[Storytime: 2/9
Adventure GET: 3/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 1]

There is really only one way to get to know somebody in a situation like this. Think about it! The rain’s pouring down outside, the sky’s a dark grey that barely provides illumination, and in here there’s warmth and soft lights and people who are [i]going[/i] to be my friends, probably, unless it turns out that they are my nemeseses by the will of fate. Maybe it’ll be maid girl? Her air of flustered refinement will slip and be revealed as a mask as she ties me to the giant minute hand on the Horizon belltower, Big Benjamin, and leaves me to watch as the even more giant hour hand gets closer and closer...

Which makes it even more vital that I get to know her now, so that I’ll have ammunition for heroic banter as she cinches the knots and I hide my pocketknife in my fluffy, fluffy tail. Without heroic banter, she’ll never be distracted enough not to notice!

So I hop up on one of the stools, the wobbly one, and put my elbows on the counter. “Truth or dare??”

The maid totally looks me in the eye and says “dare.” That’s what happens. Don’t listen to her if she tries to tell you otherwise! That’s just her regretting her pick.

So it has to be a dare. She’s brave, letting me, Rinley Yatskaya herself, pick a dare! If she knew me, she’d know better! But she doesn’t, which is the whole reason we’re doing this, so I have to pull out all the stops. Do I dare her to chug from a bottle of Old Indescribable? (They make it here in Fortitude out of seaweed and Outside dust, and the taste is indescribable! At best, I’d have to tell you to imagine making out with an elder god with a tentacle face, who’s slept at the bottom of Big Lake since the beginning of time but has been awoken by the alignment of the stars once more, who has toe-curling morning breath. That’s Old Indescribable!) Do I make her hop down the street on one foot with one hand over her eye, doing Balor’s Walk? No good, it’s pouring outside, her dress would get ruined. I’m not [i]that[/i] mean!

But the lights give me an idea. A light bulb flickers over my head. (Thank you, faulty electrical wiring!) I hop off the stool and scamper over to the light switch. Click! The lights go out, and the only light’s the faint grey of the rain and the flickering light of the camp stove. Click! That’s me, with a flashlight. (Which happened to be over with the other tools for refurbishment, because if you have to get into nooks and crannies, you really want to see what you’re putting your hand into.)

“A long, long time ago,” I say, as the cook grumbles about how they’re supposed to make food in the dark, “it wasn’t safe to walk in Fortitude at night. Specifically, between midnight and three in the morning. Because if you saw the Witch, it was already too late. She wore purple and a white, white mask, and a tall, tall hat. And if you tried to walk past her she’d walk behind you and close her long, long fingers around your wrist. And she’d whisper in your ear...”

I let my voice drop into a sepulchral whisper that echoes eerily in the dead quiet room. “[i]Give. Me. Your. Face.[/i] Then... they’d find you the next morning, wearing a white, white mask, and nobody would remember who you were, not even you. That’s because the Witch was you, now. And people only figured out who was who when the Witch abandoned a face and took a new one. Everyone started being suspicious of each other! Because the Witch [i]loved[/i] to cause accidents that weren’t really accidents, to say cruel things that she allegedly didn’t mean, and to destroy beautiful things for the sake of destroying them.”

Outside, lightning flashes! Thunder rolls, so close that the room trembles.

“Of course,” I add, lulling everyone into a false sense of security, “Rinley eventually ran into her at 2:45 and a plan, and when she tried to take his face, he whipped out his shaving mirror. When her fingers touched the silver, they bled right through. Quick as a wink, he ran that mirror up her arm, over her head, and then right down to the ground, but... he failed at the last minute. He couldn’t bear to stamp on his shaving mirror! It had never lied to him, and always told him how handsome he looked (which was very). But that gave the Witch a chance to escape into the world every mirror connects to, and now... if you stand in a dark room and say her name three times in front of a mirror... she’ll [i]hear.[/i]”

You could hear a cushioned penny drop.

“So, your dare... is to say her name three times in the bathroom mirror,” I say, hoping to send a thrill of terror down my new friend’s back. “[i]Melanie Malakh, Melanie Malakh, Melanie Malakh.[/i]”