Maurice didn't know where to look in the courtroom. He didn't know where to start the story, so he simply spoke to the hushed air.

'She was ugly, lived in the woods, and hated people.

'When I say she was ugly, I do not mean her looks. Looks are trivial when you start thinking beyond time and space, the body a mere vessel to keep the soul. She was ugly in her manner, in the things she valued, in the thoughts she kept in her head but let leak out through the mirrors.

'Maybe I should explain the mirrors first? Ah, but they're the piece that ties all of this together.

'Her name was Agatha. Even as a little girl, it suited her. She was a small and sickly child, always coughing and sneezing whenever people asked how she was feeling. She could barely talk without sending something out into the atmosphere that did not belong. Her brother, Mort, was born soon after her. Parents' and villagers' attention turned towards him. No one asked about her anymore, and truly, it was for the best. She could barely speak until she was five anyway, and by then, she was only speaking to the dolls.

'The dolls were the first form of mirrors: the things she looked into in order to see the world, to see her invisible thoughts, and then to cast them out. Even though her family was not rich, she repeatedly threw out her toys. That was how she caught my attention. I was and still am a scavenger—please, no judgment, I know you never like to meet my eyes on the roads, but you do not have to look at me to hear a story all the way through to the end—and her family's abode gave me piles and piles of riches. Counterfeit riches, as I would soon realize. No one wants broken toys. No one wants pieces of a puzzle that don't go together. Yet, I returned over and over again because what was thrown out was almost as interesting as the whole picture from which it came.

'Then one morning, there was a girl with dark hair, dark eyes, and an absent smile on her face staring at me. She stood on her family's porch, broom in hand.

'"Hello," I said. I smiled because one always smiles at children, especially those who have not yet learned the rules about not meeting stranger's gazes. "How are you today?"

'"You took the dolly's leg."

'"I did." I held out the prize she coveted. "Do you want it back?"

'"No. But you'll get your leg back eventually, too."

'A tingle entered my spine. I knew from all the folk magic I had overheard in bits and pieces that this was going to be a spell. It had to be one. But from this small child? From a family that seemed merely one step removed from my own fortune? Back then, witches were coveted. They were chosen amongst family lines to learn the arts to be of service to others. Their power was dangerous in the wrong hands, without careful practice, and it needed assistance.

'This family had no such assistance for this girl. I used that as a way to ignore her claim on me then. But I shouldn't have. I should have realized that like some people do not meet my eyes because of what I do, the skin I have, the legacy from which I came, some people also do not like little girls. Especially ugly ones like Agatha. Even if they were the blood that made them.

'I broke my leg three days later. I could not scavenge. My wife at the time almost left me—or at least, she was gone for three days and I had no idea where she'd gone. When she came back, I was ravenous and filthy. She took care of me but without meeting my eyes.

'"What happened?" My voice spooked her.

'"I have to go after this," she said quietly. "When you are better, I need to go."

'I knew before she told me that she'd found the little girl with the broken dolls in the woods. The witch in training, except without any training. I told my wife it was okay. Just get me better, and we could part. She seemed relieved. I did not ask for any more information because I already knew what I'd hear. A heart broken. A smashed face. Whatever Agatha could do to the dolls, she could do to people, and then claim it was fate.

'I arrived at the house as soon as I could walk. With my wife now gone, I had space in my own small house. Though I knew if I was caught there would be literal hell to pay, I offered the right answer regardless: "Agatha," I called to her when we met gazes. "I want you to come home and play with me."

'She made demands. "Do you have cookies? Do you have more dolls?"

'"I can make you cookies, we can make them together, but I do not have dolls." I pulled out one of the first mirrors she would ever get. "But I do have this."

'My charm worked. She saw her reflection and moved towards it. She touched the edges and then tried to put her hand through the mirror as if it were water. "It's solid. It's an object," I told her. "I think it would be nice for you to see how—"

'"It's me."

'"Yes. But if you turn it," I said and did as I said, "you can also see me. My name is Maurice and—"

'"I like it. We can go."

