The Lasts and the Hall of Mirrors

by Tabitha Scott

  “Read it out loud, Precipice. I can’t read some of those words.”

  “My Dearest Clara and Precipice,

  I’m sorry beyond measure that your Da and I aren’t with you anymore. We will have passed away when you discover this. You should know that this was my mistake, there is no one to blame but me, your Da and I were fated to die on the fifteenth anniversary of an agreement I foolishly made without realising the consequence. There was nothing that could be done to stop it. The only thing that your Da and I could do was to try and prepare things for you. This letter explains what we have done.

  By now, you would have marked yourselves for the Queen of Darkness, the Morrígan. You’ve done this because I apprenticed the two of you to the Morrígan for twelve years. This started on the day that your Da and I died. Whether you knew it or not, she has been watching over you ever since, and may have begun to teach you some magic. Magic is taught when magic comes, and it has not come to you during my life, so I could not teach you during my time.

  Our name, Last, was taken only a few generations ago, because we became the last of our kind in Dublin. As for each of those generations, your father adopted our name for his own. In the past, mother taught daughter, but with myself gone there were only a very few options of who could teach you the ways of magic. I considered your Da’s people, the Aes Sídhe, but they are not to be trusted. No deal can be made with them that does not have serious side-effects. The deal that I made to have your Da by my side was one of those, and has left you as orphans. You should know that not even the Aes Sídhe could have foreseen the consequences of the magics that I employed so that he could stay so long in the world of men. Although, perhaps they did foresee it, but could not act to stop it, perhaps even your Da foresaw it but said nothing for these many years, such would be their way. Regardless, it was my choice and my fault for using such magics, though since it brought me your Da and two beautiful daughters, it was a trade I do not regret.

  The Scottish and Welsh covens were another possibility for your apprenticeship, but we believe it is better for you to stay in Dublin, where your roots are, and where your powers will grow to their full potential. You would be severely weakened away from here, and we are not so close to those in Britain anyway. There are other magical creatures in the city, but their magics are too different to our own for you to be taught by such practitioners. The Morrígan’s magic is also different to ours, but she was the best of our options. Regardless, the agreement with her is not without cost, you must provide complete obedience during the twelve years of your training, you must obey all the commands given to you unconditionally, however the Morrígan cannot order you to die, to do something that could only result in your death, or to renew the agreement. At the end of the twelve years, you will be free.

  Do not have any child in this time, as it will belong to her. You know about birth control, Precipice, you should see a doctor to help you and you should help your sister when she grows a bit older. Beware the Aes Sídhe, you are part their people, they will try to seduce you and to take you to their world, you may even be able to tread those paths with your own faery blood but any children born of them during your apprenticeship would lead to war between them and the Morrígan. Both sides would maintain a claim, many would die.

  The Dark Queen will not make many demands of you, but she is a proud creature, very powerful, not spiteful, nor quick to anger, but vengeful, relentless, strict and authoritarian. She will abide by our agreement, but she is a creature of rules and war. She will teach you how to fight, and mayhap, you will continue the battles we have fought with her when we were her ally.

  As you can see from the bills, we have paid for the maintenance of the house for the next 12 years. That will be when Clara turns twenty and when you will both be free to find your own way. We don’t know if you will be fostered before then, or many of the other things that may happen to you, but we trust our agreement with the Morrígan to be your best protection. Your father foresees that she will lead you back to the house through the Hall of Mirrors, so I’ve left you this letter, which should answer some questions. I have left the room unsealed, and I let Clara see how the door could be opened.”

  “The conniving weasel, she did that?” Precipice murmured to herself and to Clara. Then, after a moment she continued:

  “I’ve also left a notebook with some spells you will need. There are other books, passed down through the generations of our family, but you won’t be able to read many of those for years to come. In the notebook is a spell to seal the room from others. You should use that from now on.

  Your Da has foreseen a few things he wishes to impart. To Clara he says, you are not dark hearted witches, you are witches and your hearts are to be of your own making.”

  “Ahh,” Clara complained.

  “Shh,” Precipice hushed her.

  “To Precipice, he says that you will be closer to his people, try not to be while you are under the Morrígan. Find the other peoples who were our allies, they will help and distract you. Try to continue your education, and help your sister to do the same. Learn your magical heritage, it will be an asset for your whole life.

  Finally, to our wonderful girls, be brave, learn as much as you can, and look after each other. We have loved you both, and as our time grows short we are sorry that our legacy to you must be so very lean, it could never be enough.

  Your loving parents Mara and Tanick Last.”

  Precipice put down the letter, her sister wiped her arm across her own face since she was weeping. Through her own tears, Precipice picked up the note book to find the spell to seal the room, but the first page in the note book wasn’t about that, it was about something else entirely.

  The Hall of Mirrors and how to splinter an entrance.

  Chapter 16: How to Splinter an Entrance

  Clara had fallen asleep on the floor while Precipice exhausted herself going through the little room and the drawers of the desk. In one drawer there was an assortment of tools, some of them very fine, of the type that might be used for making jewelry or mechanical watches. There was a roll of ribbon and a pair of good quality tailor scissors, perhaps they were used for marking mirrors in the Hall of Mirrors. Under the desk, way back in the corner, were three mirrors each about a foot square.

