Benchland News
The chronicles of Benchland Publishing
Norm and Burny Book Four
The Ancient Mirror
Preview
One Lick for Herself
“Dara! I sold a story!”
“Congratulations!” The voice came from an adjoining room. “Come tell me about it. You won’t believe what’s happening in here.”
“Let me just finish saying hello to the faithful hound.”
Burny was all over Norm, jumping and licking, overcome with the joy of reunion, behaving exactly as he had every day since Norm brought him home from the animal shelter as a two-month-old puppy. Burny was his ninth-birthday present thirteen years ago, and his exuberant welcome had never changed.
Norm found Dara staring into the crib. She smiled at him, finger to her lips.
Their daughter was sitting up, holding Dara’s keyring, the favorite toy of the day. So focused on her task that she didn’t even notice Norm, she examined each key, then chose one and inserted it into the headboard, far enough that the tip vanished into the solid wood. She carefully turned it and then withdrew it, giggling with the pleasure of what she had done. Her movements seemed practiced, effortless.
Magic, Norm thought. And so it begins, as young as she is. “Ava,” he said, “that looks like fun.”
She turned to look at him and jumped to her feet laughing. “Eez!” she squealed, jingling the keys in her fist. “Eez!”
Dara chuckled. “She’s fascinated with locks. She pretends there’s one inside the headboard, and makes it so. Did you notice? You could even hear a click when she turned the key.”
“Ock!” Ava pounded on the bed. “Ock!”
“Mama, isn’t she young for this?”
“I am never seeing fourteen months baby doing magic.” Jo had walked over after dinner. As she talked, she entertained her granddaughter by taking off her bangles one at a time, handing them to Ava to serve as treasures and playthings.
“Brace-it!” Ava held a bracelet high. “Brace-it!” It was graceful and elegant, a band of silver half an inch wide. On the surface, engraved designs surrounded delicate turquoise inlay work. Ava kept it much longer than the others, holding it to herself, before she dropped it into Jo’s hand, laughing.
Ava babbled happily to Norm as he whisked her off to change her. They left Dara and Jo staring at the bracelet, which Ava had transformed—the decoration was now on the inside.
Jo looked fondly at Ava. “She has lots magic. I expected, but never so soon.”
Norm’s mother, Elaine, joined them. The four adults settled in a circle around Ava as she constructed buildings out of wooden blocks, full of imaginary locks on which she planned to use Dara’s keys.
“I never suspected until now,” Norm said.
“I thought everyone knew.” Burny was lying by Norm’s feet. “Excuse me for trusting your powers of observation.” Burny was a big dog with a bristly black-and-white coat. And attitude. He had talked with Norm and Dara for years. “She turns my butcher bones inside out for me.” He thumped his tail on the floor. “I love it. So much easier to get the marrow. I let her have one lick for herself.”
Dara made a gagging sound. “Roderick, that’s gross.” Norm and Dara both called him Roderick, the name he said his mother had given him.
“Brace-it!” Ava hadn’t forgotten the inside-out bracelet. She reached for it, and Jo handed it to her. Then it appeared to fly back to its place on Jo’s arm—with the turquoise inlay on top.
“Aaah!” Jo tried unsuccessfully to pull it off. “Too small now. Is getting tighter.”
Ava put both hands around the circlet and slid it off. Then she grabbed Jo’s hand and energetically kissed it better. When she returned the bracelet to Jo’s arm, it caused no further trouble.
Jo rubbed her wrist. “My mother is telling me about magical babies. They make you laugh, but sometimes scary. I am never meeting one.” She picked Ava up. “Until you, honey.”
Burny raised his head. “She makes me nervous. I know she’ll go beyond butcher bones. I’m too old for heights and loud noises, to say nothing of being kicked by camels or falling through space.” He looked at Ava and added, “You cannot believe what magic has done to me.”
“Maybe this explains something,” Elaine said. “Jack worked at home Saturday while Ava sat on his desk playing with his stuff. He loves their time together. After you left that night, he couldn’t find his keys or his phone, and I couldn’t either. I didn’t spot them until I stood on a chair, thinking she might have tossed them onto the bookcase. They were balanced on the top of the door. She could never have thrown them there. I had the feeling they were hiding. And that’s not all. Jack had to replace that phone. After that afternoon, it rang at random times in the middle of the night. Nobody was calling, but it woke us up anyway.”
