Chapter Text
Mircalla kept one hand on her sweeping skirts as the other clenched tightly to Mama’s bigger hand. The servants all smiled at her as they passed and today, Mircalla returned her toothy grin. She knew Mama saw her but she let it pass.
Today Mircalla turned five and she’d get to look in the mirror.
Mama told her not to be disappointed if it was blank. Lots of people had blank mirrors. Soulmates were rare. Papa said it was okay if there was nobody on the other side. She could still be very happy without someone being her soulmate.
When Mircalla had asked if they were soulmates, her parents hadn’t answered.
Mama gave her a kiss on the cheek and a soft stroke to her head. Mircalla clenched tighter to her hand, suddenly scared to go into the library. Slowly, Mama extracted her hand and gave Mircalla a small push into the room, gently shutting the door was a reassuring smile.
The walk across the library seemed endless. All the books she loved, staring down as the five year old moved past the well worn armchair that she loved to curl up in with her Papa.
To stop in front of the large covered mirror.
Mircalla took a moment to stare at the ornate cloth covering the mirror, the Karnstein crest and a pattern of yellow roses crisscrossing the dark red fabric. It was kind of dusty. Half heartedly cleaned by servants who were too afraid to touch the mirror. They all would have had to go to the nearest Lord’s castle when they turned five to look in the mirror. If they had a soulmate and the Lord was kind, then perhaps they’d be allowed to visit on occasion.
Mama and Papa may have kept the mirror covered but they couldn’t put it away. The Karnstein family was one of the few with a personal mirror. It had to be shown off. She’d heard whispers that her great great grandfather had commissioned it when he found out he had a soulmate.
He’d wanted to be able to see her whenever he could.
Mircalla reached out, her tiny hands clasping at the heavy fabric. With a deep breath, she gave a sharp tug and the fabric slowly came sliding off the top of the mirror, pooling at Mircalla’s feet.
Only her reflection stared back.
Her heart dropped slightly. The dreams and fairytales of a child cut to the side.
The only reflection a tiny five year old girl with thick dark curls and too pale skin. Until it wasn’t. Suddenly, beside her reflection was a tiny girl. Even tinier than her with long brown hair that was almost gold and eyes too big for her head and a big smile that was suddenly growing on her face.
When the grin reached it’s peak, the girl spoke, “I’m Laura!”
Mircalla said the first thing that came to her, “you’re a girl!” She gasped, “and you’re dressed like a boy.”
Everything was strange about the image in front of her. The girl, Laura, was clearly in fact a girl. This on it’s own was cause enough for concern. No-one had mentioned the possibility that her soulmate could be a girl before.
And the girl was so showing so much leg, apparently in undergarments, made of a strange fabric. Mircalla snapped her gaze away. And her hair was free. And her shirt was an odd mixture of fabric and designs and swirling colours that didn’t seem to be mixed.
“Yeah, I’m a girl,” Laura said, crossing her arms, “so are you.”
A calm feel over Mircalla the longer she looked at Laura, “We can’t both be girls.” She said reasonably.
Laura frowned, her nose scrunching, “We can’t? Are you sure? Cause they said in school that the mirror is never wrong and then my friend Danny asked how the mirror can’t be wrong and the teacher didn’t know because they said no-one knows which is kinda dumb. And then Danny asked about what happens if you’d already met your soulmate and the teacher said that they’d still be in the mirror cause they have a reflection.”
Mircalla stared at her, marveling at the flow of words and trying to wrap her head around strange terms like school and dumb. Finally she squinted, “I don’t know anyone who has a girl for a soulmate.”
Laura thought about it for a moment, “I know!” Laura’s eyes lit up and she bounced in place, “I’ll ask my mommy. She knows everything.”
Suddenly Laura was gone, blinking away from the mirror as though she’d never been there. Mircalla folded her hands in front of her, wondering how long she had to wait before she could leave. Clearly, there was something very wrong here.
Laura was back before she could seriously contemplate calling her Papa.
