CHAPTER TEN: THE SORCERESS.
Mist swirls. Out of the mist emerges a face, it is a beautiful face, the skin is pale and smooth like porcelain, with rosy cheeks, the lips a red cupids bow, the nose straight and the brows arch daintily over closed eyes. The eyelids open and reveal empty eye sockets. The perfect mask of a face has no eyes. The mist clears some more and reveals the face is a mask held in a pair of hands, the hands belong to a blonde woman in blue, with peacock feathers in her hat. She places the face within a book and closes it. Mist swirls around the book and it fades.
Violet awakes and smiles, she’s had a dream about her great grandmother, she’s given her the answer of how to defeat the Sorceress and rescue Ayden. She thinks back over her dream, but finds she is none the wiser about what to do. Does she need the face, and what for, and it’s in a book, but which book and where is it? She gets up and goes and makes a cup of tea, trying to figure out the puzzle. But she gets nowhere, a face in a book, how can that help if she can find it? Why couldn’t she have been less cryptic at this most vital of times.
She walks slowly into work, going over and over the dream, re-running it in her mind, trying to figure out any details or anything that might be of relevance that might help her to solve this puzzle. She arrives at work early and walks into the central room of the library, the books are stacked on shelves all around her and high above her. She turns in a circle looking all around her. Where would be the best place to hide a book? With lots of other books, in a library, and who would be the best person to find a book? A librarian. She was in a library and she was a librarian. If anyone could find the book from the dream it was her. She was also a very good librarian and she knew every book in this library and where it was, or at least where it should be. She just wished she knew where to start looking. Time to go about this scientifically, the book held a face, so it would have to be the right size to fit a face in, she hoped, so that ruled out a lot of the smaller books. She just wished she’d been able to see the cover of the book better, but too must mist around it had obscured it. It would have to be an old book, if her great grand mother put it there. She consulted the computer. Her shoulders sagged when she saw the number of books the library had already acquired and still had in the approximate years that her great grandmother would have placed it there. This was a very old university and consequently the library was likewise old, with lots of the old books which Violet loved. From what she could recall of the book from the dream, she was sure it was leather bound, a dark colour, possibly blue, in fact she was sure it was blue, as it was very similar in tone to the jacket that her great grandmother was wearing. Blue books weren’t quite as usual, an image of a old blue book, with a marbled inner cover and marbled edges, sprang to her mind, marbled in peacock colours of blue and green. That must be the book chosen by her peacock feather wearing great grandmother.
But where was it, she should know this. She began walking through the library instinctively, allowing her intuition for the books within the library to lead her. She filled her ears with the special respectful silence which was in the library, smelt the paper, and ink. She came to a spiral staircase and climbed it up to the next level, feeling the cold metal of the banister under her hands, hearing her soft footsteps on the metal treads. She walked past some more shelves of books in a dreamy daze, and up another spiral staircase to the highest level of the library. She walked past more shelves of books, running her hands gently along their spines feeling the different widths of the books, the different textures, their warmth. She turned to walk between two sets of shelves; the smell of old musty books in her nostrils now, with the hint of the sharp tang of leather. She walked between the shelves, her hand brushing the spines of the books, slowing down now, feeling each book individually, each spine, some books tall, some thin, some fat, some well worn, some smooth but none were the one she wanted. She passed on to the end of the row and there her hand rested on a book and paused. It was a large book, tall, but quite thin, she could smell the leather, and feel the smoothness and unadornment of it. With out looking at the book, she gently eased it off the shelf and held it in her hands in front of her. She held a plain looking book, bound in blue leather, darkened with age, it had marbling on the page edges, in blue and green, now starting to fade from their original vivid colours. She opened the book, noticing the marbling on the inner covers, still in its vivid peacock colours. It was a Victorian children’s story, the story of Sleeping Beauty and opposite the title page was a beautifully painted illustration of Sleeping Beauty’s face. A beautiful pale face, with rosy cheeks and closed eyes like a china doll’s. The painting of the face was about life size. She smoothed her hand over the page but it was just a painting on a page, what was she to do with it? She glanced through the rest of the book, hoping to find some clue but nothing had been added to the story, no helpful little notes written in a margin, no useful bookmarks which contained spells or could be used as an amulet. Just the story, beautifully illustrated, but she couldn’t help noticing that the artist who had painted the other illustrations was not the one who had painted the face, nor did the face look like the ones of Sleeping Beauty in the rest of the book. The artist of the other illustrations also had their name fairly prominently stated and had his signature in the corner of all the illustrations; the artist for the face had neither. Another puzzle it would seem.
It was time to open the library so she took the book back to her desk and looked at it whenever she had a chance, trying to figure it out, she even tried reading it upside down and back to front, but she just got strange looks from Anne. Aliya came in later looking expectant and asking after her night. She was delighted that Violet had had a dream but her smile soon faded when the crypticness of the dream was revealed. Still she took the Sleeping Beauty book straight home to ponder on herself.