Burny sighed. “I knew my life was too peaceful.” Ava toddled over and lay beside him, burying her fists in his coat.
“Norm, you never told me about the story you sold.” Jo and Elaine had left, and Ava was asleep. Norm and Dara were tired and ready for bed.
“Maybe more than one. The magazine wants to see other pieces I’ve written. The one they bought is called The Boy Who Didn’t Believe, about a sixteen-year-old who can talk to his dog. He’s not like me—he’s sure it’s all a hoax. He still thinks magic is all fraud even when more and more absurd stuff happens to him. Ultimately it’s a girl who sets him right.”
Dara snickered. “Every boy needs that. I suppose selling a single story doesn’t mean you can quit your job?”
“No, but it feels good that some editor liked my writing, and I do have lots of finished material ready to go. I’ve about exhausted us as a source, though. Morgana makes good copy, but we haven’t seen her for quite a while. If she were around . . .”
“Norm Pardee! Don’t even think that!”
“I’m kidding, of course. I’m afraid of her too. Anyway, I don’t want to quit my job. There are exceptional kids in my classes. They write every day, and I love seeing them improve.”
Later, when Norm was all but asleep, Dara startled him. “Take that back, about Morgana. Life has given us a good deal, and she could wreck it. Don’t joke about her. She’s evil and dangerous.”
Morgana the Fey! Norm and Dara’s fear of her comes from long experience. Half-sister and dread enemy of King Arthur, sorceress and seductress, pupil and jailer of the wizard Merlin, she is no myth—even today she can move at will between different times and places. Norm and Dara were youngsters playing at magic when they first encountered her, and they came to know her all too well. She is cold-hearted and vengeful. Evil is the right word for her.
Burny knows. “Morgana!” he growls. “Scary. And she smells totally rank.”
Morgana’s enmity toward Jo began in another time, centuries ago, as jealousy over Rico, Dara’s father—a case of scorned-woman rage. And Morgana detested Jo for fighting back. The two would not have gotten along in any case. Sorceresses never do.
It was to get away from Morgana that Jo abandoned 17th-century England for modern America, bringing her two brothers in addition to Rico and Dara.
Morgana hated Dara for being Jo’s daughter, and Norm for fighting at Dara’s side. She was frustrated because their combined magic had thwarted her repeatedly, and the prospect of a child threatened her. Still, Norm and Dara had seen no sign of her for two years, since her attempts to upset their wedding plans had fallen flat.
They married at the beginning of Norm’s senior year at the university. He already had a promise of a job after graduation, teaching English in the high school he and Dara had attended, the Ambiguous Avenue Academy for the Liberal Arts. Then, just when they needed it, they found a place to live, an apartment right on the town square. The front room had been a cards-and-gifts store until the owner decided to retire. Norm and Dara considered it a lucky find. They had dreamed of owning a business that bought and sold magical goods. When they moved in, they whitewashed the front windows and left the shop empty while they settled into the living quarters in the rear. They didn’t forget their dream, though, and began searching for inventory right away.
They were happy when Dara became pregnant. Shortly before Ava was born, Dara quit her job at OAO, the renowned Online Academy of the Occult, showing students the difference between real magic, the kind she had inherited from her mother, and the fraud that imitates it in every corner of the world.
A cash wedding gift from Jack and Elaine had given them a substantial bank account. They used some of it to redecorate the front room and bring in display cases. Ava was three weeks old when the shop opened for business.
That was more than a year ago, and October, with its clear, cold nights, spectacular trees, and slanting sunlight, is well-known as a time for unusual happenings. Perhaps that lay behind some of Dara’s nervousness about Morgana.
Unusual Treasures
Ava Josephina Pardee was a good-natured and energetic baby, the first grandchild on both sides, adored by her parents and grandparents. She spent her days in The Magic Mirror, Norm and Dara’s business, an ideal place to raise an inquisitive child, because she was surrounded by an ever-changing menagerie of sturdy magical playthings—stuffed animals that purred and cuddled, keys that opened a variety of wooden boxes, puzzles that solved themselves. The shop had fragile goods as well—enchanted crystal glassware, fountain pens that wrote what they chose, walking dolls. Those Dara kept in a locked glass display case. Ava wanted them, of course, but Dara could usually mollify her by putting her playpen in front of the mirror in the entryway, a tall, stately antique Dara had bought, sensing that it had special talents. It added a touch of elegance, and customers noticed it. Every woman checked her hair in it. Naming the business after it was inevitable.