  The older girl also found a copy of her parents will, and the name of a lawyer who held another copy. Everything went to the two girls. All the important papers of the family were there. She arranged them in one of the drawers. There were also letters, many of them in Irish, Precipice could recognise a few words here and there, but she wasn’t fluent in the language, what’s more, the words didn’t seem to be in modern Irish, but in an older version. There were other symbols too, Precipice recognised the ones in Ogham, even if she didn’t know what they meant, but there were other strange symbols she didn’t recognise at all.

  The notebook was the most useful thing for the girls at that point in time. However, it was the first entry that kept rolling through Precipice’ mind, why wasn’t it the directions to seal the door? That seemed to be the most important thing to mention. The steps to seal the door were on the second page. Explaining the Hall of Mirrors might have taken precedence, but the first entry wasn’t just about that, it was about splintering a mirror, explaining the Hall of Mirrors was just incidental to that.

  The Hall of Mirrors is hundreds of miles long, its beginning is in a deathly flux while its ending is in fierce growth, it is a moving, living creation. Whenever a new mirror is made in the world of men, its equivalent appears at one end of the Hall of Mirrors. Whenever a mirror is destroyed, its equivalent disappears from the Hall of Mirrors. The Morrígan may not have created it, but she is the Mistress of the Hall, she navigates by an innate knowledge of the location of each mirror and can move to any point along its length by will alone. Mortals have no hope of containing such memory and must walk the hall.

  Because mirrors are added at one end as they are created, there is no logical con
nection between adjacent mirrors other than the mirror’s time of creation. The easiest way to navigate between mirrors is to have a group of them that were created on the same day positioned at useful points, then they will be close to each other in the Hall of Mirrors. The other way, is to take a single mirror and to splinter it into sections, each piece will sit beside the other in the Hall, and the pieces in the real world may be placed at any location. A shattered mirror will not work as the pieces may refract a soul to other places, other times or dimensions where the soul would be lost forever, the mirror must be cut so that its edge is square to the surface.

  Why was this entry so important? The answer was obvious, Da was Aes Sídhe and could foresee some of the future, this was a message from the past. It was somehow important to use this magic soon, but for what?

  “I don’t even know how to cut glass,” Precipice wearily admitted to herself. “It’s time for bed.” She nudged her sister on the floor beside her. “Come on, Clara. We can sleep in our own beds tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to learn how to cut glass.”

  A weary Clara wasn’t budging.

  “Come on, Clara, you’re too big for me to carry you,” the older girl sighed. “There’s only one thing for it – Túathal,” she called.

  “Yes, Miss Last.” The wraith appeared from the darkness of the foyer.

  “Can you carry Clara to bed? She’s too big for me to lift.”

  “Aye.” The ancient warrior leaned down scooping the wee girl up in his arms. “Lead the way, you’ll have to show me where to put her.”

  “Up the stairs then,” Precipice led. “Do you know how to cut glass then, Túathal?”

  “Aye, the Morrígan were wondering how quick ye would be to ask that question. I can show you if you want. We’d need some special tools though, a glass cutters wheel is needed, or better still, a diamond tipped scribing tool.”

  As she trudged up the stairs, Precipice’ mind wandered back to the desk drawer where the tools she had seen lay. She thought there might have been something like what Túathal described in there, she would ask him in the morning.

  At the head of the stairs Precipice hesitated near the door to her sister’s old room, but in the end she decided the bigger bed in her parents’ room would be better. The two girls had slept side by side for the last two years. The older Last liked to keep an eye on her much younger sister.

  “Down here , I guess.” She led Túathal down the hall, into the bigger bedroom, and pulled down the bed covers so that Clara could be put in their parent’s bed. “Thank you, Túathal.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, the wraith was gone. Precipice had literally blinked and he wasn’t there anymore.

  Precipice shrugged, she was growing used to the comings and goings of the long dead king. She took off Clara’s shoes, and helped the sleeping girl out of her coat. Then she did the same for herself, turned off the light and crawled into bed beside her sister, pulling up the bedclothes. Yawning, the older girl thought she would fall off to sleep almost immediately, but before sleep could claim her, she noticed the mirror. Light filtered in from streetlights outside, past the curtains that still hung there.

  It was actually a very old wall mirror. The house itself, though it wasn’t very large, had been built three centuries before. The mirror could be as old as that. Then it hit Precipice, the mirror the Morrígan had put in the souterrain had to have been made on the same day as the one in her parent’s bedroom. They were fairly close to each other in the Hall of Mirrors. That was the strength of having mirrors of similar age. As she thought about that, other possibilities started to percolate in Precipice’ mind. She still didn’t know why the splintering of mirrors was the first entry in their mother’s notebook, but she knew what she was going to do with the knowledge.

  Having resolved her thoughts with decision, Precipice did eventually drift off into sleep, never noticing the curious set of eyes that watched them from the mirror.

  Chapter 17: Returning to the Graveyard

  The girls didn’t get up on the Saturday until after midday, as Precipice had kept them both awake very late going through the room under the stairs. Clara woke first, nudged her sister, got dressed, shrieked with happiness, and skipped down the stairs.

