The Girl in the Mirror

The lights in the Morrigan’s biosphere had dimmed to twilight, casting long lazy shadows across the overgrown hydroponics and tangled vines Maltz insisted were ‘vitally medicinal’ despite being equal parts trip hazard and obvious recreational botanicals.

Somewhere in the corner, Scarred-Snout snored under a heat lamp, curled up like a very dangerous housecat. Quinn watered a plant with the quiet efficiency of someone who didn’t technically need to breathe but still insisted on high oxygen standards. Morwen was knitting. Nobody had the nerve to ask what.

Caitlin sat perched on an old crate beneath the hanging vines, legs swinging, boots muddy from an earlier misadventure with a hydroponic leak. She was cradling a drink she wasn’t sure if she’d poured or just found.

“You ever catch yourself in a mirror,” she said suddenly, voice low, “and see someone who shouldn’t be there?”

Morwen looked up sharply. Maltz’s ears perked. Quinn paused mid-spritz.

“Sometimes I look,” she continued, “and there’s this girl. Twenty, tops. Bright green eyes. Freckles. Still full of wild plans and itchy feet. And I wonder what happened. Because she should have aged. Hell, maybe she did. Just not in this version of the universe.”

Silence. Even Wingnut, the biosphere’s aggressively opinionated bird, shut up for once.

After a moment, Caitlin gave a small laugh. “You know what’s daft? I’ve been thinking about when it began. Before the Scouts. Before the Navy, even. Back on Sargasso. Home. I was just a dumb kid when a Z’go trader came to our village.”

That got Quinn’s full attention. “Z’go do not typically descend to water worlds. Their containment suits are delicate.”

“He did wear one,” Caitlin said. “You could still see the energy threads moving inside. Like a storm of colours, caught in glass. He didn’t speak the way we do. Used a ‘dolomei’—some kind of translator that pushes feelings and words straight into your head. Gave me a fierce headache, so it did. But it got the job done.”

“He had a rug laid out with all manner of trinkets. Shiny nonsense, half of it. But there was this one little charm that caught my eye. Looked like amber, warm to the touch. Shaped a bit like a moon bear, if you squinted. So I traded for it.”

She raised her wrist, letting the charm catch the fading light. It glittered faintly, like something inside had just shifted slightly.

“Can’t even remember what I gave him. A bit of jewellery, a story, maybe a song. But I walked away with that charm on my wrist, and I’ve worn it ever since. For over twenty years.”

She traced a finger over the smooth surface. “It’s always warm. Sometimes it glows. Sometimes it hums. Once, it even charted a jump for me while I was asleep.”

“I remember cold, lonely nights in the Scout service. Ships I’ve lost. People I’ve left. And I remember standing in front of a mirror, not recognising the girl looking back. Not because she’d changed. Because she hadn’t.”

She swirled her glass, not looking at anyone in particular.

Silence stretched out, like an old jumper worn soft by time.

Scarred-Snout shifted in his sleep and drooled faintly onto his own arm, utterly unbothered. Quinn tilted his head slightly, like a puzzle piece had just fallen into place. Morwen gave a quiet nod. The soft click of her knitting needles resumed.

Maltz finally broke the silence. “That’s proper weird, Captain. I always figured you were using anagathics all these years. You want me to make you a better mirror?”

Caitlin gave a wry grin. “Nah. That girl’s still me. Just... maybe from a time when things went a little sideways.”

She raised her glass in a slightly sardonic toast. “To the sideways versions.”

They drank to that. Even the biosphere, full of mismatched flora and barely regulated humidity, seemed to hold its breath for a moment. Then the lights shifted again, the ship hummed softly beneath them, and the moment passed, like it always did.

And the charm on Caitlin’s wrist stayed warm. But just for a second, it caught the light like a mirror.