Jo loved the mirror from the beginning. “Full of magic,” she said the day it first arrived. “Has many stories. Maybe being here gives it another one.”
Dara’s appreciation of the mirror grew when Ava began playing with it, squealing with delight at what she saw. Later she babbled to it, and when she started talking, she described what she saw. “Kitties!” she said, at eleven months; Dara saw only her own reflection.
The shop had curiosities whose behavior couldn’t easily be explained. Dara chose them with care and good taste, and described them to unaware visitors as antiques. She also stocked ordinary children’s toys at prices that seemed a bargain by comparison.
Talismans made by Dara’s father hung on the back wall. Most were of carved wood, like the amulets that protected Norm and Dara against Morgana. Rico’s pieces had a reputation as good-luck charms, and Dara sold all he could make.
The shop’s fast-growing clientele even included out-of-town customers attracted by the buzz about a store that carried magical goods. Some traveled long distances to visit. Most said they had no idea such a place existed.
A sign in the window said, “Unusual treasures bought and sold.” People often brought in family heirlooms, mostly perfectly ordinary, according to Jo. Dara bought the occasional exceptions, and the display cases soon held an eye-catching and growing collection of objects with special properties.
Between the shop and Norm’s job, he and Dara would have been busy day in and day out even if they hadn’t been raising a curious and extremely active child. Norm was away during school hours, leaving Dara in sole charge. Minding the counter was easy at first, but soon the traffic through the door was a steady stream, and Dara became adept at making change with a baby on her hip. Matters improved when she bought a playpen, but she was still tired by evening.
“Without Roderick, I couldn’t do it.” She stretched out on a chair as she and Norm talked. “Thanks for that, Roderick.” She reached down to ruffle Burny’s neck fur as he lay at her feet.
“These are good times. Ava’s a fine companion.” Burny yawned. He was a big help with her, entertaining her endlessly with conversation.
“Dara, don’t you sometimes think What have we done?” Norm looked half-asleep.
“Norm Pardee! How can you say that? . . . Well, okay, but not often.”
They both laughed. They had enjoyed each other’s company as friends since they were twelve, and they looked forward to their evenings together.
“I miss our after-school times in the park,” Norm said. “But this is wonderful.”
“Hey—I forgot! I have something to show you.” Dara went into the shop and retrieved a toy locomotive, hand-made long ago. “Check it out. It’s carved out of wood, but the wheels turn by themselves. Ava absolutely loves it. She’s been fixated on trains since we went to Green Bay and had to wait for a long freight to pass. The stuffed sheep we got her that day? This afternoon she pretended it was a high-speed train.”
Norm examined the toy. The wood had been polished to a fine patina by generations of small hands. “Pretty fancy. Nice to see one that isn’t mass produced.”
No money. An older man brought it in. I offered him two of Papa’s amulets, and he went away happy.”
“Norm, what’s that?” Burny’s head came up, and he listened intently.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“It’s getting louder.”
“A train whistle?” Dara snorted. “I don’t think so.”
The town was once a lumbering center, built around a single big mill. A railroad spur was used every day to ship finished goods to market. The entire operation closed down when the forests were logged out, and the tracks hadn’t been used since before World War II. More than eighty years had passed since the roar of a locomotive last shattered the stillness of the night.
“Norm, it does sound like a train, and the rumble is getting louder. They must have put that old line back into service. I haven’t heard about it, and I follow local news.”
Whatever its source, the noise was now deafening, filling the apartment with an ear-splitting whistle and the roaring, chugging disruption of a freight moving at a good speed. The building shook.
“I’d better check on Ava.” Dara silently opened the nursery door and peeked inside. She turned to Norm with her hands on her hips. “Norm Pardee, you have to see this.”
She nodded toward Ava, who stood in her crib, running her stuffed sheep along the rail. Oblivious to her audience, she made a small roaring in her throat.
