Chapter Workshop22
Photo by Daniela
A soft wave of discomfort weaved through the gathering and quickly subsided, as they recalled the unfolding of events in the Council Hall.
“Are you going to stay for the presentation, aunt Lucille?”
From the other side of the mirror, the teachers were watching too, interjecting observations or making slight corrections to the content, and answering questions from the audience. When the
“Of course not, dear! Don’t
“Back to more interesting subjects, if memory serves, Blanche was going to present her study on gene
Mary asked her aunt as she left the podium to join the audience.
“May I have your attention, please?” Lucille cast her voice over the audience, and the murmurs and shuffles subsided.
“Before class starts, I don’t think I need to reiterate the importance of keeping this knowledge to ourselves, at least for the time being. I’m sure the reasons why don’t require explaining.”
splicing and the effects of introducing snapdragon DNA into tomato breeds. So, without further ado,” she waved her hand, inviting Blanche to the podium, to present her slides to the class.
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Lucille winked at the girl and sat down in the chair behind hers. “Could you scoot over to the left a little bit? I can’t see the smart screen.”
you know? Mirrors are banned,” Lucille explained, Blanche’spoised.
Cover by Sharon McCutcheon
“You’re not calling it a mirror anymore?” Mary teased.
presentation was followed by a dissertation on computational geometry, an open debate about forms of government, a poetry reading, and a video lecture on coronal mass ejections and the plasma dynamics of G-type main sequence stars.
“Is everybody here?” she scanned the cave to make sure all the girls had made it inside, safe and unnoticed. When she was reassured that they were all there, she continued.
The next day Blanche and Lisa fell asleep in workshop again, face down in the basket of spools. Their makeshift wool pillows were soft, cuddly and extremely comfortable, so much so that Mrs. Gentry had to splash cold water on the girls’ faces to wake them up.
“We have to get to the bottom of this, Lucille! This is absolutely unacceptable, we can’t have these girls sleepwalking through day after day, we need to know what are they doing that gets them so tired. I fear
“I don’t know what to say, Lucille, can’t you pay a little more attention? I know that since Mary…ahhm…ran away and all…” she didn’t know how to continue, but since the subject had been brought up, she burst out the question she was itching to ask ever since she had left Lucille and Mary alone in the
Mrs. Gentry’s whispering was almost as loud as her voice, and the few girls who were not half asleep raised their eyebrows, startled. Lucille grabbed the lady by her arm and led her outside.
“Mrs. Gentry, you don’t want the girls to get preoccupied with this, do you? I don’t know anything about poor Mary, dear. She ran, as you said, and I couldn’t catch her. I trust that she didn’t run into misfortune, though,” she felt she needed to reassure Mrs. Gentry, who obviously felt responsible for the girl’s fate, “you know Mary, she can be quite resourceful if need be.”
evildoing, the poor children don’t know any better, if we don’t protect them, who knows what they’ll get themselves into,” she boomed towards Lucille in her unusually loud tone of voice, so loud that it instantly snapped the latter back to attention together with a few girls who were dozing off in the back. Lucille too was tired, and she let her mind wander a little bit every now and then, when it got too quiet.
school night was over, everybody returned to the village, in the same weird single file configuration, and since they were blessed with a bright and cloudless night the return trip turned out to provide a great object lesson in astronomy. Despite Lucille’s repeated requests to keep quiet, the shushing and giggling followed them all the way home.
“Have you heard from her, dear?”
“I’m sorry, dear, what?” she mumbled, a little puzzled, as if she had just entered the room.
around to make sure nobody was listening, and then whispered as softly as she could into Lucille’s ear.
Shecave.looked
to divert her attention. “Do you find the girls’ work lacking?” she quickly found a subject she was sure will capture all of Mrs. Gentry’s attention.
born with skilled hands, and it takes years of practice to produce exceptional quality, but, all things considered, not too bad. How they can spin wool in their sleep is
Photo by Jonathan Taylor
Photo by Janko Ferlič
Lucille looked at Blanche.
