Agatha's Tea Party (14 Oct 2001) Agatha invites Alice and Elinor to Harcourt Manor for a tea party.

Harcourt Manor, Sitting Room
This room was doubtless built in the period when, after dinner, the gentlemen would retire to the smoking parlor for brandy and cigars, and the women would adjourn to the sitting room. It is small enough to be cozy for four women in wickerwork chairs or on the couch about a low round table of a dark mahogany wood, standing on vines-carved legs, and a door opens into the kitchen.

Old-style black-and-white photographs hang over the walls, depicting the Harcourt family:Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt with their children, John, Anastasia, and Bryant. John is the oldest of the children, dressed in a conservative suit, Anastasia in a lacey white dress and a sun hat, and Bryant is the youngest, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and pants.

Agatha sits on the couch, puzzling over a tea-tray resting on the table before her. Mr. Kuning's clay tea-set, while very interesting in appearance, just doesn't look ... quite normal to her eyes, and she's not sure she's got the tea in the right pot -- that big one is the pot, isn't it? Maybe she should have suggested a horse-back riding party instead. Just then, the doorbell rings.

Rushing to the entry in her Sunday dress, Agatha reaches the front door and opens it with a hearty, "Hello!"

A raven-haired girl with an old-fashioned traveler's bag on one shoulder stands next to a younger blonde girl. The dark-haired girl smiles at Agatha. "Good afternoon, Agatha. Thank you for the invitation," she says, curtseying.

Alice beams a smile at Agatha, and curtsies as well. "Hi, Agatha!" she exclaims in greeting as bobs. "Thank you for inviting me!"

"Please come in!" Agatha says, holding the door open and smiling. "Do you need help with your bag, Elinor?"

"No, I am fine, thank you." Elinor steps through the doorway, looking about at the hall curiously. "What a lovely manor," she remarks. "You said the owner left it in your care?"

Nodding, Agatha says, "Yes, although it mainly involves locking and unlocking the door for the people doing work, and feeding the animals," as she leads the girls to the sitting room, where she also has a warm plate of fresh sugar cookies set out. "I have to warn you, though: this is the first time I've thrown a tea party."

The little blonde girl follows the taller black in, holding a opened letter in her hands. An address is written on it, and the few words that can be made out beneath Alice's hand look familiar. Once inside Alice takes a moment to look around, and asks, "There ... aren't any ghosts, right, Agatha?"

Agatha holds a chair out for Alice, and considers the question seriously. "I haven't spent the night here yet, but otherwise I haven't seen or heard any. I spend most of the time out clearing weeds in the garden."

"You must have known him for a long time, for him to trust you with such responsibility," Elinor comments, following the others into the room. She sets her bag on the coffee table, pausing to look at the photographs on the mantle. "What curious paintings," she says, peering at them.

"Well, I guess I made a good first impression," Agatha says once Alice is seated. "I gutted a fish for him."

"Those are photographs, Elinor," the redhead adds, once she figures out what Elinor is looking at. "From a camera, like the one I used. Well ... maybe not like the one I used. I think they weighed like twenty pounds and were powered by gunpowder back when those were taken."

Alice sits down on -- or perhaps more precisely climbs in to -- the chair offered, and after settling in, folds her hands in her lap to rest on the letter she was carrying. The chair dwarfs the little girl, seeming as a throne, and she needs to sit on the edge of it to reach the table. "Mr. Kuning is a nice man. I talked to him when he said I was too little to help out. Then my brother took me home. He works here, too," she explains.

"Powered by gunpowder?" Elinor glances at Agatha, blinking, then back at the photographs. "How very odd!" She shakes her head, then moves to join the others at the table, nodding to Alice. "I hope I may meet him some time, then."

"How do you like your tea, Alice?" Agatha asks the small blonde after making sure she's got all the ingredients ready: milk, sugar, lemon, honey and plenty of napkins.

"Milk and sugar please," Alice answers with the air of one who knows what she likes in her tea, an experienced tea drinker -- real or imagined. She turns her smile to Elinor. "He's kind of mysterious, Mr. Kuning. He ... feels kind of unusual."

"I will have mine plain, thank you," Elinor says. She sits in the chair beside Alice, smoothing her skirt over her legs. "Unusual?" she asks the little blonde.

