The Lasts and the Hall of Mirrors

by Tabitha Scott

  Precipice knit her brow as Clara opened the second door. “I hadn’t considered that. There were drugs involved though, so maybe nobody will believe them, maybe they won’t even believe what they saw.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Clara yelled. “Look!”

  She was pointing to the wall where a new wooden rack was holding the swords and knives they had salvaged from the old pots.

  “Oh, that looks great,” Precipice reacted. “Túathal made good use of those pallets of wood we brought down here.”

  Then as they looked around they saw that there was also a roughly made table with stools, and a bookcase that now held some of the girls’ few possessions, their books and Clara’s dolls.

  “Oh wow!” The girls exuded delight.

  “We’ll have to thank him, Precipice, this is great.”

  “Aye, let’s call him now.”

  The girls went out through the two doors into the souterrain tunnel.

  “Túathal!” Clara yelled out at the top of her voice.

  “You need only have whispered.” The ancient wrath appeared from nowhere, a wry grin on his lips.

  Before he had even finished, Clara had her arms wrapped around his waist and was hugging him. “Thanks for the bookcase, and the stools and table, and the rack for the swords and knives,” she told him.

  “You’re welcome, young Last. However, I see blood on your sister’s sleeve, I think it is not her own. Have the two of you engaged in battle?”

  Clara backed away to stand by Precipice. Her head was downcast.

  “It were three louts, one of them was a drug dealer from Southside,” Precipice explained. “They hurt our new friend, Sister Margaret, so we had to help her.”

  Túathal nodded.

  “We made them run away,” Clara added.

  “Another victory then,” he smiled. “But who is this Sister Margaret? Is there a story to tell? If so, we should make use of your stools and table as you regale me with tall tales of your exploits!”

  The two girls took Túathal up on his suggestion, inviting him into their home so that they could tell him about what had transpired with the crow, and how it had lead them to Sister Margaret, and finally to the battle at the cemetery.

  “You did very well. In my time, we would simply have killed such fools and stuck their heads on pikes as a warning to others, but I understand that such is not possible in this day and age. There is a law above you, so care must be taken in such fighting. We cannot hide too many bodies, such as that of the Russian and his friends.”

  “Yes, Clara and I didn’t like it when that happened, we decided that we shouldn’t kill anyone else, it may have been necessary with the Russian and his bully boys, but we only want bodies as a last resort.”

  “We showed we can scare them,” Clara beamed.

  “It is a wise choice for these times. What’s more, you have spread fear to your Southside enemies, tales of your attack are probably already spreading amongst them.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing,” Precipice replied. “I don’t want them trying to put our heads on pikes. We might be lucky in that the men we chased away were a bit out of it, I don’t think anybody will believe them if they tell what they actually saw. Also, they may be too embarrassed that two little girls chased them away to want to talk about it anyway.”

  “Ah yes, that may be so,” Túathal agreed.

  “I think we need secret identities, Precipice. Maybe we need masks, and special suits and things like that. Like a Marvel superhero, or something.” Clara was obviously enthralled with the idea.

  Túathal laughed out loud. “A superhero? Young Last, you are witches, you have no need of such, you can appear in any form you wish, you can wipe an enemies’ minds of your presence if you want. There is no need for masks, or capes and the like.”

  “Really?” Clara asked.

  “That would be cool if we could do those things,” Precipice said to Túathal. “But we don’t know how.”

  “Neither did you know how to be Mistresses of Locks, but here you are, two young Mistresses of Locks,” he scratched his chin. “Perhaps the Morrígan will show you such things in time.”

  “We found a magic, secret way to our old house,” Clara boasted enthusiastically. “We could take you sometime. Would you like to see where we used to live?”

  “Of course, Miss Last, of course, I would be honoured to.”

  “Well,” Precipice raised a mischievous eyebrow, “there’s no time like the present, is there? I want to see some more of that room under the stairs.”

