So, Shadow Puppets is back underway. The story is actually completed at this point, so chapters will come through fairly fast. I have a list of thanks as long as my arm for all the help. Mud, the mighty muse, for chatter and suggestions and listening patiently every time I railed and cursed and threatened to kill it off. Harmne for helping all the way through and persuading me that I did still give a damn what happened to Ranger and Steph. MiamiBabe, translator extraordinaire. Alf, for telling me what a milagro was and hooking me up with the help I needed. Dee, for the ace beta. I love you all ladies. Thanks again.
Now, the warnings. The story gets darker from here on in. Sorry if you were liking the silliness. There's still some of that in there, but it's mixed up with all the other stuff. I hope you'll still enjoy it.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making any money. I'm just playing.
Shadow Puppets
Chapter 12
Lester wished fervently for night vision goggles as he stumbled over yet another branch in the darkness of the forest. "Morwen, how can you see where we're going?"
"It's Wenna, and I just can. Don't worry, we're nearly there."
A small, circular wattle and daub hut appeared in the shadows in front of them. Morwen led him to the low door and pushed it open with a hard shove. "This is where I go when I need to get away from the lodge."
Light from a myriad of flickering candles spilled out through the open doorway into the darkness. Moving shadows sprang up in the surrounding trees, which seemed to lean in towards them to clutch at the light.
Morwen shoved him inside and closed the door.
Lester looked around the interior of the tiny hut. There were no windows in the hut that he could see, just clay walls with a shelf built in that went all the way around the hut. Candles lined the shelf in a flickering circle of flame. Bunches of drying herbs hung from the thatched roof, giving the room a sharp, pleasant smell. A simple mirror of silver, burnished to a soft glow, hung on the wall.
Lester recoiled when he saw the mirror. "Oh, holy crap."
She looked at him quizzically. "What?"
"The mirror."
"It's just a mirror."
"So it doesn't show you the fairest one of all?"
She laughed delightedly. "You're funny. I like you."
"So what does it do?"
"It helps me braid my hair neatly."
"That's all?"
"That's all." She kicked off her shoes before pulling him onto the pile of soft furs in the center of the dirt floor. "Now come here and help me forget about my drunken husband and his poisonous daughter for a little while."
"Your wish is my command."
She froze. "Don't you know any better than that?"
"It's just an expression."
"Don't wish," she said urgently. "I wished for a rich husband and got trapped here in this nightmare; the possession of an old man. Wishes are dangerous." She smiled mischievously. "But commands could be interesting. Let's start with 'take off your clothes' and see how we get on."
He reached over to her and brushed a lazy kiss across her lips.
"Yes ma'am," he breathed into her ear, and started to strip.
* * *
Edna could feel the tension twisting the air in the store-room although Lula was asleep and the two men sitting on their packs were both motionless and seemingly at ease. It was nothing that she could put her finger on, but nonetheless she knew it was there, the same way that lately she knew a whole lot of other things that she couldn't explain either.
"He's been too long," Morelli muttered.
Tank didn't respond.
"Do we just wait here all night and hope he's okay?" Morelli continued.
"If that's how long it takes," Tank said calmly.
"I'm sure he's fine," Edna chimed in helpfully. Tank and Morelli both swiveled their heads to look at her, but gave no other indication that they had heard her.
"Fine. Don't mind me," she grumbled.
She sighed and decided to pass the time at least trying to rescue the sausage curls that had collapsed and now straggled around her face in wispy strands.
She picked up the tarnished silver disc from the pile of items in the corner and peered into it. The metal was mottled with age and dirt, giving it a sickly, diseased appearance. She could just about see the outline of her face in it if she looked hard.
She pulled the end of her sleeve over the heel of her hand and rubbed vigorously at the center of the disc. A thick layer of dust and grime came away, leaving a small circle of cleaner metal that reflected her face. She cleared a larger area before pulling a small comb from her pocket.
As she looked properly into her makeshift mirror, a large grin split her face. "I don't think we should worry too much about him just yet. I'm sure he has everything under control."
* * *
Lester decided that witches might not be all bad. This one was beautiful, and naked, and not at all shy about demanding what she wanted. Right now what she wanted was him behind her so that she could see both of them in the soft glow of the silver mirror. He had no complaints.
Her hair fell like a soft auburn curtain down either side of her shoulders, framing the pale softness of her face and breasts where she faced the mirror on her hands and knees. The sweat on her skin glistened in the dancing candlelight. He knelt behind her and grabbed a handful of her hair, bringing it to his face and breathing in the fragrance of it. It was redolent with the herb scent that he could smell from the drying bunches overhead. He twisted it around his fingers and used it to gently pull her head up and back so that he could look into her eyes in the mirror as he pushed into her.
Their eyes met briefly, and she gasped as he slid home. He kept his grip on her hair and held her gaze as he started to move. Suddenly the image in front of them went hazy, and they both recoiled with shock as the image of their joined bodies shimmered and changed to a familiar wrinkled face, grinning at them.
Lester yelled in horror and fell backwards. The handful of Morwen's hair that was twisted around his fingers went with him and he yanked her head back as he fell.
"Ow! Ow ow ow! Let go!" she shrieked.
"I'm trying."
They scrambled about on the furs trying to untangle themselves while Edna looked on in the mirror. She pointed at them and spoke soundlessly to somebody out of view.
Finally Lester managed to get free. He grabbed the mirror off the wall and, yanking the door open, threw it outside into the darkness.
