Robin Wayne Bailey is the Nebula award-nominated author of numerous novels, including the Dragonkin Series, Shadowdance, And the Frost saga. His novel, Swords Against The Shadowland, inspired by Fritz Leiber's famed Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, will be reprinted later this year. Robin's science fiction stories were recently collected in Turn Left to Tomorrow, and his work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Visit him at his website, www.robinwaynebailey.net
In every way it was a wretched morning. Lightning carved jagged slices from the gray sky and shook the roiling clouds with volleys of thunder. Rain pelted the windshield, blew across the roads in blinding sheets that made a nightmare of the mid-morning traffic. The elms and maples that lined the avenue bent double as the howling wind stripped away their leaves.
Hunched behind her steering wheel, Jane snarled and cursed the weather as she stomped on her gas pedal and cut across the front bumper of another commuter. The angry honking that followed didn't deter her. She sped across two more lanes, yanked hard on the steering wheel and darted into the sprawling parking lot of Birnam Woods Mall.
There seemed to be no empty parking spaces near the entrance, and that meant she'd get drenched making her dash inside. She cursed again at the thought of ruining her expensive blue business suit. Then, by luck, with little hope left, she spied a convenient space and wedged her Mercedes SLK between two other vehicles with barely room to spare. She stomped on the brake at the last minute, nearly standing her car on its nose to avoid hitting the car already parked directly in front of her, a move that wasn't entirely successful. Bumpers kissed, but she didn't care.
Jane flung her car door open, dinging the paint job of the car parked next to her. She didn't care about that, either. In a panic, she slammed her car door shut again and ran for the mall entrance.
Her spiked high heels made little splashes on the wet pavement, and her red-varnished toenails flashed as she crossed the parking lot. The neatly coiffed bun on the back of her head came undone as she ran, so that damp wisps and locks of bottle-blond hair trailed over her collar in a totally unacceptable state of disarray.
It was early—barely nine o'clock—but Jane had very little time. Strengthened by urgency, she shoved open the doors, breaking two manicured, press-on nails in her carelessness. A giant-sized advertising poster for Maybelline cosmetics hung on the wall just inside the door. It shook under the impact. Jane hesitated, clutching her purse to her side for the briefest moment, fearing that the poster would fall. Then she began to study the advertisement and the incredibly beautiful, dark-haired woman portrayed in it. Beauty Jane could only wish for!
With an exasperated gasp, Jane rushed on. A hair stylist just opening her shop paused in her doorway and stared gape-jawed as Jane passed. Jane pretended not to notice, but she gave an inward whimper. Another shopper already about her morning errands stopped in her tracks as Jane approached. A shoe store clerk dropped the stack of boxes he was carrying. "What are you looking at?" Jane snapped as she picked up her pace and hurried on.
Despite her headlong rush through the mall, the store windows caught her eye. Everywhere she looked she saw advertisements for beauty products—Max Factor, Clairol, Neutrogena, Ponds. The pretty, smiling faces in those advertisements mocked her, and her head swam with an inundation of messages: manicures here, pedicures there, facials by appointment, cures for dry skin, cures for oily skin. This for shimmering skin; that for a more youthful appearance. Wrinkle creams, anti-aging creams, blemish creams, eye creams.
Jane wanted to scream.
Finally, deep in the heart of the mall, she reached her destination. The shop was unlocked, and the soft lights within glittered promisingly on the quaintly Victorian shelves of brightly packaged goods. Pausing to catch her breath, Jane looked up and read the store's name: Crab, Tree, and Eva Lynn.
And just below that in pink neon letters: Natural Beauty Supernaturally.
But there wasn't time to waste. Remembering her schedule, Jane dashed inside. None of the shop's three proprietors were in sight, but she knew them like dear friends and called out in a desperate voice.
At the sound of her name, Miss Crab rose up from behind a rack of perfumed soaps with a look of surprise and a quick smile. Behind the cash register on the other side of the shop, Miss Tree also rose from where she'd been crouching at some task. She, too, smiled as she adjusted a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses on her nose.
