Mirella Ferrarini

Trip to Mato Grosso. Craziest thing I did: running after a Giant Pantanal Anteater (5 feet long, 7 feet high) for a better look. They are dangerous, but I didn't know back then.

I write fantasy novels. This is a taste for you from "The lost wheel of Time"

TASK

“Listen carefully to my words. This tiny wheel is extremely important and it’s imperative to put it back where it belongs.” Chantal said in firm voice. “First of all, you have to visit a bookstore in the Old Town. The place is a bit weird, but Mr. Tor’yaq, the owner, knows me well. He has a collection of volumes, you see, different from what you can find in normal shops. You tell him you are looking for this book, ‘Description of Extar Thoy - accompanied by accurate maps.’”

“What do you mean, Grandma? A collection? As in a museum?” Amryt said.

“You always ask too many questions.” Chantal shrugged. “As soon as you have finished your tea, you should go to the shop, carrying the wheel at all times. Just don’t lose it. On this map, I marked in red the shop’s location, inside an old porch. I wrote the title on the back.”

“Should I show it to the bookseller with the strange name?” the girl asked.

“No, no!” Grandma said in compelling tone. “He cannot see it. Not a word to him.”

Chantal pretended to sip her tea, half inclining the cup and closing her eyes, the blue color much faded with age. The pause had the only purpose to postpone the talking; what she needed was to catch her breath, and this had happened quite often recently. Unsure about the best way to expose the facts, she nervously touched her candid hair. “It’s complicated, but I see you need some explanation. I received this wheel a couple months ago, a gift from a friend who lives far away. It arrived inside a sealed parcel, personally delivered by the bookseller, along with a few unimportant items, colorful pebbles. Back then, I didn’t know what it really was, and the pebbles confused me for some time. The metal too, since I couldn’t figure out which alloy they used to forge it. Nevertheless, one day I was reading the essay written by Mr. Tor’yaq about the secluded portals, and I became certain it was originally part of an extremely ancient mechanism, the TimeMarker. Surely the device can’t work properly without it, and it’s essential to put the missing piece back in place.”

“But Grandma,” the girl objected. “Tell me where this mechanism is located, and I’ll bring the small wheel back. We can talk to the police if the place is far away, explain, maybe they will take care of it.” Amryt looked intently at the wheel: it was toothed, showing a fine artisanship, and finely notched. “Are you sure it makes part of an ancient device? It shows no sign of use, looks newly forged. Such a beautiful color even seems to glow a bit. That TimeMarker you mentioned, what is it for?”

“It is devoted to ruling Time,” Grandma said matter-of-factly.

“You mean a kind of clock. A big, complicated one?”

“You have no idea,” Chantal said in a determined way. After a pause, her tone became hesitant. “I will explain more about it when you will be back from the shop. Keep the wheel with you at all times, and don’t ever mention it to Mr. Tor’yaq.”

Amryt put it on the chain around her neck, along with the pendant Mary, her best friend, had given her.

“Trust me, you will have fun,” Grandma said smiling.

“Fun? At the bookstore?”

“Just trust me. Now you should go. You tell him you are my niece and ask for the book. No need for anything else, he will know what to do.” A short pause occurred, possibly due to her difficult breathing.

Staring at her, Chantal added, “Later, find a way to put the little wheel back in place.”

BOOKSHOP

April 5

“Should be close,” Amryt muttered to herself, tired of walking. The Old Town had an eerie look with its narrow streets going upward to the top of the hill, while almost all houses were built in an unimaginative beige-colored stone. Some streets were not streets at all, since the slope only allowed an infinite flight of steps.

Her disappointment grew in front of the gloomy porch that was supposed to host the shop. The shining lights of the pharmacy and the optician on the other side of the street only made the porch look darker and damper. I bet it’s closed, and Grandma didn’t know, she thought.

The porch had three huge wooden pillars, heavily cracked, and she had a sudden memory of having visited the place as a child; at the time, Chantal had scolded her for putting her fingers inside the fissures. Entering cautiously the poorly lit porch, she spotted a wooden door and a small painting on the side, depicting a nice lake surrounded by plants, whose leaves had an unnatural blue-green color. No proper sign for ‘bookstore’ was around, and the girl looked closely at the painting, looking for a clue. “Pond of Fairies” was the title, written in an elegant, out-of-fashion calligraphic style, at the bottom. I bet it bankrupted with such a name and weird location.

The door handles opened creaking. The room had stone walls and vaulted ceiling, but the overwhelming presence of old volumes tarnished the outstanding harmony of the building. The shop seemed about to explode. Shelves crammed the walls, and freestanding bookcases barely allowed the visitors to walk by. She turned around a nicely crafted table, hosting ponderous volumes in forgotten languages, ancient moth-eaten rolled-up scrolls, and exquisite leather-bound gold-edged tomes. More volumes, covered with layers of dust, carpeted the floor, especially in unused angles, forming different sized piles. A huge ceramic vase on the floor hosted some parchments, rounded up and sealed with wax in different colors, yellowish, red, black, and purple.

“Hello there,” she said. “Anybody here?” The red wax intrigued her, since it looked still warm and soft, and she was about to touch the seal, when a person, answering her call, appeared from the adjacent room.

“Don’t touch it! Fire resin!” The man put the leaflet he was holding on an unsafely tall pile. Amryt could not help but stare, since he was not the man the girl had imagined meeting. Grandma should have mentioned that!

“Mr. Tor’yaq?” she asked.

“How can I help you? I already did, preventing you to burn your fingers on the fire resin.”

“Thank you. I am Chantal’s niece, you remember her?”

“I have been familiar with Chantal most of her life,” the bookseller replied in an unexpected gentle tone. He was extremely small in stature, merely half of her, and had an unusual appearance, with oily grey-streaked hair, long and thin nose, and piercing eyes. His withered skin made him look wrapped in ancient parchment. “Do you live with her? Did I ever meet you? Long blonde hair, like the young Chantal. Come on, sit, my dear. There should be a chair somewhere.”

“Thank you, but I need to go back to her. My grandmother wishes to buy this book…Here, the title is on the map’s back. ‘Description of Extar Thoy - accompanied by accurate maps.’

The bookseller looked intensely at her. “Are you sure Chantal sent you here for this manual? Do you know what that involves?”

“It involves that you give me the book and I take it home to her.”

“Outspoken like your grandmother. Good.” He smiled. His teeth were white and perfect, contrasting fiercely with his careless look. “You should follow me in the next room.”

I am a stained-glass artist. I hand-cut artistic glasses, mostly from Venice: iridescent, opalescent, mottled, streamed. If you wish to try, you have to hand-cut the pieces, grind them thoroughly, foil and solder them. It's time-consuming, but the result is embedded in glass forever.

An excerpt from the last glass. One is a butterfly, the other is the dream of a butterfly. Can you guess?