Well, I'd like to thank my new Beta (SlightlyGayPirate) for taking over this project when my other Beta clearly lost her email address or something. Also you readers for bearing with me, and you new ones for sticking with the story this far through Thanks all!
"Her name was Alice." I repeated. What was wrong with that that made everyone go weird? Tarrant snatched the letter out of its brown holder and, in his hurry, ripped the envelope. Twenty or maybe thirty photographs fell out and landed on the floor.
"That's her." He whispered, picking up one from the middle. It was an old brown one of my grandmother as a teenager, taken on one of those really annoying old cameras, where you have to sit still for ages before you get the photo.
"That was taken ages ago." I stated, going over to the pile and looking for a more recent one.
"Ages ago as in months, right?" He asked, he sounded desperate. Oops.
"No." I answered gently, "Years; decades ago. She was only 19 when that picture was taken."
"H…how old is she now?" He sounded like an upset child, desperate to be told the truth, but still denying what he already knew.
"She would be, um, eighty five?" Grandmother had never liked telling people her age. "Actually, it would probably be closer to ninety." Tarrant started shaking and his eyes went fiery orange. Mally ran to my side from under the table.
"Time." He growled, his voice taking on a Scottish accent that I hadn't noticed before. "That frumious guddler's scut, gallymoggers noge orgal shukrn slurking urpal…"
His voice escalated dangerously, and before long he was hurling senseless insults at an imaginary enemy that had made my Grandmother age so fast. He was still shaking uncontrollably, and it was a terrifying thing to watch.
"She never forgot you!" I screamed. He stopped mid-sentence and looked down at me.
"What did you say?" he asked, still in the Scottish accent.
"She never forgot you." I repeated. "She had a disease, Alzheimer's, which made her forget things. But she never forgot you." His eyes went slightly less orange. "She talked about you every day." Tears fought their way down my face, despite my best efforts to restrict them. "She said such amazing things about you; that you were passionate, caring and handsome." He frowned for a second, but then stopped. "And you were the very last person that she ever talked about." More tears rolled down my face. "So," I croaked. "You were her favourite, if it matters."
His eyes rolled back in his head again, but when they rolled back, they were a light blue, not a bright green, orange or red like they had been before.
"Your eyes are blue." I noted, curious as to why this was.
"Yes." He said, rubbing them tiredly. "They do that." He sighed, like it had been a long day. It had been, especially for me.
"Are you going to read the letter or not?" I asked, impatient for him to finish up here so I could go home and forget that any of this had ever happened. He made a face at me and then looked properly at the letter that he was still holding in his hand. He slowly unfolded it and began reading.
It was both interesting and weird to watch the changes that came over his face, especially his eyes, as he read the letter. To start off with, he looked slightly angry, his eyes reddening again, then he looked sad, his eyes turning the cool blue of a morning sky just after sunrise, then it actually looked as if he was about to laugh. I was irritated by the final emotion (he was laughing at my grandmothers death?) but decided to just let him read on as I wasn't in the mood to argue with him at the moment.
As he read what seemed to be the final passage, he looked from the paper to me and back again at least five times before reading the last few lines and letting the paper slide from his grip and onto the floor.
He stood in silent thought for a while and I noticed that his eyes went a light grey colour tinged with flecks of dull green. I had absolutely no idea what that signified. "So?" I asked. He looked down at me, seeming to suddenly notice that I was very, very small.
"You're tiny" He noticed, kneeling down in what was probably an attempt to come down to my level, but he actually still towered over me. To come down to my level he would have to lie down on the floor and then shrink, but I don't think that he was willing to do that.
"Yes." I replied, exasperated by today's activities. "And I've been tiny since about twenty seconds after you first knew me, now what did the letter say?" I actually stamped my tiny foot on the floor in rage, causing him to giggle abruptly and then sort of fizzle out, which was weird.
