Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Ceramic DM- The Renewal ( Final judgement posted)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="mythago" data-source="post: 2074575" data-attributes="member: 3019"><p><strong>Midnight Reel</strong></p><p></p><p>Red slammed the bellows of her melodeon until it blared, as if anyone in the house could hear her over the shouting at the dice table or the slurred arguments at the bar counter. Eleanor stopped fiddling. She lowered her bow and put her rouged lips next to Red's ear so her friend could hear her over the miners' hollering. </p><p></p><p> "These gents aren't paying us the least attention tonight," Caitlin said. "And you buck naked! If that don't do it, music won't. Take a rest."</p><p></p><p> The two women shifted so that Red was now speaking into Eleanor's ear; a gold-wire earring bumped into Red's chin as Eleanor turned her head. "Madame'll see if we drop quiet," she shouted. "'Sides, this is the warmest seat in the house."</p><p></p><p> Caitlin nodded and straightened up. Her bow skipped over the fiddle's strings and even out-of-tune as they were, Red could tell she was playing "Bold Donnelly." <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18989" target="_blank">Red followed the lively jig as best she could on the melodeon, singing along</a>, her voice catching as the song made her remember growing up in Connemara, her family's house in the green, green meadows, of lthe fairy rings that grew on every slope and hill and of lying on her back not for money, but just to watch the grass blow in the wind and to look for clouds in the clear summer sky.</p><p></p><p> And of Johnny. Poor, lost Johnny.</p><p></p><p> A miner reeking of gin spun by, one of the other girls in his arms. He yelled something that might have been "Cheer up, girlie!" and never noticed his dance partner picking his pockets. Red turned away from him and worked the keys on the melodeon, wishing he would go away, wishing the sun would come up so she could crawl under her wool blankets and sleep for a while and pretend she was anywhere but here.</p><p></p><p> #</p><p></p><p> Her good dress, the only one fit to be worn outside a whorehouse, was mostly dry when she woke up at noon-time. She woke Caitlin and they slipped out to find breakfast. One of the miners had liked her rendition of "The Boys of Ballymote" well enough to tip her four bits, enough to buy them half a rasher of bacon and two loaves of bread with fresh milk to drink.</p><p></p><p> Red picked at her breakfast. Caitlin helped herself to three strips of Red's uneaten bacon. When Red didn't protest she frowned and waved her hand in front of Red's face. "You're mad for bacon," she said, "so something's wrong, that 's for sure. You can't keep thinking about Johnny."</p><p></p><p> Red glared at her. "Why not?" she said. "Is it wrong to mourn the loss of my true love? I should have my heart's desire stolen from me by thieves and killers, and skip home after?"</p><p></p><p> "No, Deidre, not at all," Caitlin said. Red looked around nervously, then remembered they were not at the gentlemen's house; there was nobody she knew here, other than her dear friend, who needed to be kept from her real name. Only Johnny and Caitlin ever called her Deirdre. Red was good enough for the Madame and for customers who cared only for the unusual color of the pretty girl's hair.</p><p></p><p> Caitlin lowered her voice. "You'll waste away to a stick if you keep on like this. I know, it's not been long, but you can't turn to the Hounds for justice in this. He's gone, my love, perhaps to a better place than here."</p><p></p><p> "I never had a chance to say good-bye!" Deirdre cried. Caitlin shushed her. "Shot and thrown into the Bay like a rabid dog. We were going to leave here, Caitlin, he was going to buy out my debt to Madame and we were to marry. He had a claim on a silver mine in Sacramento, he would have been rich, we would have been husband and wife," and then she was sobbing and didn't know or care who else in the inn could hear them.</p><p></p><p> Caitlin gave her a cotton handkerchief perfumed with lilac. Red snuffled a thank-you and blotted at her face; she wasn't wearing face-paint here, outside of the gentlemen's house, but it by now it was habit.</p><p></p><p> "Deirdre," Caitlin hissed. "Are you with Johnny's child?"</p><p></p><p> "What?"</p><p></p><p> "Have you had your time come on since Johnny died?"</p><p></p><p> "No," Deirdre said, puzzled. "Why do you--"</p><p></p><p> "Look," Caitlin said, and pointed at the blue cloth that covered the table. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18992" target="_blank">Deirdre's tears had pooled into two tiny footprints</a>, the size and shape of a newborn baby's.