'She grabbed my hand, mirror under her arm, and left the home where she was born. She did not look back. Though I knew she had very little to miss, the ease with which she walked away was still startling to me. It's still startling to me now.

'The next ten years were much of the same. We rose at dawn and went through trash. We found items to sell, items to keep. She gathered her mirrored objects like a small crow, my little magpie, and she seemed happy. Her powers diminished—or at least, her intentions wielding them were softened—because if she saw herself and saw someone else in the same item, they must both be the same. She didn't like pain, so they didn't like pain. I could not, for some time, get her to think beyond the notions of pain and no pain, but it was better than what we'd had before.'

Maurice sighed. He didn't know how to continue for some time. When he did, he met the eyes of the jury straight on.

'You know the stories some people tell of demon children? The ones who know no better, who have been corrupted since birth? Sometimes people claim a changeling did it. Others claim a curse. Black magic. I never wanted to think the same with Agatha. That at some point, there was no way she could have been helped. That she was a lost cause and the only thing I could do was to keep her powers from reflecting out and damaging those in her wake. I wanted her to change her values, change her mind. I believed she could for years.

'Then puberty happened. And her true power took hold.

'I am an old man now, and truly, I was an old man then too. I did not know how to deal with a young girl coming of age. I thought too much of what was happening was normal, was part of the times of challenge before her moon and then the slump after her moon passed. I should have watched closer, but I did not. When she wanted to go off into the woods by herself, I let her. I did not question why she wanted to take her shiny objects with her, like a magpie. I just let her go.

'That was my mistake. I accept responsibility for that. Please keep this in mind as you hear the rest of the story.

'She found her first customers in the woods. People alone, wandering away from home, their lives in transition. Cheating spouses who had moments of conscience. The cheated on who needed guidance on what to do next. Those in love and wanting to share it, but within a family that did not accept. Those who had lost fortunes and were afraid of what the next day would bring. What to do, what to do? They saw this little girl, almost a woman, and came over to her. She had the mirrored objects, and the power, so strong now because of her growth, radiated off of her. They asked her questions.

'They never had a chance.

'"I don't know why people come to me," she told me months later, after the first funeral for the wounded spouse. "I tell them what they want to hear. What they already know, deep inside them. I see it in the mirrors."

'"What did you tell this woman?" I asked Agatha, though I already knew the answer. She dispensed advice like the clairvoyants and tarot readers of the city. Like the midwives and cunning folk of the country. She was a seer, that was true, but no one understood that the only thing inside her was darkness.

'"I told her that her husband would miss her more if she was truly gone," Agatha said as if this was the weather. "And now it's true."

'Another funeral, another death. Another soul moment where she connected with someone's pain and thought that was all there was to their world. "If life is so bad," she said, "you could kill yourself. If you don't like your boss but you need the job, what if you got rid of him? There's no problem with you. But the rest of the world needs to go."

'People knew better, of course. The people who came to her were not permanently broken, just in need of help. But her words came with them a spine-chilling sense of truth. You did have these thoughts. We all have these thoughts. Murderous and ugly through and through. But we should not act on them. "We should never act on them," I warned Agatha. "People do not want to act on them. They want to see the good."

'"Then why do they come to me?" Her dark eyes and youthful face seemed too old in that moment. "I see what's already there. I tell them. Nothing else is my fault."

'I didn't know what to say for some time. "People do not come to you for advice. They do not want it. They--"

'"Right. Not advice. They go to Meriwether for fortunes," she said, listing one of the more famous clairvoyants. "I'm going to get better than her and take all her customers."

'"People do not come to you for fortunes. Or to Meriwether. They come to you for recognition. They want to be seen in their pain."

'"Right. I tell them--"

'"To act on it. You can't act on it. You must simply sit with them and understand."

'She huffed. She left the room for her bedroom. I heard the clanging of metal, of shiny objects, and she shuffled them around. Then it was eerily quiet. I hoped and prayed she had gone to sleep, though deep down I knew better. When I came to get her in the morning, she was gone. So were her mirrors.