The girl had returned to her peaceful slumber, face down in her basket of wool and with a smile on her lips.
“Oh,curse?”yeah,” replied. supposed to be tomorrow?” she asked.
“No wonder, with this darned story following us around!” Mrs. Gentry boomed again.
“Mrs. Gentry,” the stentorian lady, who was still irate. the girls to wake Blanche, we’re late for the Council meeting.”
Since the lady looked a bit confused, Lucille brought up more details.
We were going to meet with the village elders and learn more ways to remove Mary’s
“No, dear, it’s today. It seems you must be tired too,” Lucille smiled.
Photo by Engin Akyurt
“I’m telling you, Lucille, it is the curse, and we were fools not to believe the Book of Prophecy, and now, it’s already started! Oh! What will become of us!” on her favorite dramatic
The elders talked amongst themselves for a while and came to an agreement that, indeed, under circumstances,thethis solution was not optimal.
snake with her stare more than she believed that the sky was green, but she played along, for effect.
“I say that we should burn her dwelling to the ground, so the evil essence that she left behind can be released back into the air,” another elder proposed.
“Winged snakes can’t enchant mirrors!”
“You’re not burning down my house!” Lucille jumped into the conversation, really disturbed. “Besides, how would releasing evil back into the air make our lives better?” she pointed out the flaw in the argument.
“I said, and it bears repeating, that the best and fairest way to rid the girl of the curse is to tie her up in front of a mirror and make her gaze into her own eyes at dawn,” somebody in the audience declared, very sure of himself.
“I know, dear. I know.” She paused a little, to allow the weight of the argument to sink in. “Well, let’s make haste, then, we don’t want to keep them waiting.” She looked back at the work group as she proceeded towards the door, and shook her head in disgust at the laziness of the young generation.
“What makes you think “Well,that!?”then, you come up with a solution!” the first
speaker retorted, a bit offended.
“How about this?” a wise voice from the audience came up with a successful method. “We bring the girls out into the desert and ask them to remove evil from their midst.”
“If I ever fell asleep in shop, my mother would have never been able to get out of the house for shame! What is this world coming to, Lucille! We’re responsible, you know!” she struggled with her conscience for a bit, but at the end of the struggle the elders took precedence and she left the young to help the Theyoung.meeting, presided by Rosemary, produced a
wealth of information regarding the lifting of the curse, all ready to be put into practice. Unfortunately, all actions hinged on capturing Mary, and since the girl was nowhere to be found, that presented a challenge.
“And have her turn herself into a winged fire breathing snake? What good could come of it?” somebody else replied.
“We’ll go early, use the morning sun,” the person replied.
The discussion then veered
into what garments the girls should be wearing to best ward off evil, and whether the group should take the risk of bringing any water at all for the trip.
“Remove evil how?” Mrs. Gentry asked, concerned about the unproductive use of the girls’ time.
“And make sure the girls are well rested,” Mrs. Gentry added, “I don’t want them dozing off and stumbling over their own feet!”
“But not too close to dawn, we don’t want to run into Mary by accident, can you imagine the horror?” somebody protested. A roar of dread permeated the crowd.
“By having them soak into the warmth of the sun until all darkness is gone,” the person replied.
“It’s too hot out there in the middle of the day,” Lucille protested.
In the meantime, back at the workshop, Blanche, Lisa, and a few of the other girls, took the nap.neededthemGentry’sopportunityunexpectedthatMrs.absencepresentedwithtotakeamuchandundisturbed
8
Francis Rosenfeld has published twelve books : Terra Two, Generations, Letters to Lelia, The Plant - A Steampunk Story, Door Number Eight, Fair, A Year and A Day, Möbius' Code, Between Mirrors, The Blue Rose Manuscript, Don't Look Down and The Library. To learn more about her work, please visit
Francis Rosenfeld’s Blog Author Profile
Photo by Engin Aykurt
Amazon
About the Author
My Books on Smashwords Book ConnectLinksonline