</p><p></p><p> Deirdre put out a trembling handand touched one of the shining footprints with the tip of a painted fingernail. They burst and soaked into the cloth like ordinary tears, leaving nothing but a wet stain to show they had ever been.</p><p></p><p> "You have the Sight, do you?" Caitlin whispered.</p><p></p><p> "My Gran did. I think I did, a little when I was a girl, but not since we left--"</p><p></p><p> "Then see if you can call Johnny. There are no wise women in this devil's town to help you, mind."</p><p></p><p> The thought came to Deirdre as though put there: the coolies. She'd heard the miners when they nattered on late at night--some of them really paid just so someone would listen, she often thought--and they talked about the Chinese magicians, the strange things they'd seen in the opium dens, or how Shanghai Billy or Jimmy Duck had put a strange Chinese curse on some white man who'd cheated him.</p><p></p><p> She knew Caitlin wouldn't approve of such heathen magic, though, and she kept her mouth shut. She nodded and forced herself to eat the last strip of bacon. Her unborn child needed her to eat, to keep her strength so she could find her baby's father and speak to him. Or bring him back.</p><p></p><p> #</p><p></p><p> The hem of her good dress was ragged in several places by the time Deirdre staggered up the hill. Night after night of pasting on her brightest smile at the gentlemen's house while playing the melodeon had gotten her some real money, not enough to pay out Madame, perhaps enough to pay a Chinese magician to help her talk to her dead lover. Her belly was still flat but she tired easily now. She was clean out of breath by the time she got to the place she sought, high in the rough hills outside of the city.</p><p></p><p> There was a noise behind her, as soft as a cat's footfall. She turned to see a Chinaman behind her, calmly pointing a strange sword at her throat. His left hand was extended upward in a manner that put her in mind of a benediction. She set her pack carefully on the ground and spread her hands to show she was unarmed.</p><p></p><p> "Are you Tong Lee?" she asked. "I was told I could find him here. I have money."</p><p></p><p> The man said nothing.</p><p></p><p> "Do you speak English?"</p><p></p><p> "Of course," the man said. His accent was strange, not like any Chinaman's she'd ever heard. "Do you speak Chinese? <em>Nihon?</em>"</p><p></p><p> "Gaelic," Deirdre said. </p><p></p><p> The man smiled and slipped the sword into a sash around his waist. "So you, too, are a foreigner here. Very good. Please understand that not all Orientals are alike, any more than white men are. I am Ito Satoshi, honored bodyguard to Tong-san. Follow me."</p><p></p><p> Ito had to stop and wait for Deidre several times as she struggled over the rocky hillside. The sole of her left shoe finally wore through to a hole; she knew that she would be limping back on the long walk home to the city. Finally Ito led her to a small cave in the hillside; cool air seemed to pour out of it and gentle the stifling California summer. He stopped her and made an apologetic smile, then quickly frisked her for weapons. It was a good deal more courteous than the attentions Deidre was used to, and she didn't mind when he removed a long pearl-headed hatpin from her skirts and tucked it into a fold of his outfit. He stood aside and nodded at her to go in.</p><p></p><p> Deidre put her hands out and felt along the narrow cave walls. Her sun-accustomed eyes made her blind in this darkness. She felt damp, smooth stone under her fingers as she walked. After a few moments the cave took a bend and she saw that it ended in a small room lit by a single paper lantern. She squinted to see the face of the man who sat cross-legged behind it but could not make him out. </p><p></p><p> "Tong Lee?" Deidre said.</p><p></p><p> The man stirred and motioned her to sit. The small cave was lined with carpets and hangings, brighter and more intricate than Deidre had ever seen, even in the Chinatown shops. The smoke from the lantern stung her eyes. She lowered herself to the floor.</p><p></p><p> "I have money," she said, and emptied her purse. Small bags of gold dust, cut coins, even a few whole silver coins tumbled out onto the carpet, their bright jingling muffled as though they had hushed themselves in Tong Lee's presence. The Chinaman ignored them. He offered Deidre a tiny porcelain cup of tea. She took it, expecting his hands to be withered with age, and was surprised to see they were not. She looked into his smiling face and saw that he was quite young, perhaps not much older than she.</p><p></p><p> "You have only heard half-truths from the white men who told you to come here," he said in flawless English. "I am a powerful sorcerer, yes, but this does not require one to be ancient and decrepit. Stamina is important to many of the spells I use. I am told that you are a sorceress yourself?"