Moon In The Mirror: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  No change.

  Then I spotted Gollum’s van inching around the corner to the drive. The wind buffeted the big vehicle. It shook and rocked back and forth.

  Mine! The wind whistled. My new mate.

  “No,” I screamed. My heart beat overtime. I couldn’t run fast enough to Gollum’s side. “Leave him alone, bitch.” I slashed the blade at every shadow.

  YiiEeeeek!

  Scrap hit resistance.

  I followed that particular shadow toward a bank of azaleas. Brittle branches broke beneath our feet as I forced Lilia to retreat.

  He’s mine, she insisted.

  I had trouble seeing which shadow she might have blended with. The security light didn’t penetrate this far.

  Then I heard the ominous sound of Gollum opening his car door.

  “Get in the house now,” I ordered him. “She can’t violate the sanctity of a home.”

  I can now. You killed one mate and now you steal another. He’s mine. By cosmic law I claim him.

  “Halt.” King Scazzy popped between us. He held his hands up.

  Suddenly my blade froze in place. I glanced up. Scrap’s eyes blinked at me in bewilderment from the right-hand blade.

  Lilia stilled as well. The sound of the wind roaring in my ears dropped down several notches.

  “Lilia claims that man as mate,” King Scazzy said in his most authoritative voice.

  Deep in my gut I knew I had to respect his authority in the matter. He was the prison warden of the universe after all. He had the power to force me to keep holding my weapon in one position, high above my head.

  I do.

  “I can’t allow that,” I replied. My arms ached to move again, to lower the blade. To—Goddess forbid—drop it. But I knew if I did drop Scrap, then I forfeited my right to defend myself and Gollum.

  “Do you have a prior claim?” the little king asked.

  The universe stilled. My perceptions tilted a little to the right. I fought for and found a new balance. The strain in my arms and shoulders lessened.

  “Do you have a prior claim?” King Scazzamurieddu repeated his question.

  “Answer him, Tess,” Gollum whispered behind me. “Please answer him. I think we’re dealing with cosmic justice here.”

  “I told you to get into the house.” What was I supposed to do?

  I knew. Still I wavered in indecision, unwilling to make the commitment demanded by these otherworldly creatures.

  “I can’t retreat. The king of the Orculli has blocked my passage with some kind of force field.”

  I chanced a quick glance at him. His glasses drooped and I saw concern in his mild blue eyes.

  My mind whirled through several scenarios and probable outcomes.

  “I claim this man as my own,” I said boldly. I didn’t specify what I claimed him as—mate or friend.

  “Very well,” King Scazzy said. “My battle with you tomorrow at noon still holds precedence. Lilia David, you must wait until the outcome before pursuing your vengeance for the death of your mate.”

  Nooooooo, she wailed and faded into the distance, taking the wind with her. I need a mate. I cannot hunt without a mate. I will not be denied.

  “You will wait,” Scazzy commanded.

  I have waited long enough! Suddenly, the wind intensified. It gained a new depth of chill that turned my sweat to frost.

  “You have violated the sanctuary of this home. Do so again and I will have no choice but to invalidate your claim.”

  I will have justice. Next time I do not come alone. This last came as a mere whispered promise from a great distance.

  I lowered my blade in relief. My arms trembled from the strain of holding it up in one place so long.

  “Never thought I’d thank a troll,” I said by way of backward obligation.

  “Do not thank me yet. We still have a rendezvous at noon.” Scazzy popped out, leaving me alone with Gollum.

  Heat filled my face with a blush. What exactly had I claimed, and what did I do next?

  A flash nearly blinded me.

  Gollum ran with wicked speed behind the sole remaining oak guarding the entrance to my drive. He emerged a heartbeat later with James Frazier. He held the reporter by the collar of his down jacket in one hand. In the other, he carried a huge and complex camera.

  James looked entirely too smug.

  Chapter 30

  "DON’T YOU DARE publish that photo,” I warned James with deadly menace. Once more I raised the Celestial Blade.

  We can’t do this, babe. He’s human, Scrap moaned deep inside my mind.

  “He may be human but he is evil.”

  A faint chuckle from Scrap. Not evil enough. The weight and balance of the blade began to fade.

  I made a tossing movement, so that the reporter would think I’d dropped it instead of it disappearing into thin air.