“She said that girls can have girls for soulmates!” The grin Laura gave her was toothy, a small space between the front two teeth, “so the mirror isn’t wrong, just like I said.”
“Maybe she’s wrong,” Mircalla said.
Laura stomped her foot, the image in the mirror glowering at her, “No, she’s not! My mom is never wrong. She’s amazing.”
Mircalla couldn’t quite believe that the mirror was telling her that this girl was supposed to be her soulmate, “No-one is always right,” she said, “that’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid!” Laura yelled, “take that back.”
Mircalla crossed her arms and gave her best ‘the servant is being bad’ look, “No. My Papa says that everyone, even the king, does wrong things sometimes.”
“Well, maybe your Papa isn’t right,” Laura said.
“Well, maybe your Mom isn't right,” Mircalla said.
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be your soulmate anyway!” Laura shouted.
Mircalla flinched, then snarled, “I don’t want to be your soulmate either.”
Laura plopped to the floor and crossed her arms, a pout crossing her face, “Great.”
“Fine.”
The girls glared at each other cross the mirror. Laura sitting cross legged on the ground and looking up, Mircalla glaring down. Even she ignored the strange clothes, Mircalla could admit that there was something, intriguing, about the girl. The way she was so convinced of her statement. How she didn’t seem to stop moving, even when sitting, Laura’s leg bounced up and down. How she actually argued with Mircalla.
A peasant yelling at a Countess. Really.
Intriguing.
“What’s your name?” Laura’s arms were still crossed as she pouted on the floor but her face had softened in the intervening moments.
Mircalla ignored her.
“Where do you live?” Laura tried again.
Mircalla turned away from the mirror, “Somewhere you’d never be rich enough to find.” This was ridiculous, she was leaving. She was finding her Papa and telling him that the mirror was broken so that he could get it fixed and she could find her real soulmate.
“Why are you dressed like a Princess?” Laura’s voice came again.
Mircalla turned slightly, her gaze following Laura’s bare legs. Not even the servants were so daring when they snuck for swims in the pond, they at least kept their ankles fully covered. But this girl, was flaunting the entirety of her leg from ankle to mid thigh. Mircalla had never seen a leg that was not her own. She was surprised to find that Laura’s was thicker than her own. Stockier, with more muscle.
Then she remembered herself and looked away, turning back towards the door.
“Why are you in your underwear? Mircalla snapped. Then she stepped away from the mirror, leaving Laura’s reflection sitting alone in it’s depths. It wouldn’t disappear until she managed to leave the room.
She’d just passed her Papa’s chair when she heard the sniffle from behind her. She took another step but froze when a tiny hiccup burst from the mirror. Spinning slowly, Mircalla saw the image of Laura looking up at something that Mircalla couldn’t see. Likely another person who didn’t show in the mirror’s magic.
As she watched Laura hiccuped again, taking big gulps of air as her hands held her sides, “She was mean, Mom. Why was she mean?”
And something tugged on Mircalla’s chest. Before she could make a conscious decision, her feet had already taken her back to the mirror. Laura stared at her, wide-eyes tinged in red, as Mircalla delicately settled her long skirts to sit properly on the floor.
Ankles fully covered.
“I’m not a princess,” she said at last, not looking at Laura, “I’m a Countess. The Right Honourable and Most Excellentest of all Ladies, Countess Mircalla Von Karnstein of Celje. Daughter of Marquess Von Karnstein in the lands of Styria who presides over March Karnstein on the boarder of our great empire from our home at Castle Karnstein.”
“You live in a castle!” The excited in the words forced her to look up. Laura was still wide-eyed but her expression had brightened, “I didn’t know people still lived in castles! Like a fairy tale.”
Mircalla wondered where Laura could possibly live that didn’t have castles, “And, you?”
Laura practically beamed at her, “I live in Canada. Right by Toronto but not in Toronto because Daddy wanted to have a yard because the streets are dangerous. Our house is by a lake and I go swimming sometimes.”
Canada? Mircalla was not familiar with that region of the empire. She would need to request a larger map from her father.
