taken the trouble to lay you in a
     wicker basket.”
    Merle looked at the floor. “They put something else in the basket.
     Would you like to—” She stopped.
    â€œâ€”see it?” Grinning, Junipa finished the sentence.
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œYou don’t have to be. I can still touch it. Do you have it
     with you?”
    â€œAlways, no matter where I go. Once, in the orphanage, a girl tried
     to steal it. I pulled all her hair out almost.” She laughed a little shamefacedly.
     “Oh, well, I was only eight then.”
    Junipa laughed too. “Then I’d better put mine up in a knot for
     the night.”
    Merle touched Junipa’s hair gently. It was thick
     and as light as a snow queen’s.
    â€œWell, so?” Junipa asked. “What else was in your wicker
     basket?”
    Merle stood up, opened her bundle, and pulled out her most prized
     possession—to be precise, it was her only one, besides her sweater and the simple
     patched dress she had for a change of clothes.
    It was a hand mirror, about as large as her face, oval and with a short
     handle. The frame was made of a dark metal alloy, which so many in the orphanage had
     greedily eyed as tarnished gold. In truth, however, it was not gold and also not any
     other metal anyone had ever heard of, for it was as hard as diamond.
    But the most unusual thing about this mirror was its reflective surface.
     It wasn’t made of glass, but of water. You could reach into it and make little
     waves, yet never a drop fell out, even when you turned the mirror.
    Merle placed the handle in Junipa’s open hand and carefully closed
     the blind girl’s fingers around it. Instead of feeling the object, she first put
     it to her ear.
    â€œIt’s whispering,” she said softly.
    Merle was surprised. “Whispering? I’ve never heard
     anything.”
    â€œYou aren’t blind, either.” A small, vertical furrow had
     appeared in Junipa’s forehead. She was concentrating. “There are several
     voices. I can’t understand the words,there are too many