The Lasts and the Hall of Mirrors

by Tabitha Scott

  “Will we go and visit Old Straw Hat after that?” Straw Hat was the old lady who had befriended the girls when they first ended up on the street. She had helped them learn how to stay alive by keeping out of the way of people who can end you. Only, Old Straw herself had ended up in the hospital when the Russian had decided she might know how to find Precipice and Clara. The Russian was dead now, Clara had ended him.

  “Aye, but not until tomorrow, it’s too late for today, visiting hours are over now. We have to sort this place out first anyway, we can’t go leaving blades all over the floor like this.”

  When Precipice had retrieved a pen and an old notepad, she gave it to Clara who plopped herself on the mattress they slept on in the corner of the souterrain. With the cat curled beside her, Clara began to write as Precipice dictated to her.

  “These two are about three feet, no hilt…”

  “Just the tangy bit,” Clara interrupted.

  Precipice nodded. “Just the tangy bit. I’ll put these in the bigger pot.”

  “In the bigger pot,” Clara repeated as she wrote.

  The two girls worked for the rest of the evening, cataloguing and putting away the ancient weapons they’d found in the pots, not once noticing the pair of eyes that watched them from the mirror.

  Chapter 4: Weapons Storage?

  “Right, let’s go visit Old Straw.” Having looked around for any wayward swords, knives or scabbards – for that’s all the two pots the girls had emptied seemed to contain – Precipice decided that they had finally finished their chore from the night before and could go see their friend.

  “Will we go in our street clothes, or should we dress up?”

  Precipice crinkled her nose. “Naw, we’ll go as we are. They know we live on the street at the hospital. It would look strange to them if we went in our good clothes.”

  Clara nodded.

  Precipice took off the bar for the first door and opened it from the inside. Then after Clara had followed her through it, she looked to her sister. “You should lock this one, I think it’s yours.”

  But Clara strained her eyes in thought. “I think you should try and lock both. We need to see if we can change who opens and closes which door. I’ll try and open both when we come back.”

  After considering for a second, Precipice nodded. Then she moved her hand to the door, and turned an imaginary key in her mind so that the door lock clicked shut. She did the same to the second door after that.

  “I guess either one of us can do this, but you’re right, we’ll double check that you can open and lock them when we come back.”

  Clara took a deep breath. “Túathal,” she yelled out.

  “Holy mother of God, Clara, you just about broke my eardrum.”

  “She does know that she only needs to whisper, doesn’t she?” Túathal appeared from the darkness.

  “She knows alright.”

  Clara smiled at Precipice’ scolding tone.

  “What did you call him for anyway?” Precipice asked.

  “So he can build us a cupboard or something for the swords and knives you kept out.” Clara’s arms went out to her sides as she added motion to her words. She had a tendency to speak with her hands.

  “Aye, we were going to ask him that. I almost forgot.”

  Túathal crossed his arms. The two girls looked to him, but he was only standing there.

  “Umm, can you build something for us, Túathal?” Clara asked.

  “Oh, I’m to be a carpenter now?”

  “You did a pretty good job with the doors,” Precipice replied.

  “At the behest of the Phantom Queen, I am bound to do as she commands.”

  “Where did you get the wood from anyway?” Clara asked.

  “An old railway yard. It was being thrown out.”

  “You did a good job. Won’t you please do this for us?” Clara pleaded.

  “Pretty please,” Precipice added. “I mean, do you have so much to do as a wraith?”

  The girls could see that Túathal was less certain than he had been a moment before. He was beginning to cave.

  “You’re actually a very good carpenter,” Clara pursued. “You must enjoy working with wood to be so good at it.”

  “Yes, you must enjoy it,” Precipice agreed.

  A slight smile came to the corners of his lips. He had tried hard to suppress his amusement, but the girls had him now.

  “And where am I to get the wood for this endeavour? Railway ties are too heavy.”

  “We can get you some pallet wood,” Precipice offered. “There’s plenty of broken pallets in the town.”

  “Where did you get the tools to do the door though?” Clara asked.

  “There were tools in the souterrain, the Morrígan bid me to use them. The other parts, the hinges, the bolts and lock were all provided by her.”

  “They was Da’s tools,” Clara’s tone had changed from pleading to accusatory.

  “Yes, I apologise, young Miss Last. The Morrígan suggested I not tell you that I used them, but I don’t believe that would have been worthy of you.”

  Clara pursed her lips, squinted in anger and crossed her arms.

  “A pout does not become a young lady.”

  Clara shook herself in an irritated manner – as if to shake off that suggestion – and the pout remained.

  “Hmm, would it help if I agreed to making this weapon rack?”

  Clara looked down at the ground.

  “I would have to ask to use your Da’s tools again. Would that be allowable?” Túathal addressed Clara.

  She ran her foot along the cavern flooring, not looking at the wraith as she thought to herself. Then Precipice gave her a bit of a shove.

  “Come on Clara, it be good manners to answer, Ma would say so.”

  Clara looked up at her bigger sister and there was a smile on her face. “She would, wouldn’t she?”

  “Aye, answer the man.”

