Janice was behind the bar. She said, "What'll you have?" and Aulden asked her, "Don't you know?" After all, she'd told him that her ability was to know what people wanted.

She said, "I think you'll have red wine." She poured glasses for Aulden and for The Wind, and asked, "Did you really look around here last time? Look at the carpet in this area."

Aulden saw that the carpet had a map of the world designed into the fabric. She continued, "And the lighting - it's mood lighting. If you come in here depressed it'll be a shade of blue and if you're angry more of a red."

Aulden thought about that and about his impending divorce, and he said, "So if I was all upset because I was talking to my wife…" As he spoke, the blue tones in the lighting of the room faded away.

Janice's enthusiasm was growing. She took Aulden's hand, pulling him from his barstool, and said, "Come on, I'll show you something else."

She led him to the hallway in the back of the building. "The kitchen is back there," she told him, "But look in here." She opened a door to a small bedroom. They went inside.

She leaped onto the mattress and signaled Aulden to lay beside her. Positioning himself flat on the bed, he noticed a mirror above, attached to the ceiling. Even though he was in this intimate place with Janice, his mind drifted to someone else. Janice - suddenly angry - reacted, "You're thinking about her!"

Aulden was in a panic, explaining, "I can't help it. I'm thinking about her all the time!"

Janice responded, "You're here with me! You should be thinking about me!"

Aulden confessed, "I still have these feelings…"

She interrupted, "The feelings you have need to be for someone else now!" Aulden expected Janice to claim his feelings for herself, but instead she told him, "You need to start having feelings for you, Aulden!"

Aulden answered in a tone of despair, "I can't stop thinking about her and I feel it like an aching in my stomach!"

She sat up, saying, "I might as well leave." But Aulden reached out to stop her, "No, come back!" Trying to win her over, he asked, "Tell me about the mirror."

As soon as he said that, her countenance changed. She fell again onto her back next to him, and she asked, "When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see?"

Aulden gazed upward and said, "Myself?"

"But what do you see?" she repeated, "When you look up at yourself is your self in the mirror or is your self still inside you?"

He didn't answer, and she rephrased it, "When you look at your self, are you still inside yourself?"

Aulden spoke slowly, "I'm not sure I…"

Janice laughed and playfully shoved him, "Who are you, Aulden?"

"I don't know."

She asked, "Are you still you when you see yourself in her?"

Aulden turned away from Janice, and stammered, "I don't know… I don't know."

Of course, that conversation happened when Aulden was still new to this place inside his own head. After his first journey was successfully complete, a party was held at the bar and Aulden had another encounter with the mirror on the ceiling:

A voice called out, "Let the party begin!" Waiters were on hand to fill glasses with wine, and they filled those glasses until wine flowed over the rims and onto the floor.

People were shaking Aulden's hand and patting him on the back - people he'd never met. On this night he talked with two muses, recognizably related to the mythological muses of ancient Greece who inspired artists. After his conversation with the muses, Janice took Aulden's hand and whispered, "Come with me."

Aulden followed until they were away from the hearing of the party, and she warned him, "Be careful of those two."

"Why, what's wrong with them?" Aulden asked her.

She answered, "Nothing's wrong with them. They're my dearest friends. But they're highly magical. If you get too close you'll take on some of what they have."

Aulden felt puzzled, "What do you mean 'take on'?"

"I mean," she glanced toward the party, "I mean if you sleep with them, you can incorporate their magic."

He asked her, "Is that bad?"

As if it was too complicated, she rolled her eyes and said, "It can be bad. It depends on you."

Aulden assured her, "I'm really only interested in you," but added, "Do you have magical powers?"

She softened her tone, but with some caution answered, "Yes, I have a kind of power."

"What is it? And if I sleep with you… What is it?"

Janice was annoyed at him for that question, and said, "If you ever listened to me you'd know what my power is. In fact, if you listened… Forget it, Aulden."

She was ready to end this conversation, and suddenly realized that Ferdinand was standing next to her. She walked briskly away and, before Aulden could react, Ferdinand said to him, "You promised me a cabin in the woods."

Aulden said, "I can't really do that tonight. We have this party now."

Ferdinand told him, "I'm not much for parties."

Torn between following Janice and taking care of Ferdinand, Aulden hesitated. Then he thought of a place where Ferdinand could spend the night. "Come with me," Aulden motioned and he led Ferdinand to the bedroom in the back of the bar. Ferdinand went into the room and sat on the bed. "This'll do for tonight," he conceded. But he looked up at the ceiling and asked, "What's the mirror all about?"

Aulden gazed up at the ceiling, remembering the question that Janice asked him when he first saw this mirror. Then he said, "Ferdinand, when you look at yourself in the mirror, is your self in the mirror or is your self still in you?"

Ferdinand scowled at Aulden, and said, "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard." Aulden laughed - he laughed and shook Ferdinand's hand, saying, "Goodnight you old Punisher. Sleep tight!"