</p><p></p><p> Deirdre blushed. "No, not at all," she said, and told Tong Lee about the Sight, her Gran being able to see the fair folk, <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18990" target="_blank">about lying in the fairy rings herself hoping and failing to catch a glimpse of them</a>, how she had come to America durng the Famine when her family died, how she had made her way to California and meeting Johnny and the teardrops that showed her she was to be the mother of their child. </p><p></p><p> She was embarassed when she finished, feeling she'd told Tong Lee a great deal more than he had asked and some of that rather private, but he only nodded as though it had been exactly what he expected to hear.</p><p></p><p> "Natural talent is rare. Discipline and the practice to use that talent, rarer still. I will help you cross the barrier to the other lands, if that is what you wish to buy." He leaned across the lantern and took Deidre's hand in his, urgently, and Deidre almost laughed to think that Caitlin did the same thing when she wished to be sure she had Deirdre's attention.</p><p></p><p> "The dead are not easily sent away. You are young. Your love for Johnny is very strong and your grief is fresh. You will be over this in time--"</p><p></p><p> "I will never be over Johnny," she said. "Never. He was my true love and he was taken from me by a pack of ruffians, and I want him back."</p><p></p><p> Tong Lee sighed and for a moment seemed a great deal older. He handed Deidre a little bag sewn of red silk, tied with a black braided cord. Deidre thought the cord felt unsettlingly like braided hair. "Open this bag only a little," he told her, "and put in a pinch of dirt from your lover's grave. Tie it tight and sleep with it under your pillow each night. It will call him to you, but know that it cannot send him back."</p><p></p><p> "Why would I want to send him back?" Deidre asked.</p><p></p><p> Tong Lee said nothing, only stood up to show that their meeting was over. Deirdre dropped the bag into her purse and left all her money lying on Tong Lee's soft floor. Johnny would come back to her, and he would claim his share of the silver mine, and they would never need for money again.</p><p></p><p> #</p><p></p><p> Deidre was so eager to see Johnny that she hardly got to sleep at all the first night, and then only as the sun was turning the sky gray. She was disappointed but not surprised that he never appeared. She thought of telling Caitlin, but she knew that her friend would be horrified at her turning to a Chinaman's magic. </p><p></p><p> The second night was silent and still as well. Deidre was beginning to think Tong Lee had cheated her. Then she heard the church bells tolling from the far side of the city and recalled that it was the Assumption of Mary, and even brash Johnny would be too respectful of Our Lady to rise from the dead on her day of solemnity.</p><p></p><p> The night after that she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, having played the melodeon as Caitlin fiddled all night, demurring to the customers who offered money for her company by claiming Madame wanted the music kept up all night. Madame had said no such thing, but Deidre felt it wouldn't be right to do otherwise, not while she waited for Johnny to come to her.</p><p></p><p> Deirdre awoke in the from a nightmare that faded from memory as soon as her eyes flew open. The waxing moon spilled light through the narrow basement window she and Caitlin shared. Trembling, she pulled the scratchy blankets around her and went to the window. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18991" target="_blank">Through the rough-woven cloth that served as their curtain she saw a dim figure waiting in the empty street.</a> She knew it was Johnny, but something abot the way he stood so still, staring at her through the gap in the cloth, made her hesitate. <em>He is dead</em>, she reminded herself, <em>and I have called him up</em>, and Johnny's return suddenly did not seem so welcome as it had been three nights ago.</p><p></p><p> Then he was at the window, staring at her with dead, empty eyes, and Deidre was too frightened to try and stop him as he easily pried open the sash and let himself in.</p><p></p><p> Deidre backed away from him and tripped over sleeping Caitlin. Her friend woke up with a groan and turned over to see Johnny standing over them. His lack of life seemed to fill the tiny room from ceiling to floor.</p><p></p><p> Deidre struggled to her feet and took Johnny's hands in hers. They were as cold as if he had come from an icehouse. He looked back at her as if he could see through to her insides.</p><p></p><p> "Caitlin," she said. "Play."</p><p></p><p> Caitlin looked at Johnny with wide eyes and crossed herself. Johnny did not move.