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The List:
Name: Miranda
Place: The border between Italy and France
Time: 12:00
Object: Hand mirror
The Result:
At a table outside a cafe in the little French town of Saint-Etienne-de-Tinee, just across the border from Italy, Miranda sighed and slammed the journal shut with a vengeance. "There was nothing to do but wait. The monster came"
Was that any way to end a journal? Was that any way to end a life?
She
looked back at her notes again. Monsters did not exist—so what had
Great-Granny Iona and her "wild, desperate" captor really encountered
that day? She had survived, that much was certain. Miranda carried
distinct memories of the elderly presence at her sixth birthday party,
the crotchety old biddy with a scratchy brogue that the older generation
called "Granny Yoyo," for whatever reason.
But if there was
no monster... What had threatened them? Granny Yoyo had large red
birthmarks on both arms, which she claimed once were burn marks from
dragon scales, but Mum had assure the young, impressionable Miranda that
it was nothing more than subcutaneous blisters from a hot-water burn;
that should have been the end of it.
Then, abruptly, as
heirlooms were being shuffled from place to place or sold altogether as
the Second War dragged on, Miranda had discovered Granny Yoyo's journal,
and read the fantastic tale it contained: about her dear brother Fagin,
and this mysterious Ring of Brodgar, the massively strong warrior
Callum McGowan... And the Monster of the Moor. Miranda had visited the
Old Country before the war started. Castle Brodgar was charred ruins by
then, and the moors nearly dry—there had been a large clearing at the
center of the moors, but this was undoubtedly a natural occurrence of
some ancient volcanic shift.
Miranda checked
her watch. It was nearly 12:00; Jeremy would be knocking on her front
door in about four hours, and there was still so much she had to get
ready. She slipped the irksome journal back into her satchel and started
the long walk back to the cab stop.
On the
way, her feet—drawn by the idyllic nature of "rue bon marche" and
heedless to her practical mind—led her down an alley fairly crawling
with hawkers and vendors offering their wares. Her eyes feasted and
drank all the vivid colors and pleasing sights... Then her eye caught an
otherwise nondescript storefront sandwiched tightly between two gaudier
tourist shops. The small hanging sign merely read "Objets Antiques," as
if there was nothing more to be said.
Miranda
opened the narrow little door and peeked inside. It was a dim little
shop, but packed full of interesting things from all over the continent.
A
gravelly voice greeted her with a stream of French that sounded very
pleasant. Miranda's practical side nearly won out, and she would have
ducked back out the way she came with a foreigner's stock phrase "Non,
merci!"
But quite suddenly, there he was,
standing in front of her, the wizened little man with the round face,
offering her something that looked like a tea tray in his pudgy little
hands. It was an ornate silver hand mirror.
"Un cadeau pour vous, mademoiselle! Il est très spécial!" The shopkeeper held out the mirror to her. "Très spécial!" He repeated.
Miranda backed away. "No," she stammered, "no money; I cannot pay."
The
little man (he could not have been more than four feet high!) puffed
out his chest and looked extremely offended. "Pierre dit que c'est un
cadeau!" He remonstrated her, "Il ne prendra pas l'argent pour cela!" He
fairly slipped the mirror into Miranda's satchel. "Il est à vous!" he
insisted.
Miranda just wanted to get out of there. She swept
out the door and fairly dashed down the lane, jostling against passersby
as she did so.
One such pedestrian wore
curious garb for a light spring day: a long black trench coat with a
high collar, a wide-brimmed grey fedora, and black leather gloves. He
entered the shop as Miranda left. He seemed to know the owner, who
regarded him as one would a snake that had formerly bitten him.
The man did not waste a moment.
"What did you find, Pierre?"
The dwarf said nothing.
"Come now, you gave her something; what was it?"
Still the antiques dealer did not answer.
"So that's how you're going to play it, eh? You really think she's the Ecrivaine?"
The dwarf still stared at him, blinking very slowly.
"Come on, Pierre; I know you know where the Ring is. Tell me: is she the one?"
Pierre folded his arms over his barrel of a chest and stared back in defiance.
"Dwarves," the man spat, and stalked out of the shop.
Out
on the street, Miranda's path lost aim when she pulled out the mirror.
Why had the shopkeeper given it to her? What was so "tres special" about
it?
Miranda finally noticed that she had taken a wrong turn
down a deserted street and was now hopelessly lost. She stopped and
tried cutting down a side street to try and return to the cab stop—if
she could ever find the center of town again.
Five more
minutes presented a new problem: now that she was alone and disoriented,
the second set of footsteps behind her grew impossibly loud. Miranda
glanced over her shoulder. The man was dressed in all black and grey,
making the round, silver ring on his gloved hand stand out with even
more contrast. Miranda wondered briefly how the ring seemed very
familiar for some reason, but mostly she just wanted to get away from
this situation. She picked up her pace and headed back into town. Once
there were more people about, she could lose herself more easily.
After
many turns and feints among the visitors and citizens of the little
town, Miranda dared to check if he was still behind her. She pulled out
the hand mirror and, under the pretense of inspecting her appearance,
she surreptitiously snuck a glance over her shoulder.
Blast!
The man was only a few yards away. Miranda saw him reach up to adjust
the angle of his hat. She almost got a complete look at his ring. She
squinted closely at it—
Then she nearly dropped the mirror in fright.
The man behind her was not a man at all.
The
face in the reflection was dark, scaly, and menacing. She wanted to
run, but her feet stayed rooted to the spot as the ominous footsteps
drew closer.
A large, rough hand clamped her shoulder. Miranda whirled around, shielding her face with the mirror.
"What do you want with me?" She shrieked.
Gloved hands closed around her fingers and twisted the mirror out of them. She squeezed her eyes shut as her body trembled.
"You are Miranda Clarion? Daughter of Suzanne Clarion.... the granddaughter of Iona Bhean An Brodgar?"
The
use of her great-grandmother's full name came as a shock to Miranda.
The family matriarch had been Iona Brodie since Mum was a little girl.
Nobody but those of her own generation knew the whole title. She finally
raised her gaze.
Keen blue eyes met hers. The man standing
before her looked perfectly normal. The monster from the mirror had
vanished. This face was soft and kind. Worn, yes—excessively so—but very
harmless, and (more importantly) human.
Miranda blinked. "Who are you?" She gasped.
The
man's icy blue eyes darted around the street where they stood. He
handed the mirror back to Miranda, taking care to cover its surface so
that he would not glimpse his reflection.
"There is a cafe just over there," he nodded, "let us go over there to talk."
Miranda tensed as she looked at the mirror again and the fearsome image returned to her mind. "Why did that—"
"Please, Miss Clarion!" His accent was thick, but untraceable. "You will want to be seated when you hear what I have to say!"
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