GraceFall [ONC 2024]

9

The Crooked Place ... Somewhere ... else ...

The room shifted. One moment a kaleidoscope of horrors, the next a quaint tea room, then a garden of fringed birds masquerading as elegant topiaries. The woman, too, shifted. One moment she sat upon a bag of bones and mucous, the next a Regency chair, the next a wicker sun lounger. And she, herself, changed. From the, albeit, sensuously beautiful dark, young woman, to a child bearing pigtails and a striped pinafore dress and back to the old woman. All without changing at all.

Eventually, things began to settle down and stabilise. The room became a room. The woman remained old and stooped. The nausea threatening to erupt from Betty became little more than a turning of the stomach and the old woman looked around, rather pleased with herself, continuing to sip from a cup that now only looked like a cup, her little finger raised as she drank.

"Ah. The Crooked Place is starting to accept you. That's good." She patted the arm of the chair she sat upon. "She tends not to like strangers. You should consider yourself privileged."

"Look!" Betty jumped to her feet, though she couldn't remember sitting, and she had no idea what she was about to say, wiggling a threatening finger. "I just wanted a few questions answered, for an article, not to be transported to some place Lewis Carroll vomited up from an LSD nightmare!"

"I'm giving you the answers. Answers to questions you aren't even certain you wanted to ask." A beagle accepted the cup and saucer from Madame Misstery and wandered away, its tail thrashing happily. "We stand at a precipice. With Principle gone, none can stand in the way of what Psycona is becoming. Feelings he thought lost forever with the loss of his people has broken him and only you can bring him back to the light."

Betty gripped her fingernails into her scalp, turning in a circle and trying to avoid looking at anything. This madness had to end. She wasn't responsible for Psycona, or whatever troubles the super suffered. She was a reporter. She would say 'only a reporter', but there was nothing about her reporting she could describe as 'only'. Saying that, she still had no idea what she could do. And Madame Misstery continued to look at her as though they only engaged in a polite, fireside chat.

"Why can't you do it? I assume you have powers? This ..." Betty waved her hand around her. "... isn't the normal kind of thing you find in a psychic's shop. Who are you? What are you?"

"I'm just a woman. Truly. But, yes, I have power, but power won't save Psycona, or the world." Madame Misstery rose to her feet, tugging her laddered stockings up. "Only the truth and reality can find victory here. Psycona will see me as a threat and will fight, and much suffering will follow. What he needs is a friend."

Madame Misstery raised her hand and moved to slip one of the rings from her fingers. The silver ring with the blue stone. She held it up to the light, admiring the cut and depth of the colour. Then, with a sigh of great loss, she offered it to Betty. It looked a little big for her fingers. Still, she took it from the old woman's hand, looking at it much as Madame Misstery had.

"It's beautiful." To her surprise, the ring became smaller as she held it. "What's it for?"

"It will unlock your potential, while allowing you to process the change without overwhelming you. It will hide your power until it needs to be seen and it will also look lovely on one of those delicate fingers." The old woman grabbed Betty's hand, turning it over and tracing her fingers along the skin. "What moisturiser do you use? I've tried everything and I still have dry skin. Never mind. Off you pop. Things are getting bad out there."

Before Betty could begin to protest, Madame Misstery slipped the ring upon her finger and everything changed.

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