Stories

Fair - Chapter 15 The End Times

Lucille and Mary spent the following week trying to learn more about what the mirror could do. There was one aspect of this endeavor that none of them could shake: as exciting as it was to communicate with the magical object, the Que'd manuscript beckoned from the chest where it had been carefully stashed, wrapped in linen and strewn with lavender buds to ward off the moths.
Lucille couldn't let go of the thought that the truth remained hidden somewhere underneath that black water the playful symbols were floating on, the way sunken treasures sleep undisturbed in the depths of the ocean. From somewhere inside that dark water the ancient words of the Que'd called out to her, she could almost hear them, remember them from her childhood, although she would have chastised any person for lacking seriousness if they brought this up to her.

Fair - Chapter 14 Mirror in the Council Hall

“I think I speak for everybody when I say that bringing this curse into the Council Hall is a disrespectful and irresponsible act one hoped not to expect from a member of your standing!” Rosemary hissed at Lucille, who had just walked in, holding the object of contention.
“Naturally,” she thought, “who else would be the first to find out about the black mirror but our sweet Rosemary! On second thought, I wonder how she knew what I was holding?” 

Fair - Chapter 13 Black Mirror

Understanding the old language became increasingly challenging over time, and the hopes of making heads or tails of it diminished, even for Mary, who, despite the unfortunate circumstances of her birth was an unbridled optimist. She spent endless nights, risking her aunt's chastising, trying to decipher the meaning of the fragments they had translated, and it felt more and more like trying to mend an intricate tapestry after it had been torn to shreds, its big picture forever lost.
A puzzle with a million pieces, no two alike, without recognizable match lines, color themes or continuing patterns. As adept as she was at weaving together seemingly incompatible snippets into a cohesive flow, a skill she had mastered early in her childhood, she had to admit defeat after a while: what good does it do one to reconstitute something one can't possibly understand?

Fair - Chapter 12 Mirror Enchantments

The cave find became the focus of attention for the entire village. Their community hadn't had anything exciting to talk about since most of its members could remember, and the discovery of something both fascinating and inaccessible kept everybody on the edge of their seats with anticipation.
Public discussions about mirrors became so commonplace that even Mrs. Gentry gave up protesting eventually. “One can't squelch public curiosity, especially that of young people, it's a sad state of fact,” she thought, sighing with nostalgia for the good old days when even a mention of mirrors or reflections would immediately draw community shunning.

Fair - Chapter 11 - A Friend from the Past

“We're never going to figure this out,” Lucille said, dejected. “Not only don't I know most of the words' equivalents, but I don't understand their meaning, either. Even the short sentences I translated make absolutely no sense to me. What on earth is ‘meta property vr canonical content’? Why are we doing this?” she looked at Mary, exasperated. The girl, as always, donned a perplexed gaze.
The look in her niece's eyes helped Lucille remember that time allocation for this research had been recommended by the Circle, and as such, she didn't need to justify it to herself.

Fair - Chapter10 Content

The Circle meeting was quite boring, filled with organizational issues and the usual polite gossip. Lucille found it hard to pay attention to things she'd been hearing for decades, especially now when she was on pins and needles, filled with curiosity over the contents of the Que'd.
She was lost in thought, trying to make sense of the few words she managed to recall from her childhood, words that jumped at her from the ancient writing. For all intents and purposes, the text was as obscure as an abstract painting, and the fact that she couldn't read it saddened her.
Lucille tried to remember what her mother had taught her when she was a child, and was furious at herself for not having paid more attention at the time. She was only four or five and the puzzle of the ancient text seemed like a silly game, but she could still remember some of the nursery rhymes. For what it was worth, none of them seemed to have anything to do with the words she had managed to decipher.

Fair - Chapter 9 - A Walk at Dawn

'Great mercy, it's all here! Oh, girl, what have you uncovered!' Lucille thought, turning apprehensive eyes towards Mary, to see if her niece had any idea about the importance of her finding. It only took one glance to ascertain that Mary knew she was holding the long lost copy of the Que'd.
They looked at each other for a while, in a tacit understanding that any knowledge driven from the precious tome will never pass their lips. Finally Lucille decided to comment.
“What a strange thing, you know, with all of this resurgence of the legend of the Que'd, that somebody supposedly saw the old language in a cave not far from here! Why would somebody make up a story like that?” she asked, mostly rhetorically. The conversation continued unfolding naturally, in the third person, touching upon the subject lightly, without emotional involvement.

Fair - Chapter 8 The Que’d

“What is the Scholars' line, aunt Lucille?” Mary asked, braving her aunt's stormy looks.
The room was quiet for a few moments. Normally Lucille would have chastened the uncouth youth for asking such an impertinent question, but under the circumstances it dawned on her that the spirit of cooperation might bring to the surface details that her niece would otherwise not think of sharing with her. She answered.
“It's our family line, dear. Way back when the Book of Prophecy was written, some of the members of the council were in disagreement, they insisted the Circle had misinterpreted the ancestral wisdom, they persisted in using mirrors, they founded their own school of thought. There they taught their own philosophy, and science, and rules of conduct, which unfortunately were in direct violation to the Council rules, in every way, really. It didn't take the Circle long to declare their teachings toxic, a plague on society's morals and a blatant trampling of our truths. The Circle required them to cease and desist any activities not endorsed by the Council. The more audacious members of the group protested publicly, in the Council Hall, during the plenum meeting, and thus pushed, the Circle, wanting to display strength and cohesion, voted unanimously for immediate banishment of the non-compliant.”

Fair - Chapter 7 Palimpsest

Despite Lucille's constant rebukes Mary became fascinated with the story of the Prophecy and didn't miss a chance to sneak up into the attic and read it again and again, until she learned its unpleasant contents by heart. It gave her a strange feeling, this story about her, written generations before she'd been born, the script of her life. It didn't even make her bitter anymore, just filled her with intense curiosity and a weird sense of control over her own future, for if one doesn't know the script to one's life, however vexing it happens to be, one can't make any sense of its circumstances.
After she was done learning the contents, she started studying every other one of its details, the sumptuous snake skin cover, the dark, purplish ink, the rough pages, thick as papyrus, that made the book heavier than lead. She caressed the rugged surface for the hundredth time, as if trying to read the cursive writing with her fingers. The surface was not even, it had continuous indentations that flowed on the page like text, but didn't follow the well known flourish of the old writing. She looked closer and gasped. Almost unnoticeable (the writer had done a wonderful job scraping off the old content before he wrote over it) underneath the dark purple lettering there was an older writing, undoubtedly the work of a more educated hand.

Fair - Chapter 6 The Book of Prophecy

After the council meeting ended, Lucille skipped the usual tea and cookies and headed straight home. She made a beeline for the attic where she opened an old coffer, covered with a thick layer of dust. Its contents were arranged with great care, like one would for long term safe-keeping, breakable items interspersed with delicate linen and fabrics protected from moths and mildew with shards of cedar and lavender buds.