For Taylor.
She looks into the mirror. Pale skin, feather hair. White and gold. Gold and white. So fair. But her eyes, they are so strange. Luminescent, jewel-bright. So hard. When did they get so hard?
How strange. Elena looks into the glass pane. She hears an owl's hoot, the illusion of spreading wings in the shadows. How strange.
I'm dreaming, she thinks. She puts her finger to her lips, tracing the delicate cupid's bow, the sensual flush of red. Every hair in place, and yet she looks so wild. She tilts her head, entranced.
She doesn't remember wearing perfume. And yet she smells of honey and blood oranges, thick and sticky-sweet. It is almost overwhelming.
Her finger trails to the ring on the chain. In the mirror, it rests in the hollow of her throat, a rich cobalt blue run through with delicate runnels of gold. The same color of my eyes, she thinks. It's so perfectly matched.
But where the ring should be, there is nothing. She feels ribbon under her fingers--the soft satin of her nightgown. And the finger in the mirror moves.
"Shhh," she says, this strange, wild, mirror Elena. "Shhh." She notices that her image's fingernails are long and sharp. Pale as death. Pale as teeth and bone.
And to Elena's horror, the figure steps through the mirror. She moves so oddly--birdlike, maybe. Graceful, yet so precise.
Cold. That's what she thinks as the figure touches her lips. "Shh," she says.
Who's the fairest of them all? The thoughts come jumbled through the haze. A coffin of glass, lips like red apples, skin as white as snow. But the hair is wrong. Why is the hair wrong? It's so light...
They stand face to face. Her eyes are bright, glassy. Fevered. The smell of her perfume envelops them. Elena gasps.
"Who are you?"
"I am you," the mirror girl says.
"How can that be?"
She shrugs. Something in her bearing is strangely regal. She looks so elegant, so effortless. And yet there is something unsettling. Elena realizes that the girl does not blink.
"Something in the blood. Who knows? Not I. My ash in your blood. New life. Two souls in one body." She speaks as though she were talking perfect sense.
"Where did you come fom?" Elena feels hypnotized. She knows that she should be afraid, but she cannot keep herself from looking into the mirror. She feels hands clasp around her waist. So strong, for such small hands.
"All over. Europe. The new world is so fascinating to me." She speaks with a singsong lilt, deceptively childish. Elena shivers.
"When?"
"A long time ago. I used to have the most beautiful dresses. Venetian silks, French brocades. My father was a very rich man; we could afford it."
"What are you called?"
The girl slips behind her, their faces reflected in the mirror. Every inch of them looks the same--the curve of their jaws, the slant of their cheekbones. Elena's skin is on fire--thousands of tiny pinpricks, like just waking up.
"Elena. Wait--" mirror-Elena scrunches her nose. She looks so frail. "Katherine," she says with relish. "Elena Katherine. Katherine Elena," she sings. Her voice sounds like a warbling bird.
"Katherine."
"Yes." Her affirmation is breathy, secretive. "Don't tell." Her hand trails up Elena's stomach. She hears her own breathing, the intake of breath. Her body so warm, the hands so cool. She closes her eyes.
There are lips at her neck. Soft kisses. A shiver runs down her body, her lips feels full. And fingers toying with the ribbon at the neck of her nightgown. Cat and mouse, cat and mouse. Elena cannot move. Her skin aches with anticipation. She hears the soft shirring of smooth fabric.
And then there is a sharpness--a little nip. A kitten's bite. Two tiny pinpricks of blood, vivid red against her white white skin. Her eyes go wide.
Katherine licks the blood from her neck, her tongue stained red like cherry candy. She smiles like a cat, self-satisfied. "Just a little taste," she teases.
Elena moans softly. Katherine's lips move to her ear.
"He loves me, too, you know," Katherine says.
"Stefan?"
"Stefan, Damon. Damon, Stefan. It is the same. One soul, two bodies. Like us." And she pulls away.
"But I'm not like you," Elena says, confused. She tongues her teeth to be sure. Not sharp. Not the same at all.
"You'll see." Katherine smiles. It's more of a smirk, a challenge. She tiptoes towards the window, and for the first time, Elena realizes that she is barefoot. She opens the window, slides smoothly outside. "You will be."
Elena hears the hoot owl again, the flapping of wings, and Katherine is gone. Snow from the sill dusts the carpet. No footprints. Elena closes her eyes and lets the cold air take her.
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