  “You can’t stop me, Tess. The public has a right to know that you harbor monsters in this corner of Cape Cod.”

  “I don’t believe your outraged indignation, James. We went to high school together. You were a sneaking tattler then, and you’re a stalking, evil snake now.” I shook my fist in his face.

  He gulped and flailed as Gollum lifted him slightly. He had to stand on tiptoe to maintain any balance.

  “I have taken a vow of nonviolence,” Gollum admitted. “But you strain my willpower, Mr. Frazier.”

  That was new information. I filed it away to pursue later. Presuming we had a later.

  “I have rights,” James insisted. “Give me back my camera.”

  “In a moment.” Gollum dropped him.

  He stumbled and almost fell to his knees. His awkwardness gave Gollum time to fiddle with the camera.

  “Fortunately, he’s gone digital. I just deleted an entire series of photos of our little encounter.” Gollum grinned hugely as he handed the camera back to James.

  A safe and sane solution. But I really wanted to break the damn camera. And James’ head.

  “I doubt your reading public will be interested in our rehearsal for live-action role-playing games,” I told him. “We’re going to a con soon.” As good an explanation as the truth.

  “Con?” Ever the reporter, James whipped out a notebook and pencil.

  “Short for convention. Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention. I attend five or six a year to promote my work and meet with other writers, editors, fans.”

  “And will Miss WindScribe attend with you?”

  I glared at him. Gollum reached for his collar again, his other fist clenched.

  “I found her high school photo. She hasn’t changed in twenty-eight years. Do you have an explanation for that?”

  “Her daughter,” I said with finality and marched back toward the sanctuary of my house.

  I heard James fumbling through the brush. Then Gollum caught up with me and slipped a supporting arm about my waist.

  “You need to rest before the moon sets at midnight. I know that even a short fight takes a lot out of you.”

  “We need to talk about what happened.”

  “Later. When the rest of this is settled.” Hours later, at eleven-thirty, the house was quiet. The only light spilling out the windows came from my bedroom in the loft and from the tiny light over the stove in the kitchen. Mom and Darren in the cottage had doused the lights and grown silent. I’d turned off the stereo, the better to listen for eavesdroppers and unseen watchers.

  Even Scrap kept his mouth shut. He hovered somewhere nearby, but he didn’t sit on my shoulder like he usually did. After two beers with OJ he had a slight orange tinge and droopy eyes, like he needed sleep. Elsewhere.

  I missed the reassuring almost weight of him.

  The wind retreated. Barely a breeze ruffled the upper branches of the trees. No Windago nearby at the moment. I had no doubt she watched me from a distance.

  Using a penlight, I made my way carefully out the back door and over ice and slush along a faint trail in the woods behind the house. I carrie
d the magical comb with me. A heaviness surrounded my heart and threatened to bring tears to my eyes.

  “Tess, wait up,” Gollum called softly.

  I heard him shuffle along the path. I couldn’t bear to turn and face him. I wouldn’t let him see me cry over what I knew I had to do.

  “You shouldn’t have to do this alone,” he said quietly, draping a long arm around my shoulders. “We belong together by some cosmic law I don’t understand, so please, let me help you.”

  “Thanks.” I leaned into him, just a little. His friendship as well as his body helped warm the ice crystals that threatened to shatter inside me.

  Too soon, we broke clear of the patch of forest and emerged into the clearing made by Miller’s Pond. Centuries ago, someone had dammed the creek that ran through here and erected a grist mill at the west end. Only a few foundation stones remained of the mill, but the dam and the pond lingered, reminders of our pioneer ancestors.

  As kids, my friends and I used to sneak out on hot summer nights to gather here and tell ghost stories. We invented tales of seventeenth-century witches thrown into the depths to test their powers. If they rose to the surface and survived, they must be witches and so were taken away and burned at the stake. If they sank and drowned, then they were innocent and buried in holy ground.

  But what if one of them swam away over the dam and disappeared where the creek entered the sea less than a mile away? We shivered and made up tales of the witch’s curse over all who tried to profit from the pond ever afterward. Because the witch’s accuser received all of her property as a bounty.

  Made for a lot of false accusations. A threat to make sure women “behaved” so they wouldn’t invite the lust or envy of a malicious neighbor.

  I trembled with my own fears that night.