  Chapter 13: Home

  Clara, Precipice and Túathal stood before the archaic mirror that the Morrígan had left in the souterrain.

  “How do we take Túathal through the mirror with us?” Clara asked. “Do you know how, Túathal?”

  “No, young Miss Last, I have no idea how the mirror works.”

  Precipice considered for a moment. “I think we’ll just try each holding one of his hands. He’s already dead, so if we make a mistake, we can’t kill him.”

  Túathal rolled his eyes. “A blessing, indeed.”

  “I think that will work, Precipice, and maybe if we have happy thoughts.”

  “Like in Peter Pan,” Precipice smiled.

  Clara smiled in return. “Oh, can I go first?”

  Precipice and Túathal shared a smirk. “Of course you can, Clara,” her sister replied. “Just don’t go too quickly, we don’t want to lose Túathal along the way.”

  “Lose me?” the wraith panicked.

  Too late, Clara entered the mirror pulling the old warrior behind her. As he toppled through, Precipice held tighter, following after him. On the other side, Clara steadied the big man before he hit the floor of the Hall of Mirrors.

  “You have to be careful not to fall when you come through,” Clara explained. “Precipice cut herself the first time. The floor and walls are very sharp.”

  “Well, that seems to have worked,” Precipice commented. “Túathal’s here in one piece. We didn’t lose him.”

  “In my opinion, that can only be a good thing,” Túathal deadpanned, as Clara pulled him down the hall. “But this is a marvelous place to see.”

  “Yes, but we have to find the right mirror now. It’s down here,” Clara continued. “Here it is.” She halted, staring into the mirror that led to their old home. “If you look hard enough you can see what’s on the other side, just to check that nothing is wrong.”

  “We should do that every time, Clara.”

  “Aye, every time,” Clara repeated in agreement. “Here we go.” Again she pulled the wraith through a mirror, though this time Precipice let her do it on her own.

  The older girl saw no reason to hold onto the wraith while her sister did, and besides, she wanted to know if it made any difference, or if one person could lead someone through the mirrors, and she knew it to be true – he was a wraith and could not be hurt.

  Standing in the Hall of Mirrors by herself, Precipice tore a strip of the black material from the base of her blouse, and pressed it into a crack at the side of the mirror as a marker, just in case it was needed in the future. Then she followed her sister and the wraith.

  “You took a while,” Clara chastised her sister.

  “I wanted to mark the mirror, in case we need to find it in the future, and we come into the hall from somewhere else.”

  “Oh, how did you mark it then?”

  “A bit of black material, which I tore from the bottom of my blouse. It’s so we can always find our way home. Can you tell there’s a tear?”

  Clara reached over with a smile and squeezed her sister’s arm. “It looks fine, you can’t tell.”

  “We’ll have to find some ribbons to take with us next time we go to the Hall.”

  “Aye,” Clara agreed.

  “Now, where’s this special room you want to show me?” Túathal interrupted.

  “You should see my bedroom first. It’s just down the hall here.”
Clara took Túathal’s hand and led him to the room that had been hers two years earlier. “See, it hasn’t changed at all. You can even still turn on the light switch.” Clara switched the light on and off several times to demonstrate.

  “It’s a mystery why the power is still on,” she added.

  “It is a mystery indeed, young Miss Last,” Túathal agreed, and he was serious. He looked around at the rest of the bed room. “But it is also a very fine room. In my day a whole family would live in a space this large.”

  “Truly?” Clara asked.

  “Truly,” Túathal confirmed. “Let’s go find your sister now, I fancy I heard her go down the stairway, behind us.”

  “Alright.” Clara bounced off ahead of the old warrior, and ran down to where Precipice was standing in front of the door to the little room under the stairs. The door was locked.

  Precipice looked up at her sister as she shuffled down. “I’m breaking into this room. I’m sure it has some answers for us.”