</p><p></p><p> "<em>Play</em>," Deidre said again, louder. "Play the fiddle. Play us a jig, any you wish, something we might have danced to when he was alive. For the love of God, Caitlin, play!"</p><p></p><p> Caitlin scrambled to the far corner of her room, where her fiddle and bow were wrapped in a clean cloth. Her hands shook as she put the fiddle to her chin and raised the bow. Hesitantly at first, then quicker as practice and habit took over, she played the first notes of "The Flaxen Broom." Deidre tugged at Johnny, pulling him into the dance. </p><p></p><p> His feet stayed rooted for a long moment, then he began to dance. His steps were not as quick as they had been at that first dance when he and Deidre met, where she had tied her hair with her best ribbons and he wore a new suit bought with the first gold dust he had ever mined. Deidre turned him this way and that as they danced to Caitlin's fiddle, as she finished "The Flaxen Broom" and then "Lady Montgomery" and "Lucky Penny", one bright, lively jig after another, as the dead man and his lover kicked and danced in the mean basement room as though it were the gaudiest dance hall in all of California.</p><p></p><p> The last notes of "Shoemaker's Daughter" faded and Caitlin sank to the floor, exhausted. Deidre had never heard her play so well nor so long in all the long nights since they had come to the gentlemen's house. Deidre dipped her nightgown's skirt in a curtsey and Johnny, dear Johnny, gave a bow as courtly as he had ever given her in life.</p><p></p><p> He tilted her chin up in one cold, rigid hand and kissed her full on the lips, and then a cold wind blew in through the open sash and he was gone to wherever it is that dead men go to rest.</p><p></p><p> Deidre watched through the curtain to make sure he was gone and then shut the window. Caitlin rushed over to see. Not even a drunk or a stray dog moved in the street beyond.</p><p></p><p> Caitlin opened her mouth to ask a hundred questions and Deidre interrupted. "Caitlin," she said, "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, but you should know that Johnny left me a parting gift. We can leave Madame tomorrow." She reached into the bodice of her nightgown and pulled out a folded, dirt-stained paper. She opened it up and held it up to the moonlight for Caitlin to read.</p><p></p><p> "'Registered Claim to the Aguila de Oro Mine'," she said. "I told you he had a mine claim and we'd be rich, and I would have been happy just to see him once more before he passed on to Heaven--"</p><p></p><p> "But he brought back a way for you and the baby to be free," Caitlin said wonderingly. "He gave it to you while you were dancing."</p><p></p><p> "Na," Deidre said. "It was hidden in his suit. The thugs who killed him for it never found it. I picked his pocket while we danced."</p><p></p><p> The two friends laughed, and hugged, and danced, and there was no fiddle in Ireland or America that could have kept pace with their joy.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mythago, post: 2074575, member: 3019"] [b]Midnight Reel[/b] Red slammed the bellows of her melodeon until it blared, as if anyone in the house could hear her over the shouting at the dice table or the slurred arguments at the bar counter. Eleanor stopped fiddling. She lowered her bow and put her rouged lips next to Red's ear so her friend could hear her over the miners' hollering. "These gents aren't paying us the least attention tonight," Caitlin said. "And you buck naked! If that don't do it, music won't. Take a rest." The two women shifted so that Red was now speaking into Eleanor's ear; a gold-wire earring bumped into Red's chin as Eleanor turned her head. "Madame'll see if we drop quiet," she shouted. "'Sides, this is the warmest seat in the house." Caitlin nodded and straightened up. Her bow skipped over the fiddle's strings and even out-of-tune as they were, Red could tell she was playing "Bold Donnelly." [url="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18989"]Red followed the lively jig as best she could on the melodeon, singing along[/url], her voice catching as the song made her remember growing up in Connemara, her family's house in the green, green meadows, of lthe fairy rings that grew on every slope and hill and of lying on her back not for money, but just to watch the grass blow in the wind and to look for clouds in the clear summer sky. And of Johnny. Poor, lost Johnny. A miner reeking of gin spun by, one of the other girls in his arms. He yelled something that might have been "Cheer up, girlie!" and never noticed his dance partner picking his pockets. Red turned away from him and worked the keys on the melodeon, wishing he would go away, wishing the sun would come up so she could crawl under her wool blankets and sleep for a while and pretend she was anywhere but here. # Her good dress, the only