5:1
Siobhan’s mind was half on the classroom she’d just left and the other half on deeper thoughts and almost entirely not on her walk. Which wasn’t that big a deal. The path to Leo’s from school was so familiar to her she could probably walk it blindfolded. At night. With a buzz on. Not that she’d ever… Well, maybe once.
She had a misspent youth, too, despite what others might think!
So invested in her own thoughts was she that she didn’t immediately hear someone calling out her name.
It wasn’t until the second, or third (it felt like third considering the exasperation in the tone) “Siobhan!” that she halted and turned to look at the guy in the messenger outfit slowly peddling their bike next to her.
“Did you say something?”
“Are you Siobhan?”
“Yes.”
“Then I have an envelope for you.”
Siobhan took the envelope held out to her, noting her name written with a flourish on it. Flipping it idly front to back to front, she asked, “Do I need to sign for…?”
The guy, who’d she’d been addressing the question to, was already peddling away. She shrugged. Guess she didn’t need to sign.
She nodded to the men on the door. The larger of the two, Jeff, swung the door open for her with an affable grin.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, her attention on the envelope. It wasn’t every day a messenger delivered something to her. Or any day. Curiosity about what it was – replies to the inquiries she’d sent out regarding the stories and the disappearing people, a rare specimen from another alchemist she’d been begging to provide her for months, maybe a letter from a long-lost relative leaving her a rich inheritance (a girl could dream) – teased her until she decided maybe she’d just take a short break in the foyer and give the contents a quick scan.
The envelope was sealed with wax. Very fancy. Maybe it was her letter from Hogwarts, delayed for years by a direction-confused and/or drunk owl. She slit the top and tipped the envelope. A sheaf of papers slid out. Centered in the top of the first page was her name, followed by: “Being the leader of a group is nowhere near as glamorous or interesting or exciting as Siobhan expected it to be.”
Apprehension flushed along her spinal cord. Her fingers went numb as her brain processed this was A Story. About *her*. Hand shaking she stuffed the papers back in the envelope, stuffed the envelope in her bag, and grabbed the doors that opened into the interior of the pub.
A sound like the vigorous application of an eraser, wielded by a frustrated hand, vibrated on the air. Thump went Siobhan’s heart. Thump went Siobhan’s flower wreath on the worn carpet. Thump went her bag, tipping drunkenly from the weight within and spilling the envelope on the floor. The door Siobhan had been holding slowly swung closed. Thump.
*
The table was almost full when Gwen slid into her seat beside Kim at the table in the corner of Leo’s. It had been five days since they’d returned by luxury carriage – so luxury; Gwen would have fond memories of those cushioned seats for weeks or maybe even months – from finding Diana caught in the Mystery House. Since then Gwen had been splitting her time between her regular life – job, rent, sleep, with less emphasis on the last to be honest – and puzzling over the weird Magick so similar to her own, yet freaking miles apart, that seemed to be weaving through the mystery they were exploring.
Between the two she’d had no chance for a social life so she’d been looking forward to this meeting with her friends even if it was just to discuss how little headway any of them had made. Or at least she was guessing that was the case by the way Ben shied his gaze from her questioning one when she joined the table or the subtle shake of Ivan’s head when she gave him the same look.
“I think it’s a fur slipper, not a glass one because in the original text it was fur.” Dan explained to Kim who was idly spinning the slipper they’d recovered at Jake and Diana’s “hunting lodge” between her fingers.
Prairie leaned forward to look around Kim at Dan. “Why?”
“The story most of us know, probably in part because of the Disney movie, has a glass slipper in it because that’s how it appeared in the Grimm’s stories.” Dan explained. “The thing with fairy tales, like any other story with its basis in the verbal tradition of folk tales, is the details shift slightly. Maybe its because in the region they are being told no one can imagine something like a fur slipper being opulent enough to be a treasure. Maybe its because some of the details, like the stays and the comb in Snow White, seemed redundant so the story was edited to make the narrative stronger with a single threat.”
He leaned back, steepling his hands over his abdomen, and settled into what his friends called “Professor-mode”. “I’ve got feelers out for a first edition of Perrault’s Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passe which was where the original story was collected, though that in turn was a retelling of stories told in salons by women who gathered to compete with each other to spin the best tales. Those stories would have been the tales in their ‘purest form’ but unless someone finds a hand-written journal from those salons that book would be the closest to source any Bibliomancer could want. And I’m probably boring you.”
Kim spun the slipper a few more times. “Nah. Not really. Knowledge is power and all that.” She grinned and gestured from her to him to various others at the table with the slipper. “And with us Knowledge is really power.”
