Unfinished Tales, Vol. 3

Mrs. Cottingley's Big Day

Mrs. Cottingley was 103 years old and ready to go. Maybe tomorrow. Each day was much like the next at her age, and she thought she’d made up her mind. As such, she’d gotten up that morning and set about putting her affairs in order. She had family to think about, after all.

There was her son and his family and her daughter and her family, both back in London and doing well. She’d take their weekly calls and occasionally get post cards and such. They never sent e-mail, which irked her because she loved her computer. Then again, she wasn’t sure they even had computers.

She tottered around the house in her baggy Gap jeans and a fuzzy pink sweatshirt, sipping a Bloody Mary and humming “Enter Sandman.” Her dog, Tinkerbell, a 22-year-old mastiff with a mottled black coat and flat teeth, sat on the sofa and alternated between watching the small woman teeter back and forth across the front room and the “Westminster Dog Show” on Animal Planet. Occasionally, Tinkerbell would sigh or mash the remote with a large paw to change the station to the Weather Channel.

The dog had just done such a thing when Mrs. Cottingley shrieked from the hall closet. Tinkerbell sighed, climbed down off the sofa and went to see check on her.

“Tinkerbell, lookit this,” Mrs. Cottingley said, tugging a frayed pink photo album out of a slightly smashed and taped cardboard box marked “Old Stuff” in fat black magic marker. The dog peered around the corner of the door, first looking eye level with Mrs. Cottingley, since they were the same height, then down at the album. To be nice, Tinkerbell leaned over and gave the pink book a good sniff then headed back for the couch.

Mrs. Cottingley ignored the dog and tried to wipe some dirt from the album’s cover. She felt herself smiling as she trudged into the living room and plopped down in her big black leather Lazy Boy recliner.

She opened the album and cackled. The dog looked her way then resumed flipping channels.

The pictures were still there, as well as the extra glass plates and negatives Elsie and Frances had taken. Her two cousins had been so fascinated by her pictures they had gone out and made their own. Of course, everyone knew how that had turned out; even Arthur Conan Doyle had been fooled.

She cackled again, sounding not unlike the witch from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. She tried to remember the name of the Fey in the picture but it proved challenging, which troubled her because she’d always had a keen memory.

Then, as if conjured, it came to her. “Morrigan.”

The name seemed to echo in the room, collecting momentum as it bounced off walls, repeating and gaining speed. Mrs. Cottingley hopped up from her chair, dashed over and flung open a window. The sound whooshed out past her, ruffling the red Venetian blinds.

Mrs. Cottingley cackled.

Tinkerbell barked.

Mrs. Cottingley decided to make a pitcher of margaritas and head for the patio.

#

She was sitting on her patio, staring off over the Gulf, sipping margaritas and eating cucumber sandwiches when she heard the knock on the door. She ignored it.

But it came again, louder and faster.

“Probably those Jehovah’s Witnesses again.” She considered, for a moment, digging her warhammer out of the coat closet and telling them about Thor. Or was it Zeus this month? She also contemplated not getting up at all. It was a good margarita.

The knock came again. Tinkerbell barked.

“Well why don’t you answer it then?”

Tinkerbell barked again.

“Fine.” Mrs. Cottingley climbed out of her patio chair, slipped her feet into a pair of worn pink bunny slippers and started for the front door. The dog flipped channels as she trod by.

The knock came again just as Mrs. Cottingley arrived at the door. She paused, thinking she heard a whisper, then stepped up on an orange crate to peer through the peephole. Not seeing anything but sunshine and sidewalk, she started to climb down from the crate.

The next knock shook the door beside her head.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“We’d like to speak with you about an important matter, Mrs. Cottingley.”

She climbed back up on the orange crate and again looked out the peephole. Nothing.

“I already have a God. His name is Thor!”

“This isn’t about that, Mrs. Cottingley.”

“What’s it about then?”

“The pictures from near Bradford, from 1917.”

“Oh, those.”

She climbed down off the box, realizing why she couldn’t see them through the peephole, kicked the box out of the way, pulled open the door.

Two small men stood pressed to the side of the house in the shadow of the eave. Each wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie and sunglasses. Each had coal black hair — the kind that reflected almost blue highlights — pulled back tight against his scalp into a long pony tail. The one on the right clutched a small briefcase.

“May we enter?” said the one on the left.

Mrs. Cottingley thought about it for a moment then pushed the door the rest of the way open. “Sure,” she said.

The two small men entered, made their way down the narrow hall then stopped in the living room. Mrs. Cottingley could hear Tinkerbell growling as she locked the door’s two deadbolts. She smiled.

As she moved into the living room, she said, “Why don’t you have a seat,” and motioned toward the sofa. Tinkerbell growled again, low in her throat, and it seemed to shake the walls. They started to sit.

“Or we could go sit on the patio. I’ve a pitcher of Margaritas.” Without waiting, she marched outside and climbed back into her patio chair. She took a gulp of margarita and smelled the sweet summer air.

She heard the men step out onto the patio, then stop. She knew why they stopped. They were not comfortable with direct sunlight. But that was their problem not hers. She waited while they inched their way along the sliding glass door, careful to stay in the small amount of shade the roof’s overhang provided.

“Mrs. Cottingley, you know why we’re here,” said the small man without the briefcase.

Mrs. Cottingley sipped her margarita, nodded.

“Mrs. Cottingley, Morrigan has prepared a substantial compensation package for you in exchange for the, ah, pictures.”