one fit to be worn outside a whorehouse, was mostly dry when she woke up at noon-time. She woke Caitlin and they slipped out to find breakfast. One of the miners had liked her rendition of "The Boys of Ballymote" well enough to tip her four bits, enough to buy them half a rasher of bacon and two loaves of bread with fresh milk to drink. Red picked at her breakfast. Caitlin helped herself to three strips of Red's uneaten bacon. When Red didn't protest she frowned and waved her hand in front of Red's face. "You're mad for bacon," she said, "so something's wrong, that 's for sure. You can't keep thinking about Johnny." Red glared at her. "Why not?" she said. "Is it wrong to mourn the loss of my true love? I should have my heart's desire stolen from me by thieves and killers, and skip home after?" "No, Deidre, not at all," Caitlin said. Red looked around nervously, then remembered they were not at the gentlemen's house; there was nobody she knew here, other than her dear friend, who needed to be kept from her real name. Only Johnny and Caitlin ever called her Deirdre. Red was good enough for the Madame and for customers who cared only for the unusual color of the pretty girl's hair. Caitlin lowered her voice. "You'll waste away to a stick if you keep on like this. I know, it's not been long, but you can't turn to the Hounds for justice in this. He's gone, my love, perhaps to a better place than here." "I never had a chance to say good-bye!" Deirdre cried. Caitlin shushed her. "Shot and thrown into the Bay like a rabid dog. We were going to leave here, Caitlin, he was going to buy out my debt to Madame and we were to marry. He had a claim on a silver mine in Sacramento, he would have been rich, we would have been husband and wife," and then she was sobbing and didn't know or care who else in the inn could hear them. Caitlin gave her a cotton handkerchief perfumed with lilac. Red snuffled a thank-you and blotted at her face; she wasn't wearing face-paint here, outside of the gentlemen's house, but it by now it was habit. "Deirdre," Caitlin hissed. "Are you with Johnny's child?" "What?" "Have you had your time come on since Johnny died?" "No," Deirdre said, puzzled. "Why do you--" "Look," Caitlin said, and pointed at the blue cloth that covered the table. [url="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18992"]Deirdre's tears had pooled into two tiny footprints[/url], the size and shape of a newborn baby's. Deirdre put out a trembling handand touched one of the shining footprints with the tip of a painted fingernail. They burst and soaked into the cloth like ordinary tears, leaving nothing but a wet stain to show they had ever been. "You have the Sight, do you?" Caitlin whispered. "My Gran did. I think I did, a little when I was a girl, but not since we left--" "Then see if you can call Johnny. There are no wise women in this devil's town to help you, mind." The thought came to Deirdre as though put there: the coolies. She'd heard the miners when they nattered on late at night--some of them really paid just so someone would listen, she often thought--and they talked about the Chinese magicians, the strange things they'd seen in the opium dens, or how Shanghai Billy or Jimmy Duck had put a strange Chinese curse on some white man who'd cheated him. She knew Caitlin wouldn't approve of such heathen magic, though, and she kept her mouth shut. She nodded and forced herself to eat the last strip of bacon. Her unborn child needed her to eat, to keep her strength so she could find her baby's father and speak to him. Or bring him back. # The hem of her good dress was ragged in several places by the time Deirdre staggered up the hill. Night after night of pasting on her brightest smile at the gentlemen's house while playing the melodeon had gotten her some real money, not enough to pay out Madame, perhaps enough to pay a Chinese magician to help her talk to her dead lover. Her belly was still flat but she tired easily now. She was clean out of breath by the time she got to the place she sought, high in the rough hills outside of the city. There was a noise behind her, as soft as a cat's footfall. She turned to see a Chinaman behind her, calmly pointing a strange sword at her throat. His left hand was extended upward in a manner that put her in mind of a benediction. She set her pack carefully on the ground and spread her hands to show she was unarmed. "Are you Tong Lee?" she asked. "I was told I could find him here. I have money." The man said nothing. "Do you speak English?" "Of course," the man said. His accent was strange, not like any Chinaman's she'd ever heard. "Do you speak Chinese? [i]Nihon?