Agatha carefully pours Alice a cup from the odd teapot, and mixes in a bit of milk and sugar. She adds a sugar cookie to the saucer before passing it over to the girl. She then pours a cup for Elinor, and adds a cookie to that saucer as well.

Alice nods a little. She accepts her tea with a "thank you", picking up the cookie with both hands and looks around the room as she seems to consider how to respond. Her nose wrinkles faintly, and she purses her lips in concentration. "I don't know," she offers, " ... maybe ... like he's trying to not say something? I told him about our game because he was a nice man, but I think maybe he's played a game like ours before maybe."

The black-haired girl takes a sip from her cup, then coughs, blinking a few times. She sets the cup back on the saucer and takes a nibble from the sugar cookie, listening to Alice. "Really? A game like ours? Did he say anything about it?"

"He was a soldier," Agatha says after fixing her own cup - plain with a bit of honey. "He wanted to retire to the country and learn how to fish."

"Is being a soldier a lot like a fairy game, Agatha?" asks Alice, looking between her and Elinor.

"Well," Agatha says, thinking. "I imagine coming back to normal life after fighting in a war must be a bit like walking into a fairy tale," she rationalizes, and adds another teaspoon of honey to her cup, wondering if she brewed the tea for too long.

"Oh." Alice nibbles her cookie, then places it down on the plate before carefully wiping her hands on a napkin and lifting her tea cup to take a sip. She sips, her face screwing up noticeably, but she smiles through it. The tea gets put back down shortly after in favor of the cookie. "It's very nice tea, Agatha."

"Would you like a bit more sugar for it, Alice?" Agatha asks. "I hadn't expected it to come out quite this bitter," she adds, sounding a bit apologetic. "I'm more used to tea coming in those little individual bags."

"I think I will have some honey after all, Agatha," Elinor answers. "It's an -- unusual flavor." Her hesitation over the word "unusual" is barely noticeable. "I think ... Ainigton is more like a fairy-tale than my own land. It is so serene here, simple and beautiful. Mirari is so much more ... complex."

Agatha passes the honey to Elinor, and asks her, "I was meaning to ask you a few questions about that, if you didn't mind?"

Elinor adds a few generous dollops of honey to the tea, nodding to Agatha. "Not at all. What did you wish to ask?"

Alice nods, putting the cookie down and repeating the same steps of hand cleaning as previous. She holds out her cup for some more sugar. "Yes, please." To Elinor she offers, "I always thought the fairy world would be very pretty and full of unicorns and dancing elves and courts. I thought that it would be ... " She thinks on the word. "... exciting. But I didn't think how a fairy would see Ainigton. I like the park by the school. It's very quiet there on weekends. Very peaceful."

"Well, I've been wondering about your arrival," Agatha says to Elinor and sips her recently honeyed tea. "I mean, you came on the bus, so you must have used a more distant Siege, right?"

Elinor nods. "I came through the Siege of Stone and Water, and then walked with Sir Bruin to the highway the bus comes down. Bruin tricked the driver into stopping the bus, and then I got on."

"Sir Bruin must be pretty strong, if he carried your trunk all that way," Agatha comments. "He sounds like someone who wears a bearskin."

"He is strong," Elinor says. She pauses. "And he does wear a bear's skin, after a fashion."

The little girl giggles. "Like the drawings at school? Bear-zerkers? That's a very silly costume."

The raven-haired girl stirs her tea, letting the honey thoroughly dissolve. "Well ... no, not like that, I think. I would not say that Sir Bruin was a silly-looking man. Certainly I would not say so where he could hear me." She smiles.

Alice pauses, then nods solemnly. "I do not think I would say near him either ... He's not silly, but bearskins are. I saw one once and it was old and worn and wearing it would look very silly," she says.

Elinor nods. "But they look quite fine on bears,"

"Oh yes. And very scary on bears. Real bears are this tall!" she claims, lifting a hand well above her head and nodding.

"Elinor?" asks Alice curiously, "can you tell me what the fairy world is like?"

A thoughtful pause from the fey girl. "I can try. It's -- very different from Ainigton. We don't have your machines -- your cars, or buses, or radios, or cameras." She gestures vaguely to the mantelpiece, fumbling over the unfamiliar word. "And our folk -- well, Ainigton folk, mortals, you all look the same."