Violet returned home pondering the painting of the face in the book. She pottered about her flat in a daze, half-heartedly tidying up, the images going through her mind of the face in the book and Ayden’s the last time she’d seen him as he’d looked at her in contempt and then the adoration he’d shown the Sorceress. She must break the spell he was under, but how, she knew the book and the painting must hold a clue, but what?
She started to get ready for the Venetian Masked ball early, she’d agreed to meet Aliya well before the start of the Ball so they could plan what to do. She hoped the Aliya had had more luck with the painting in the book than she had. She dressed her hair on top of her head in a mass of curls and applied her make up carefully with lots of blue and green around her eyes and blue lipstick. Her gown was of a dark blue silk, with a long full skirt and with the front of the bustier embellished with a peacock design in blue and green and gold. She picked her peacock mask off the wall of her bedroom and placed it in front of her face. At least the Sorceress shouldn’t recognise her anyway. She pulled a long black velvet cloak from her wardrobe and flung it around her shoulders, putting the hood up over her head. She took a taxi to Aliya’s cottage and found her just finishing getting ready. The living room of her cottage was strewn with books, candles, bunches of herbs, and quite an assortment of amulets and strange looking objects. But at the centre of this strange clutter was the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ book open at the page with the painting of the face still serenely asleep. Aliya emerged from her bedroom, clad all in a long white gown with hanging sleeves, embellished all over it with unusual silver symbols. She had her long hair loose down her back entwined with flowers and leaves. She looked stunning, but she didn’t look happy.
“You look just fantastic,” Violet said enthusiastically. “That dress is so unusual, it’s beautiful.”
“I have tried everything to unlock that book, but nothing works,” she said in a frustrated voice. “I’ve even been through the contents of my kitchen, nothing. It just needs something to act as a key to open it, but I’ve tried everything I can think of. Oh you look very nice as well.”
Violet did an exaggerated curtsey, flourishing her mask in front of he
r. Aliya suddenly exclaimed and leapt towards her, grabbing the mask off her.
“Of course peacock feathers.” She brushed the masks feathers over the painting of the face and muttered some incomprehensible words. The painting suddenly started glowing on the face and a bright line intensified around the face’s outline, the eyelids opened to a bright light and then grew dark as the light faded. Violet looked at the picture curiously, it seemed changed but she couldn’t work out how until she moved her head and realised the painting had become three-dimensional. She reached out her hand towards it and picked the face up off the page, it was a mask, the eyes blank holes, for anyone to see through. Violet was about to put it up to her own face to look through, when Aliya put out her hand. “Don’t, we don’t know what this mask is or what it can do, yet.”
Looking at the face again a phase from her memory came back to her from a scene which she had been going over and over in her head all afternoon, she hadn’t really being paying the phase any attention, it was background noise to the memory of Ayden’s face. But now it jumped out prominently in her mind. The boy had been there too and he’d said amongst his other ramblings. “Why do you wear a mask anyway? What’s behind it? What’s your real face like, really? Do you have a real face?”
Violet looked at Aliya. “This is the Sorceress’s real face.”
“No, it couldn’t be,” said Aliya in disbelief. “One of her masks perhaps, with a power which will help us to defeat her, but it can’t be her real face. Surely she has her real face on her head.”
“Whether it’s her real face or not, how do we use it, what do you think it does?”
“I don’t know and it could be dangerous to mess about with it to find out. I know a spell I can do to try and get an idea of what magical properties it may have.”
Aliya collected some herbs, candles and other accruements and began her spell over the mask. After she had concluded her spell a look of puzzlement crossed her face and she looked long and thoughtfully at the mask held in her hands. “Hmm.”
“You know what it can do?”
“Yes and no,” she replied still staring at the mask, “It has no magical properties what so ever.”
“What do you mean it had no magical properties?”
“Just that, it has no hint of mysticism, it has never been used for a magic, or as an amulet or a charm. It has absolutely no trace of any magical or mystical properties or secrets. It is just a mask.” She tossed it down on to the table.
“But it must do something, have some sort of power. Otherwise why would it be hidden like it was by my great grandmother? There must be something it can do.”
“If it has it is not a magical one.”
Violet picked up the mask and turned it over in her hands looking at it closely, but even she had to admit it did just look like a fairly ordinary mask, it didn’t feel in any way unusual, not especially hot or cold, she didn’t feel a chill go down her spine, or some sense of foreboding as she looked at it. She half expected to see ‘made in china’ stamped on the inside.
“But it must have some importance, otherwise why would my great grandmother hide it and then tell me where it was. She’s never been wrong in her dreams before. Do you think it could deflect any of the Sorceresses spells or something like that?”
“It defiantly won’t act as a shield against the Sorceress, the only thing it will protect you against is a mild breeze.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Violet feeling rather down hearted.
“The only thing we can do, go to the ball, hope we can figure out what the Sorceress is planning and hope something comes up to allow us to hinder her.”
“What about Ayden?” asked Violet quietly?
Aliya shrugged her shoulders, “We’ll have to see. Come on let’s get to the ball.” So saying she picked up her mask of green oak leaves. “Anyway I have a little bag of tricks which might come in useful. Lets just hope she doesn’t recognise us and doesn’t notice us snooping.”