"Firstly," He began, as if he was launching into a lengthy, important speech. "We must get you back to your right proper… size." He frowned again.
"What?" I yelled. "Why are you frowning?" I screamed up at him.
"What is your name?" He asked.
"LUCINDA!" I screamed. Why was he so forgetful? "I told you while I was in the hat!"
"Where is that hat?" he asked, standing up properly and looking around as if he expected it to be lying on some convenient, nearby table.
"Outside." I said, pointing to the stairs. Then I realised that I was getting distracted. "What did you say about getting me back to my normal size?"
"Your right, proper Lucinda size." He concluded grandly, and then frowned yet again for some random reason.
"WHAT?" I screamed yet again.
"It doesn't flow properly, does it?" He asked. "What should I say instead?"
"'Your normal size'." I concluded. "Now, how are you magically going to make me grow?" I decided that that was the most important thing at the moment.
He looked at me strangely. "With Upelkuchen, of course. Now come here." I ran over to him, and waited patiently as he looked for something in his pocket. He discarded several items onto the floor, including a spool of thread, three thimbles and a tiny box of silver powder that broke open when it hit the floor. I had to dodge the last one, and got the silver substance all over the front of my dress. The dress.
"What will happen to my clothes?" I asked, worried about growing out of them as soon as I began to expand.
"Oh." He stopped, holding a piece of what looked like cake in his hand. It wasn't long before he reached down and plucked me off the floor.
"Hey!" I screamed as the floor shrank below me. I struggled in his grip, but he held me too tightly for me to escape. It was probably just as well that I couldn't get down, for I'm not sure what a fall from that height would have done to me. He took a few steps across the room, and then set me down on the floor again, this time behind a screen.
"Eat this," He said, setting the cake that I had seen him holding just a moment ago on the floor beside me, and then threw a huge mass of black cotton-y fabric down beside me.
"Then put this on." I moved towards the cake, but he pushed me back with one finger.
"Better take the dress off beforehand." He then moved back around to the other side of the screen and waited for me.
I slipped out of the dress, and then walked across the wooden floor and took a large bite of the cake. It was a brownish cake, with white swirly icing on the top, but the cake wasn't particularly important, what were important were the side effects. I felt this weird sensation in my mouth, and then it radiated down my throat and settled in my stomach.
I shook abruptly, having to take a step forward to stop myself falling forwards after this shocking burst of energy. My muscles jerked again, and I suddenly got a little bit bigger. I then shot upwards another inch, then two, and then the growing settled into a steady upwards growth. In just a few moments, I was back to nearly my full size, and then I stopped. I ate another tiny amount, and spurted up to my correct original size, if a little bit taller than usual.
I whooped as I realised that this meant that I could go home, but then stopped myself from getting too excited when I remembered that I still had to grill Tarrant for information. I grimaced, and then pulled on the mass of fabric that turned out to be a large shirt, that reached down to my knees.
I sighed as I realised that the shirt was dull and shapeless. I reached onto a nearby surface, where there was a roll of thick red ribbon, and tied it around my waist to sink the shirt in at my waist. I strolled out from behind the screen, and looked up at him. He was leaning in silence against an empty patch of wall. Mally was muttering, something about never getting any credit, and was sat on the brim of his hat.
"You need to tell me about what that letter said." I spoke, breaking the awkward near-silence. He looked up at me, all that cheeriness that had been in his face when he had been sorting out that food and clothes for me were gone.
"Why?" He asked, still keeping an eye on me. "She wrote that letter to me, not you." I laughed, trying to think of the best way to deal with this annoying character.
"If you do not tell me," I began, keeping my voice light and cheery, "What my grandmother's final words were, to the man that I originally believed to be a bizarre figment of her imagination, then I will gouge your eyes out with a plastic spoon, and feed them to a bird. I will then burn your hat, kill this mouse, strangle you with this ribbon and read the letter myself. Your choice." I smiled sweetly at him, and awaited his response.