I walked directly back to my digs, where Harry Two was waiting not so patiently for me. I pulled the chair over to my table, took out my ink stick, filled it and then set to my task with the parchment. I had to see out of one eye, but I knew what I wanted to write.
I had once seen Morrigone write on a report that a Wug working on the Wall had given her. Thus, I’d had a good look at her handwriting, and I knew now that all the instructions for finishing my items that I’d been given at Stacks for two long sessions had been written in her hand. I did not think my fury at the female could have increased, but it had. She had me work my fingers to the bone for low wages, and all the objects had ended up in a hole at Stacks. Except for the candleholders I’d ripped off her walls.
Yet it was not Morrigone’s handwriting that I would be replicating this light. It was Thansius’s. And I had seen several examples of Thansius’s penmanship on his desk. The letter was composed slowly as I took great pains to make it look like it had come from the Chief of Council, using words that I had heard him employ many times.
I set the parchment aside after it was completed. My stomach was rumbling and I looked in my larder, which, unfortunately, was empty. As I stared at the barren space, I put my hand in my pocket and fingered the coins that I had won from Litches McGee. I started to head out, but then I looked down at myself. I was battered, bloody and filthy.
I went to the back of my digs with a bit of suds, took off all my clothes, and spent ten slivers rubbing the dirt off with water from the pipes. I dried off and went back inside. My hair was wet but clean and I could stand the smell of myself for once in a great while. I again looked at the coins in my hand and a thought occurred to me.
It was an impossibly silly idea, but I thought, Why not?
I quickly got dressed and set out.
There was a shop on the high street called Fancy Frocks that sold female clothing. I had passed it often with never a thought to going inside. When I opened the door, a bell tinkled and a shop assistant, a plump female about forty sessions old, quite nattily attired, came out from the back. She looked at me with a severe eye.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked in a way that told me she believed me beyond assistance.
I was suddenly tongue-tied and my confidence, shaky at best in situations like this, vanished. I mumbled, ‘I was hoping for some new things.’
‘What was that?’ she said in a loud voice.
‘Some new things,’ I said half-heartedly. I had about made up my mind to turn and walk back out. Wugs like me just didn’t do things like this. Our clothes came as hand-me-downs when they came at all.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so, dear?’ she said. ‘I suppose you’ve got coin?’ she added inquisitively. I held out a palmful for her to see. Her face brightened. ‘More than enough.’ She put on a pair of thick specs. ‘Now let me look at you.’ Her eyes behind the glasses widened. ‘Why, you’re that lass in the Duelum. Vega Jane.’
‘Yes, I am.’
She looked me up and down. ‘You’re tall and slender and you’ve nice wide shoulders and long legs. Clothes will hang very well on you, my dear.’
‘They will?’ I said in a perplexed tone. Clothes ‘hanging well’ was something I knew nothing about.
‘Now, let me just bring some things out and we’ll see what we’ll see, shan’t we?’
Many slivers later and many garments tried on, some discarded and others settled upon, she had packaged my new clothes while I now wore the outfit she had fitted me with because, well, I fancied it the best. The clothes I had come in with went directly into the dustbin.
Now I wore a blue dress and shoes that had heels on them.
She gazed in admiration at her handiwork. ‘I knew there was something under there, dear. We just had to dig for it, didn’t we?’
‘I guess so,’ I said in a half-whisper.
‘Now what about your hair, my dear?’ said the kindly if exuberant Wug, who had long before introduced herself as Darla Gunn.
There was a looking glass mounted on the wall. I stared at myself in it.
‘What about my hair?’ I asked.
Darla eyed it with what I thought was a professional appraisal. ‘Well, it needs a bit of sorting out. Tidying up, like. Maybe a cut or two or three, if you know what I mean. Nothing too drastic – well, maybe just a wee bit drastic.’ She sighed and added in an apologetic tone, ‘It does need some work, dear. And seeing as how you’ve surely spent a good many coins this light, I’ll throw the tidying up in for free.’
I smiled and thanked her.
She said, ‘Saw you best Non, Vega. Cheered like a mad female, I did. Just didn’t want to go on about it when I recognized you. You’re, well, famous now, aren’t you?’
I flushed at these words.
‘But your poor face. Well, I’ll see what I can do to tidy you up till you heal good and proper.’
She was as true as her word. The things she did to my hair and how she doctored my face were totally foreign to me. When she was done and had laced a white ribbon with a bow through my newly done hair, I looked in the glass and caught my breath. It seemed that I had disappeared and been replaced by another female.
She took out a little bottle with a tiny hose attached to it and a round inflated part at one end. She squeezed on the inflated part and some liquid misted on my neck and cheek. I flinched and she just laughed.
‘Take a wee sniff, Vega,’ she said.
I did so and the most wonderful aroma entered my nostrils. ‘Lavender,’ I said.
‘With just a touch of honeysuckle. Made it myself.’ Darla gazed at me, and her face crinkled into a smile. ‘Very nice, Vega. Very nice indeed. Now, once your face heals up proper-like, what a stunner you’ll be, my dear.’
I paid over my coin and took my packages and walked out of the shop, feeling things I had never felt before.
A stunner?
As I came out, two Wugs I knew were passing by. One was a young Tiller named Rufus, the other was Newton Tilt, the Dactyl at Stacks who had congratulated me after beating Cletus Loon. Rufus gaped and ran into a post supporting the roof over the walkway and knocked himself to the cobblestones. Newton simply stood there looking at me with a silly grin on his face.
‘Vega, is that really you?’ said Newton.
I hurried on, my face reddening.
I had one more shop to go to and one more item to purchase. I paid my coin and had it wrapped in pretty paper and then hurried on. I had shopped more this light than I ever had before. Which wasn’t saying much because I had never really shopped before.
I got back to my digs and threw Harry Two for a loop. It seemed that at first my canine didn’t know me, and his hackles rose and he bared his teeth. But after he’d sniffed around me for a bit, he seemed satisfied I was actually his mistress after all.
I found a scrap of looking glass that had once belonged to my mother. I managed to angle it so that I could see my face and hair. I again shook my head in disbelief. But my eyes were still swollen and the skin blackened, my nose broken and my cheek bruised and swollen as well. It sort of ruined everything.
I sighed and then a wistful desire crept into my head.
I found my hand going into my pocket and pulling out the Adder Stone. I held it in front of my face and thought good thoughts and the blemishes instantly vanished. My eyes were normal, the swelling and bruises were gone and I could feel my nose reset and mend immediately. I slowly put the Stone away and then set off.
I checked the falling sun and believed the time to be right. I walked quickly, for my energy had returned with my physical transformation.
The trip to Morrigone’s went quickly and I was able to sneak up to the front door and push the parchment through the slit there. I knew that Morrigone would not be home yet, nor would John. But I was certain the ever-faithful William would ensure that Madam Morrigone would receive it.
That errand complete, I hurried on to my next destination. The Care.