At the rear of the store, a pair of black curtains whisked open, and Eva Lynn emerged with a glare of annoyance on her face. Of the three shop owners, she was the only one who never smiled, which always startled Jane, who firmly believed that the law required shop personnel to greet every customer with a smile.
All three ladies, well into middle age, but prim in business-cut black dresses with nary a gray hair out of place, advanced on Jane. Their complexions were still radiant, their hair shimmery, and their teeth dazzling. Except for Eva Lynn's. It was hard to tell with Eva Lynn.
"Through this fog and filthy air, who comes?" said Miss Crab. Her voice was high-pitched, and she had a way of singing her words. "Why it's Jane Paddock come to see us!"
"Such thunder, lightning and rain!" said Miss Tree as she clucked over Jane. "You look a frightful mess, my dear!"
Eva Lynn looked mildly disgusted. "What the hell's all this hurly-burly?" she demanded. "We haven't been open five minutes!"
"I'm sorry, Evil Lynn, but I'm desperate!" Jane blurted. Then she clapped one hand to her mouth.
Eva Lynn's gray eyes narrowed to slits. "It's Eva Lynn." She repeated it, stressing the proper pronunciation. There was an edge of strange menace in her voice, and the lights in the shop seemed momentarily to dim and the corners to fill with shadows.
Jane licked her red Estee Lauder lips and glanced at her watch. There wasn't much time! "Look at me!" she shrieked. "I'm ugly again! Your spells are wearing off too quickly, and I've got a presentation in less than an hour!"
Miss Tree patted Jane's shoulder sympathetically while Miss Crab took Jane's hand and noted the two broken nails. "Now calm down, dear! You are not ugly!"
Miss Tree ran a hand through Jane's hair and pushed a damp lock back into place as they guided her to the rear of the store. "Indeed, you are not! You just get such a silly idea out of your head. We don't even use that word in this store!"
Eva Lynn hovered as they pushed Jane into a styling chair before a large mirror and an array of tools and products. With a flourish, she flung a smock over Jane and secured it behind her neck. "Too much lightning in the air," she muttered, "steals the magic from your hair. Yet, we three can make you fair, then off to work with time to spare!"
Jane stared into the mirror and screamed at her own hideous reflection. In tears, she clapped her hands to her face and knocked one of her false eyelashes askew. Through her fingers, she dared to look into the mirror again. Hair like Medusa! Cheeks the color of tombstones! Cracks and wrinkles! The horrible creature she saw was her! It was really her!
"If my bosses ever see the real me . . . !"
Miss Crab snatched up a jar of cream, which bore the shop's name and logo. With a twist, she cast away the lid and began smearing a green goop on Jane's face. It reeked of month-old cucumber. "Eye of toad and blood of hare; give yourself into our care. Nothing wrong we can't repair with little effort or fanfare!"
Miss Tree tipped Jane's chair back with a sharp motion and poured a bottle of yellowish syrup into her hair. A potent floral odor crawled into Jane's nose. "Men will see you, stop and stare!" she chanted. "Lesser females will despair!"
Eva Lynn opened a decorative powder box and shook the puff over Jane, making her sneeze. "This special glamour will hit them like a hammer!"
Her chair began to spin. Faster and faster it went until the shop became a blur. Jane's legs flew up in the air, and she flung out her arms. The smock fluttered over her head, blinding her, and her senses churned. "My face! My face!" she cried.
A cool tingling spread from her chin to her brows, and a euphony of bells pealed in her ears. From the darkness of the encasing smock, a dozen different perfumes wafted into her nostrils. Suddenly, unbidden, words bubbled from her lips. "Round and round and round we swirl! L'Oreal and Cover Girl! Make me shimmer like a pearl—but stop this chair before I hurl!"
The chair slowed to a stop.
"Unseal her!" Miss Crab sang. "Reveal her!"
"A butterfly," chanted Miss Tree, "to every eye!"
Eva Lynn's voice cut in like a saw blade. "Oh, just unwrap the silly sap!"
The smock slipped away from Jane's face. To her surprise, she found that she'd been squeezing her eyes shut tightly. Now she peeled the left one open and braved a glance into the mirror. She gave a little gasp of pleasure, and her right eye snapped open.
