Until The Clock Stikes (NACS Remake)

Chapter 11

"Show me Thomas." I whisper to the mirror, watching anxiously.
The mirror is gold and ordained with pearl, swirling like smoke around the glass surface, which is cracked straight through the middle. Both halves glow a shimmery gold at my request and fade to show Thomas's lived in cottage.
He's speaking to someone at the table, but his words are just a mumble.
"Closer." My voice is hoarse at his image, which enlarges.
His voice clears. "-locket get in the Queens hands when a close friend of mine swear he saw you rip it off her neck in a fight that night." His voice is commanding and cold, on a mission.
The mirror swivels angles and I see Lucy sitting casually next to him, exuding sexual energy.
"You're kidding, right?" She replies darkly, leaning forward.
"Looks like even now she's got you fooled."
Thomas shakes his head, leaning away from her. "You know what I don't understand, is that you and her were so close as kids and now, when she's being accused of murder and treason, you just back down and accept what you're being fed." He retorts, getting up to pour himself a cup of tea.
"You know nothing about me." Lucy sneers, getting up from her seat.
"Everything reminds me of her." Thomas whispers as she gets to the door, she stills. "I'll find her scent on my couch pillows, her mug in my cupboard." He falters.
"I know you're not a killer, Lucy. Just like I know she isn't, wherever she is." He waves he hand outward in frustration and knocks his tea over.
"I didn't want to." Lucy whispers. "But when I went to go see the Queen that night to talk about an arranged marriage, I got there and-" Her voice is shaking, she turns to Thomas with a hand on her mouth. "Oh, it was so awful. She made me place the necklace as evidence."
"Who?" Thomas asks her, closing their distance and gripping her shoulders.
"I can't tell you." She breaks away from his touch, slamming the door behind her.
The scene goes black as the first tear hits the mirror, splashing.
"Ma chere." Harriet sighs behind me.
"Fairy Harriet, I know who framed me." I tell her, standing from the soft indigo grass. "I need to go back."
She sighs, staring at me sadly.
"I gave you the mirror so you'd stop asking me that. vous êtes si exigeant."
"I'm sorry I keep asking but I just.. I can't stay here forever. I've got a life to get back to, and love to explore." I reply.
Harriet stares at me wistfully.
"You sound like your mother." Her smile is wistful and sad.
"You knew her?" I ask, shocked.
"Of coarse, ma chere." She replies in a clipped tone.
The silence that surrounds us is comfortable and I decide to not push that subject, instead I turn to the beautiful world that surrounds us.
Purple leaves, abundant on tree I've never seen. Harriet watches me breathe in her world.
"It's beautiful here, isn't it?" Her voice is proud.
"You still haven't told me where we are and I've been here a week." I remind her.
With a deep sigh she thinks it out.
"Well, you're in our world, Mia. We're not on earth anymore but not necessarily anywhere else either."
"We're not?" I scold myself, I should've known. If fairies freely flew in forests on earth we would've heard about it.
"It's called the seam." She picks a leaf off a near tree and closes her hands around it. I watch, drawing closer, she opens her hands and I tiny fairy sits on her palm. The pixie curtsies and flies off until she's just a speck of light in the thousands of twinkling stars. "Time and anything of convention is meaningless here."
"If time is meaningless, then how long have I been here?" I ask, alarmed.
Harriet freezes for a second, thinking.
"Not long, ma chere." She says, nodding. "Well you left right before winter, and it's spring." She declares triumphantly.
"Spring!" I shout, fumbling for the mirror I left in the grass."
"Show me Will." The transitioning gold shimmer fades into his face. I've forgotten how beautiful the Prince was. He's speaking with his father in a stern voice, the argument seems rather heated.
"Mom wouldn't care if I have this ball! She's dead." He declares furiously, and then softer. "She's dead."
"It's been months son, I feel it. I know the pain you still feel for her but she's not here and you need something right now." Papa Will stares desperately at him, eyes searching. "Think of it as the last ball before you're wed."
Will sighs, turning away from his father. "Very well."
"Now I have a tea with." He visibly shudders and pauses. "Lucy's mother."
Will laughs at this. "She's leaving once the wedding is over."
"I know son, but she came the night your mother died and she gives me the creeps."
At this I laugh out loud and the picture fades again.
"Show me stepmother."
She's standing in Lucy's bedroom, launching over a cauldron.
Lucy stands as far away as possible, eyes wide. "Mother, are you sure this is going to work?"
"Do I have to do everything for you?" Stepmother responds.
"Put this in his drink and Thomas will forget all about that wretched wench."
"What the point though?" She asks in impatience. "Mia's gone, nobody's asking questions. Everyone thinks she killed-"
"Wrong! King William doesn't believe that, and neither does that damned gardner!"
"So make him drink this, I have a tea date with the king." Stepmother hands her a vial and heads for the door.
"When? Its not like I can just randomly make him coffee." She's says chuckling nervously.
"The ball silly girl, why do you think I manipulated the king into keeping it scheduled?"
Oh no.
"Fairy Harriet!"
"Oh I'm way ahead of you!" Harriet pulls out her wand and furiously gets to work.
"The ball is in two days, that about an hour here." She tells me nervously searching for something.
With a high-pitched whistle, numerous fairies emerge and line up in front of Harriet.
She starts rounding off instructions like a drill coach, breaking them up in teams.
"Yes Queen Harleret." The fairies chorus.
She turns to me with a sigh. "Now then."
"You're the Queen?" I ask, a little confused.
"Hardly relevant, ma chere." She responds, circling around me. "Blue is your color."
With a snap of her finger my dress violently balloons and twist around my body, snapping back out into a new dress.
It's dusty blue like the fabric Jay picked out for me, it's sits on my elegantly, rippling like water with my movement.
"Now, shoes."
A group of fairies stumbling out of the sky, landing in a heap.
"We brought you a pail of water!" Heaves out the leader of the crew.
"Perfect!" Harriet screams, spinning her wand. "Crystilia Solidara."
The water bends to her will enclosing around my feet, crystalizing.
"So whats your plan?" She asks, as a carriage bounds across the fields toward us.
"Can I take the mirror?" I ask her, and then I gasp. "I need a disguise."
She swirls her hand, a gold pocket watch floats toward me.
"Keep this on you at all times. If you lose it or close the interface the magic will cease." She tells me.
The carriage halts in front of us and Harriet sits behind the horses, grabbing the reins.
My heart is hammering in my chest when I feel the carriage head off.
"You're going to be alright!" Harriet calls laughing as we tilt upward into the sky.
'No, Demia.' My father's voice is sharp and more alert than he's been since he got sick, I still, staring at him.
'Let me say goodbye if I must. You dont get to take that away because you're afraid my sweet girl.' His voice is gentle, placing a hand on my cheek.
'Mia, I want you to promise me that you'll stay kind and thoughtful, no matter how my death affects you.' His green eyes stare at me, waiting for an answer.
'But Daddy.' I whimper. 'When am I supposed to think of myself?'
He smiles at me, his breath ragged. 'When being kind isn't enough to get you through it.'

"I'm sorry Daddy." I whisper. "I can't be that girl right now."
"We're crossing the barrier!" Harriet shouts and then a horrible violent wind knocks us sideways. I violent grasp the mirror against myself and let out a scream.