Chapter 198: Mirror
The door yawned open slowly. An annoying screech and a wave of dust assailed the witchers. They quickly slowed down and left the door ajar.
“Jennifer Verrieres, the founder of the family.” Roy looked around the bedchamber. It was like an abandoned antique, and time had ravaged it. The rundown wall was cracked, the ancient floorboards were gnawed away, revealing the black patches underneath, and all the furniture was coated with a thick layer of dust.
It was apparent that nobody had cleaned the place in a long time, but there were still shallow footprints on the ground. Someone had come in before. “Ignatius doesn’t even take care of his ancestor’s bedchamber. He probably only cares about his mother.” Roy looked at the center of the left wall. Just like the previous bedchambers, a portrait of the bedchamber’s owner hung on the wall. Roy went over and wiped the dust away, revealing the face of a beautiful woman.
Thanks to their genetics, all the women in Ignatius’ family were beautiful, including Jennifer. She stood out like a diamond and attracted everyone’s eyes.
“Stop staring, kid. Check the bookshelf. Madam Jennifer might have records of the curse giver.” Letho rummaged through the bedchamber. He did not check the attic. As the first generation of the family, there was no attic in Jennifer’s bedchamber, and there would be no specter dust.
“‘The Moon’s Poem’…” He took a book out and dusted it off before opening it. “When the moon waxes, so will love… The family’s founder was a poet, huh?”
Roy was not interested in poems, but he did not hate them either. Every young man dreamed of being a bard. They would love to be Jaskier. He was handsome, dashing, talented, and full of stories. He slept with many women all over the world, and one of them was the wife of a duke in Toussaint.
“I need to learn more about poems and find some that fit Coral’s voice. And then…” He killed that stupid thought and quickly skimmed through the book for any notes. However, Jennifer had no habit of making notes, and there were only the original words in the books.
“Let’s see…” He was about to choose the next book. “Winter’s Tundra, Temeria’s Northern Winds, Ode to Love… All of them are poem anthologies. What should I pick?” Roy kept scanning, and eventually he found something interesting. “What do we have here? This is a weird book. Eternal Goddess? This is a religious book, isn’t it?”
Roy took the book out. It was a black hardcover scripture, and he remembered seeing it at the temple of Melitele once. “This talks about Melitele. Why did a religious book get stuffed with a bunch of poem anthologies? Weird.” Roy flipped through the book, and he found something inside soon enough. It was a yellowed and decaying slip of paper with something written on it. The handwriting was beautiful, but the words were getting muddied out.
‘Merciful goddess. If you exist, please show mercy on your humble believer and heal her aging body.’ The message was written in common speech, and it was easy to understand. An aging woman was telling Melitele of her desire, but it was unrealistic. The priests would help the needy and the sick, but they could and would not interfere with the aging process.
“Did Jennifer write this? Was she unable to face the truth? But it won’t be easy to treat aging.” Roy flipped through the book, but eventually he frowned, for he noticed that a lot of the pages were missing. They were torn out by force, for the parts that were left looked rough. Roy could feel the person’s rage when they tore the pages out. Not long after that, he found another piece of paper, but the content was weird.
‘Child of the Sun! Child of the Sun! Child of the Sun!’ The words were strongly written and almost pierced through the paper. It was obvious that the one who left this message was agitated. Roy thought pensively, Jennifer left these. And what did she mean by Child of the Sun?
“Roy!” Letho suddenly shouted, breaking his train of thoughts.
Roy put the papers down and quickly went over to Letho. “Did you find something?”
“I searched everywhere, but I found no traps or hidden compartments. There is something bizarre here, however. Look.”
Roy kept looking at Letho’s finger as he pointed across the bedchamber. He went through the bed, drawers, closet, and rack. “What’s so weird about this bedchamber?”
“Looks like Lytta did not teach you anything about women.” Letho crossed his arms and shook his head. “Here’s a hint. Jennifer was not just a woman. She was also a beautiful one. A very beautiful one, but there’s something missing in her bedchamber.”
“What are you talking about?” Roy held his chin and gave it some thought. And realization struck him. “A mirror!”
“Yes. All the bedchambers we went through had a mirror in it, including the men’s bedchambers, but there are none in Jennifer’s. Don’t you find that weird?” Letho sounded sure. “I’ve seen this enough times, and I can tell you that every woman needs a mirror no matter how she looks. Unless…”
“Unless she doesn’t want to see her face in the mirror!” Roy answered and gave Letho the papers. “If Jennifer did write these, she must have been really old then. Old enough that she didn’t want to see her face in the mirror. But she didn’t want her beauty and youth to disappear, so she prayed for eternal youth, but that’s not possible. Melitele would not stop any mortal from aging.”
Letho was gazing at the messages on the paper. “The goddess wouldn’t help her, but the Child of the Sun could. Do you remember what the Child of the Sun can do? More specifically, what kind of potion can it create?”