Then Laura looked up at the person Mircalla couldn’t see, “yeah Mommy. She said she lives in a castle and she’s not a princess she’d a,” Laura struggled over the word, “countess living in the empire and she’s wearing a really pretty dress that’s all poofy.”
Laura liked her dress. Mircalla let a small smile slip out, she had chosen it specially for her soulmate.
Not that this girl was her soulmate. The mirror was still in error. She simply did not want to see the girl cry.
“Excuse me,” Laura was tapping on the glass, “my mom would like to know which empire.”
“The Holy Roman Empire,” Mircalla said immediately, “under the reign of King Francis the Second. May he live forever.”
Laura quickly relayed this information back to her mother. Whatever the reply was, it made her giggle, “Mommy, that’s silly. It’s 2001.” This reply made her frown. Then she looked at Mircalla, “Mommy wants to know what year it is?”
Mircalla was still trying to understand what Laura could have possibly meant by ‘it’s 2001’. “It is the year sixteen hundred and and eighty five by the Gregorian calendar.” She said, proud that she knew this when most peasants did not.
It was Mircalla’s turn to look wide-eyed as the next few minutes only re-asserted her belief that the mirror had been in error. Laura claimed to be centuries older than herself. Certainly, soulmates were often varied by a few years, one in say 1685 and another in 1683 as the mirrors pressed their five year old selves together, but centuries.
Her stomach dropped. If the mirror was right and Laura was her soulmate, they would never meet. Mircalla would be long dead before Laura was even born. What kind of a soulmate was that?
The mirror had to be wrong.
Still, there was something reassuring as Laura looked at her through tear-filled eyes at the realization that they’d never be together and said, “I’ll come find you anyway.”
Laura’s mother, through the jumbled words of Laura, telling her not to tell anyone but her parents until they could figure this out.
When her parents asked about the soulmate she’d spent so long talking to, Mircalla had regaled them with the tale of a handsome male Earl in Spain.
They seemed so happy with her lie.
#
It was her sixth birthday when Mircalla returned to the mirror, the magic only working as each year passed by. Perhaps this year, she’d see her real soulmate and not the odd girl in mirror who claimed to be from a far off time in the future and lived across the sea.
The girl with the big smiles.
The cover had long been returned to the mirror and Mircalla pulled it off a little easier than the last year. And once again, the mirror was empty. She gave it a moment, remember how long it had taken Laura to appear last time. Surely, the wires had just been crossed and now the mirror was going to get it right.
And suddenly there she was. Mircalla frowned and crossed her arms, even stomping her foot against the ground. Stupid mirror. Then she squinted at the mirror as Laura appeared before her with a toothbrush in her mouth.
That was kind of weird
For a moment, Laura didn’t notice her. Then her supposed soulmate’s eyes darted to the side. She spat something against the mirror. Mircalla jumped back.
Laura immediately leaned forward, wiping the blue foam off the mirror with the bottom of her shirt, “What are you doing here?”
“It’s our birthday,” Mircalla said, rolling her eyes, “that’s how the magic works.”
Laura pointed a toothbrush at her, “I know how it works.” She flung the toothbrush around like a sword, “but it’s not my birthday.”
Mircalla sighed, “Are you sure? Perhaps you should check. I know that peasants can easily lose track of days.”
“I know exactly what day it is,” Laura would’ve stabbed her with the toothbrush if they’d been close enough, “and I’m not a peasant. We don’t even have peasants anymore. It’s not my birthday and it’s only been a little bit of months since I saw you.”
“Well,” Mircalla said, free to use sass if her mama wasn’t around, “I guess I didn’t turn six today.”
“Guess not,” Laura said and stuck the toothbrush back in her mouth.
Again, the two little girls glared at each other. Mircalla hadn’t known that it was possible to aggressively clean one’s teeth but Laura was pulling it off with reckless abandon.
“Mabef be boke the magick,” Laura said.