Dara touched her shoulder. “Ava, honey.” Ava turned and laughed, holding up her toy. The moment she was distracted, the sound of the train stopped.
As soon as Ava was sound asleep, Dara called her mother. Jo laughed when she heard the story. “She is imagining things, and they are becoming real.”
“It shook the building,” Dara said. “It felt like a train—right outside. I don’t understand.”
Burny sighed. “I do. I can’t make out the fine print, but the headlines are clear. I’m going to have my paws full, protecting us from her magic.”
Jo was thoughtful. “Later on, she is being much stronger than Morgana, and is safe for life, but she is still little baby. So for now we are having to guard her.”
A Shadow Falls
The Magic Mirror operated smoothly for more than a year. Everything changed on a cold October day when Ava was fourteen months old. It started with an elderly customer.
She paused in front of the entryway mirror to check her hair, as all women did. “I assume this is antique? Is it for sale?”
Odd, Dara thought—I can’t see her reflection. Must be the light. And in truth, the room was bathed in ever-changing patterns of brightness and shadow as clouds hurried on their way, pursued by a stiff wind.
“I’m sorry, it isn’t. What would the shop be without it?”
“That’s too bad. It’s beautiful. Well, let me show you why I came in.” She brought out a piece of silver jewelry, a bracelet with interwoven links. “My grandmother believed it was magical. A jeweler offered me scrap value. Thirty-five dollars.”
Dara looped the circlet around one finger and examined it closely as it lay in her hand, warm to her touch.
“I’d love to have it. It’s gorgeous. The scrap silver price would be ridiculous—it weighs almost nothing. How much do you want for it?” She deflected Ava, who was reaching desperately for the bracelet. “I’m Dara,” she said with a smile. “This is my daughter, Ava.”
“She’s beautiful, like her mother. I’m Betty. My grandmother’s chain is lovely. She treasured it. I was hoping to get one fifty, but this is the perfect place. You can have it for a hundred.”
Dara had already made up her mind. “I’ll be happy to pay that.” She handed Betty five twenties and a receipt to sign, and thanked her as she left. The entire visit didn’t take ten minutes. Its consequences lasted much longer.
Dara called her mother to tell her about the bracelet, fending off Ava, who was determined to have it. “No, honey. Could hurt you, or could break.” She lifted Ava and hugged her.
Ava squirmed toward Dara’s hand. “Brace-it!” She reached again. “Brace-it!”
“Here,” Dara said. “Your keys.” She and Norm had collected a dozen old keys and given them to Ava on a large ring. But Ava could not be bought off. Her face crumpled, and she started to whine. Some time passed before she reluctantly accepted a bottle, curled up in her crib, and went to sleep.
When Jo held the bracelet, she smiled. “Feel it! Hot!”
“That’s why I bought it,” Dara said.
“Are you wearing it yet?”
“I wanted you to see it first. To be sure it’s safe.”
“Maybe not. Smarter to wait. I take home, yes? To study?”
“I’d like Norm to see it, if you can stay that long.”
“Are you making tea?”
In time they heard Ava fussing. Jo walked in and picked her up, waking Burny, who had been napping beside the crib for most of the day. He followed Jo and Ava out into the shop, padding along on his large paws.
He stopped in the doorway, raised his nose, and sniffed. “What happened? Something smells awful.”
“Roderick, there was no one here but a nice older woman. I bought this from her.”
Burny ambled to the counter. He sniffed the bracelet and snorted in disgust.
“Morgana!”
Jo and Dara were deep in discussion when Norm arrived. Ava was on Dara’s lap, asleep again. The bracelet lay on a table beside the teapot.
“You bought that today?” Norm scratched Burny’s ears as he talked.
“It smells like Morgana,” Burny growled.
Dara sighed. “That’s what we’ve been talking about. The idea of her coming to this shop today makes me feel exposed, and worried for Ava. I should have caught on earlier. When she stopped near the mirror, I noticed that I couldn’t see her reflection. That was a clue, and I brushed it off—blamed it on the light.”
Norm paced. “Ava needs her own amulet.”
“I am already calling Rico,” Jo said. “He is making one.”
“Are you watching that thing?” Norm nodded toward the table. “It looks pretty hot.”
The bracelet was glowing red, like a chain of small embers, and scorching the wooden tabletop. A curl of smoke rose.
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