"I'm beautiful again!" She ran her fingertips over smooth, unblemished cheeks, over a flawless button nose and along rose-colored lips. Her hair looked freshly colored and restyled. "Just a few more touches," she breathed, "and I'll be perfect!"
Snapping open her purse, she drew out a tube of Magic-Lips lip-gloss and applied the red cream liberally. She followed that with a quick brush-up of rouge, a brand called Superstition, then with two quick strokes added blue shadow to her eyelids. She smiled at the product's name as she put it away—Devilicious. "Pardon me," she said. Nudging Miss Crab back a pace, she leaned closer to the mirror and affixed a fresh pair of curly false eyelashes. "Almost done!" she announced, snapping the purse closed again. Taking final stock of her new self, she rubbed a finger briskly over her front teeth to brighten them, then flashed a big smile. "It's like magic!" she proclaimed as she studied her perfected reflection. "You're miracle-workers!"
"Not exactly." Eva Lynn rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her breasts
"You give us too much credit," Miss Crab responded.
"Just remember that beauty is only sin-deep," Miss Tree added. Then she chuckled behind her hand. "I mean, skin-deep."
Jane glanced at her watch. She still had a few minutes for shopping, and she just had to have some more of the wonderful products these ladies produced. She'd been coming here for months now. The anti-wrinkle creams, the skin-tightening lotions, the bath soaps that really softened the skin, the potions that really did kill toenail fungus—it all really worked!
But only temporarily. This morning had been a bitter reminder of that when she woke and looked into her bathroom mirror. Toothbrush in hand, with a mouthful of paste, she'd watched her beauty dissolve before her very eyes to reveal the true, wretched ugliness that she tried so desperately to hide from the world.
With a hopeful sigh, she dumped her purchases on the sales counter and waited while Miss Tree rang them up. "How long will it last this time?" she asked in a weak voice. She'd been coming every week for fresh beauty treatments, but lately, she seemed to require them more and more often. "My job depends upon my looks, you know. It isn't easy for a woman in business."
Miss Tree nodded sympathetically as she bagged Jane's items. "You have to believe in the magic," she answered.
Miss Crab stepped behind the counter to stand beside Miss Tree. "And you have to believe in yourself," she added.
Eva Lynn held the shop door open for Jane, but it hadn't quite closed when she turned to the other ladies. "Modern women," she said in a disdainful voice. "Underneath all that stuff, do you ever wonder if there's anything real?"
Jane stopped in her tracks, surprised and a little bit hurt by the overheard comment. But the door closed, and after a moment, she wondered if she'd actually heard correctly. She didn't give the matter much more thought, because a poster for Dior in another store window caught her eye, and the beautiful woman in the advertisement looked just like Jane! So did the woman in the Prada poster and the Givenchy advertisement! Jane smiled to herself as she strolled through the mall, turning little pirouettes and swinging her packages as she made her way to the exit.
An hour later, poised and confident, lightly drenched in a special perfume called Enchantment, Jane Paddock stood at the head of the board room table as the agency's leading advertising executives and corporate lawyers filed in for her eleven o'clock presentation. The company president, himself, led the client into the room and seated him near Jane's right hand.
All eyes were on her, and she touched her throat. Having loosened the two topmost buttons of her blouse, the coy gesture served to draw attention to the gentle swell of her cleavage. She drew a delicate breath and flashed a smile around the room. This was her dream job, and she was standing exactly where she'd dreamed of standing, making her first presentation to a high-powered client!
Jane moved a little to one side while the president introduced her. She barely listened to his brief speech, and she doubted if any of the others really heard it, either. Instead, she basked in the admiring glances of her all-male audience. When the introduction was over, she waited for her boss to resume his seat. Then, she moved to the front of the room once more and struck a pose beside an easel upon which rested a stack of poster-sized cards.
The rest of the room seemed to vanish as she focused all her attention on the client. This was the moment she'd been waiting for—her moment. "Sir," she said with firm politeness. "You're in the business of selling beauty products. And we're in the business of selling . . ." she paused for effect. "You. We're all in the same business. We're all selling the same product. But that product is not beauty."
