The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser Page A

door.
    "No, it's for you." Corbin wrenched out nails with a hammer, tore apart the boards of the box and looked at Thora K. expectantly.
    She neither moved nor spoke, her eyes riveted on the upright chest he'd uncovered.
    Corbin took a blackened lamp with a glass chimney from a hook in the ceiling, lit the wick and held the lamp high. "Open it."
    But the old woman backed away, sat on a rough bench by an even rougher table and put her hand to her breast. "Tez a hicebox."
    'Yes." Corbin opened it to reveal shelves inside.
    "'Ow did'ee get money fer that?" She sounded breathless.
    "From my agreement with Mr. McCabe. I told you."
    "And 'ee bought a hicebox." Thora K. sat trancelike, apparently unable to believe an icebox had happened to her.
    Looking around the room, half-lit by the lamp, Shay could see why the present was such an occasion to Thora K. Strock. And if she'd felt depressed before, Shay felt totaled now. This won't be forever.
    She stood in a corner, forgotten, while Corbin put the broken boards of the packing case into a box next to the cookstove, collected the unbent nails in a rusty can and unloaded the wagon. The cabin was one room deep with two tiny bedrooms at one end, so tiny Corbin could barely squeeze her trunk through a door that wouldn't open fully because of the bed. Unenclosed stairs ran up the wall between the two bedroom doors to what couldn't be more than a low attic in this small a cabin. And that was it.
    No wonder everyone sat outside after dinner.
    When Sophie had counseled her to be brave, she'd meant more than just the mechanics of going to bed with Corbin Strock.
    He towered over Shay now and she backed farther into her corner as he reached behind her to take his hat from a peg on the wall. "I'll return the horses and wagon. She'll get you something to eat." And he was gone.
    Thora K. finally came out of her trance. "Be careful of that, you. Tez all I 'ave left of Cornwall."
    Shay turned to see the buffet that had sat in the hall of the Gingerbread House. She was staring into Brandy's stricken face in one of the twin beveled mirrors. She touched a familiar pull on a drawer. Rachael'd been so proud of those antique pulls.
    Longing and homesickness engulfed Shay like a fever.
    Thora K. stuck her face close to Shay's and again one eye wandered in the intensity of her concentration. " 'Ee look wisht, girl."
    "I don't feel very good."
    "That's wot I said. Take off yer 'at and sit 'ee down here. I'll get some kiddley broth fer ya." She motioned toward the table with her thumb, an unnecessary gesture since the benches on either side of it were the only seats in the room. "Won't take they kiddley long ter boil." Thora K. poked at the coals under a lid on the cookstove, added a piece of the icebox's packing crate and set a teakettle on. "I 'ad some tay not long afore 'ee came."
    Shay was still trying to translate all this when the old woman brought a slab of crusty bread to the table, broke it into pieces and placed them in a bowl. Tucking the ends of her shawl under her belt to keep them out of the way, she sprinkled salt and pepper over the bread, added a dab of
    white butter and some kind of herb from a glass jar.
    When the kettle sang she poured boiling water over the whole mess and set it in front of Shay with a spoon. " 'Ere, stir it some. Looks funny but it do go down 'andsome when yer a mite wisht."
    Shay couldn't believe how delicious it was and wondered if perhaps instant soup were not such a modern convenience after all. And it did make her feel less "wisht" if not less depressed.
    Thora K. sat opposite, watching her every move. Streaks of orangy-red showed in thin graying hair pulled into a little ball on top of the old woman's head.
    "Tez funny, 'ee don't look daft." She stood and turned up the wick in the lamp to study her new daughter-in-law.
    "Would 'ee eat somethin' more now? The color's back in yer chacks."
    Shay looked around the barren cabin. "Well, if there's enough, I--"
    "Henough!"