shard of light, there is a face. Sometimes it is very well lit—such as the face of what looks like an eager housewife, skin like alabaster and red hair perfectly coiffed, sitting in her kitchen at home—but frequently the faces are shadowy and veiled, their owners sitting in secret rooms or dark corners.
Some are even vaguer. They do not quite look like faces at all. There is a suggestion of movement in their dark reflections, like a school of fish flitting through a black sea, but it is impossible to distinguish any normal human features in them.
“Mrs. Benjamin,” says the housewife, and though she is in the mirror her voice resonates softly throughout the dressing room, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It is cool and low and earnest, as if she is used to calming upset children. “It’s so good of you to come.”
“Yes, it is,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Though I can’t imagine why you wanted me to come. There’s nothing for me to say.”
“It’s a matter of propriety,” says one of the shadowy faces. It appears to be that of a ten-year-old boy. A pink Band-Aid is stuck to one brow, and he peers at her with a queerly solemn expression for a child.
“Oh, propriety,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “We’re always so concerned with propriety. Even in total madness, we still stick to our hierarchies and chains of command.”
“We have to,” says the housewife, a bit sternly. “We must. Especially in times of such distress. Are you not distressed, Mrs. Benjamin, by what’s happened?”
The contempt in Mrs. Benjamin’s face decreases very slightly. “I am. Of course I am.”
“Everyone is,” says another of the shadowy faces. This one looks like a rather handsome man with cleanly parted hair. He could almost be a model. “But you should be, especially.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re the next eldest, are you not?” asks the housewife. “First Weringer, and then after him came Macey…”
“Mr. First and Parson are both older than either of them,” says Mrs. Benjamin sharply. “And last I checked, they’re both fine.”
There’s an awkward pause. Some of the faces glance around, as if seeing all the reflections in their own mirrors.
“Mr. Parson is,” says the housewife. “He remains in his motel, like always. But as for Mr. First… well, that’s why this meeting was called.”
For the first time, Mrs. Benjamin looks worried. “Why? Has something happened to him? I haven’t heard anything. And we would all know if he were hurt, wouldn’t we?”
“We can’t confirm,” says the model. “Because we can’t find him. We went to his dwelling place, but… he has changed it. The canyon does not lead to him anymore.”
“Then where does it lead?” asks Mrs. Benjamin.
“It twists and twists, but never goes anywhere,” says a shadowy face. “It is like a maze. He may be within, but if so we cannot contact him.”
“It’s a security measure, then,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “He’s worried like all the rest of us. I can’t blame him. But what do you expect me to do about it?”
Another awkward pause. The model glances about, as if he’s searching through all the faces in his own mirror. He says, “Haven’t you noticed, Mrs. Benjamin, that the turnout for this meeting appears a little… low?”
Mrs. Benjamin frowns and searches through the many reflections in the mirror. “I see all of us who live in town…” Her eye touches on a few of the vaguer reflections, those that do not resemble human faces in any way. A few of them buzz to her, and the twitches of motion increase. “But where are the children? Where are the young sleepers from the hills and forests? I only see a few here.”
“That is what we’re worried about,” says the housewife. “When Mr. Macey went to speak to everyone, he found many of the young ones were gone, Mrs. Benjamin. He thinks—thought, I should say—that maybe they did not answer him. But we don’t believe so. We looked again, and found nothing. We think they’ve left. They’ve gone somewhere else. Without telling us. But where, we don’t know.”
“Could they be in danger?” asked Mrs. Benjamin. “What happened to Macey and Weringer cannot have happened to them as well, because we’d all know…”
“We searched their homes,” says the housewife. “The canyons, the caves, the glens. There was no sign of a struggle.”
“And they can certainly fend for themselves,” says the model.
“We don’t know what happened to them,” says the young boy. “We hoped you would.”
“I don’t speak to them any more than I speak to