Jane removed the top card on the stack, which was a blank white. The next card contained a single word in large, stylized letters. "The product is sex." Someone gasped. Jane barely heard. She exposed the next card, a portrait of a flame-haired woman in a passionate embrace. "Wear the right lipstick," she continued, "and you'll get sex." She exposed the next card on the easel, a portrait of a muscular man in all his broad-chested, post-shower glory, his face richly lathered, and a woman's hands on his bare, rippling abdominals. "Use the right shave cream . . ."
Someone else in the room finished her sentence. "And you'll get sex."
Jane's boss cleared his throat before he interrupted. "Don't we prefer the word romance?"
She'd anticipated her boss's reaction. Jane put on a patient smile and drew another breath as she touched her throat again. All eyes followed her hand. "We might pretend so," she admitted, "but let's be honest. That's not the bottom line for girls or guys." She pulled one card after another off the easel, each more lurid than the previous one. "Wear the right scent, use the right blush . . ."
Someone interrupted, "And you'll get sex."
She pulled down another card. "Apply the right foundation, splash on the right aftershave. . . ."
Still another board member chimed in. "And you'll get sex."
Jane smiled secretly to herself. It was working like a charm. Get them into the rhythm, and they responded like church-boys at catechism.
A nod went around the conference table, but her boss frowned. "It seems a bit cynical to me."
The client stood up. "I like it," he announced. "In fact, I think it's the finest presentation I've ever seen." His gaze fastened on Jane's cleavage as he reached to shake her hand.
Jane beamed, but her triumph was short-lived. As she reached out to return the client's handshake, her left eyelash fell off, and a strand of blond hair fell upon the dark pinstriped sleeve of her business suit. The client's eyes widened as Jane felt her heart lurch. A horrible sensation crept through her. She could feel her face cracking, the make-up peeling. The magic was failing too soon!
Hiding her face behind her hands, she fled from the boardroom.
Sobbing and half blinded by tears, Jane raced back to Birnam Woods Mall and shot into the nearest parking space. The rain had ceased for the moment, but thunder boomed like cannon fire, and lightning danced crazy jigs across the clouds. The wind surged around her, destroying her coiffure as she got out of the Mercedes. She gave a cry of dismay as she slammed the car door and ran across the wet pavement to the mall entrance.
Just as she reached the glass doors, a young couple burdened with packages emerged. At the sight of her, they stopped as if frozen in their tracks and stared with jaws agape. "Don't look at me!" Jane snarled. Then she hit the doors with her palms, shoving them open with enough force to cause long cracks in the thick glass panes.
She didn't care about the damage or about the couple. Raising her hands again to conceal her appearance from the other shoppers, she hurried past the stores and kiosks. Everybody stared at her! The nearest ones shrank in horror from the monster in their midst. Others pointed and mocked her! Under so many gazes and glares she could feel her face degenerating, as if somehow they were responsible! That was it! They were leeching her beauty!
Yet they weren't alone! The posters and advertisements in the windows and along the walls, they also seemed to mock her just as the shoppers did! The photographs with all those beautiful women with perfect skin and deep eyes and bright lipsticks, the young voluptuous models urging you to buy, buy, buy! They were changing before her very eyes to mirror her own crone-like ugliness!
Her tears gave way to a red rage by the time she reached the shop. Once again, she paused and read the name above the door: Crab, Tree, and Eva Lynn—Natural Beauty Supernaturally!
Miss Tree rose from behind the counter as if she'd been crouched there all day. "Why, Miss Paddock!" She put on a big smile of greeting. "How nice to see you so soon!"
Jane flung her hands up into the air and screamed. "Your magic sucks!"
Miss Crab appeared from behind a shelf of ointments on the other side of the shop. "Why, Miss Paddock!" she sang in her strangely happy little voice. "Our very favorite customer!"
Jane growled. Seizing a bar of lavender-scented soap from a display table, she threw it at Miss Crab, who caught it neatly and set it aside.
