Phone Calls July 16 (3 Apr 2003) The events that transpired in the kitchen while Max and Alice went off to make some calls.

Harcourt Manor, Kitchen
The kitchen is an oasis of light in the still largely dusty, spider-webbed house in which Richard Kuning lives, with sunlight pouring in through the high windows, each of which is decorated by wrought ironwork forming the shapes of fleurs-de-lis at their peaks. A marble-topped counter runs across two walls and part of a third, and the large ovens and places for hanging pots and roasting meats suggests this manor once housed many people and a full-time cook. The pantry nearby is walk-in, a stairway leads down to a roots cellar, and a simple wooden table serves for dining until the more expansive dining room can be cleaned.

"The Harcourts wrote it," answers Alice as she steps inside the house and reaches in to her purse again. "John, Bryant, and Anastasia Harcourt. Say, do you think a unicorn would fit in here Maximillan?"

Maximillan looks around at the manor kitchen. "Oh ... I suppose one could, if it were so inclined."

Sabrina pokes her head in. "Looks nice! Well, I'm going to play some more outside while you call Uncle John, Maxie!"

Maximillan cringes.

Agatha brings the kitchen phone over to the small table so Max and Alice can sit down.

"Are you going to try and summon Lord Mel with the mirror, Alice?" Agatha asks the blonde girl.

"I think one will, but his lordship may not be inclined. Neither will his her ladyship. But I think they'd want to be here for this," says the blonde girl. She gives Agatha a nod and with a tug pulls out the mirror. "Yep! Say," she peers at Maximillan, "does one not like horsies? Because I'll go in to another room if that would make you feel better."

"Lord Mel isn't a horse, Max," Agatha quickly explains. "He's just a really big unicorn. But maybe a little scary, all the same."

Maximillan takes up the receiver, and shakes his head. "That's all right. Mythical creatures, I have no trouble with. It's the very real, big ones that I'm nervous about. It's a long story. And please, if you should happen to run into my father, don't ever tell him I rode a horse. I have no idea how he would react."

"Rebecca isn't like a horsie at all either, unless you believe Tommy, but he's silly," adds Alice.

"Well, technically Destre isn't a horse either," Agatha notes. "He's a shapechanger. Same with Kuon, the dog."

Kuon wags at the door and lolls his tongue, exactly like a dog with barely two brain cells to rub together. He trots into the kitchen.

"Okay," continues Alice. She steps over to put her back to the wall. "Here goes! May want to not stand in the center of the kitchen or you may get smushed."

"Well, that's fine," Maximillan says, cradling the receiver as he dials. "But while he looks to me like a horse, I may have some trouble around him. But I do think, all things considered, I handled it remarkably well, given some help and encouragement, don't you think?"

"Ahearn is the only real horse here, and he's sorta realer than normal horses," the older girl says, and gets some sausage-treats for Kuon.

"Yup, you didn't seem scared or anything," Agatha says, smiling to Max.

"You're too ki--" Maximillan says, then, "Oh! Aunt Lauren! Yes, I'm at the old manor. The old ..." He looks to Agatha. "Where are we again? I ... uh ... was distracted."

"Harcourt Manor, at the South end of town," Agatha says. "I can give your Aunt directions if she needs them."

Alice gives Maximillan an approving thumbs up before she holds out the mirror and peers at it with an almost comical expression of intense concentration. "Lets see, now hod did this go again ... "

Maximillan nods, then says, "No, we're not alone, Aunt Lauren. We're with Agatha and Thomas and some others. ... Mmm-hmm. ... Harcourt Manor. ... Yes, it's a long way out. ... I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking. It didn't seem so far when ... All right. ... Oh, thanks, Aunt Lauren. Yes, I was hoping we could get a ride. And I needed to stop by a shop called 'Kia's Restoration' ...." He goes on like this for a while, finally giving a thumbs up of his own to Agatha and Alice, and then he puts the receiver down. "She'll drive on out in a while. Uncle John's busy. She says she can find it already."

Kuon wags at Alice's side, watching her.

"Great!" Agatha enthuses, and starts clearing the space around Alice of anything fragile.

Maximillan looks around. "This is some place. And I thought my grandpa's house was huge. But then, of course, this is a manor, so it only follows. You get the run of the place, huh? That's got to be terribly exciting. This would make a perfect haunted house for Halloween."

"My loyal friend Lady Sorceress Nymuae and our great protector Lord Melchizedek I summon you forth," invokes the blonde girl in careful and deliberate speech. She gazes in to the mirrors surface and thinks of these two loyal friends and why she needs them, hoping neither the walls between worlds are too strong nor her decision to summon them is a mistake.

"Well, it's too dangerous to really explore at the moment," Agatha tells Max in a soft voice while watching Alice. "Lots of rotted floors. It's being fixed up though. The upstairs bedrooms are a bit haunted, sort of."

"A bit haunted?" Maximillan echoes, raising an eyebrow. "I figure something is either haunted, or it isn't."

"Well, there was a no-longer-headless teddy bear that ran around when Alice and I were cleaning, but he's... not doing that anymore," Agatha relates.