  The setting moon, just a hair off full, dipped into a small gap in the trees. Its silvery light made the pond ice shimmer with an unearthly glow. A black splotch in the middle showed where the ice had begun to break up. It looked like a black hole in space—an entry to another universe.

  Maybe it was.

  I shivered with more than just the cold, remembering the witch’s curse that none would profit from this pond again.

  Making a votive offering here might be a bad idea.

  Gollum looked just as uncomfortable as I felt. But he stood stalwart beside me.

  “I know the water is only ten feet deep at the most. I’ve swum here in the summer.” Dill and I had giggled together over the prospect of skinny dipping in the pond on hot summer nights. He hadn’t lived long enough to share that experience with me.

  I almost wished he would show himself tonight, let me know he approved of what I did.

  “Do you have a prayer or invocation?” Gollum whispered.

  Neither one of us seemed willing to disturb the unearthly quiet surrounding this ritual.

  “Nothing special. I’ve always felt that if there is a God or Goddess, they’ll know what’s in my heart. I need help tomorrow. I’m obligated to protect WindScribe, to keep her here in her home dimension. The Orculli trolls are obligated to fulfill their destiny as the prison guards of the universe. We are both right. They are too numerous for me to count. I don’t really know how to fight them, other than with the Celestial Blade. Will it be enough?”

  I turned the comb over and over in my hands. Regretting the loss of its beauty as well as its powers to allow me see through a demon glamour. I also regretted losing this because Scrap had found it for me. He gave it to me out of love.

  Before I could change my mind, I drew back my arm and hurled the comb toward the black depths of the pond.

  I lost sight of it flying through the darkness. Then I heard it clank and skitter against the ice at the edge of the hole. It bounced and slid back toward me.

  “Yeep?” I squelched a cry of surprise.

  You throw like a girl! Scrap laughed. He sounded relieved as well as his usual sarcastic self.

  “Oh, my,” Gollum said, adjusting his slipping glasses. “I do believe your Goddess has rejected your offering.” He ventured two steps upon the ice, clinging to a sapling for support. With his long arms he stretched and retrieved the comb from its landing place, practically at our feet.

  “I don’t understand . . . this is the most valuable thing I own.”

  But you don’t truly treasure it, Scrap reminded me.

  I repeated his comment for Gollum.

  “He’s right. There is something more important to you.”

  “I don’t treasure things. I treasure people. My mom, my aunt. My friends. Even my nasty sister is more important to me than any of the possessions I’ve accumulated. ”

  Gollum raised one eyebrow and captured my gaze. The moonlight made angles and hollows of his face. An image of his skull, frozen in horror nearly covered the face I’d come to treasure almost as much as my family.

  “Okay, there is one thing. But I’d hoped . . . Goddess, don’t make me do this.” Crying quietly, I drew a picture frame from inside my parka.

  “Tell me about it. Let me treasure the memory as much as you do,” Gollum whispered.

  “Dill made the frame.” I traced the rough carving of the wooden edges.

  And with the memory came his presence, leaning against a tree. Tension nearly vibrated from his ghostly form.

  “Don’t do this, Tess. Don’t throw me away.”

  “Dill embedded special agates and arrowheads he’d found into the wood.”

  “Making a choice to let me die, so you can move forward, I can understand,” Dill said. Then his tone turned bitter. “Throwing me away like this is cruel, Tess.”

  My fingers caught on a rough edge of knapped flint.

  “That’s a bird point from the predecessors of the Okanogan peoples,” I heard him say, both in my memory and from somewhere amidst the trees.

  “And the picture?” Gollum pressed.

  “Our wedding photo. In Reno. We both wore jeans and western shirts and Stetsons. Mine was white. His was black.” Two fat tears landed on the glass covering the photo. “It’s the only picture I have of him. We were together such a short time.”

  “Have you made a copy of the photo?” Gollum asked gently.

  “Of course. But it’s not the same. Not the actual photo of our wedding. Not in the frame he made especially for it.”

  “This is very important to you, Tess. I don’t think I could make a votive offering to any God of such a treasure.”

  “And that’s why I have to do it.”

  “Please, no, Tess,” Dill pleaded. “We can be together. Let me fight the Orculli with you instead of the imp. Please, Tess, don’t throw me away.”

  “Don’t, Tess.” Gollum put his big hand over mine where I held the picture and frame. “We’ll find another way for you to defeat the Orculli.”