"Oh ... But we don't look the same, do we? I don't look like Agatha or Tommy." The little girl takes another sip of tea, which seems to have become agreeable now that it has copious amounts of sugar in it. "What do people ... I mean, what do faeries look like in the fairy world?"

"The ones I saw in House April looked..," Agatha starts to say, and seems to fumble for words, "... like they were made out of glass, almost."

"My mom says they shouldn't throw stones then," explains Alice matter-of-factly.

"What do the mortal-looking folk of House December look like?" Agatha asks before finishing off a cookie.

"Well, no, not the exact same. But all very similar. All the adults are about the same height, and you all have hair on your heads and oval faces and flat noses and four limbs ... and -- see -- in Mirari there are a lot of different types of Folk. Sir Bruin -- why, he's easily a foot taller than the tallest man I've seen in Ainigton. And that's even in man-form. He grows fur all down his back and his eyebrows are bushy and grow together, and his nose sticks out to here -- " Elinor holds her hand two inches before her face. She then turns to Agatha, and nods. "Exactly! And see, that's normal in Mirari. No one thinks that there's anything ... strange about them, in Mirari. But here in Ainigton, you think it is odd that a child should have a funny walk and be a little small. And that's such a -- little difference."

Alice listens with rapt attention to the descriptions of another world, forgetting for a moment the half-eaten cookie that rests in her hands. "Could you tell us what all the houses look like? So we know if we see them, and especially what the King and Queen look like," the little girl requests.

"I could -- oh, I could be here all night and not tell you what half the folk of Mirari look like. I do not have words to describe all their kinds in your language, nor the talent to paint with words," Elinor says, biting her lip. "But the King and Queen, that is easy enough. The Queen -- well, she looks rather like you, actually, Alice. She has long golden hair that sweeps the ground when it is not bound to her head, and fine fair skin and blue eyes. She is taller than I by a good head at least, and slender and graceful as a willow tree. The King was a warrior in younger days, and still retains strength in his frame, though his dark brown hair has grayed a little with age. He has piercing brown eyes, I remember -- they have a way of holding you and not letting go. They are both human-looking folk, like us."

"The Queen really is from House April then?" Agatha asks.

Elinor nods to Agatha. "She is. She looks rather like her nephew, too -- Sir Tristan, I think you met him, Agatha? All the nobility of House April have that look."

Blinking, the little girl nods. "I wonder if that's why Destre looked at me funny when I met him. And, I wonder what it would be like to have hair that long? I can't grow mine too long. My mom makes me cut it and I don't think I'm as graceful as a tree," she rambles.

Rolling her teacup back and forth between her palms, Agatha asks, "Did the Queen betray the King somehow, before he vanished, do you know?"

"I -- betray?" Elinor tilts her head to one side. "No, I know of no problems in the royal household. The Queen has always been loyal to the King, even to the point of taking the side of another House over April's on occasion in the past. But -- who is Destre, Alice? Why would he look at you funny because you look like the Queen?"

"Destre is Mr. Kuning's horse," Agatha explains. "I think he just likes younger children. The dog is the same way."

"I like Destre and the happy dog," says Alice, smiling at the memory of them. "I played fetch with him all day! Gabriel came and got me, and I asked if I could have a dog, and he called me squirt and said no and I had to go home."

Agatha grins at Alice. "I promised Destre and Kuon the leftover cookies, so you can bring them some later."

"Yay!" is Alice's verbal thought on that offer.

Elinor turns the cup in her hands. "Mr. Kuning has lived in this house -- not very long, didn't you say? That is why it is being fixed now. Did he live elsewhere in Ainigton before buying this manor?"

"No," Agatha says. "He came here to retire. I met him just before we went into the cave and found the Siege of Stone and Water. Did Ryland collect all that junk in there? He seemed very protective of it."

"Oh, I should get Ryland a cookie too. He's supposed to be returning, isn't he?" inquires the blonde.

"Yes, this evening," Elinor answers Alice. "I'm sure he'd like a cookie. He didn't gather all the things at the Siege, no. They're part of the Siege's anchor. Most of them have been there a very long time, but the crows gather more, now and again, to add to it."