'I looked all around our small village. I could not find her. When I went on my typical route for scavenging, I realized all the shiny bits, the reflected objects normally present on the curbs, were gone. She'd cleaned out where we'd once bonded and set out on her own.

'It wasn't until I was summoned here, to this court to defend my surrogate daughter, that I understood what she had become. I plead with you: she is ugly. I tell you over and over, I gave her all the chances I could. I gave her all that I could and I know that it was not enough. But please do not be fooled by her mirrors, by her powers, by the things about her that seem so powerful. She is not a witch in the traditional sense, those who are wise and use their cunning for the service of others. She is an ugly person, one who claims to see the truth, but can only understand pain and treachery in her mirrors. She has a thousand different names for the same pain, the same morose condition she calls humanity, and when you have a thousand names for the same thing, it all leads to the same conclusion: death, destruction, violence. There is no hope in her. Please do not see anything else because you know there is hope in you. Do not let her find the blackness that we all have, and let her convince you it is truth.'

As Maurice turned away from the jury, he let out a single, ancient-sounding breath and looked into the palm of his hands. 'Please.'

The story now over, his role in the defense complete, Maurice settled into a rickety chair and observed the courtroom. It was a small, squat country building three villages over. He'd truly been surprised that Agatha had only gotten so far. A few hundred miles, that was it. He'd expected her to reach the city center, find the king and queen, and do something on a grander scale. But that had been false thinking, too, he knew that now. She did not need to go far and wide for her powers to reshape the world. She only had to find one village in peril, one schoolteacher desperate for a solution for educating children who did not have a hope of surviving in the rough world, and to hold up a mirror on all the grimness and despair that floated inside of her.

The schoolteacher was not in the room. She'd hung herself once the spell had been broken. In her small farmhouse, her body hung in the barn, and all the mirrors in her house had been smashed to pieces. Maurice wondered now if those pieces had been thrown out, and if someone like himself had discovered the shards. He hoped in his heart of hearts that someone else like Agatha had not found them.

The only person on trial was Agatha. Maurice learned of her last name for the first time during the trial: Blackmore. It seemed fitting, but it also seemed like part of the show.

Maurice focused on the jury for the rest of the trial. He remembered one woman, red hair and sympathetic eyes, who would surely be the problem. Or maybe the older man, a fatherly figure like himself, might be the problem. But there would be a problem. No one could look at Agatha and think that she was responsible. The schoolteacher had committed the heinous act, and she was dead now. All was right with the world, fairness restored. So why punish this witch?

'Look into your hearts,' Maurice whispered under his breath. Agatha flinched, as if recognizing his voice even from afar. He became scared of his own magic and drew silent for the rest of the trial.

There were more arguments, more evidence, and a few formal elements that he'd never been privy to in his life. Agatha sat on the sidelines, her dark hair curled behind her ears. She wore a standard brown uniform, loose and hanging off her thin frame. She'd been in the county jail awaiting her time. She'd had all of her collection removed from her. All she had was her own representative.

The evidence was stacked against her. But Maurice had been worn down. He was old, very old now. He did not know if he'd be able to make it back to his home after this. He considered a hotel, considered many things, before he understood that Agatha was going to take the stand.

The room was quiet. She rose from her spot with her representative and then sat next to the judge. She smiled at the jury.

Maurice's heart sunk. Her teeth. Her teeth had been capped since he'd last seen her. The bottom incisors and the top were now shiny and silver. They were mirrors. Mirrors that she could not see for herself.

'Wait!' Maurice stood from his seat. His can slapped against the ground. 'You can't let her speak. You can't--'

'I have a right to my own story,' she said, the shiny parts flashing as she spoke. She turned to the jury. 'We all have a right to our own story. No matter how painful, no matter how horrible, we can all benefit from a story. As someone wise in my life once told me, people don't come to me for fortunes. They come for recognition.' She smiled again, and caught the first juror with red hair, the first broken doll in her new collection, 'And I know you will recognize me.'