The mirror shivers in Alice's hand, the lion's head carving on it seeming to wink.

Knowing not quite what else to do Alice winks back to the lion as if the two shared some secret between them -- and maybe in fact they do of a sort. She holds on to the mirror a bit more tightly now least it shake from her grasp and dearly hopes she's holding it the right way. The littlecertainly thinks it wouldn't do to summon a sorceress and a unicorn upon herself.

"A haunted teddybear. Well, I suppose, yes, that would be frightening. It still sounds ... silly." Maximillan says this with a straight face.

"I'll take silly over scary anytime," Agatha notes, pursing her lips. "Or over smelly. Do you have any idea what trolls smell like?"

"I-I-I th-i-i-i-nk it's worerererking-g-g-g-g," mentions Alice as she holds on. The vibration in her voice due not entirely (or even mostly) to the vibrations of the mirror but rather an embellishment on behalf of the little girl.

The face of the mirror wavers, running to silver, then revealing a frosty landscape and tall stone walls. A woman in a long, archaic dress stands upon a tower, facing out against an army of undead. Then she is gone.

A tall, fair-skinned woman with long black hair stands next to the table. She staggers back a step, disoriented, and puts a hand to her head. "The Palace!"

"Ah, no," Maximillan says, "but I will take a wild guess and imagine that it's something like a pile of fish that's been out in the sun too long, combined with dirty pants that have never been washed."

*** Note to GW: Swap above two lines. ;)

"It'll be fine, Nym," Agatha says, standing up and steadying the fey sorceress with a hand on her shoulder. "Once Mel is here, I believe time will slow to a crawl in Mirari compared to here," she adds, trying to believe it herself.

Maximillan turns around, and jolts. "Oh! Hello, ma'am. Sorry, I didn't hear you come in."

"My spell ... " Nymuae shakes her head. "They were pressing so hard. It won't hold without me there. There's almost no one manning the East wall." Her normally pale skin is almost milky. She tries to re-focus. "Angel, what is it? What has happened in Ainigton?"

Alice peeks over the top of the mirror as Nymuae arrives. At first she smiles but at the sorceress's exclamation any looking her way can just see her frown before she dips her face back behind the mirror. "We found the Rules and we're going to change them soon," she answers in an unusually neutral voice.

"We've got a version of Pelles to be a neutral party, and we have Lord Eoin's incarnation here too," Agatha adds.

Maximillan, for the moment, just looks a bit lost.

"That is well -- Lord Eoin? He is here?" She looks around quickly, her eyes falling on Max. She quirks an eyebrow.

Kuon barks enthusiastically to greet Nymuae, but the greyhound's eyes crease worriedly at her news.

"Err, he's outside," Agatha quickly notes, and offers Nymuae a chair. "John Harcourt's son. This is Maximillan Winters, who is also sort of Sorcerer Pelles here."

"Does the mirror only summon once Lady Nymuae?" asks Alice from behind the mirror. "Maybe I can stop the second summoning if I shouldn't bring Lord Mel here."

"Hello, ma'am," Maximillan says, at last. "Me and my sister are just visiting for the summer, staying with our uncle and aunt."

"The Lord Protector is not marked, my princess. There was no time. Perhaps that is as well." She offers a cordial nod to Max. "A pleasure, m'lord."

"We'll have to make do with the stuffed version then, I suppose," Agatha says, then gets an amused look on her face. "Maybe we could tie it to Destre's forehead to make him a better stand-in."

"If we need costumes and props, I could swing by the house," Maximillan offers. "How long a drive is it out here, do you know?"

"I've never actually come this way by car," Agatha says. "Maybe ten minutes or so? We've got some of Anastasia's clothes though, and my armor is outside with Ahearn. There might still be some of John and Bryant's clothes upstairs too."

"Oh," says Alice. She doesn't quite lower the mirror. "Should I not have summoned you, your ladyship? I thought it would be best if we had many people of Mirari about when the Rules change. But as we could not bring the Challenge to quite exactly we have another way. I still thought, I, I thought it best if the change was regarded well by all."

"I do not know, my princess. I hope your choice was wisely, but I do much fear for the Palace. The armies that threaten it are not mere show and bluster." Nymuae pushes her hair away from her face. "We had best be quick. Where are the Rules?"

"Outside," Agatha says, and starts heading for the door before pausing to add, "Oh, we've also got the remains of Lady Ariel."

Maximillan nods. "Ariel. Yes. I think we can fix her up."

"Lady Ariel?" Nymuae turns to Max, her eyes glowing. "Truly? You think so?"

Maximillan nods. "Certainly. I could probably even do it myself. But Aunt Lauren is going to give me a ride out to Kia's Restoration. I was going to head there earlier, but Sabrina wanted to see the manor."

"Remarkable! This is good news," the sorceress finishes, before following Agatha outside.

"Yes we intend to revive her," adds Alice. She finally lowers the mirror to put it away and reveals her glassy-eyed expression and uncertain frown. "We shall return her to Mirari, and we shall see Lord Eoin freed from his curse of evilness. And hopefully too put the spirits of the Harcourts to rest too."

Alice waves Kuon over to her as she follows along after Nymuae.

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