r/HFY•8 mo. ago

[The Shotgun Girl] Chapter 6 of 17

OC-Series

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I wasn't sure why Blondie and Red thought it would be a good idea to clean off the table after we had finished our lunch. Who cared if it was dirty or cluttered? The table was big enough for us to just use another part for our next meal. It wasn't like this was going to be home, or anything. Even if we wanted to stay, the food supply in the pantry would only last so long and we'd have to move on anyway. Enforcing a work ethic on us, I guess Red would say. But instead of being productive, those two suddenly wanted to play housewife together for some reason.

"The oven's already hot and I'm in a cooking mood," Blondie had said. "How about I bake up some bread for supper? Ooh, maybe with raisins or currants in it!"

"I'm for that! We haven't had bread in ages!" That was Red's take. And she was right about us not having bread often. It was a chore to make from scratch and already-made loaves, especially fresh ones, were purest sucker bait, concealing anything from strychnine to rusty fishhooks.

"Bread will take hours," I had groused. "We need to start going through this house and planning our next move."

"What's the hurry?" Blackie had asked. "Have you got somewhere to be later?"

For just a moment, I'd hated her. Blackie and I were supposed to be the level-headed ones, so why was she siding against me?

Blondie looked down her nose at me. "Are you saying you don't want any bread if I bake some?"

"Well... no... I'm not..." Despite having just eaten, my mouth started watering at the thought of it. The texture, the softness. The sheer richness of it fresh from the oven. Especially from Blondie, who was a more than fine cook.

"Who will help the Little Blonde Hen?" Red asked, voice comically over-dramatic.

"I think that's the Little Red Hen." I not only knew that fable, but remembered reading it, a rare bit of knowledge that had some personal context attached. I read it in the library of a manor house very much like this one, somewhere in that hazy time between Blondie's mirror-clone cutting my throat and when I murdered Red.

"Nah, you don't want me baking anything. Don't have the patience to do it justice." Red turned her eyes Blondie's way and even I couldn't miss the softening of them. "I'm willing to be your number-one helper, though!"

So that led us to the point of me being the only one on-task, as Blackie had pleaded her ribs hurting and parked herself by the kitchen window with her copy of Peter Pan. A silly book, that. I remembered her reading it aloud to the rest of us once, many houses ago. For my part, I headed off to a study which had looked promising on our first sweep -- lots of hunting trophies and miscellaneous bits and doo-dads scattered around. It seemed like a logical place to scrounge for shotgun shells or, failing that, something else that would be more destructive to my -- our -- enemies than girl-slaps and harsh language. Anything that might put us ahead.

We didn't often do things alone other than the occasional bath or trip to the water closet. Safety in numbers, and all that. I found myself savoring the privacy, even if I was a little unsettled by it.

In the study, a chessboard sat on a small table by a window, a half-finished game upon it. Black was winning handily. The white pieces -- the ivory really more a pale brownish shade from age and wear -- were down half their strength and the king was hemmed-in on a corner of the board. Mate in about a dozen moves or so, I'd guess. I picked up the white queen from where she sat beside the board, having been taken in some previous skirmish, and rolled her between my fingers. If only one of her pawns could reach the edge of the board, she could return to the fray and wreak her vengeance on the piece that had taken her and sent her into exile. It was all on the pawns, those poor plodding bastards who could only forge ahead one square at a time and hope to one day make it to the end of the board.

I put the queen back on the table and touched the most advanced white pawn on its round little head. "Keep going," I told it. "It's all up to you."

There was an old desk loaded with books that I would once upon a time have picked through page-by-page, line-by-line, for clues, hints, anything that might trigger a sliver of personal memory. Maybe a birth certificate for a 5'8" brunette with 'this is you, dummy' scribbled on the side. But now I just flipped through the books for hollowed-out compartments -- we'd found a nifty dagger that way, once -- and tossed them aside. Then the drawers. Pens, ink, stationery. I set some aside for Blondie. A flask of whiskey. Obvious sucker bait, I dumped it into the trashcan. A folding penknife. Too small to make a useful weapon, but a blade that was safe to carry while climbing over the walls was always a helpful addition. I stuck it in the now-empty pocket I'd rigged-up to hold shotgun shells.

