The Girl behind the Mirror

Lucy spotted the sign down a small alleyway.

“Mum! Look!”

“What is it?” replied Lucy’s mum. “We need to get home. It’s so foggy out, it’s creepy.”

“There’s an interesting little shop down that alleyway,” Lucy continued. “Can we take a quick look? Pleeease? Maybe we’ll find a dressing table in there?”

Lucy’s mum sighed. They had just spent a whole morning looking for dressing table for Lucy’s room, to no avail. Everything they looked at had not been good enough for Lucy.

“It’s too small!” she complained about one of them that looked perfect to mum.

“It’s too dark!” she argued when shown a perfectly acceptable one, according to mum.

“It’s too boring!” she cried when mum tried to convince her about a very sensible option she had recommended.

Mum had given up trying to convince her of anything and they were walking home, frustrated at the wasted morning. The newly descending fog just added to the gloom. She looked down the alley to where Lucy was pointing.

“Funny, I never saw that lane before and I must have passed here hundreds of times,” said Mum. “There’s hardly a dresser in that old place. It looks like an old junk shop if you ask me. If there is one in there, unlikely as it is, it’ll be filthy and falling apart.”

“Dr. Xu’s Chinese Emporium, it says on the sign,” said Lucy. “It sounds kind of exciting. Let’s have a quick look. We’ll know within a minute if it has one.”

Mum sighed with exasperation but gave in. They had been looking for weeks to find Lucy a dresser with a mirror now that she was getting older and needed one. She followed Lucy down the alleyway, more in desperation than hope.

Lucy pushed the door open, which immediately set off a bell somewhere in the back of the shop. She pushed in and almost immediately collided with a tall urn her own size. It started to wobble but she managed to stabilise it before it keeled over.

“That was close,” said Lucy in relief. “I nearly broke the Ming vase!”

“Thank goodness, Lucy,” replied Mum. “We’d be paying that back for quite a while.”

They looked around the shop. It was actually quite bright, and remarkably long. In fact, the back of the shop disappeared way into the distance. The shop was crammed with all sorts of oriental-looking items. Tall urns. Clocks. Decorations of all types. Items of furniture. Shelves of dishes, pots and bowls. Fancy seats and couches. It went on and on.

“Look, the shop owner is back there behind a desk. Let’s go ask him about dressers!” said Lucy. Before mum could say anything, Lucy had motored to the back of the shop and approached a large, round, elderly oriental-looking man sitting behind a desk. He had a long wispy white beard, a bald head and a big smiling face. He looked up.

“Lucy looking for nice dresser with big mirror, no?” said the man to Lucy.

“How did you know my name?” asked Lucy in alarm. “Or that I wanted a dresser?”

“Perhaps he overheard us as we came in,” said Mum breathlessly, catching up just behind her.

The man stood up and bowed.

“My name is Dr. Xu. Always possible to find what you are looking for in my Chinese Emporium,” he said, waving his arm around to highlight the extent of his offerings in the shop. “Follow me, I know exact thing you need.”

They followed nervously as he made his way to the back far right-hand corner of the shop, through a narrow aisle cluttered on both sides with sideboards and display cabinets inlaid with the most beautiful patterns. He stood back and indicated with his hands where to look.

“Here it is,” he said, smiling even more broadly. “I have been keeping it for you.”

Lucy gasped, ignoring his curious statement. It was the most beautiful dresser she had ever laid eyes on, with a beautiful mahogany top and drawers and a large rectangular mirror mounted within a gold-patterned border.

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