Jaci Dawn

Ella didn’t feel like talking to the mirror. She just wanted to cry. She tried not to look at anyone, but Natalie came over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Stress makes people lash out,” she said, kindly. “There is tea in the kitchen.”
Aric punched her shoulder lightly, “You can be my hero.” Ella tried to punch him back, but he dodged. “Hey! You almost smiled!”
The rest sat down in the living room and tried not to look at each other. “It’s my fault,” Gran said. “I tried to tell her Mike was on the other side.”
“You should’a asked her out first,” Dish said, making to play punch his friend in the shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, she said that. Like getting Mike to ask her out was a way to get at me.”
“Girls.”

Madison talked Billie out of the bathroom. She continued to snivel, but she no longer had anything angry to say. She accepted a cup of tea from Richard and sat down between Gran and Dish. “I’m sorry, guys. It’s just been so horrid, and now she’s talking about making us mice, again.”
“The mirror is,” Dish reminded her.
Billie sniffed. “I know. It’s the mirror. But it’s telling El all this stuff, and it’s scaring me. What can we do if we’re just house mice?”
Ella returned to the room. She tried to make eye contact with Billie, but Billie wouldn’t look at her. Ella looked at Richard, who said, “We have very little time to intervene, if the execution is truly set for tomorrow at six o’clock in the evening. We must lay down our petty grievances for the better good. I believe we can all agree that we must work together as a team.”
Everyone nodded, including Billie, although she still refused to look up at Ella.
“Okay…” Ella stood before the mirror again. She was herself, and her eyes were puffy. “So, Mirror. Can you tell us the plan?”
The mirror remained silent, and reflected the room. Ella looked first at Richard, then over at Dish and Gran. “Ideas what to ask?”
“Yes.” It was Billie. “Ask it if we all are supposed to go as mice, and where to? And how are we supposed to fight? How do we kill an evil Yokai?” She looked Ella in the eye.
Ella nodded. “Got it. Mirror. Which of us is supposed to go as a mouse warrior?”
The mirror reflected twelve mice. Everyone could see the image this time. They were armed with office supplies: a stapler, scissors, a box cutter, a letter opener, push pins, and rubber bands. It was easy to tell which mouse was who: they were, again, dressed in their own clothes.
“Even Horace?” Deke pointed at the one normal mouse. “Has to be Horace.”
“Who is number thirteen, though?”
The mirror shifted, and the governor’s office was revealed. There was a single desk lamp on, but the room was lit from the street. The mirror reflected mice in positions around the room, behind books, under the desk, on top of shelves, hiding behind photographs on the credenza, or flat against the bronze statue of a cowboy herding cattle.
It faded again, and showed the shadowy form of the Yokai enter the room. He walked around to where the governor usually sat, and began pulling drawers open. He pulled a bottle of pills out of one of the drawers, and poured them out onto the desk.
“Five left. You will be dead in three days, Mr. Governor. Dead of old age.” He put the pills back in the bottle and secured it in the drawer again. He flipped the desk lamp off. He started to leave, but turned toward the mirror in the room.
“I will have four tails in three days. I will look so much more handsome.”
He turned to walk away, and the mirror seemed to zoom onto his handsome tails. The image disappeared slowly.
“I have it,” Ella whispered. “How to defeat him.”
The room was silent for a long few seconds. Billie broke the silence. “Let’s do it, Girlfriend.” She raised her fist to Ella, who bumped it back.
“Let’s do it!”
“Wait! How do we get to the governor’s office? How do we break in? Can’t the mirror show us the way in, at least?” Deke was waving his arms.
“Oh. I guess I could ask it,” Ella said. Billie laughed.

