I posted my first blog post on August 1, 2010, and have blogged nearly daily ever since.
And while I've (overall) shared posts on the topics I listed on that first blog, I recently realized I've moved away from sharing much about the actual substance, crafting, and content of my books.
I'm hoping to reverse that on Tuesdays going forward (I hope).
And in this post (which is very long, so feel free to click out now), I'm highlighting four BryonySeries books that show how mirrors became woven into those novels.
Yes, mirrors.
Mirrors, as you may know, are sometimes used as literary devices to show reflection, self-awareness, duality, and so forth.
But the mirrors in the BryonySeries are so much more, even though it was Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara, who elevated mirrors from plot device to motif.
Inspiration behind the mirrors
It may have started with this book about writing and selling your personal experiences by author Lois Duncan that I devoured as a young adult and young mother shortly after the book was published.
Ironically, I related to many of the life experiences Lois shared in her book. And later, during my home-schooling years, I used some of her writing prompts as writing prompts for my kids, like this one: What if you woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and saw absolutely no one at all?
And this old Boris Karloff "Thriller" episode that I saw the summer I graduated from eighth grade when WFLD Channel 32 in Chicago may have simmered in my subconscious (I've actually only seem that full episode one time, that time) and nudged me to the following passage.
The first significant mirror in the BryonySeries
The mirror as a device first appears in "Staked!" - the third book in the original "drop of blood" trilogy.
So real were these (fairy) tales to John-Peter that he
was not at all astonished when he encountered a real princess. He had arrived
barefoot at the dinner table, and Kellen had sent him back upstairs for his
shoes. Not bothering to flick on the light switch—the dark had never bothered
him, even at three years old—John-Peter had swung open the closet door and
caught a quick glimpse of the little girl with the golden hair standing inside
his mirror.
His
own reflection quickly replaced the fantastic one, but not before John-Peter
noticed the melancholy in the toddler’s rich chocolate eyes. Who had imprisoned
the princess? Certainly not his jovial Uncle Ed, who had hung the mirror soon
after John-Peter and his parents had moved into the Munsonville house, shortly
after his father’s death, when John-Peter was only two years old. Uncle Ed,
known as the Steward of Tara due to his love of all things Irish, had purchased
the mirror from his favorite pawn shop in Jenson as a housewarming present.
When John-Peter was very small, Uncle
Ed told him the shop was enchanted, which explained why the merchandise
appeared different each time they visited it. Of course, John-Peter now
understood the consistent turnover in pawn shop items, especially one so close
to Jenson College. Undoubtedly, the main beneficiaries of the transactions
between the shop’s owner and the students were Berkley’s restaurant and
Crossroads Tap. Nevertheless, the pair never left without an interesting “find”
of some kind. After the initial trips, John-Peter stopped showing Kellen what
Uncle Ed had bought for him, thus saving the tedium of listening to his
stepfather’s disparaging remarks about bringing home other people’s garbage,
since, to John-Peter, these trinkets were treasures. Of course, the boy had
told Uncle Ed about the princess, but his uncle had merely laughed and said he
wasn’t surprised because anything could happen with a mirror when it possessed
supernatural powers.
As
the years passed, the princess in the mirror grew with John-Peter, transforming
from a wispy-haired, sorrowful toddler into a dejected-looking young woman.
What did not change was John-Peter’s resolve to one day rescue the princess
from her solitary confinement within the glass and sail away in a magical craft
to the land John-Peter was destined to rule. Even now, at seventeen, John-Peter
did not consider his fantasy a childish one, not with an authentic princess
living inside the mirror in his bedroom closet.
And the story unfolds from there.
The Ruthless mirrors
When Ed was writing "Ruthless," his first novel in the BryonySeries Ruthless trilogy (which is all about Ed Calkins: the man, the myth, the author, and the Irish vampire), he refers back to the mirror in "Staked!" and then uses "mirror" as a way to invite the reader into the story.
I realize why you’re too afraid to cross the mirror
and meet the most powerful Irish vampire to ever…well, die and then live again.
Maybe you’ve heard about how ruthless I am? Maybe you’re afraid that I might
think badly of you and be inspired to write a limerick that would make you a
coward, idiot, or scoundrel with such compelling verse as to live as long as
life itself?
Ed then expands the use of the mirror as a plot device in a way that pays homage to "Staked!"
I looked around my one-room apartment and saw nothing but a bed,
dresser, and closet with few clothes. I know I have more things than this. Then
I see the full-length mirror. Well, to you it’s a mirror, to me...