  Clara stopped, on a landing, just a couple of steps up from the base of the stairs. “We’re not allowed in there Precipice, Ma said so.”

  Túathal’s hand went onto Clara’s shoulder. “I think it will be alright now, young Last. This house has fallen to you since your mother and father passed away. All its heritage is yours and your sister’s. Your sister may be right, there may be answers within that room. I see from the carving above the door that the room is claimed for the Morrígan, you have since been marked for her with the same signs. In a way, you have been marked as the heirs to its content, there are no others. You need not feel any regret.”

  “Hmm, the door is locked though, and there’s no actual lock visible, not even a door knob. This might take a while,” Precipice said. “We might be mistresses of locks, but we need an actual lock to unlock. This door is a puzzle.”

  “Ma used to open it with a knife that she ran down the crack. I saw her once. Try that, Precipice.”

  Precipice shrugged, and taking out one of her knives she did as Clara suggested until there was a soft click and the door popped open a couple of inches.

  “We probably could have got that with magic, eventually, but old school is quicker in this instance,” Precipice commented. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  She opened the door, revealing a very small space with a writing desk, covered in a plethora of papers and trinkets. There was a small wooden stool, and a desk lamp. The stairs themselves had been made into a type of bookcase with shelves attached to the underside of each stair, and on the wall opposite the door was an ancient short sword and a selection of knives.

  As the girls took all this in, a clatter of falling pans came from the kitchen.

  “What was that?” Clara started.

  “Sorry, my girls, it’s just me, I’m making something for our dinner.”

  It was Old Straw.

  Chapter 14: Dinner and Then Work

  Clara and Túathal went into the kitchen from where Old Straw had called. Somehow, Precipice wasn’t surprised that Old Straw was there, if Old Straw was going to be somewhere, this seemed the place to find her again.

  “I think I know how to open this door with magic,” Precipice said to herself as she examined the door frame and the lock mechanism. “But why wasn’t it sealed with magic? This was way too easy to get into, it’s just a press lock, and yet, I can’t even remember seeing the door frame in the past. I’m sure there wasn’t any opening here at all, except maybe when Ma was in there.”

  After a moment of contemplation, Precipice followed the others into the kitchen. There in the kitchen, Old Straw was preparing a roast dinner with potatoes and beans, and at the table she had set four places, one for each of them.

  Clara’s eyes went wide. “A roast! We haven’t had a roast in ages.”

  “Aye my girls, Crow told me that we would be spending a few days together, and that there would be plenty of food. I haven’t made a roast in years, but there was a nice bit of shoulder blade in the fridge, and plenty of herbs in the garden. There were also some fresh veggies, I just thought it would be nice to have a roast.”

  “I wonder how the food got here?” Precipice asked.

  “The Morrígan, no doubt,” Túathal answered.

  “No doubt,” Precipice agreed.

  “Well, she’s a lovely person, whoever this Morrígan is,” Old Straw said. “She provides a really nice spread, and the bedrooms all have freshly cleaned sheets. I thought I’d have a sleep, only I felt I wasn’t tired, so I started on the dinner. Lucky that Crow told me there’d be four for dinner.”

  “It is often this way,” Túathal whispered to the girls. “It takes many of us a long time to become aware of our situation. Some cannot accept it, she cannot sleep because she no longer has any need of sleep.”

  “Does she still eat?” Clara whispered back.

  “Nay, we have no need of food, or drink. We are wraiths.”

  “Sit yourselves down, girls, and your friend, it’s time to serve things up. What’s your friend’s name?”

  “I am Túathal Techtmar, I have no hunger to speak of, please go to no trouble for me.”

  “I know that name, it’s the same as the High King, the one in the stories.”

  “Aye, the one in the stories,” Túathal replied.

  “So you’ve eaten already?” Old Straw asked.

  “Aye, I’ve already eaten,” Túathal confirmed.