“Did anyone get a message from Siobhan that she was going to be late?” Ivan asked, straining to check the clock on the wall behind the bar. Its hands were at five and six, five minutes further than they had been when he’d checked last. The plan was to meet at 5:30 and it was – he checked again – 6:06. Sure none of them actually made it here right on the dot, but if they were going to be late they sent word.
“No.” Dan paused in his explanation. “Not like her.”
“Not at all.”
Patti slid a platter of brie wrapped in pastry onto the table, placing a small pot of cranberry chutney and another of apricot preserves in easy reach. “Try this. Marcus is testing out some recipes for a catering job.”
Prairie patted the empty seat next to her. “It looks good. Where’s your mouse?”
Patti smiled at the mention of her new friend. In the week since they’d returned from helping Jake and Diana Rosenthal, she’d become excessively attached to the little creature. To the point that she had made a special bag of stiff felt shaped like a house complete with a window for the mouse to lean out and a sill to lean on so they could travel back and forth to the pub together without people remarking about the mouse sticking out of her blouse.
Not that she didn’t get a ton of enjoyment from the exclamations of joy that kids and adults alike made when the little one waved merrily at them. She was pretty sure Sassafras – that was the name they’d settled on after she’d suggested and had rejected about two hundred others running from Mickey (Sass scoffed at this one – a scoffing mouse was a sight, let Patti tell you) to Charlemagne (Patti was tired when that one came popping out) and finally settled on Sassafras for the line in “Love in an Elevator” which had started playing through Patti’s exhausted mind at the point where she was giving up hope (Sass had shown a real love of 80s and 90s rock) – dug it too if the delight that they projected in big waves and the blowing of kisses was any indication.
Little Magickal mouse blowing kisses with its little Magickal mouse paws was literally one of the cutest things ever. Ever.
“Sass claimed dominion over the shelf behind the bar. Made it their own private fiefdom.”
“Do any of the patrons have a problem with a mouse in the bar?” Gwen asked, leaning forward to snag a glass of lemonade from the tray Patti had placed there earlier.
Patti raised her brows and planted her hands on her hips. “Not that they’ve told me.”
Prairie patted the chair again. “You should sit.”
Patti eyed the seat, her gaze skewing to the bar, then shrugged and sat. Ben grabbed a puff from the platter and shoved it into his mouth. Crumbs dotted his lips as he chewed, swallowed, and exclaimed “good,” before grabbing another.
“Patti?”
She turned at Ivan’s question. “Yes?”
“Did Siobhan send a note that she was going to be late? Maybe to the bar or the doormen?”
Patti was about to answer when the outer door opened and Jeff, the doorman, entered as if summoned by Ivan’s question. He was holding a bag in his hands. Perched on top of it was a bundle of flowers.
“Hey, Patti? Siobhan dropped these in the foyer. Can you get them to her?”
Ivan frowned. Rose to approach Jeff. “Siobhan wouldn’t leave her bag. Like anywhere.”
“She was wearing it when she got here. I assumed she’d dropped it. And,” he indicated the bundle, “her hair flower thingy.”
Apprehension pulled at the skin of Ivan’s face, like duct tape yanked loose without warning, sharp and with a burn. The callouses on his thick fingers caught at the texture of the bag as he took it from Jeff.
“When did she get here?”
“Around 5:00? I didn’t check my watch but the clock tower was chiming the hour.”
Ivan smiled his thanks, slipped Jeff a mark as a tip, and pulled Siobhan’s bag and flowers close to his chest as he navigated back to his chair on legs that were a little unsteady. The implications swirled in his mind, his gaze working back and forth as he processed.
“Oh, hey!” Jeff was halfway out the door when he turned. “I forgot. This looks like it fell out of the bag.” He returned to the table and put the envelope down where it sat, face up, Siobhan’s name written in an elegant hand clear on the front.
“Okay. This would normally be Siobhan’s thing, but… yoink.” Ben leaned in and snatched the envelope up. Settling back in his seat he flipped it over and popped up the sealed edge to pull a bunch of papers from the envelope.
His grin slid off his face as he scanned what was written there. He then very calmly and very neatly slid the papers back into the envelope and flicked them across the table to Dan who slapped his hand down on top of it to stop its slide.
At Dan’s inquiring look, Ben swallowed. “You need to read it.”
Dan picked up the envelope and slid the papers free. He blanched white as he read. He sighed. Put the paper on the table. And said, “You all need to hear this.”
Enter The Woods 