"Fakes! Charlatans! Cheats!" Jane shouted as she grabbed another bar of soap and flung it after the first. Then, she was throwing everything she could get her hands on—soaps, herbal balms, perfumed oils, lotions, miracle creams, chap sticks with high spf factors. Unscrewing the lids for the fullest splattery effect, she let fly, taking aim at nothing and everything while Miss Crab and Miss Tree flew about the room like a pair of shrieking Halloween witches, ducking and dodging.
Her rage, however, was interrupted without warning as an icy chill swept through the shop. In defiance of all laws of motion, every missile and flying jar of face cream froze in mid-flight and hung suspended in the air. At the back of the store, the black curtains parted. Eva Lynn emerged, her face dark with menace, and as she advanced toward Jane she batted aside each suspended projectile that blocked her path.
Undaunted, Jane picked up an orange pomander and wound up for the pitch, but Eva Lynn pointed one warning finger. "Hair of dog and witch's tit—put it down, you silly twit!"
Cowered behind a spinning rack of sachet packets, Miss Crab clutched her breasts protectively. "Witch's tit?" she protested. "I resent that!"
"Resent this!" Jane muttered, drawing back with her sweet-smelling missile. But the pomander exploded in a shower of fine powder before it left her hand. Startled, her anger momentarily subsided, and she looked as if she would cry. "Well, great!" She glared with moist eyes at Eva Lynn as she brushed her sleeve and lapels. "Now you've ruined my best suit, too! Is this your idea of customer service?" She shot a look around for something else to throw, and her gaze fell on a stack of mail and a letter opener by the cash register.
She was already a monster. Did it matter if she was a murderess, too? She looked at the three sisters and made her decision—Evil Lynn would be the first to go. "Evil Lynn. Evil Lynn. Evil Lynn!" she chanted, knowing how irksome her foe found that name. Her fingers curled around the letter opener's hilt. With a little laugh, she observed that all her carefully manicured nails were chipped and broken.
Eva Lynn snapped her fingers as Jane came closer. With a thump and clatter, every floating object fell to the floor. "Put that down," she ordered, fixing Jane with eyes that were black, limpid pools of age and time. "Trust me. You don't want the blood on your dainty little hands."
Hugging Miss Crab, Miss Tree nodded with a serious expression. "You'll never get the spots out."
Miss Crab forced a nervous smile. "She's right, you know. Been there—done that!"
Jane stared at the three women, then around the shop at the mess and damage she'd caused. The letter opener slipped from her grip as her rage finally evaporated. For a moment, she felt drained and numb. Then she choked up and cried out from a deep well of pain and despair. "All the magic soaps and lotions! I bought them all!" Jane sank down to her knees. "You promised me I'd be beautiful!"
Miss Tree came closer and placed a hand on Jane's shoulder. "The poor dear still doesn't understand."
"It's you that doesn't understand!" Jane wailed, knocking the hand away. "Look at me! I'm ugly!" Trembling, she looked up at Eva Lynn, who loomed over her. "Don't you see?" she appealed. "You can't get anywhere in this world unless you're picture-perfect beautiful! Nobody looks at you! Nobody listens to you! Nobody—nobody wants you!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" Eva Lynn snapped.
But Miss Crab knelt down and took Jane's hand. "Be patient, Sister," she said to Eva Lynn in a calmer voice.
Jane hung her head and stared at the floor. Ugly forever, she thought tearfully. There is no magic! There is no magic! Clenching her fists and lifting her head, she cried out, "O, Caliban!"
Miss Tree clucked her tongue. "Wrong play."
Eva Lynn dropped down to her knees before Jane and, reaching out, brushed the younger woman's chin. "Of course, there's magic," she said in a softer voice. To prove her point, she raised a finger and the white powder staining Jane's suit blew upward in a little swirl and reassembled into an orange pomander. Eva Lynn caught it and set it aside, then pressed a fingertip to the center of Jane's forehead. "But there's another kind of magic. Sometimes it's good magic, and sometimes it's bad magic, but it's the strongest magic of all."
Miss Tree knelt down on Jane's right side. "Sometimes it's cruel, and sometimes it's blind," she whispered.