  “Oh, well, I guess it will just be you two girls then, I don’t feel that hungry myself. Take a seat, I haven’t had much opportunity for serving up dinner in recent years. It’s been a long time, I used to really enjoy this.”

  “It smells so good.” Clara took a deep breath through her nose, then sat down with her mouth drooling.

  “This will feed you up.” Old Straw lay down a plate of steaming beef and vegetables in front of Clara, then another in front of Precipice.

  “Food should be taken with stories of great doing. Let me tell you of some of the adventures of Túathal Techtmar.”

  The girls ate the best meal they had had in a good two years, while Túathal regaled them with the story of how his father had been killed, and how his mother fled overseas, pregnant with him. Then, as the two girls finished eating, the story fell silent. Clara and Precipice found themselves alone in their home, the two wraiths having disappeared.

  “Where’d they go?” Clara started.

  “The Morrígan must have called them. I guess it’s time for us to get to work.”

  “To work? I’m a kid, we don’t work.”

  “You do tonight.” Precipice eyed her sister. “Tonight we go through that little room under the stairs and see what we can find out about our Ma being a witch.”

  “Really?” Clara asked excitedly.

  “Really, let’s go and get a start then. We’ll bring one of the chairs from the kitchen so that we can both sit there. There’s probably a lot of stuff we’ll need to look at together.”

  “Hatchet!” Clara jumped down from her chair and started dragging it across the floor toward the stairway.

  Precipice laughed, and then helped the smaller girl move the chair to where she could sit and watch, while Precipice took the writing desk seat and began looking at the jumble of papers that covered the desk, and the things above it. There were some small items hanging on the walls, a rosary, a small mirror, a wooden Celtic cross worn with time, the weapons Precipice had seen earlier. Apart from those, there was nothing that really pointed to the small room being anything that belonged to a witch, except for some of the books behind her, but many of those appeared to be in Latin, or old Irish, and she knew neither of those.

  On the walls around the desk were a number of yellow post it notes. “Post it notes first. They all just look like quick notes Ma made to herself. Appointment times, that sort of thing. I can’t see anything that might be important there.”

  “Should we throw them out?” Clara asked.

  Precipice considered for a whil
e. “Not yet, we’ll go through everything else first, just to make sure we’re not getting rid of something we’ll regret throwing out later.”

  Clara nodded her head in agreement.

  “This is an electricity bill receipt, maybe it will tell us why the power is still on.” She picked up the piece of paper that was topmost on the desk, and her eyes went wide when she read it. “This can’t be right.”

  “What is it?” Clara asked.

  “This bill, it says that the electricity has been pre-paid for one hundred and forty four months, that’s twelve years. This can’t be right.”

  “It would explain why the lights are still on,” Clara commented.

  “This other bill, this is for the gas, and it’s the same thing – it’s paid for one hundred and forty four months too. It says that any excess use is to be taken from some bank account. It must be an account that Ma and Da set up.” She picked up the electricity bill again. “It gives the same account here on the electricity bill.”

  She grabbed another piece of paper. “Here’s the rates bill, it’s the same thing. They paid everything in advance for forty eight quarters, that’s twelve years again. These papers are all bills they’ve prepaid for the house. Why? When did they do this?”

  “That’s the date there, Precipice.”

  “That’s only a couple of weeks before the accident. Why did they do it?”

  Chapter 15: The Letter

  Precipice paused in reflection. Why had her parents paid all the house bills for twelve years, a mere two weeks before their deaths? Holding the bills that had covered the desk in her hand, a brown office envelope and a thin, leather bound notebook were visible. Both were marked to the girls.

  Pursing her lips, Precipice put the bills down on the floor, and took up the brown envelope. She gave Clara a brief look and a wink. “I guess we should open this then.”

  As Precipice tore the top of the envelope, and pulled out the letter it contained, Clara lifted herself up onto her knees on her chair so that she could see over Precipice’ shoulder.