Peppermint
A Mirror, Mirror fanfiction
~1986~
Tama Williams is five or six years old, give or take, when the Queensgate Shopping Centre opens its doors to the public for the first time.
It's a big deal for the adults, being able to get all their shopping done locally, and a pretty big deal for their kids, too, as the centre means bright lights and sweets and other distractions children will always gravitate towards.
It also means tantrums and crying and prams that suddenly seem to have built-in amplifiers – sometimes the mothers, at the end of their ropes, break down and cry even louder than the babies they've, rather ill-advisedly, dragged out past the hour for their usual kip – but Tama's a well-behaved child, mostly. He only lets go of his dad's hand when a Red Percher – caught indoors by some accident – zips past in a buzz of blurred scarlet, barely an inch away from his nose. And he's sure, eagerly following the dragonfly over to the display window only a few steps – and these are only toddler-sized steps, even if they are quick – from where his dad was examining a directory, trying to figure out where the store they wanted was, it's not been more than a minute.
An older Tama would want to, one way or another, document the movements of the dazzling incest which has so captivated his attention, a good scientist always makes sure to keep meticulous records, but at this age, he simply watches it with fascination, unblinking, mentally cataloguing all his present observations.
The ruby rapture in which he finds himself cannot last. Some well-meaning adult (these are often the worst sorts) steps around him and smacks brutally, fatally at the dragonfly with a rolled-up newspaper.
The object of Tama's fascination is not quick enough. There's a sickening splat as its flattened body smears against the glass. It's enough to set his small chin trembling, but worse is to come. Because, when Tama glances round, he can't find his dad anywhere.
"Dad, Dad?"
The whole world suddenly consists solely of swishing loud-print skirts and denim trousers with thick, bulging back pockets – all set higher than Tama's head comes up to in 1986 – and low-hanging purses with shiny metal clasps and the scent of burnt pretzels and popcorn with too much artificial butter.
He pushes past a few legs, still sure he'll be at his dad's side again any second, before reality – he's lost! – sinks in and his face screws up and his hands ball into little brown fists and he begins, with a resigned whimper, to cry.
"Don't cry."
The voice is kind; Tama tilts his head way back – up, up, up – to see a tall old man in a nice suit and leaning on a cane – he is maybe in his eighties – standing before him.
"I wasn't," he lies, dashing at his eyes with the back of his wrist.
"You were," says the man, matter of fact, smoothly reaching out and guiding the child from the pathway of rushing shoppers, over towards a little bench. "But it's all right now. Of no real importance, either way. Perhaps you had better sit before one of us gets stampeded."
"My name's Tama," he introduces himself.
"Nicholas." The man shakes his hand and gives a friendly nod.
Naturally, Tama's been told ad nauseam not to talk to strangers, but although he's never seen this guy before, and he admittedly is strange, there's also a comforting air of authority wafting off him – it's not bad, to talk to him, to this Nicholas-man.
No more than it would be bad to talk to a teacher or a police officer or to the postman – it's allowed.
He tells him he's lost his dad. Sheepishly admits he's scared.
Old Nicholas nods, his blue eyes fixed on the little boy to show he's listening. He says, once he's heard all, he expects the boy's father will be back here looking for him any moment, then offers him a peppermint.
"Thank you."
Sweets from strangers.
In most circumstances, not good. You're not supposed to accept 'em. There could be drugs or razors or worse. Though what exactly is worse than drugs or razors, no kindergartener is ever really certain. Maybe something that tastes bad. Like a turd.
But taking peppermints from a friend – and he is a friend, somehow Tama is sure of it – is okay.
Nicholas watches this little-child version of the adolescent he remembers from 1919 – there, when he goes back, the handsome and forthright young scientist who will one day create two neutralising agents and ask him to choose the right one – as he unwraps the peppermint.
Tama's fingers, even at five, are deft and careful, like he thinks the wrapper might be important later and is taking great pains to preserve it as he peels it away from its contents.
When last they met, there was only a year or two's difference between them; here, now, Tama is such a bitty, frightened thing and he is an old giant with liver-spotted hands and wrinkles on his face.
He didn't come here looking for Tama or even expecting to see him – actually, he was looking for a particular newspaper, from Australia, as there's a clipping he wants for his scrapbook, and he thought the stand here at Queensgate might be more likely to have one – but now he's found him, he'll be keeping an eye on the boy.
Tama will never know it, but there is to be a swiftly-moving shadow of protection, now and again, passing in a blur as he plays with friends; an old watery blue gaze resting upon his back as he rides his bike down the street; a sudden push out of traffic or out of the path of a waiting bully, at various moments, all between the ages of six and twelve, as he grows up.
After all, if Nicholas wants to change history, wants to regain Russia, he needs to keep safe the future scientist who will create a solution with the power to detoxify his lost signet ring in the drum.
For the present, however, the boy is perfectly well.
He's just popped the peppermint into his mouth when he hears, "Tama!" followed by the familiar jangle of car keys and sees his dad – a little breathless, clearly relieved as his son looks up in recognition, "Dad – over here!" and waves his arms as he leaps to his feet – rushing toward the bench.
Tama blurts the whole story out, about the dragonfly and the old man, but when he turns to point out his new friend, who he thought was right there still, Nicholas is gone.
He might believe he – in his terror at being separated from his dad – imagined the encounter, made up the whole thing to soothe himself, if the evidence of the peppermint on his tongue didn't indicate otherwise.
Nine years from now, when he'll meet Jo, the memory will have faded almost to nothing – just the dimmest recollection of wandering off and getting lost, the sort of common memory practically all kids have floating around somewhere in the haze of their earliest recollections, personalised only by the smells of burnt bread and sweet peppermint – and it will never once occur to him his old man from that day at Queensgate and her old man who gave her a literal magic mirror are one and the same person.
As for Nicholas, it's a happy ending there, as well.
He obtains his newspaper.
The man who sells it to him can't imagine what the old codger wants with local interest pieces from Sydney, but once he's back at his shop, Nicholas will carefully cut out the photograph of Catherine Guthrie Tiegan and paste it into his scrapbook.
Scrapbooking is an art form to him, loved by his parents, sisters, and tutors in his youth, and it will look very neat and elegant, the way dead butterflies do under glass in a museum.
He doesn't add the full article to his book, though he gives it a polite once-over before placing it in a drawer and discarding the rest of the paper: Ms. Guthrie, a new teacher, is getting recognition for some service she provided her school, some reform she's implemented in the classroom.
It's a nice article, well-written (for what it is), but it's superfluous to his interest. The picture is what he was chiefly after – for on Ms. Guthrie's knee is seated a small girl.
The average eye might have some difficultly discerning it even is a girl – the photograph was obviously taken on a cold day and the child in her puffy winter coat and pompom-laden hat pushed down past her brow to keep her head and ears warm scarcely has any visible features that can be properly made out in the grainy shot – but Nicholas would know her anywhere.
And he wishes he could tell her he saw Tama today.
So he does.
He has developed something of a habit of talking aloud quite freely, like she's in the room with him, when no one else is present to hear him doing so.
"You'll meet him for yourself soon, Jo," he says, setting the scrapbook open on his desk for the glue to dry properly before he can close it and put it away. "We must have patience; it won't be much longer now."