Mircalla raised an eyebrow at her. So Laura spat something in the sink and Mircalla turned up her nose. Peasants were disgusting.
“Maybe we broke the magic,” Laura repeated, “cause you’re from old times and I’m from now and my mom and I went to the library and read a whole bunch of books and she didn’t find anything that talked about old people and now people being soulmates. So maybe it’s confused and messed up our birthdays?”
Mircalla had also read books on the subject, searching out everything she could find in her father’s library and slowly puzzling through the large words. She hadn’t found anything helpful either.
“That’s not,” she said slowly, “a terrible explanation.”
There was that grin again. The one that seemed to split Laura’s face open and pour sunshine over everything.
“So you can be nice!” Laura shouted, throwing her hands in the air, “I knew it.”
MIrcalla scowled at her but that only seemed to give Laura a fit of the giggles. Everytime she looked up again, the little girl would resurge into a fresh wave of laughter. By the end, Mircalla was fighting to keep the frown on her face. Suddenly, Laura fell to the side and disappeared.
“Laura?” Her hand went straight to the glass, as though she could pop through and check on the girl.
Just the top of Laura’s head reappeared in the mirror, “Sorry! I need a stool to see the mirror and then you made that silly frowny face were you try to act mean but don’t look mean and I thought it was funny because that’s exactly the face that the old cat makes when I try to give it food but then it totally eats the food when I’m not looking. And i was laughing too hard and I fell off!”
Mircalla took a step back from the glass, clasping her hands in front of her, “Be careful.”
Laura dropped down and then popped up to proper height, “Hey, Countess?”
“Yes?”
Laura smiled, “Happy Birthday.”
It would have been rude not to stay and talk to the girl who was not her soulmate after that. The smile blooming on her face had nothing to do with it.
#
When Mircalla turned 8, Laura finally turned 6. By now, Carmilla was grudgingly expecting to see the small annoying peasant instead of her actual soulmate. The universe didn’t seem to be getting it’s wires sorted out.
What she hadn’t been expecting was for Laura to be the one waiting for her, the girl sitting in the mirror the moment Mircalla pulled aside the fabric.
“It’s my birthday!” Laura shrieked.
Mircalla rolled her eyes, “took you long enough.”
Laura was apparently learning to ignore her, “And it’s your birthday too right?”
Mircalla nodded, smiling slightly at Laura’s enthusiasm.
“I brought us something,” Laura shoved some kind of pastry towards the mirror, “I made it myself.”
The item could charitably be called a monstrosity of baking, an odd lump of undercooked dough and brightly coloured decorations smothered under layers of icing. Atop the explosion of sugar, were what Mircalla recognized as two candles. Although why they were on a baked item, she wasn’t sure. Laura wasn’t the most coordinated person and the fire struck her as hazardous.
Mircalla took a moment to stare it, then said, “It’s lovely.”
The younger girl squealed again before holding it out closer to the mirror, as though waiting for something else.
“What is it?” Mircalla said at last.
Laura’s brow dropped slightly, “It’s a birthday cupcake. You don’t know what a birthday cupcake is?”
“I’m afraid we haven’t been graced with that tradition yet,” Mircalla said. At the fall of Laura’s brow she sought to redeem herself, “although the word cake is familiar. Is this a celebration cake?”
The smile returned, “Exactly!” Mircalla watched carefully as Laura waved the firey tiny cake around, “I can’t believe you’ve never had a birthday cake before. Okay.” Her face went serious, “So normally we use whole cakes and cover them with candles but we didn’t have enough batter for a whole cake. So this is a cupcake. It’s like a tiny cake. But I still put all the icing on it because icing is the best part and I wanted to have lots.” She smiled at Mircalla who suddenly noticed that Laura was missing both of her front teeth, “Make sense?”
“The cupcake is a tiny version of a cake -” Mircalla started
“Yupp!” Laura said, before she could finish.
“-rather like how you are a tiny version of a human?”
For a moment there was silence then, “I am not a cupcake!”
It was too late, Mircalla gave her a wicked grin, “As you say, cupcake.”