They moved in the dark of the night, after stocking up on food and taking a cat nap. They had to use a popular search engine and map application to decide where to have Deke transport them. The mirror had provided a general lay out of the capitol building, and where they might expect to find entrance. Richard – Kitsune – had implanted the mental map as best as he could. But now they were here, in the bark dust, next to the cold granite blocks the capitol building was built upon.
It was of those dark nights when the rain absorbed all the light, and everything melted into one black mud puddle. The swoosh of an occasional car on the main road echoed in the mice’s ears. They moved along the side of the building, keeping to the shelter of the azaleas and rhododendrons, and dodging the drip of rain off the roof. Noses twitched, and they hurried, silently, trusting their whiskers, instincts, and the mental map. Richard took the lead, and Natalie took up the rear. They overrode any protests by the young mice with their parental/adult authority: they had “experience” and they could shape-shift at will, even under Deke’s spell.

The red tabby was out for a stroll around the big building when he noticed the small moving things under the bushes. His curiosity was immediately piqued. He liked things that moved. He changed direction and dropped down to his belly, crawling stealthily toward the little moving things. He did not possess a good sense of smell, but his hearing and eyesight more than made up for what his nose could not tell him. He did not know what was moving, but whatever they were, they were completely unaware of him.
He left the wet grass for the relative shelter of the shrubs. He sometimes used the bark dust here for a littler box. He knew where he was, how far it was to home, and where shelter ended. He also knew that sometimes there was a cruel man who hid in the doorways and sent little flying pain pellets, but that was during the daytime. At night, the tabby was free to hunt here. Or play, as he was not particularly hungry just now. He just wanted to see if he could catch one of the little moving things.

“Did you hear that?” Aric looked around. He was certain he heard something rustle under the rhododendron.
The column stopped, and everyone looked about. This time, when Deke had changed them, he had commanded their eyesight to remain very human. They could peer out under the bush into the darkness, see the street lights, and the ground lights. Dark shadows were harder to make out: rocks, roots, bricks, a looming cat shape with pointy ears.
Aric turned his flashlight on, illuminating the large amber eyes with narrow vertical slits.
“CAT!” he squeaked, and immediately panicked, looking for a weapon.
“Oh dear,” Horace prayed. “Don’t let a cat catch me as a mouse. It’s so undignified!”
The cat’s body trembled as he prepared to jump at the little things, and he launched into the air. Something hit him on the side of the head, and something threw leaves up in it’s face. The little creatures scattered, and he missed his mark. He turned his head and was smacked on the nose with a twig. Another twig poked him in the side.
The tabby batted at the twig, momentarily fascinated with the way it waved in the air and prodded at him. There was no need for claws, as this was merely an entertainment. The tabby batted at leaves and tossed them in the air with abandon, leapt up into the bush and jumped back down again, scattering the wee things some more. They made tiny sounds like humans, but they raced around like mice or voles. The cat crouched, again, and waited to see what the creatures would do.
They scrambled for shelter, tiny voices shouting. The cat tilted his head and watched: they reassembled behind a little box with pipes coming out of it.

“We’ll have to make a run for it, somehow. The way in should be very close now” Richard hissed.
“We need a distraction.”
“We need Kyle the bear to walk up and swat that cat off its feet.”
“I’m a mouse now, sorry, dudes.”
“I’ll do it,” Natalie said. “I’m a black belt in karate. I should be able to keep up with a cat.”
“No, Mom!”
“Hey, where’s Deke? Deke?” Aric looked around, wildly.

The cat was an expert mouser and bird hunter. It saw the movement off to it’s right. A flick of the tail, a shiver down the length of its body, a pause – and it had the straggler pinned between its paws.
One of the other ones ran at the cat ad leaped at its face, but the tabby snatched its prize in its mouth and trotted off.
“Oh, nooooo.”
“Dylan, Go with the rest. Finish the job. I’m going to go save Deacon.”
“Me, too.”
“No, Aric. You’re needed here. Go, NOW.” Natalie headed in the direction the cat had gone.
“I’ll go with her,” Horace said. “It’s be us against the cat.”
Richard quickly rounded up the rest and ushered them toward the break in the foundation wall that would take them into the duct work and up to the governor’s office. Aric held back, but Ella tugged on his hand.
“He’ll be OK. He has a magic wand, if he really needs to use magic.”
Aric nodded glumly.