  “It be a deal then.” Clara licked her hand and held it out to Túathal.

  With one eyebrow raised, he mimicked her action and took her hand in his so that they could both shake on their agreement.

  “You will provide the wood and tools, I will provide the labour.” He backed away into the darkness, disappearing from view.

  Chapter 5: Old Straw… Maybe?

  Much of the morning was spent in gathering pallet wood for the weapon rack that Túathal had agreed to build. The day had grown cloudy above ground, but that was mostly to be expected, as it was Dublin. When it wasn’t raining it was often overcast.

  “It is visiting hours now, isn’t it?” Clara asked.

  “Aye, from 10 am, we can visit for a couple of hours if we want. Plenty of day left to see how Old Straw is doing.”

  The girls turned on to O’Connell Street as they were speaking and then stopped in their tracks as their eyes swept forward.

  There ahead of them was a familiar figure, one that was slightly crouched under the weight of age, and covered in ill-fitting raggedy clothing with a straw hat. On her shoulder was her constant companion, a crow that she had long ago befriended.

  “Girls, there you are. I had hoped to see ye.”

  Precipice and Clara were frozen on the spot as the old woman approached them. She looked like Old Straw; she sounded like Old Straw, but she couldn’t be Old Straw. It had only been two days ago that her face had been battered blue, her head cracked, and her arm had been broken, yet this Old Straw was showing no sign of any of those injuries.

  “How have you been? I can’t believe I feel so good, it were only a couple of days ago I was all broken up.” She was feeding the crow that sat on her shoulder some granola bar. “I’m off to Ha-penny bridge, I needs to make me some coin for a bit of food. Maybe I’ll see you later?”

  The two Last sisters didn’t say a word, but their mouths hung open as the old lady practically skipped on her way toward the River Liffey. They watched her until she was out of sight.

  “That couldn’
t have been Old Straw,” Precipice finally whispered.

  “Couldn’t of been,” Clara agreed. Then she shrugged. “What do we do now? We were going to spend some time visiting her at the hospital, we can’t do that now.”

  Precipice looked down at the ground thinking for a second, until she made a decision. “Let’s go to the hospital, we’ll find out what the doctors have to say. I’m not sure that was the real Old Straw, she might still be there. There’s magic happening, but we don’t know what that magic is. We have to find out.”

  Clara nodded and the two quietly made their way to the Mater hospital, which was only a couple of blocks away. When they arrived they made their way up to the ward where they had been told Old Straw would be moved to from Emergency, where she had originally been admitted. They followed directions through a labyrinth of hospital halls, finally finding the nurses’ station for the ward they were after.

  “Hello,” Precipice called over the desk, being slightly less than five feet tall her head barely showed over the counter, and she couldn’t see if anyone was there.

  A face turned from behind a computer monitor and a young ward clerk looked over at Precipice.

  “What can I do for you?” the girl asked in a friendly tone.

  “We’re here to see our grandmother, Old Straw Hat,” the disembodied voice of Clara answered from below the counter top.

  The girl stood so that she could see the source of the voice, but she wasn’t smiling when she saw the young girl below her.

  “Oh, I’ll get the resident doctor, he shouldn’t be long. He wanted to talk to you when you came. If you’d just like to take a seat it shouldn’t be long.”

  The two girls looked at each other, but did as they were told and went to take seats in the small waiting area around the station. True to the ward clerk’s word it was only a few minutes waiting before a young doctor, barely thirty something, came to the station. He looked at the girls, and began talking to the ward clerk in muted whispers.

  Turning to Precipice and Clara he walked over toward them. “My name is Doherty, Dr Doherty. And you are?”

  The two girls stood as the doctor addressed them. “I’m Precipice and this is my sister, Clara.”

  “I’m afraid I have sad news about your grandmother, she had a bleed in her brain last night. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.”

  Clara and Precipice’ jaws dropped open again, they had only just seen Old Straw.

  “Old Straw is dead?” Clara whispered.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so, though we have her listed as Shonna Brown, is that your Old Straw?”

  The two girls nodded their heads, though Clara’s eyes glistened with tears.

  “You can see the body if you wish, we’ve been waiting for you to arrive, Precipice and Clara Last are the only two people she listed as relatives.”

  Precipice nodded, as frightening as it might be to see another dead body, she needed to see this one because she still didn’t believe it could really be Old Straw. Holding Clara’s hand, the two girls followed the doctor into a private room at the end of the ward where a curtain blocked the bed from being viewed from the corridor.

  Moving around the curtain, there, propped up slightly by pillows, Old Straw lay with her eyes closed and her hands folded together. A rosary was draped through her fingers and down across her front.

  “She looks very peaceful,” Clara sniffed.

  Her injuries were still evident, the blue bruising to her face, and the broken arm, which still had a cast upon it. Her raggedy clothes were nowhere in sight, her hair and face had been washed clean. Apart from the bruises and the fact that she was dead, Old Straw looked better than the girls had ever seen her.

  “You can stay with her as long as you want,” the doctor said. “She went very quickly, she wouldn’t have felt any pain. She just fell asleep and didn’t wake up again.”