Chapter 3 in "Ruthless" is actually called "Mirror." The entire chapter is a self-reflection of an aging dominatrix (Trudy), who thinks she murdered her best friend and debates attending his wake.
The mirror faced the jeweled throne, reflecting the
disappointment of the one gazing into it. It was the throne that owned the
ivory, gold, and gems that patterned its recreated design; its occupant,
despite appearances, owned only her darkness.
None of it was real.
Reflection, reflex, reaction… what did it mean or matter, yet the image
the mirror gave was a metaphor of her existence. She was not quite a queen;
well, any more than she was a cop or any of the other endeavors or careers that
she had tossed herself into over the years.
Later, Trudy's equally as disturbed psychiatrist Dr. Roslyn uses the mirror analogy to taunt her client.
“…it’s not the same deal as when you were younger, Trudy. Don’t flatter
yourself? Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
Something called her eye to the mirror. It seemed to lower itself, as if
the Scotch in her system was trying to show her something. Was it that she was
middle-aged now and didn’t have the same sex appeal power that she did so many
years ago? But she knew that. She could see her face. Still, the mirror slowly
sank.
Ed often breaks the fourth wall in "Ruthless." Here, he sets the reader up for what comes next, a major plot twist that will incorporate Ed's own dyslexia.
Maybe you’re confused. Mirrors can do that. Right is left, left is right
and the whole thing is in the most confusing language, English. Consider this;
a guy tells his girlfriend movie star she’ll never get the part. She doesn’t, so
she leaves him. The guy is left for being right. Later she turns out to be a
serial killer. Now he’s right for being left. No wonder why we’re all crazy.
And what about her side? She started dating him because he had a perfect ass
but then turns out he is a perfect ass. The same happens with the next six;
that’s a serial that needs killing. (No, I don’t know what that means either,
but it’s English).
Ed also uses mirrors to reveal what a character might not otherwise see.
She heard the swinging doors but didn’t see who swung them. Then,
through the mirror, she saw the young, bearded cowboy stride toward the bar
where she faced away. She turned, expecting that the handsome red beard might
not be there. He tipped his hat and handed her a piece of paper.
While sharing an incident from his youth, Ed discusses how he used mirrors and a candle to increase the light in his room, with unexpected results.
The story I will tell
starts in a very dark place with a very pathetic boy trying to enjoy his
ill-gotten gains without being discovered. It’s odd when I think of it, but
this is the only part of my natural life that wasn’t natural at all. I seemed
to have unwittingly called a supernatural being using a candle and two mirrors.
It became a nightly
ritual. I’d light a candle. That light alone was not enough. To compensate, I stole
a small makeup mirror from the garbage, which I put behind the candle and then
faced it at a picture mirror, which I balanced two feet away. The resulting
light was enough to page through the girly pictures that so shamed me, while
stroking immature fantasies of desire. I was too young to know the pleasures of
my own fist (that would come later), but I knew of shame of my wickedness…knew
that I was damnation waiting to happen. Sometimes, I would hold the magazine
just behind the candle to reflect the picture onto the small mirror and project
it to the larger one, noting the continuing reflections of reflections that
went the way of glazing on railroad tracks; both getting smaller and smaller
with the miles till they seemed to disappear, even though the magazine was only
feet away.
One night while I gazed
on an unclothed beauty, I noticed something alarming. The concern drew me to
the space between mirrors, as I tried to determine the cause. The centerfold
stayed visible, but the repeating reflections vanished. In the next second, I
saw the creature, horned and red-eyed, creeping forward as if to avoid being
heard. As the image grew larger and larger, I saw the features and assumed the
Devil was coming for my soul, which scared me on one hand, relieved me on the
other. The company of the Devil is never good thing, but I now questioned my assumption
that I was already damned. Unless I was dead, why would Satan come to me? Maybe
he didn’t have my soul yet? At the very least, I could try to cut a deal.
But then Ed also uses mirror to turn the story's direction.
Regret, anger, love, with a garnish of fear was the cocktail of the
evening, and Trudy had already drunk too much of it. Maybe that’s what she
needed. A drink. A drink at a bar where she could fill her part of the
arrangement that she’d been neglecting with a man that never gave her cause to
be angry. When was the last time she brought someone home? She could be the
vampire again! How would that feel after almost a year?
“Not like it used to,” she admitted out loud. These days, she hunted to
satisfy someone else. It would feel tired.
She turned for the door.
But found a mirror.
Ed later revisits both candles and mirrors, combines them with an old slumber party ritual (Bloody Mary), to create his own vampire legend.