There was a pair of crossed swords mounted on the wall above the study door, backed by a small shield bearing an armorial crest of lions and towers that probably meant a lot to someone somewhere. All I cared about was that the swords ended up being blunted decorations, not at all suited to hacking up a mirror-clone of myself. If I had a way to sharpen them, they could be handy. And if I had wings, I could fly. If is a pretty stupid game to play, even more useless than Who Were We?

I had a bad moment when my rifling through a desk drawer turned up a mirror -- small and round, with a hanger on the back, but otherwise unadorned. Not fancy enough for a lady's hand mirror, maybe it was for a man to shave with while camping, or something. The sight of my own reflection made my heart hammer against my ribs like it wanted out until I realized that the thing was too small to be a real danger. No clone could fit through a glass so tiny. I laid it flat on the desk and looked down into it, seeing myself momentarily as the others saw me. Long chestnut hair tied back out of my way. An oval, harsh-lipped face that seemed made for scowling, a look accentuated if anything by the scabbed-over cut on the cheek. Hard eyes, dark and wary-looking.

The sight of my own face triggered nothing. No sudden memories, no deep recognition. I might as well have been looking at one of the portraits in the dining room.

And then my reflection smiled. I didn't, but it did. It smiled and started mouthing something at me. It made no sound, none at all, because it was still just a reflection in glass, but the exaggerated lip-movements were not hard to read. The main part I got was "murdering bitch". But like I said earlier, mirror-clones never say anything worth hearing, so it's not like I was surprised.

Then my reflection reached out and stuck her hand through the mirror, trying to reach my throat. Which honestly didn't really surprise me, either. The mirror was small enough that she could only get her arm through up to the elbow and I wasn't dumb enough to be that close to it. The clone's left arm pawed fruitlessly at the air in front of my face. I just sighed and dug the penknife out of my dress pocket. The blade was small, but nice and sharp. Flesh parted easily as I stabbed it into the outside of the clone's arm near the elbow and dragged the blade all the way to the back of the hand. I'd have done more damage by going for the arteries in the wrist, I know, but if you go for the inside of the arm, the hand can grab you. And that gets awkward and painful very quickly, believe me.

The clone yanked its bloody and half-filleted arm back through to its side of the glass and I had just enough time to see the rage on that gloomy-eyed face before I tossed the mirror against the hearth. The crash of shattering glass was a harsh, but welcome and satisfying sound.

Did I have to slash open the mirror-clone's arm before I broke the glass? No. But I wanted to. The clone hadn't hurt me, but it had tried to. Would have, given the chance. Why should that go unpunished? If the zookeepers or whoever were watching all this and getting their jollies from our fear and distress, then let that be a thumb in their eye. I was not afraid. I might not be free in the physical sense, but I was in control of me and how I responded to the facts of my confinement. I was not afraid and I would punish those who tried to make me so every chance I could.

Red would have chided me for giving in to wrath, I suppose. But I wasn't Red, I was Brown. And while Red might be worried about our mental and spiritual well-being, Brown was worried mostly about smiting whatever enemies she could reach.

I gave the knife a little good-boy pat as I wiped it off and stuck it back in my pocket. It was no substitute for the shotgun, but it had definitely punched above its weight there.

As a last resort for a new weapon, I could always grab a big butcher knife or something out of the kitchen. I'd done that before. It wasn't optimal, but I could do it. Not much reach and with their thin blades, they had a bad tendency to snap off at the handle when rammed into a struggling body, but better than nothing. I might even fashion one into a spear, if I could find nails or wire or something stout enough to attach it to a pole or broom handle. But not unless there was nothing better. Partly because of the inherent flimsiness of kitchen knives as weapons, partly because Blondie would get miffed at me for taking one while she was still cooking with them, and partly because Brown the Homemade Spear Girl just sounded kind of stupid.