[/i]" "Gaelic," Deirdre said. The man smiled and slipped the sword into a sash around his waist. "So you, too, are a foreigner here. Very good. Please understand that not all Orientals are alike, any more than white men are. I am Ito Satoshi, honored bodyguard to Tong-san. Follow me." Ito had to stop and wait for Deidre several times as she struggled over the rocky hillside. The sole of her left shoe finally wore through to a hole; she knew that she would be limping back on the long walk home to the city. Finally Ito led her to a small cave in the hillside; cool air seemed to pour out of it and gentle the stifling California summer. He stopped her and made an apologetic smile, then quickly frisked her for weapons. It was a good deal more courteous than the attentions Deidre was used to, and she didn't mind when he removed a long pearl-headed hatpin from her skirts and tucked it into a fold of his outfit. He stood aside and nodded at her to go in. Deidre put her hands out and felt along the narrow cave walls. Her sun-accustomed eyes made her blind in this darkness. She felt damp, smooth stone under her fingers as she walked. After a few moments the cave took a bend and she saw that it ended in a small room lit by a single paper lantern. She squinted to see the face of the man who sat cross-legged behind it but could not make him out. "Tong Lee?" Deidre said. The man stirred and motioned her to sit. The small cave was lined with carpets and hangings, brighter and more intricate than Deidre had ever seen, even in the Chinatown shops. The smoke from the lantern stung her eyes. She lowered herself to the floor. "I have money," she said, and emptied her purse. Small bags of gold dust, cut coins, even a few whole silver coins tumbled out onto the carpet, their bright jingling muffled as though they had hushed themselves in Tong Lee's presence. The Chinaman ignored them. He offered Deidre a tiny porcelain cup of tea. She took it, expecting his hands to be withered with age, and was surprised to see they were not. She looked into his smiling face and saw that he was quite young, perhaps not much older than she. "You have only heard half-truths from the white men who told you to come here," he said in flawless English. "I am a powerful sorcerer, yes, but this does not require one to be ancient and decrepit. Stamina is important to many of the spells I use. I am told that you are a sorceress yourself?" Deirdre blushed. "No, not at all," she said, and told Tong Lee about the Sight, her Gran being able to see the fair folk, [url="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18990"]about lying in the fairy rings herself hoping and failing to catch a glimpse of them[/url], how she had come to America durng the Famine when her family died, how she had made her way to California and meeting Johnny and the teardrops that showed her she was to be the mother of their child. She was embarassed when she finished, feeling she'd told Tong Lee a great deal more than he had asked and some of that rather private, but he only nodded as though it had been exactly what he expected to hear. "Natural talent is rare. Discipline and the practice to use that talent, rarer still. I will help you cross the barrier to the other lands, if that is what you wish to buy." He leaned across the lantern and took Deidre's hand in his, urgently, and Deidre almost laughed to think that Caitlin did the same thing when she wished to be sure she had Deirdre's attention. "The dead are not easily sent away. You are young. Your love for Johnny is very strong and your grief is fresh. You will be over this in time--" "I will never be over Johnny," she said. "Never. He was my true love and he was taken from me by a pack of ruffians, and I want him back." Tong Lee sighed and for a moment seemed a great deal older. He handed Deidre a little bag sewn of red silk, tied with a black braided cord. Deidre thought the cord felt unsettlingly like braided hair. "Open this bag only a little," he told her, "and put in a pinch of dirt from your lover's grave. Tie it tight and sleep with it under your pillow each night. It will call him to you, but know that it cannot send him back." "Why would I want to send him back?" Deidre asked. Tong Lee said nothing, only stood up to show that their meeting was over. Deirdre dropped the bag into her purse and left all her money lying on Tong Lee's soft floor. Johnny would come back to her, and he would claim his share of the silver mine, and they would never need for money again. # Deidre was so eager to see Johnny that she hardly got to sleep at all the first night, and then only as the sun was turning the sky gray. She was disappointed but not surprised that he never appeared. She thought of telling Caitlin, but she knew that her friend would be horrified at her turning to a Chinaman's magic. The second night was silent and still as well. Deidre was beginning to think Tong Lee had cheated her. Then she heard the church bells tolling from the far side of the city and recalled that