Read Online Plumage by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online

Putting wide pauses between the words, he said, “I—want—to—go—home—now—please.”
    When in doubt, sleep. Sassy went home and slept as if she had been knocked on the head.

FOUR
    Sassy, being Sassy, took her perplexity to the library, bypassing the main reading room, now given over to videos, and finding haven in the reference section, where books reigned. Into the computer she entered:
    SUBJECT: MIRRORS .
    Subject not found .
    SUBJECT: REFLECTIONS .
    Subject not found .
    For a fleeting but furious moment, Sassy longed for a real card catalog. Lacking that, she took to the nonfiction stacks. “Subject not found, indeed,” she muttered as she eventually located Joy of Mirrors in the home-decoration section. An hour’s further trolling turned up chapters on mirrors in Ghosts, Fetches and Ghouls, Jung for Dummies , and Everyday Magic .
    â€œLast week it was birds,” said the laterally challenged woman at the desk, bemused by this selection.
    â€œIt still is, kind of.”
    â€œI heard there’s a lady in the high-rises has fifty birds in her apartment.”
    â€œMm,” Sassy said, and she took her books home. Over the next several hours she learned that glass mirrors first appeared in Venice in the thirteenth century. She learned that mirrors were used for divination. She learned that mirrors were sewn on clothing to turn away the evil eye. She learned more than she ever wanted to know about Snow White, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Narcissus. She learned that, to the Greeks, a dream of seeing one’s reflection in water was an omen of death. She learned that all over the world folk were afraid of reflections and mirrors; the reflection was considered to be the disembodied soul, and could be stolen. She was reminded that a broken mirror is bad luck, that mirrors in a sickroom should be covered or turned to the wall, and that if you look too long in a mirror you’re likely to see the Candyman, the Devil, or your husband-to-be, depending on your choice of superstition.
    â€œSame thing,” Sassy muttered.
    She learned nothing, however, that enlightened her regarding her own situation. After she was finished reading, she went into the bathroom, pulled down the blind, and stared at the darkened mirror for some time. But only her beady-eyed blue budgie stared back at her.
    The minute Racquel saw Sassy set foot on the mezzanine, he ducked into an empty fitting room and stayed there. Racquel had made up his mind that he was going to have nothing further to do with Sassy. That woman was just too weird.
    The PLUMAGE fitting rooms were top of the line, as befit a classy boutique; they had real doors that locked, and they were not a whole lot smaller than some people’s apartments, and they were carpeted. No pins in the carpeting, either. While he was waiting for Sassy to go away, Racquel kicked off his shoes, then checked his look in the full-length mirror, then put on the red velvet/gold kidskin ankle-strap heels again and checked some more. He loved ankle-strap pumps, twenties-style. He loved the Big Babe Hollywood look. Rita Hay-worth, Jayne Mansfield, Hedy Lamarr. Drop-dead glamour. When he was a kid living in the ugliest block in the city he had loved his mama’s Sunday dresses and hats, by far the bitchin’est thing in the house or the nabe. He still thought Mama had great taste though he hardly ever saw her anymore. He wished she would come in and shop sometime; he would give her a great discount. Maybe the best thing about having his own shop was that he could get really quality plumage wholesale. Today he had on the gold spiral earbobs with cockatiel danglies, the gold lamé slit sheath with cardinal-wing capelet just covering the shoulders, the gold-and-scarlet quilled—
    Somebody knocked at the door.
    â€œI’m not here,” Racquel said, assuming it was one of his “associates” with a stupid question about