  Precipice lay in bed too tired to get up, until Clara shouted up that breakfast was ready.

  “What? How does a munchkin make breakfast?” Precipice sat up. “Err-agh. I hate mornings.” She dragged herself from bed, dressed and slowly made her way down the stairs. When she got to the kitchen, there was Old Straw frying something in a pan at the stove.

  “Morning, my girl, you look like you could use some coffee, I’ve made a pot if you’d like some.”

  “Thanks, Old Straw.”

  “Here.” Old Straw put a plate of toast and scrambled egg in front of Precipice. “This will help get you going too.”

  As the girls ate, Old Straw sat in a chair watching them.

  “I don’t have any urge to eat, at all,” she commented. “I think I understand what’s happened to me now, and I think our time together will be very short from now.”

  Both Clara and Precipice stopped eating, with forks of egg midway to their mouths. The girls put down their food and stared at Old Straw.

  “No, no, don’t let me spoil your breakfast, this is nothing to worry about, it’s just as it should be.”

  But it was too late. The tears had started to stream down Clara’s face, she began to sob, and then she broke down into a racking wail. Precipice came to her side, and rubbed her back, there were tears in her eyes too.

  “Oh, my girls, I didn’t think this would upset you so, but perhaps it’s not just this but everything that you’ve been through.”

  “Aye, there’s been a lot, especially in the last few days,” Precipice answered, as she continued to rub her sobbing sister’s back. Her eyes looked far away, focusing on recent and long held at bay memories.

  Old Straw watched the two girls for a moment, but then her brow knit itself into a frown.

  “Now then!” Old Straw snapped, her voice almost seemed angry. “Enough of that crying, I didn’t make ye breakfast so it could go cold, and I don’t be needing all these tears. Dry them up, there are things that ye’ve been given to do!”

  Clara was so startled that her crying stopped, Precipice’ too.

  “Now then, Precipice, what is it you’ll be doing today then?”

  Precipice stood behind her sister still holding the younger girl’s shoulders. Her mouth hung open, her mind had gone blank. Old Straw, pointed to her food, and Precipice obeyed by taking her place at the kitchen table again.

  “What will you be doing today, Precipice?” Old Straw repeated, in a more kindly tone.

  “We’ll try to learn how to cut mirrors today, and if we can get a few good pieces we’ll go to where we’re bound to meet Sister Margaret.”

  “Sister Margaret, a religious is she?”

  “Aye, a Sister of Mercy. We’ve organised with her to trade some coin to the church, but it’s old coin, and it might be a little bit illegal for us to have it without telling the government. I’m thinking that we need to see what we’re about, and do a roundabout of the trade place.”

  “Check for escape routes, smart girl. Don’t forget your egg now, it goes cold quickly.”

  ***

  The girls spent a few hours with Túathal learning how to cut glass. There had been a diamond scribe and a ruler in their mother’s desk. It was easy to do, really. Using the ruler as a guide, they ran the scribe firmly across one of the mirrors on the glass surface leaving a deep scribe mark. They had tried the other side, the silvered side, but they found that the scribe tore the silvering away so they gave up trying that. After scribing the top surface you put the mirror on a flat work space – like a desk – with a thin rod on the back of the scribed mark so that the mirror teetered a bit. Pressing on both side of the scribe mark, more often than not, the mirror snapped in two over the rod and along the scribe mark leav
ing good, straight edges.

  When they were finished, they left one of the splintered pieces they’d made in the house with a familiar landscape picture clearly visible from the mirror’s surface. Then they took a selection of other pieces with them to Goldenbridge.

  The girls used the train, as there was a station not far from the cemetery. When they got out, Precipice beckoned to Clara as she went into a corner store.

  Clara followed. “Why are we stopping here, Precipice?”

  “They have flowers, see?” Precipice waved toward an assortment of bouquets that were near the front of the shop. “Which do you like?”

  Looking at her sister, with her lip quivering as she tried to stop herself from crying, Clara pointed to a pot with a live group of oriental lilies that had a mix of lively colours.

  “Nice pick. Those look great.” Precipice collected the pot and paid for it at the front of the store. Then they continued to the cemetery.

  Though there was still plenty of daylight – since it was summer – when they got to the gate it was shut and locked for the evening to keep vandals out. It wasn’t the sort of gate you could climb either. It was a metal grate that completely filled the opening in a substantial stone wall, some four times Precipice height.

  Precipice smirked at the lock. “I can think of two ways to get in, which will we use?” she asked her sister.

  “Two? We can do magic locks, like we do for the souterrain, what’s the other way?”

  “Easy, we leave one piece of mirror here, and we slide one piece inside, then we jump from mirror to mirror.”

  “Humph.” Clara magically unlocked the gate and slipped inside.

  “You’re no fun,” Precipice chastised as she followed. Then without further ado, Precipice led the way toward a part of the cemetery that Clara wanted to avoid.

  Catching up to her sister after she locked the gate, Clara walked quietly behind with her head downcast. After a minute or two they had come to a section where a newer headstone had been erected.