it was the Assumption of Mary, and even brash Johnny would be too respectful of Our Lady to rise from the dead on her day of solemnity. The night after that she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, having played the melodeon as Caitlin fiddled all night, demurring to the customers who offered money for her company by claiming Madame wanted the music kept up all night. Madame had said no such thing, but Deidre felt it wouldn't be right to do otherwise, not while she waited for Johnny to come to her. Deirdre awoke in the from a nightmare that faded from memory as soon as her eyes flew open. The waxing moon spilled light through the narrow basement window she and Caitlin shared. Trembling, she pulled the scratchy blankets around her and went to the window. [url="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=18991"]Through the rough-woven cloth that served as their curtain she saw a dim figure waiting in the empty street.[/url] She knew it was Johnny, but something abot the way he stood so still, staring at her through the gap in the cloth, made her hesitate. [i]He is dead[/i], she reminded herself, [i]and I have called him up[/i], and Johnny's return suddenly did not seem so welcome as it had been three nights ago. Then he was at the window, staring at her with dead, empty eyes, and Deidre was too frightened to try and stop him as he easily pried open the sash and let himself in. Deidre backed away from him and tripped over sleeping Caitlin. Her friend woke up with a groan and turned over to see Johnny standing over them. His lack of life seemed to fill the tiny room from ceiling to floor. Deidre struggled to her feet and took Johnny's hands in hers. They were as cold as if he had come from an icehouse. He looked back at her as if he could see through to her insides. "Caitlin," she said. "Play." Caitlin looked at Johnny with wide eyes and crossed herself. Johnny did not move. "[i]Play[/i]," Deidre said again, louder. "Play the fiddle. Play us a jig, any you wish, something we might have danced to when he was alive. For the love of God, Caitlin, play!" Caitlin scrambled to the far corner of her room, where her fiddle and bow were wrapped in a clean cloth. Her hands shook as she put the fiddle to her chin and raised the bow. Hesitantly at first, then quicker as practice and habit took over, she played the first notes of "The Flaxen Broom." Deidre tugged at Johnny, pulling him into the dance. His feet stayed rooted for a long moment, then he began to dance. His steps were not as quick as they had been at that first dance when he and Deidre met, where she had tied her hair with her best ribbons and he wore a new suit bought with the first gold dust he had ever mined. Deidre turned him this way and that as they danced to Caitlin's fiddle, as she finished "The Flaxen Broom" and then "Lady Montgomery" and "Lucky Penny", one bright, lively jig after another, as the dead man and his lover kicked and danced in the mean basement room as though it were the gaudiest dance hall in all of California. The last notes of "Shoemaker's Daughter" faded and Caitlin sank to the floor, exhausted. Deidre had never heard her play so well nor so long in all the long nights since they had come to the gentlemen's house. Deidre dipped her nightgown's skirt in a curtsey and Johnny, dear Johnny, gave a bow as courtly as he had ever given her in life. He tilted her chin up in one cold, rigid hand and kissed her full on the lips, and then a cold wind blew in through the open sash and he was gone to wherever it is that dead men go to rest. Deidre watched through the curtain to make sure he was gone and then shut the window. Caitlin rushed over to see. Not even a drunk or a stray dog moved in the street beyond. Caitlin opened her mouth to ask a hundred questions and Deidre interrupted. "Caitlin," she said, "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, but you should know that Johnny left me a parting gift. We can leave Madame tomorrow." She reached into the bodice of her nightgown and pulled out a folded, dirt-stained paper. She opened it up and held it up to the moonlight for Caitlin to read. "'Registered Claim to the Aguila de Oro Mine'," she said. "I told you he had a mine claim and we'd be rich, and I would have been happy just to see him once more before he passed on to Heaven--" "But he brought back a way for you and the baby to be free," Caitlin said wonderingly. "He gave it to you while you were dancing." "Na," Deidre said. "It was hidden in his suit. The thugs who killed him for it never found it. I picked his pocket while we danced." The two friends laughed, and hugged, and danced, and there was no fiddle in Ireland or America that could have kept pace with their joy. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Ceramic DM- The Renewal ( Final judgement posted)
Top