“Say ‘you don’t believe’ into the mirror,” she told herself. But the mirror
could never tell the truth anymore. As vampire, she had become the mistress of
information, but the mirror, or even a simple photograph, could never capture
her image.
It
was a ransacked ruin of an ancient one room wooden shack on the east bank of
the Mississippi that no being, living or undead, would choose to occupy, yet
the mirror frame was there, placed just to the right with the fallen roof still
giving it shelter from rain and snow. But the mirror frame had no mirror in it.
The last lights were fading, and Mary Steward lit a candle to study her
image. When she’d been fourteen, a young artist took her here with the
intention of painting her nude.
“You’re only going to be as beautiful as you are for another ten years,”
he told her foolishly.
Fool!
Mirrors in "The Fifth"
Ed Calkins wasn't through with mirrors yet, and he uses one as a plot twist at the beginning of "The Fifth," the second book in his BryonySeries Ruthless series.
Once Sandra was back in
the truck and properly buckled (as the law required now), Marsha checked her
rearview mirror to merge back onto the road. But the sign she saw now looked
cleaner, clearer – yet still read as the first one.
Munsonville.
Population: 386. Everyone Welcome Here.
Except the words should have been backward.
“Watch it!” Sandra
screamed.
But Ed Calkins as character apparently owns an unlimited supply of mirrors, which Ed Calkins the author requires for his plot, to the perplexment of one key character.
“My mother is
dead, and I can’t breathe yet,” the baby told him through telepathy. “I guess I
shall die as well.”
“Not as long as my name is Clint Eastwood,” Glorna
sent back.
But where was the baby? The crying seemed to be coming
through one of the many, many mirrors the Steward had in his bedroom, which
begged another question. If mirrors cannot hold the reflection of a vampire,
why would Ed Calkins have so many?
In "The Fifth," Ed also combines vampirism, his dyslexia, and mirrors in a way that strangely makes sense.
When a vampire looks you in the eye, he’s actually at your back. Trudy
sees my front in front of her, but I can see both her front and her back…as if
there were a mirror behind her and my actual self was the reflection not the
reflection’s source. Trudy lines her shot up with the barrel under her arm,
using the crosshairs, which is made of a substance I found in my travels to the
end of time. Mirrors show everything seeable but vampires. This substance
reflects only vampires. I know Trudy’s shot will be true because I can see the
reflection of my own undead self. If only I had gathered more of this strange
paper thin, ridged black rock, I could have made a fortune selling shaving kits
for vampires. That’s a strange thought to have when you’re about to be tested
with five questions and getting only one of the wrong means getting staked.
Ed also uses mirrors to express identity and reveal one's true natures, as shown in these two passages.
Something was
wrong with Eircheard. She was sure when he walked in an hour after she hung up
the phone. He wasn’t grumpy. Had he been drinking? No. He hadn’t been smoking
either. A walk by the mirror told her he wasn’t a vampire. The way in tore into
the pizza told her the same. What the hell, she hadn’t even finished her Scotch
when her pulled her upstairs and tore into her…in a good way.
Should she risk a look backwards?
No, wait…she needed to change her armor. “Sheila” would not do here and nor
would her current set of accessories and expressions. “Look expensive,” she coached
herself. With the grandpa still talking to himself, Sheila turned into
Cassandra, reached for her purse, changed her earrings, and darkened her
eyeliner. Her makeup mirror told of a girl that costs a whole lot more.
"Recovering Ruthless" gives the best mirror of all
Ed used mirrors as plot devices, too, in his recently released "Recovering Ruthless," the third book in the Ruthless trilogy - and interestingly enough, Ed also circles back to "Staked!"
Consider these fives passages and then I'll conclude with the best use of mirrors of all: mirrors as inspiration and self-acceptance.
“Lady, I’m done
jumping through mirrors. Just tell me how to become a mortal man.”
John Peter’s eyes found another
mirror that should have captured the reflection of the diners. Instead, it
showed a single person: the young man with dark, neatly combed, shortish hair
that he had seen in the bedroom. John-Peter should have seen his reflection: a
bony frame shaped like a piano leg, long red hair, defiant brown-flecked green
eyes, and a faint green tinge to his skin.
Being unable to
secure any staff, it became his job to hard-sell this wonderful opportunity to
annoyed cold call recipients, promising them the time of their lives if they
would only imagine the things suggested in the brochure while they lay in a
comatose state and near a mirror.
It was a small building that housed the Beulah County Sheriff’s Office,
so the interrogation room was also the conference room. The room was what you
might expect from any of the police detective movies or TV shows that air
constantly in the “Who Done It” genre. Four chairs faced four chairs with a
rectangular table to present evidence and a two-way mirror facing the suspect’s
side. By force of habit, Marsha and Matt sat side by side with their backs to
that mirror. They waited impatiently for a third person to start their book
club meeting. On the table was a copy of the novel “Staked!”