Yeah, I was going to miss being the Shotgun Girl, no two ways about it.

I went to digging through the bookshelves. Most of them seemed to be histories, although they could have been pure fiction for all I knew. It wasn't like I had any basis for factual comparison. Blondie or Blackie might get something out of them. In the past, they'd tried to put together a picture of the wider world beyond our captivity, but had let that project drop. But such stuff was just random irrelevances to me.

There was a massive tome on chemistry and I paged through it until I found the formula for basic gunpowder. I couldn't make shotgun shells, but what about turning the shotgun into a muzzleloader? Like a bigger version of a clockwork soldier's musket... No. Regrettable, but after thorough consideration, no. Far too much work involved. If we could stay in one place, if we had a home base to operate out of, perhaps. But if nothing else, the food would start giving out or going bad in a few days and we'd be forced by hunger to move on. Seriously, If is such a stupid game to play.

Shame, though. Being 'Musket Girl' had a certain dignity about it...

I tossed the book aside and went back to ransacking. Looking for something useful. Something deadly. Something I could wield to keep us safe. Something I could keep close at hand to give me the edge. Because you never know. Red and Blondie and Blackie were my friends, sure. My nearest and dearest. But you still never know. Especially with Blackie. Blackie whose last death I still couldn't bring to mind.

I was getting a little lost in my own head, I think. Spiraling. Maybe that's why the solitude unsettled me, because I'm not much of a deep thinker.

I was roused from my thoughts by the sound of steady footsteps in the corridor. Not the sharp clatter of dress heels on hardwood, but the even, regular tread of hard-soled boots.

Blackie.

I put my hand on the shotgun anyway, because you never know. Even if it wasn't a mirror-clone, but the real Blackie. Because... I hate to say it, but... you just never know.

She stopped in the doorway, as slim and lithe and sharply beautiful as always, despite the hand rubbing at the wound under her breast throwing off her typical poise just a little. She wasn't carrying her book and her free hand brushed long night-black hair aside from where it had fallen across her eyes.

"Having fun, Brown?" Her little half-smile twisted a bit as her eyes flicked to my hand resting on the shotgun beside me. She sighed. "Is that really necessary? We took care of all the mirrors, so you know I'm not a clone."

"Do I? We might have missed one and Blackie blundered into it between the dining room and here and--"

She waved a hand, cutting me off. "Your paranoia does an admirable job of keeping us safe when we're clearing a house, but it can be rather tiresome when you don't turn it off once we're past the danger."

I shook my head. "We're never past danger here." But I sighed and let my hand fall away from the shotgun. "But you certainly sound like the real you."

"Wise and charismatic?"

"I was thinking snarky and condescending."

That didn't offend Blackie. Not that much ever seemed to. "Differing perspectives of the same traits," she said with a little chuckle. "At least you consider the real me somewhat less threatening than a mirror-clone. Although I don't know whether that's a compliment or a slight." She shifted seamlessly to her usual affable not-really-the-leader-just-brainier-than-you mode. "So, accomplished anything yet?"

I shrugged. "I've made a huge mess. That's a thing."

She shook her head. "And yet you were all focused on our being productive today."

I glowered at her. "Smile when you call me a hypocrite, Blackie."

"I am smiling." She turned her mystery-woman smirk up a notch or two, into a full-blown and mostly believable smile that accentuated her cheekbones and dark, narrow eyes. "I can't help but smile when I'm around you, Brown."

I just rolled my eyes, not so much at Blackie or what she said as at the cheapness of sarcasm in general. "Whatever. I thought you were reading, since your ribs hurt too much to do actual useful work."

"They do hurt." The faintest little pout accompanied this, though even Blackie's sulking looked charming. "And I was reading. But it's time to give the lovebirds a little privacy." She wandered over to examine the chessboard.

I'm sure the confused expression on my face must have been pretty hilarious, the way Blackie's eyes twinkled at the sight of it. "Lovebirds?" I demanded. "What lovebirds?"

One slender black eyebrow arched in reply. "Really, Brown?"

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