Morwen was up and pulling her shift over her head. "I don't believe it! That's how she knew. That sneaking, spiteful little…" She screeched with fury and threw one of her shoes across the room to hit the wall.
Lester slid down the wall, leaned his back against it and regarded his limp penis sorrowfully. "What just happened?"
Morwen threw herself down to sit next to him, still vibrating with anger. "I just found out how Snow knows that I'm a witch. Oh, don't worry, I just dabble. The biggest spell I ever cast was to see my future husband. Botha rode in and look where that got me."
The rage started to fade from her voice, and she carried on in a more conversational tone. "I come out here to practice where nobody knows about it. The white witch has done so much damage over the years, it's a bad idea for people to think you're a witch too. I could never work out how Snow found out about it. She used it to try to get her father to cast me off. I was lucky that he didn't believe her." She plucked at the edge of the furs they were sitting on as she continued to speak. "Botha gave me that mirror just after we got married. There must be two of them, connected to each other. I really liked that mirror, too."
She followed his rueful gaze. "Oh. Damn."
"It's her. Edna. Once she's in my head that's it. Game over."
"No hope?"
"None at all."
"Damn." She bent down and picked up her dress from the floor where he had tossed it earlier. "Well, I guess I was just meant to live a life of virtue. I just wanted something for myself, something to remember when he's stinking drunk and snoring. It serves me right for making stupid wishes."
Lester reached out and pulled her ankle towards him so that she overbalanced and landed on the furs. "Wrong. You think that was the only option?" He flipped her over on to her back, threw her shift up over her head and bent his head to her. "I have a reputation to uphold, after all."
* * *
Lester cradled Morwen's head in his lap and idly played with her hair as she drowsed, winding strands around his fingers in complex patterns before releasing them again, letting individual locks slide through his fingers and fall to the furs in a tumble of dark red.
"Tell me about the white witch," he said softly. "Does she have a name?"
She didn't open her eyes as she answered. "Not that anyone knows."
"I thought white witches were good."
"Bone is white, and the ice that freezes the birds to the trees. When everything that had a life has burned, the ash left in the grate is white."
"What do you know about her? Have you ever seen her?"
"Never. All the stories say that she's gray-haired, and old. All the stories that people lived to tell, anyway. The things that she does are frightening. She plays with our lives because she can. She saves the worst for girls my age."
"Tell me about them."
"She passed through a village to the north a long time ago. Everybody who was around is dead now, so nobody knows exactly what happened, but the whole village just disappeared behind a thorn hedge overnight."
"Hasn't anyone ever tried to get in?"
"Not since I was born. The only people that go there now are village boys. It's traditional for them to risk the thorns and climb up to pick one of the flowers for their sweethearts. The braver ones dare each other to try to get through. They never do."
"Did anyone ever bring you a flower?"
Her face was shuttered and her voice emotionless. "In another life. Before Botha claimed me."
"Have you ever seen the hedge?"
"It's over a day away. Botha wouldn't let me go that far. Who'd stop him falling asleep in his gravy every night?"
"Why do you stay with him?"
She wrinkled her brow. "You ask strange questions. He's my husband. I belong to him."
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head slightly. "I don't want to talk about Botha. Ask me something else."
"Do you know where the white witch can be found?"
Her eyes snapped open. "Are you mad? Have you been listening?"
"We need to find her. She might be the one we're looking for."
She sat up and looked at him accusingly. "That's why you brought Snow back. She told you I was a witch. You thought I was the white witch."
"What? No! I'm here because a very beautiful woman invited me. But it's true that you can help us."
"Oh, please, give me some credit. I might not be much of a witch but I'm enough of one to see a lie when I look for it." She laughed bitterly. "How ironic. The man I picked to betray my husband with was lying to me at the same time."
She scrambled to her feet and pulled her dress over her head. "Well, I hope you got the information you wanted." She quickly re-braided her hair without the aid of the lost mirror and pushed her feet into her shoes. "And I hope that I can trust you to keep your promise, because I'm in your hands now."
She walked out into the darkness without waiting for him.
* * *
Morwen disappeared without a word when they got back to the lodge, and Lester walked along the silent corridor alone. His eyes caught the glow of a light through an open door and he heard familiar voices speaking in low tones.
"He's been gone far too long already. How much longer do you plan to wait before checking in with him?" Morelli sounded agitated.
Tank's voice was expressionless. "What he does takes time and needs radio silence."
"And what exactly is he doing?"
"Extracting information."
"Jesus! You think you could let me know before sending people off on jobs like that? We don't know this place or how safe it is. If you don't want to check on him, I'll damn well do it."
Lester chose that moment to walk in. "No need."
Tank nodded slowly. "Any trouble?"
"None. She even made the first move."
"You sure of the information?"
"She opened up." He unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor with a kick. "She's a witch, but not the one we're looking for. I got a lead on another one that's more likely. This one's no threat to the kid either; we can leave her here and move on."
"Are you positive?" Morelli queried. "How do you know she's not lying?"
"Because I know what I'm doing. It's easy to make women tell you what you want to know."
Morelli rounded on Tank. "You didn't seriously send him out to seduce information out of her? Isn't there anything you people draw the line at?"
Tank stared him down. "Would you rather we beat it out of her? He's good at what he does and this way nobody gets hurt. Back off, Morelli."
Lester kicked his boots off and got into his sleeping bag. "I'll report in the morning when we're out of here. Right now I need to sleep." He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the betrayal that he'd seen in Morwen's face when she realized why he was there.