“They aren’t just pictures, you know.”

“Excuse me,” he said.

“They aren’t just pictures.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Where are your wings?”

“They are covered with an enchantment, but that’s …”

“An enchantment? Really? Did she do it?”

“That’s neither here nor …”

“She’s gotten much better since I saw her last. Used to, she couldn’t hide much of anything from me, but you know that already, since otherwise, I wouldn’t have the pictures, now would I?”

The small man blinked at her.

“Margarita?” she said, motioning toward a pitcher with her glass.

The man wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“How is Morrigan doing?”

“She’s, well, she’s Queen,” he said, verbally capitalizing the Q.

“Really? Well, good for her.”

“We’re getting away from the matter at hand here, Mrs. Cottingley.”

“Are we?”

The small man without the briefcase took in a deep breath then motioned to the other man. The other flicked open the briefcase and pulled out a scroll. Each end of the scroll was capped in gold and a thick glob of black wax bearing a stamp of a large calligraphic M sealed it shut. It looked just as Mrs. Cottingley remembered.

She took a drink of margarita.

His hands moved in a blur, and Mrs. Cottingley was mildly surprised when he stopped moving and held what looked like a small sword.

“I like your letter opener,” she said, then sipped more margarita.

He looked up from the scroll and scowled.

“Something the matter?”

“Your agreement with the Queen expires at Midnight tonight,” he said, then started to go on when Mrs. Cottingley interrupted.

“And as of then I can do whatever I want with those pictures, as per our agreement.”

The quiet small man seemed to tense, and she thought she heard the knuckles of the other man’s sword hand pop. She smiled.

“That is unacceptable to our Queen.”

“I imagine it is at that.”

“We’ve been instructed to come to terms with you or …”

She glanced at him and arched one of her eyebrows. “Or?”

“I think you get my meaning.”

She flourished her hand, snapped her fingers and giggled.

The talking man blinked and she watched his face slowly turn red as he tried to move his abruptly immobile body. Beads of sweat started in his hairline then raced down behind his glasses. One bead perched on the end of his nose but did not fall.

She snapped her fingers, smiled, then took another drink of margarita. The quiet man’s sword seemed to appear in his hand, and he began to lunge forward but was stopped by the talker.

“Do we have a problem?” Mrs. Cottingley asked, clomping her dentures together. Her mouth felt numb, probably from the alcohol. The talker shook his head. “Good. Let's see it.”

He reached back into the briefcase and produced another scroll, handed it to her. Mrs. Cottingley noticed his hands were shaking. She unrolled the scroll, scanned the contents, said, “Not good enough. Tell her I said, ‘no.’”

“But …”

“She didn’t expect me to live this long, did she?”

He said nothing.

“She knows what I want.”

His brow tightened and Mrs. Cottingley knew he was trying to… persuade her.

“Your powers don’t work on me, and if you try it again, I’ll have your Name.”

The small talkative man stepped back.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Mrs. Cottingley took a gulp of margarita.

“I can, and I would. Now, she knows what I want. You go talk it over with her then come back and we’ll see what we can do.”

“She knows?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“Would you tell me, just in case?”

Mrs. Cottingley sighed, then said, “Another 100 years. Another 100 years, or I make sure the world sees those photos. And knows the truth about them. Now, scadoodle. You’ve only got ‘til midnight.”

Mrs. Cottingley listened to Tinkerbell growl at the two men as they left the condo.

#

By 11:30, the two men had not returned. Mrs. Cottingley, however, wasn’t concerned. She’d made her final preparations that afternoon. She’d gone about her nightly routine, slipped into her Victoria’s Secret pajamas, grabbed a Hemingway novel, and climbed into bed. A highball glass loaded with amber liquor and several cubes of ice sat next to her on the nightstand, but she did not drink from it. Every couple of minutes, she’d reach behind her back, under her pillow, and pat the old pink photo album.

By midnight she had made up her mind to wait until the next day, clicked off the light and snuggled under the covers. Tinkerbell lay on the bed beside her, snoring, and the cacophony lulled Mrs. Cottingley to sleep.

She did not appear to see the two small black shapes leap the rail to her patio, cut their way through her glass patio door and quietly slip inside her dining room. Nor did she appear to hear them creep down the hall and step into her bedroom.

One of the small shapes motioned the other toward the dog then they both approached the sleeping figures. Each paused, produced a small sword and tensed. She did not appear to be awake. One nodded to the other.

Mrs. Cottingley opened her eyes, which were level with that of the small man on her side of the bed, and winked at him. Then she pulled the trigger to the shotgun she’d had stashed beneath her pillow. The small man’s face vaporized.

At the same time, Tinkerbell rolled off the bed and onto the other man, who was so shocked, had dropped his sword. Tinkerbell licked the man’s nose then bit off most of his face.

Mrs. Cottingley pulled back the covers and flicked on the shotgun’s safety. She looked down at the small man’s headless body, nodded, then reached back under her pillow and removed the photo album.

She glanced over at Tinkerbell. “You all right?”

Tinkerbell barked affirmative.

Mrs. Cottingley nodded again then tottered down the hall to her computer room. Earlier she’d scanned the photos and had even put the webpage together in Dreamweaver, but she hadn’t sent the files to her service provider. She figured she’d do that then go back to bed.

Tomorrow, or even the next day would be as good a day to die as any. Maybe that would be time enough for Morrigan to reconsider.