Matthew Summers Secret Santa 2006

This following is a short story written by Net (aka Matthew Summers), author of numerous webcomics including Tales of the Traveling Gnome, Tales of Pylea and Knights of Vesteria. It was done for the Secret Santa 2006 exchange. Most people involved drew fanart for other comics, but since Net is a writer not an draw…er, he wrote this awsome little fanfiction dealy. He’s big into fantacy stuff and it shows.

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For IV:

The door opened into the small room with the protest of ancient hinges, long overdue for replacement. The couple peered through the darkness and smoke with concern, and the woman sitting behind the round table chuckled to herself. The marks were always the same, so full of fear and trepidation… and always so willing to part with their hard-earned greenbacks, just to hear someone say something nice about some dead relative they think they might have slighted in some past life.

Time for the act… she stood and lit the single candle in the room with a lighter. The couple stepped backwards in alarm as the illumination brought the crooks and caverns of her pitted face to light, and she grinned a gap-toothed grin. She screeched, “Welcome, welcome! Come in, my dearies! Come in, don’t be shy!”

“Er…” The man seemed hesitant, but at a nervous nod from the woman, he carefully sat down opposite of the old woman. When the woman – his wife, the old woman assumed by their familiarity to each other and the rings on their fingers – when the wife had sat down next to him, the husband cleared his throat and said, “We… we were told you’d be able to help us?”

“Ah, well, that depends on what you want help with, dearie!” The old woman placed a finger against her temple. “Matters of the mind and the dearly departed are my trade. If you want someone to clear your gutters or paint your house, that’s another thing entirely and well beyond my capabilities!” Cackling gleefully at her own joke, she turned and opened a small cabinet nearby. She pulled out two more candles, lighting them with the flame from the first before placing them next to the burning one. “So, which is it?”

“Er…” The wife moved to say something, but the old woman stopped her with a hand.

“Ah, ah, ah… Let old McCreary show you her abilities first!” She closed her eyes to slits as she concentrated. She studied the two people before her carefully… the worry on their faces, the anxious looks they shot each other and the obvious sadness… textbook case. She grinned and moved her head from side to side slightly, crooning under her breath.

“You… you want to contact someone… someone dear to you, someone that has perhaps died recently?”

“Y… yes! Yes, that’s right!” The wife’s eyes lit up, any doubt disappearing from her face.

It usually was. The old woman barely managed to hide the knowing smirk as she continued, “Someone dear… someone dear… I’m feeling like it’s a son or a daughter.”

“Daughter, yes.” The man edged forward, his eyes on the old crone. “Her name is… well, was… Kame.”

“Kame. Yes… it will take me a bit to focus in on her spirit.” The old woman opened her eyes again and reached back into the cabinet again. “Let me get everything prepared while I’m contacting her in the great beyond.”

As the old woman pulled a crystal ball and more candles out of the cabinet, the man cleared his throat. “To… to be honest, we weren’t sure that we believed in this sort of thing. I mean… it’s not very religious, now is it?”

“Hah!” Cackling again, the seer lit two more candles and placed them next to the crystal ball. “Dearie, this is OLD religions we’re dealing with here! People died long before they ever thought to make up gods to pray to! You just relax, and ol’ McCreary won’t let you down, I promise!”

Now it was time to really pour on the act. She cracked her knuckles and said, “I believe… I believe I can feel her… she was young, not even out of the house yet?” At the wife’s enthusiastic nod, she continued, “Yes… yes, a teen, troubled but a good kid underneath it all.”

“We…” The husband choked for a moment.

“You wish to know how her afterlife is treating her, yes?”

A nod.

Typical. Troubled teen dies, and parents want reassurance that they didn’t do *TOO* bad of a job raising their brood. Easy enough. “Very well.”

She spent the next five minutes crooning under her breath and muttering various words to indicate that she was “connecting to the spirits of the dead.” It was the same every time, nothing would appear in the crystal ball, and she’d make up some crazy bullshit about how clear the picture was to her inner sight, and how the person in question was doing fine, yadda yadda yadd…

Her gaze drifted almost accidentally down to the crystal ball, and only the sheer force of many years of practice kept her from crying out in fear as the interior of the ball clouded up and became misty. Her eyes locked on the smoke within, stunned.

The husband and wife, thinking it was all part of the process, leaned forward expectantly. “Is… is that her soul? Can you see her?”

“What? Oh. OH!” She shook her head to clear it and peered into the crystal ball, furious. If that damned Jake was pulling a prank on her again, he was going to pay her fee if the marks left. “Yes, yes, this would be… her?!?” Aghast, she nearly fell out of her chair as a dark-haired teenager’s image swam to the surface of the mist, deep black hair covering a tattoo over a third of her face. “Did… did she have black hair and a tattoo?”

Please say no please say no please say no…

The husband nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes, that’s Kame! Do you see her?”

Amazed, the old crone turned back to the two. “You… you do not?”

“Are… are we supposed to?”

“… No. No, you are not.” She regained her composure after a long moment, continuing, “Though you are correct, what you see is her soul, or a reflection of it at least. I… I can see her within it.”

“Can you… can you tell us what she’s doing?”

“I can try.” She turned back to the crystal ball, nervous and more than a bit fearful about this new territory she was encroaching into… but the mark was the mark, and the money had yet to cross her palm. “She… she looks rather calm, actually.”

“Calm?”

“Yes, calm… she’s seated in a chair, from the looks of it. There…” She peered into the haze. “There appears to be someone with her, another woman.”

“Oh, so she’s not alone? That’s a relief.” The wife was visibly cheering up by the minute. “Can you tell who she is?”

“No, I cannot. I do get the feeling from her that she… knows the person?”

“So she’s with a friend. That… that’s a good thing, right?”

The crone smirked. “Would you prefer an eternity alone?” She watched the two converse for a moment before she wrenched her eyes away again. “It appears that she is at least at peace, and she is with a friend. I would have to say that your daughter is where she is supposed to be, and that you have nothing more to worry about further. She is in good hands.”

The relief that washed over the couple was the strongest she’d ever seen. They stood, and the man pulled five large bills out of his wallet and handed them to her.

She raised an eyebrow at the amount. “Sir, I’m flattered, but you do realize this is far beyond my fee.” Part of her was screaming at her sudden honesty in rage, but somehow… she couldn’t feel the urge to lie and cheat the people before her for some reason.

“Yes, I know. If I had more, I would give you that, too.” He took her wrinkled hands in his and shook her hands heartily. “You have no idea how much that has helped us.”

The wife was crying, though a smile was on her face. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The smile on her face was genuine, the first honest smile she could remember cracking the time streaks on her face in many, many years. She watched them leave, her mind rolling over everything she’d seen…

Unnoticed to her, the smoky fog in the crystal ball began to dim, replaced by the fiery flames of hell and damnation. A deep black, hooded figure peered out of the crystal ball for a long moment, fixing the old crone with a gaze of hatred…

Then the haze was gone, obliterated… and the crystal ball shattered into a thousand pieces, making the old woman push away from the table in shock.

>Net

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