“Not a cupcake!” Laura repeated.
“I beg to differ,” Mircalla said.
Laura wasted a minute pouting before cracking into a grumble, “Just blow out the candles and make a wish.” She must have seen Mircalla’s confused look, “that’s why the candles are there. I put the candles in so there’s one for each us and then you blow out the candles and make a wish and it only comes true because it’s your birthday.” She failed to see the logic in that.
Laura continued anyway, “and because its both our birthdays we should get twice the wish and I thought that we could wish that we’d somehow get to see each other and that I could come find you.”
Mircalla felt a light blush patter across her cheeks as Laura looked down sheepishly at her cupcake.
“Shall we complete this odd birthday ritual now?” Mircalla asked at last.
Laura nodded, oddly silent. She held the cupcake out towards the mirror, two candles dripping wax onto the icing. They locked eyes and Mircalla found herself unable to look away from the big brown eyes as the flames danced against them.
Eyes still locked, they blew out the candles together, Mircalla’s breath turning the mirror into a slight haze. When it cleared, Laura was beaming at her from the other side, picking off the candles and shoving icing into her mouth.
It didn’t even feel silly to make Laura’s wish.
#
Mircalla’s ninth birthday was spent spending most of the day enjoying the expression on Laura’s face when she called her cupcake. As much as she enjoyed the girl’s seemingly impossible tales of moving horseless carriages and whirling pictures and musicians trapped inside tiny boxes to always play music. There was nothing quite like seeing Laura’s tiny nose bunch up in aggravation.
So she should have expected what came on her tenth birthday.
After meeting Laura in what was apparently the mirror in her father’s office, the future was just full of mirrors it would seem, Mircalla could immediately see that Laura had something up her sleeve.
The six, and three quarters Mircalla, year old was basically bouncing from her perch in her father’s large chair.
But the answer didn’t reveal itself until halfway through Mircalla’s description of her latest book when she’d called Laura a cupcake.
“I’ll have to try and find it in the library, Carmilla.” Laura’s sly look was familiar to something she usually saw on her own face.
Mircalla wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. Even if she couldn’t figure out why in the world Laura had gone with that name. They sat in silence for but a moment when, as Mircalla had anticipated, Laura broke.
“Carmilla!” she said, “Get it? Cause you keep calling my cupcake even though I told you to stop so I figured that if you get a secret name for me then I get a secret name for you cause that’s only fair. So I thought really hard to try and come up with something but I couldn’t think of something that was really you and didn’t sound dumb because i know you wouldn’t want something dumb.” Laura took a deep breath and kept going, “and then in school, we learned about anagrams and my name was really boring to anagram cause its basically just vowels so I started playing with yours and I really liked Carmilla and it was perfect!”
She stared at Mircalla like the perfectness of the name should be obvious. Mircalla was too busy trying to figure out why she was suddenly so fond of the idea of Laura giving her a secret name. Once, one of the garden boys had tried calling her Mir and she’d almost throttled him.
Again, Laura’s babbling saved the conversation, “It’s perfect because it’s you, but a secret you! Like, it’s still got all the letter of your name but they’re all switched around like a secret version of you that only I get to see and it’s going to be awesome.”
Carmilla.
Maybe she could get used to it if Laura kept smiling at her like that.
#
Their birthdays matched up again when Carmilla turned 11 and Laura turned 8. Laura had started out enthusiastic, telling her all about school and her friends and how she’d apparently gotten to ride a pony. As she owned a horse, Carmilla wasn’t sure why this was significant but she wasn’t about to burst Laura’s bubble.
But as the conversation wore on, Laura became increasingly quieter, staring down at her hands.
Eventually Carmilla interjected, “Cupcake,” there was only the faintest nose crinkle at the nickname, “you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
“No, no, no,” Laura looked up, “No, I want to see you. I hardly ever get to see you and you’re like my best friend and I miss that I can’t just tell you things and I get to see you way more than you get to see me. I can’t image always waiting a whole year. That would be insane.”
