The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

[sapphira_ststep]

[Noon on Monday, April 12 (day 316)]
[Out at the Merton farmhouse]I did not go to the market this week

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[silence_excolo]

Once the dream of the gate was gone, I saw it again. The mirror-man, always with her in his arms. Sometimes it was Maranna, sometimes Marion, but it always ended the same; her crushed, lifeless, sinking into oblivion, & me, axe in hand, screaming. Sometimes I wake up before I kill him. But not always

[sapphira_ststep]

I straighten when I hear the knock. It is too late in the day for the Bailey milk run, and I suppose that makes it a guest, although I am not used to having guests here. I set aside my knife, and take another look at my naked face in the mirror, and then put on my mask. It is a grimmer one than the one I wear to town, leather the colour of charcoal and slate covering my face and falling in stiff folds from my temples.

I pick up the bread knife, holding it easily as might any woman who was interrupted while preparing a meal, and I go to the door. I am reaching for the handle--

I let him in, and gave him bread and water and a seat by the fire, and while I slept he cut my face from me.

--and for a moment I do not move, and I can feel sweat prickle along my hairline, and slip along my neck.

That was a different story. A different kind of story, and anyway the ogre is dead. I open the door, and I can read something--hope, apprehension--in the lines of the woman standing there

[silence_excolo]

It takes a while, but the door finally opens. It's her, as far as I can tell, but the mask she wears today is different; sterner, & strangely sadder, I think, than the one she wore previously. But the eyes are hers, & I feel my jaw relax.

There's a knife in her hand, as if she'd been in the kitchen. It's possible. It's also possible it's because she lives out here alone.

"Hi," & I'm about to offer the package, but she starts with "I'm sorry," & "I don't--". Then she stops & takes a good look at me. "Marrana?" Maybe she's forgotten me. After all, it's been a few months. Not like I've been around much, but- "I've seen you in town, I think. Would you like to come in?" I nod a bit. "Yah, at the Miskatonic. You remember?" I show the package & rub the back of my neck. "It's not much, but..." I hand it to her as I enter

[sapphira_ststep]

"Marrana?" she says, and that is like a key, opening a door to a green and golden room. "Yah, at the Miskatonic. You remember?"

"I do," I say, and I find I am smiling. "Silence. I've remembered, now; I'm Sapphira St-Stephens." Quite alliterative. "Come in, come in, please," and I step back and aside and wave her in--and I realize I am still holding the knife, and catch her eye, shrug in mild embarrassment.

The farm is a small place, but neat and clean and warmer than the outside. Spring may have come, but Excolo is still no match for more southern climes. Silence is speaking nervously, an understudy pushed on stage and not given nearly enough time with her lines. "You been... doing alright?"

"I have," I say, reaching out to take the package if she will offer it and glancing quickly towards the mirror on the wall. "Well. I have-- it's been a bit of an odd week. Here, you can hang up your jacket, if you like. I was having lunch, would you care to join me?"