The gavel banged
its finality. Trudy, half dressed, stood sober, disappointed, and miserable in
front of a mirror that couldn’t grant more time. Her dream vacation was over. In
its place was the drudgery of her souring life.
The Traveling Salesman
Lenny tried the fish. Not bad, for fish. He tried the
asparagus. Not bad, for the wild stuff. He generously buttered a slice and took
a bite. Now this was good. He opened wide and bit off half, confident now he
could trust this old man. “Sam you’ve got a good eye. Truth is, I’m passing
through right to here.”
“On business?”
“Sure, sure, on business.”
“What kind of business brings you to Munsonville?”
Lenny took another spoonful of fish. “I’m a salesman.”
“What do you sell?”
He slurped half his coffee, fixing his eyes on Sam and
thinking out his words. Then he set the demitasse on the saucer and said
evenly, “Mirrors.”
“Mirrors?” Sam laughed and took his own sip.
“Yep. Come out to these parts once a month with a van
full of mirrors.”
Sam sobered up and set his cup onto his saucer. “And
you sell them all?”
“Yep. All of them.”
“To whom?”
“Just one very special customer.”
“One customer
buys a van full of mirrors? What does he do with them?”
“How do I know? And what do I care? A sale is a sale
is a sale. Listen, mister, I’ve got a wife and seven young-uns to feed. And
this fellow, he buys all kinds of mirrors. Big mirrors. Small mirrors. Old mirrors.
New mirrors. Mirrors as tall as a man and mirrors that will fit in the palm of
your boy’s hand. I fill up my van with mirrors and bring them out.”
“And he buys them all?”
“Yep. All of them. Every time.”
Sam leaned back and crossed his arms. “What makes you
think Munsonville’s is a good prospect for mirrors?”
“Always looking for new prospects.”
And now - the reward!
If you have read this far, congratulations!
You shall now be rewarded with a bit of "reflection" for your day and (hopefully) some reflection for those times YOU stand before a mirror.
Enjoy and be inspired by these two passages from "Recovering Ruthless."
Beth knew better
than to be late. As ordered, she stood before her bedroom mirror and waited for
“inspection?” To her surprise, Lady May appeared with Uncle Rudy at her side.
“She's appropriately dressed,” Rudy allowed.
May studied her face and seemed to ignore all else.
“How do you feel, Page?” May made the question sound
like a demand.
“A little silly to be dressed for a dance I won't be
attending,”
“Anything else, lass?” Uncle Rudy raised an eyebrow.
“Try looking straight into the mirror.”
“Is it magic?” Beth knew of an enchantment that affected
mirrors was part of the legacy that haunted Munsonville. Aunt Karla made a
second living talking about such things.
But no one answered her. She stood there feeling like
she was failing a test.
“Not ready yet,” Uncle Rudy decided.
Lady May agreed.
Once
again, Beth was ordered not to attend the prom but to stay in front of her
bedroom mirror, dressed immaculately and waiting for inspection. Beth wondered
what was supposed to happen this time that didn’t happen the last six dances
ago when she looked herself in the mirror.
As before, the
pages were given the order to not attend the prom but wait in front of their
bedroom mirror dressed immaculately and waiting for inspection. Beth was
wondering what was supposed to happen this time that didn’t happen the last six
dances ago. She looked at herself in the mirror wearing the same dress she did
the first time. Only this time…what? It seemed to fit differently.
Something else
shocked her. Something…but not something really new. Something that had been
creeping ahead…not just in her but the other pages.
She expected a girl.
She saw a young woman.
“I'm gorgeous,” Beth said aloud in surprise.
At that moment, Lady May and Uncle Rudy were standing
near her. Beth was mortified.
“Was I being too vain? I just got surprised…I mean…”
“This means you’re no longer Lady May’s page,” Uncle
Rudy told her.
“I told you to find the right beholder,” Lady May
reminded her. “It had to be the right one, not just anyone that would find you
attractive. Don’t you see? The wrong one might lure you away for the privilege
of service.”
“But you didn’t let me see anyone except…except…”
“Yourself,” Lady May and Uncle Rudy said in unison.
“Me?” Beth turned back to her reflection in wonder. “I
was the right beholder?”
“Easier to find an
elite lass and make her beautiful, than a beautiful lass and make her elite,”
Rudy quoted. “But that never meant making her beautiful would be easy for her.