“Omnipotent Antidote,” Roy answered. He had one Child of the Sun left in his inventory, but he used it back in Brokilon.
“There’s a second one.”
“And… Divine Beauty.”
“Divine Beauty can add a lot of years to someone’s lifespan, and it grants them eternal youth until the day they die. But obviously, Jennifer did not find any Child of the Sun before she died. She did not get her hands on Divine Beauty. So that’s why she’s so deeply obsessed with that.” Letho’s eyes were shining. “I have an idea, Roy. Sometimes…” He turned his eyes to the window. The sun was already climbing up through the sky, raining down its golden light to the lands, draping them with a golden blanket. “Women can do anything for beauty. Jennifer must have had some secret she didn’t want anyone to know about, but we have searched the whole bedchamber. Where could she hide her secret?”
“A mirror, huh?” Roy’s eyes were glinting as well. “If I were her, I’d bury my secret with the mirror.”
***
“A mirror?” Grant looked at the witchers in disbelief. He was starting to suspect them of having an ulterior motive. First, they made the baron look deadly ill, and now they were making an outrageous demand. “It has been a century since then. I doubt anyone can find her mirror.” Grant would not go against his master’s orders, but he could not help in this case. “I’m sorry, witchers. I do not know where that is. I think it must have been thrown away a long time ago.”
“Look for it. It’s important. It might still be in the fortress,” Letho said, unsure.
“You might have to ask the baron for that,” the butler answered sternly. “I will inform you once the baron is awake.”
The witchers did not wake Ignatius up. Letho went to search the branch families’ bedchambers and the basement, while Roy left the fortress. “We checked Mary’s coffin, so now you have to go back to the tomb and check on the other women. Ignatius’ grandmother, great-grandmother, and Jennifer’s coffins specifically. See if their remains are still there.”
The witchers went their separate ways.
***
Ignatius had woken up when the witchers were done, and he reconvened with them on the top floor. “My great-great-grandmother’s mirror? Oh, I do remember that.” Ignatius took a trip down memory lane. “Mary told me about it when I was a child. Jennifer made that mirror herself, and it has a special meaning attached to it. It’s kept by the women of the family. Jennifer gave it to her daughter after she died, and she handed it down to my grandmother, then she handed it to Mary. It’s a family heirloom.” He asked, “Is something the matter with that mirror?”
Roy nodded. “Where is it?”
“You have seen it before.” Ignatius suddenly wore a look of sadness on his face. “It’s in Florian’s room.”
“What?”
“Mary was going to give Florian’s room to her next child after he died. She had a feeling the child was going to be a girl, and the mirror was prepared for her. But I never thought the child would die before she was born, and Mary did not make it through the ordeal.”
“Our condolences, baron. We will lift the curse from you.”
“I hope so.” Ignatius took them to Florian’s room, and they saw the mirror beside the closet. They checked it before, but nothing was wrong with it.
“Maybe we checked it the wrong way.” Roy went to the mirror. It was taller than a man and rectangular in shape. It was as thick as a palm and curved inward slightly. It had a bronze frame coated in platinum paint, and the mirror was smooth, as if the last two hundred years had not taken a toll on it.
‘Mirror
A magical mirror. Covered in misfortune.’
***
“The glass and craftsmanship are exquisite.” Roy brushed his hand across the mirror and looked at Ignatius. “But we can’t see anything just by looking at it. Can we open it up?”
“If that’s what it takes to lift the curse, then open away.” Ignatius gritted his teeth and nodded. “Mary is dead, and there are no women in the family now. There’s no reason to keep it. Do it.”
The mirror’s glass was only as strong as metal. Letho put it face down on the floor and knocked on its back with his sword. Weirdly enough, the mirror was still fine, even after he stopped knocking it.
“Something’s wrong.”
The witchers exchanged a look and cast Quen on themselves, then they cast another sign at the mirror. An explosion happened in the room, and Aard shattered the mirror into little glass shards that covered the floor.
The witchers looked through the mess and noticed a weird protrusion on the ground. “What’s this?” Letho wore a pair of steel gloves and brushed the shards away, revealing a dark brown book to everyone. It was as big as a hand and made of unknown materials. The book was soft but resilient enough not to break no matter how hard it was pulled. Not even the glass shards could leave a scratch on it.
The three of them surrounded the book curiously, and Letho read out the almost unintelligible words on the cover.
“Book of Bones.”
He opened the first page, and a disgusting stench assailed them. It smelled like a dead corpse that was left to rot and fester for gods knew how long. Ignatius held his throat and retched, while the witchers scrunched their noses up. For a moment there, they felt as if the book were a pile of blood and flesh instead of a real book.
They powered through it and read the book. The first page had a line of words written in bright red ink, and it spoke of a deadly warning. ‘Those who read this book will be cursed. Their descendants will live lives of misfortune until the day they die.’
***
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