Miss Crab knelt on Jane's left side and softly sang. "Sometimes it's sweet, and sometimes it's kind!"
"It's in your spirit," Eva Lynn continued as she took both of Jane's hands in her own. "And it's in your mind." Without warning, she clapped her hands together under Jane's nose. Jane looked up sharply and blinked. "And boy, this time it's all in your mind!"
Jane's head swam. Confused, she met Eva Lynn's gaze and wondered if the other woman was trying to put another spell on her. "What are you talking about?"
Miss Crab smiled. "You are beautiful, my dear! We've been trying to convince you!"
Jane recoiled. "You're nuts! I'm uglier than a pig in mud! People stare at me because I'm so ugly!"
"They stare because you're . . ." Miss Tree paused and rubbed her chin. "What's the modern expression? Because you're drop-dead gorgeous? A hot fox?" She chuckled and blushed. "Why, if it wasn't for our patient-client relationship, I could go for you, myself."
Jane bit her lip. "No thanks." She looked around for a mirror.
"You didn't believe in yourself." As if she'd read Jane's mind, Eva Lynn produced a gold-framed, hand-held mirror from the pocket of her black dress. "Now see what others really see when you pass by. See why they really stare."
Jane wiped her eyes and looked into the glass. "I know this part," she said. "Mirror, mirror, on the . . ."
Eva Lynn snapped her fingers under Jane's nose. "Just shut up and look."
A cloudy smoke filled the mirror. It shifted and crawled upon the glass, then began to clear. Jane leaned closer to see her reflection. Her hair stuck up like Medusa's snakes, and her eyes were garishly discolored. Her face looked like an old pick-up truck with a bad touch-up paint job. She tried to believe—but she couldn't shake that twinge of doubt.
Eva Lynn produced a handkerchief from her dress pocket and made a single pass at Jane's face. "But first, take off all of this ridiculous goop. Even with our products there can be too much of a good thing."
The reflection in the mirror flickered and settled down again. Everything that was horrid about her appearance faded away. Everything that was repulsive transformed, became lovely and natural. "Is this really me?" Jane asked.
"You only have to believe," Miss Tree said.
Jane pressed her hands to her face with rising excitement. "But this is marvelous! Wonderful!" She gazed into the mirror again, delighted with what she saw. If the glass could be believed, she really was a head-turner! "What do I owe you? How can I pay?"
Miss Crab rose to her feet. "You have already paid, are paying, and will pay," she warned.
Miss Tree also rose up. "The price of beauty . . ." she said.
Eva Lynn got to her feet, as well, and interrupted. ". . . is always the fear of losing it."
Jane Paddock thought about that for a moment. She didn't understand what these crazy old women were talking about, and she decided that she didn't really care. She got to her feet, too, and brushed her skirt, certain that, by kneeling down among all the clutter on the floor she'd ruined her favorite suit beyond all hope of salvage. "Thank you! Thank you!" she said, shaking their hands joyfully and giving each of them little hugs. "You've taught me a valuable lesson, and one I'm sure that I'll always remember." She glanced at her watch. "Now I really need to get back to work. I'm well-stocked on soaps and lotions and ointments right now—but I'll be back soon!"
With her goodbyes and thank-yous said, Jane made a quick exit. If she'd caused a mess in the shop, she was desperately afraid that she'd left a bigger one back at the ad agency.
Yet as she left, she caught snatches of a curious conversation.
"She still doesn't get it, does she?" said Miss Crab.
"Dumber than a toad in stump water," Miss Tree answered.
"Things were simpler when I really was Evil Lynn."
Miss Crab chuckled. "When shall we three meet again?"
Miss Tree sighed and sounded suddenly bored. "In thunder, lightning, or in the goddamned, never-ending rain?"
Eva Lynn only shrugged. "Personally, I'm for Sheboygan."
Brenda W. Clough has been a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula awards. She lives with four cats and a great many balls of yarn in a cottage at the edge of a forest. She is the author of seven novels and many short stories, and makes her living with reviews of books about death, grief and misery. Her latest SF novel, Revise the World, is appearing serially at bookviewcafe.com.