"I knew the mirror wasn't me," said Clara. Ever since she was a little girl she suspected that when she'd look into the mirror it showed back someone other than her. And today she finally figured out she was right.
Her mother cried. The girl behind the hole in the wall looked down.
"It's just, baby... when you were born we knew you... didn't have my..." Her mother cast her hand over her face. "This. So I... I..."
"Oh God!" uttered Clara.
"I... hired a little girl your age to live in our wall and look up whenever you needed to use the mirror. I just wanted you to have high self esteem!"
"I did until now! Oh God, what do I look like? Where's a real mirror?"
"There are no real mirrors in this town," explained her mother. "We started a rumor in the town that witches use mirrors to cast their spells. It made everyone break their mirrors, all so that you'd never see... So that you'd never have to see."
"You started that rumor? Is that why people are running around the town burning people at stakes?" Her mother cried into her hand and nodded. "Dear Lord, Mama, do you know how many people have died in Salem since that rumor started?"
Her mother just sobbed. The girl walked up to the hole in the wall that for years she believed was a mirror. "Who are you?"
The girl back just blinked.
"She doesn't talk," explained her mother through sobs. "We found her living in the forest, poor and hungry. She was pretty, though. She was exactly your height and probably age, so we just stuck her in the wall and fed her when you weren't looking. We had to train her, of course. Oh, God, it's just awful!"
Clara banged open the wooden front door and ran from her family's tiny shack, past the pigs and chickens, and down into the country. Her mother called from behind her to come back but of course she ignored her.
She looked everywhere. She needed to see how ugly she was. She searched everywhere. Every puddle was too murky, there wasn't enough sun out to reflect herself back in the ponds, everyone's spoons were too worn. She shrieked into the thin winter air in frustration. And then; finally -- a boy with bright blue eyes walked with a book under his arm.
"Can I look into your eyes?! It's important!!" She ran up to him and surprised, he jutted his head back as she oggled at her reflection in his pupil. She saw a ragged girl with an odd shaped face and bushy eyebrows.
"Mom was right... I'm hideous."
She took a step back from the boy.
"I think you're the most beautiful girl I ever saw."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Too beautiful."
"Do you mean it!?"
"Yeah. Say, you're not a witch are you?"
"No!"
"Did you make me drink a love potion?!"
"No!"
"WITCH! WITCH!"
And then the girl was ran out of town by a mob of scared simpletons trying to capture her to set her on fire. And she lived happily ever after.
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