"Can we see the fairy world some day, Elinor?" asks Alice after she smiles at the answer. "I want to meet all the people so I can see them for myself and not have to wait for you to draw a picture."

Agatha sets down her cup and pulls something wrapped in a napkin out of her skirt pocket. "We found this in a heap of rags that a Jruuh was hiding in," she explains, and unwraps the flute with the rose engraving on it. "What do you make of it?"

"If you want to go," the fey girl answers, framing her words slowly, "I think it can be arranged for you to be taken. That was -- " She pauses to look at the flute, and frowns at it. "I've not seen one like it before," she answers Agatha. "But -- oh, that reminds me." She sets her cup down and reaches for her bag. "I cleaned off the mirror the dragon gave us, Alice, and brought it with me." Elinor draws the gleaming brass hand mirror out and sets it on the coffee table, then extends a hand for the flute.

Agatha hands the flute over to Elinor, and purses her lips at the idea of visiting Mirari "just for fun" to sightsee.

Alice puts her cookie down, just now seeming to remember she has it as she gives it a surprised blink, and then after cleaning her hands picks up the mirror. She studies it and her reflection, sticking her tongue out and giggling at the mirror response. "I want to go! I want to see it all. I think we should know all about the fairy world," she says.

"I'm not sure we'd be able to just walk around Mirari like you can walk around downtown though, Alice," Agatha says, "especially if some of us look like members of certain Houses."

"Well ... " Alice's smile wavers, but she shakes it off as she shakes her head. "I still want to go!"

Agatha thinks of Rebecca being there now, and wonders out loud, "Do any of the Houses have humans with red hair and green eyes?"

The clean mirror, in good light, is much easier to get a good look at. When Alice holds it to her face, Agatha gets a good view of the ornately carved "A H" on its back, as well as the back of a lion's head and shoulders that ornament the top. The lion's head and paws curve slightly over the face of the mirror, and its eyes look back at Alice when she looks at her own reflection.

Agatha blinks when she sees the monogram on the back of the mirror, and turns to glance at the portraits of the various Harcourts, especially Anastasia.

Elinor nods. "There might be certain ... difficulties, in having you tour Mirari. And Winter is not the best season for Mirari, or so I think. The nobles of House September have red hair and green eyes, Agatha. About your color hair, but paler skin."

"I can't imagine an elf with freckles," Agatha admits.

"Hello, Mr. Mirror!" says Alice to "Mr. Mirror" as she turns it to one side, then the other and over again. "Is what Agatha says true? Would we all get mistaken for belonging to Houses or get in trouble for not being faeries? I don't think a lot of people go to the fairy world or else it would be on bus schedules and things."

The fey hides a smile. "None with -- quite that human complexion, no," she admits.

Agatha hmms, and says, "If we're the fairy-land to people from Mirari, is that why the Jruuh are here but just myths back there, I wonder?"

Alice ponders, and the mirror lowers a bit as she peers off at nothing and concentrates. "I wonder if they have human tales, and if they pretend to be humans and magic is machinery and dragons are buses and ... I bet cookies are still cookies, though."

As Alice turns the mirror about, the lion's paw on the left side shifts a little.

"You wouldn't get into trouble for not being Faerie, and even if someone took you for House April, there's no actual war going on. We may not like House April, and they may not like us, but we don't stop each other's citizens for no reason. No ... it's more like there might be some -- particular interest in you." She pauses at Agatha's question.

"Don't be silly, Alice," Agatha says, pointing out, "Dragons would be terrible for busses. You'd want giant snakes or caterpillars ... something with a long narrow back to put seats or saddles on."

The little blonde nods at the answer as she ponders her thoughts on the fairy world, her head turning to look unfocusedly back to the item in her hand -- unaware it just moved.

Elinor grins at Alice's suggestion. "No, I have never played at buses and machines, myself. Dragons are even rarer than unicorns. But ... I wonder about the jruuh -- and the Year's End."

"Can I see that mirror for a moment, Alice?" Agatha asks. "I think maybe it belonged to one of the Harcourts a long time ago, because of the initials on the back."

"I think we go to Mirari at some point, because we were in the snow in Rebecca's vision," Agatha says. "I think we have to fight the Year's End there."