Carmilla tried not to think about the dozens of letters she had stashed away in a drawer that were addressed to Laura, filling the gap between birthdays.
Instead she watched Laura carefully and said, “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but what’s wrong.”
Laura’s hand went to her shirt, fidgeting with the hem.
“Cupcake?” Carmilla said softly.
When Laura looked up, her eyes were wet, “My mom’s sick. Dad says the doctors are going to try and fix her but they won’t tell me what’s wrong and everybody gets all quiet when I come into the room and what if she’s dying and I don’t want her to die and I don’t know what to do.”
Carmilla didn’t know what to do either.
So she just lifted her hand and placed it against the glass, Laura’s smaller hand immediately coming out to meet it. If she focused hard enough, Carmilla could almost pretend she could feel the heat of Laura’s hand under her fingers.
The sat until Carmilla heard the bells chiming from the church, “Did I ever tell you,” she said, “about the time I convinced the master at arms to give me sword fighting lessons?”
#
On her twelfth birthday, Carmilla got up at the crack of dawn to maximize her time with the mirror, surprising Laura but setting a grin across her face as the younger girl raced away to convince her parents to let her take the day off school. When she returned, Laura cheerfully told her that the experimental drugs they’d put her mother on seemed to be working.
Somewhere during the day, she graduated from Carmilla to Carm.
When she turned 13, Laura was waiting. The freshly christened 9 year old holding another candle ridden cupcake. Laura had spoke about her friends, including an in depth explanation of her friend Susan switching to using their last name, while Carmilla regaled Laura with tales of the balls she was forced to attend. The day ended with Carmilla curled up against the mirror as Laura curled up next to her, reading aloud from her favourite book as the smaller girl struggled to stay awake. If they ignored the pane of glass, they would have been touching.
Carmilla’s 14th birthday caught Laura in her bedroom, the younger girl apparently having installed a large mirror on the wall ‘just in case’. And so the day was spent cracking jokes at the expense of Carmilla’s latest ball gown and Laura’s secret sugar stash.
Laura’s latest obsession was a tv show. A tv in and of itself sounded like a marvelous invention, but Laura was more focused on what the tv was displaying. Tales of a time traveller with a magic box.
“So if I can just track down the Doctor,” Laura said, “then I can make him take me to come see you, Carm! Just like I promised. And if that doesn’t work, Laf promised to build me a time machine. And they’re really smart so they’ll totally be able to do it, I bet. Then I’ll be able to come find you, just like I promised.”
Something in Carmilla’s chest ached as the smaller girl grinned at her. The smile no longer toothless but a smudge of chocolate on the side of her face. Her heart still undecided whether the mirror showing her little Laura had been a blessing or a curse.
“Cupcake,” she said, “as wonderful as the technology of your world sounds and I’m sure your friend is very smart, perhaps fiction isn’t the best thing to pin your hopes on.”
Laura’s smile fell and Carmilla hated to do it, but one of them had to be grounded.
Laura fiddled with a cookie, “I’m probably never going to see you for real, am I?”
Carmilla shook her head, “No. We never should have met in the first place. Mirrors never jump this much time. It was a mistake.” That didn’t stop her from writing the letters overflowing from her armoire.
“We’re not soulmates,” Laura still didn’t look up but Carmilla could hear the tremble in her voice, “are we?”
“No,” Carmilla said again, forcing the word out past the lump in her own throat.
Laura nodded slowly, “but… but we’re friends right?”
The fact that Laura even had to ask, tore at something inside Carmilla “We’re best friends.” she said fiercely.
Once again, the smile returned, something deep shining in Laura’s watery eyes, “Then I’ll just have to keep trying to come find you. Best friends are just as important as soulmates.”
And as they pushed the limits of the mirror late into the night until Laura’s imaged wavered and flickered with every stroke of the clock, Laura’s voice drifted through as she faded away, “I’m glad the mirror messed up, Carm.”
The ornate mirror covering did a terrible job of soaking up her tears.