  “What will happen to her now?” Clara asked.

  “Well, that depends on you girls.” But there was a sadness to the man’s voice that told Precipice it was otherwise. “If you can afford it, you can organise a funeral with one of the local parlours. Otherwise, we can look after her body here in the hospital. It would be used for medical research, it might help some other people.”

  “How much would it be to have her buried? She were religious, she’d have wanted to be buried proper if she could.”

  “It would be several thousand Euro.”

  “We can’t do that,” Precipice replied. “Is there a less expensive way? We’ve had a windfall, we have a little dosh.”

  The doctor looked sadly at the girls. “No, not really, I’m afraid.” He scratched his chin in thought. “Though, there is Sister Margaret, she might be able to help you, she looks after the burial of bodies that have been used for medical research here at the Mater. She’s very respectful, she might be able to do something for you. I can give you her contact details if you like.”

  “Okay,” Precipice said. “How long do we have to organise something?”

  The doctor shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Well, we normally tell people to take as much time as they need, but really, the bed will be needed for others soon. The body will be taken down to the morgue after that and can be kept there for maybe a week or so, longer if you keep in contact with us and let us know how things are progressing.”

  “That’s fair.” Precipice licked her hand and held it out to the doctor to make the deal. “We’ll keep you updated and you look after Old Straw until we can organise something with this Sister Margaret.”

  The young man hesitated, but then licked his palm and held it to shake the girl’s hand. “A deal then. I’ll look after the arrangements here. Try and contact Sister Margaret as soon you can though. There’ll be pressure on me to see this through.”

  “I’ll give you our phone numbers. What’s yours?” To the man’s surprise Precipice pulled her cell phone out from a pocket of the dirty black trousers she wore. Undoubtedly the girls looked too poor to have phones. Clara took hers out too, and the two girls waited while the doctor gave them his number, and then took theirs.

  Chapter 6: Joseph

  “Where are we going now?” Clara asked as she and Precipice strode back along the roads leading toward the river.

  “Ha-penny bridge. I want to see this other Old Straw. We’ll confront her and see what’s going on.” There was a determined, angry look about Precipice as she quickened her pace forward.

  It was only a few minutes before they were at the other side of the river, though Old Straw’s double was nowhere to be seen. Still, near where she used to have her begging blanket, there was a pile of breadcrumbs being pecked at by a few crows. It was what Old Straw did when she went elsewhere, she left food for her bird friends. It was as though she had just been there.

  “Too weird,” Precipice commented as she glared at the area around them.

  “There’s Joseph, we could ask him,” Clara pointed to the other side of the road, where a young boy was begging at his semi-regular haunt.

  Precipice went over to him. “Hey Joseph, you seen Old Straw?”

  The eight year old boy, left there by his mother until she came by later in the day to check his takings, rattled his bowl with its few coins.

  “Really Joseph, you’d beg from us?”

  The boy rattled his bowl again, waiting until Precipice tossed a Euro into it.

  “She was here for a little while, maybe ten minutes ago, but I’d heard that the Russian had beaten her black and blue. It mustn’t have been true, she looked better than ever.”

  “Do you know where she went?” Clara asked.

  Joseph raised his bowl again, rattling it at the girls.

  Clara rolled her eyes, looking to her sister to provide another Euro.

  Precipice scowled at Joseph. “Right, there you go. Where is she?”

  Joseph pocketed the contents of his bowl. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Precipice asked.


  “I mean, I don’t know. One moment she was there, and the next she was gone, she just disappeared. I didn’t see her go at all, I don’t know how she did that, I’m always watching,” Joseph shrugged.

  “Why did you take our coin then?” Clara blurted. “You haven’t given us anything for it.”

  “Business is business, you got the answer to your question.”

  The girls stood over the small boy, contemplating their next move.

  “I think we should roll him to get that coin back,” Precipice glared.

  “I think so too, he’s as much as stole that coin from us, and it’s not as though we’re rich or nothin’.” Clara had her arms crossed, and was staring angrily down at Joseph, while Precipice held out her hand, beckoning for the coin to be returned.

  “You can keep the first one. You earned that, we want the second one back though, and now.” Precipice was no one to be trifled with.

  Slowly, and begrudgingly, Joseph fished in his pocket, pulled out the Euro and handed it back to Precipice, before shrinking back against the wall behind him.

  The two girls gave him one final warning glare as they moved back toward the bridge.

  “Greedy little sod,” Clara commented.

  “Don’t be too hard on him, he gets beaten if he doesn’t take enough home.”

  “Truly?” Clara asked.

  “Yeah, don’t you pay attention? He often has bruises, and he’s scared of his mother, if that’s what she really is.”

  “He says she is.”

  Precipice shrugged.

  “Here give us that coin,” Clara put out her hand to Precipice.

  “Really?” Precipice wasn’t impressed, she knew what Clara was going to do, but gave her the coin anyway.

  Clara ran back and gave a stunned Joseph back the Euro, and the two spent a moment or so until Clara left the boy smiling by his bowl.

  “He’s not so bad, for a boy.”