Alice smiles back at Elinor, and as she does so, she hands the mirror to Agatha. "Here you go!"

A faint rattling noise comes from inside the mirror as Alice passes it to Agatha.

"Is it supposed to do that? I didn't break it, did I?" asks Alice when the mirror makes a funny sound.

"I do not know," Elinor says, blinking at the hand mirror. "Maybe it is something I did when I cleaned it? I hope I have not harmed it."

Agatha tests the paws of the lion on the mirror. "I think it might be like a puzzle," she says, trying to see if anything will slide open or move on the thing.

"Are you okay, Mr. Mirror?" asks Alice, concerned. "I never thought a mirror would be a puzzle. Aren't they supposed to unlock puzzles? Like backwards messages and hair knots and things?"

"It could be like one of those canes that hide swords inside," Agatha suggests, examining the handle of the mirror.

Alice leans closer, peering at the mirror. "Maybe a secret word like 'roar' or 'rawr'!" She nods, leaning closer and doing her best attempt at a roar -- "RAWR!".

The lion's paw and arm shifts under Agatha's probing. A bit of tarnish left on the mirror makes it disinclined to move as far as it looks like it should, but just a little pressure swivels it up. Beneath is a knife-thin slit in the back, and Agatha's close examination shows that there's a cleverly concealed hinge at the bottom, disguised by the scrollwork, and that the "crack" goes all the way around, also built into the design of the scrollwork, so that it looks at first like just a shadow.

"A knife inside, maybe," Elinor offers. "It is too small for a whole sword. Well ... perhaps a sword for the wee folk," she amends.

"Aha!" Agatha says triumphantly, and sees if she can get the mirror to open up now that she sees the hinge.

Watching from her perch, Alice squints to try and make out just what Agatha is doing with the mirror. "Or maybe a note or a special place to hide something valuable," she suggests.

"Maybe a picture, or a small map," Agatha guesses as she works on the mirror.

With the lion's arm out of the way -- it seems to have acted as a latch to hold the back shut -- Agatha can slide a fingernail into the crack, and it comes up with a faint pop. Inside, there are two satin-lined compartments. A pair of brass hair combs -- one for securing hair decoratively, and the other for combing it out -- are bound in one compartment, held down with a tied satin ribbon that the bow seems to have come loose on. There's an assortment of hair ribbons over them. On the other side is a tied packet of thin, folded yellow pages.

Laying the opened mirror down on the table so everyone can see inside, Agatha unties the papers. "Tom is gonna be soooo jealous when he finds out about this, I bet."

"Um, well ... maybe," offers the little girl uncomfortably. Her smile drops, and she looks to the letter in her hands and then back to the mirrors contents. "Those are very pretty hair combs and ribbons. I'd ask to see them ... but I don't think I can. They're not mine and I shouldn't."

"Oh!" Elinor gasps, coming out of her chair and standing beside Agatha as she works. "How clever! I wonder what the pages are." She folds her arms to keep from interfering with the redhead's hands.

The pink ribbon tying the pages together is yellowed with age, and the pages feel delicate, though not yet brittle. There are a dozen or so of them, all folded in thirds.

Agatha pokes her tongue into her right cheek as she undoes the ribbon, not sure just how fragile the packet is, then carefully unfolds the first piece of paper.

With thin sheet unfolded, Agatha sees the header first. It is written in a thin, careful hand, in black ink turned brownish with age. The script has a masculine look to it despite the almost calligraphic quality of the letters. It reads:

In the Second Year of Mirari, on the Twenty-Eighth of August

Lady Angelique of April
The Green Sward
Elysia

Jaw dropping, Agatha unfolds the rest of the pages so everyone can read them.

"May I? asks Alice as asks as she turns her gaze from the comb to the remaining letters. "I guess if we need to look at someone's things, we should look at the important bits."

Looking at the letter over Agatha's shoulder, Elinor's own jaw drops in unconscious mimicry. "Lady Angelique..," she murmurs, scanning the page with eyes widened to the signature line. "Lord Bram!"

Seeing Elinor, Alice takes up her lead and hops out of the chair to scoot around behind Agatha and read over her shoulder. "That's a very pretty name," she comments as she starts reading.

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