Episode 2

Mab sighed.
When she was younger, she’d wondered if certain things happened only to her. It seemed like an incredibly selfish thought. She banished it. Now, when she spoke of her conversations with Lady, the mirrors, the Miles Davis room and the right-side-up bat, people just figured she spoke in metaphors. And when people accused her of committing metaphors, she took offence, because Mab had no idea what a metaphor was. Not that she didn’t understand the vague dictionary meaning- it was right up there with ‘irony’- but she’d never really experienced it. It was like a twelve-year-old singing about love. If you don’t know it, how can you talk about it. (Actually, it was also a little like that annoying hirsute woman talking about irony. SOME THINGS ARE JUST BAD LUCK, ALANIS.)

Mab did have friends of course, even close ones that had been to her home. They saw a girl their age, very much like them, only nicer. She had a regular girl’s room with a poster of Matt Damon and another of the three witches of Macbeth. On the walls were hundreds of books on fat oaken bookshelves and even a ladder leading up to the books closer to the ceiling. She had wrought iron bookends with Simon and Garfunkel lyrics carved into them, which was probably a little unlikely for a girl who otherwise listened to an unnatural amount of vocal jazz, but you get the joke.

One of them–her best friend–was currently sending her text messages helping her practice nasty things to say to the boy who had most recently broken her heart. It was another matter that Mab was never going to take her advice, but Ainé didn’t know that and she was not about to give up. All Ainé knew was that the damned bastard Carrig was visiting Mab in a couple of hours and it was up to her, not Mab, to give Carrig his due. Mab did not even know how to say ‘damned bastard’ without cringing and saying a quick Hail Mary. It was a funny friendship actually, because Ainé didn’t know how to say a Hail Mary without saying a quick ‘damned bastard’. It was fabled that Ainé’s first words were “ass wipe”. It’s possible. Her parents swore like sailors, even while changing her. In any case Mab had two hours before Carrig visited, and really needed all the advice she could get. Maybe if she wished really hard for Lady, she would…

For a small mirror, the crashing sound it made was deafening. The fine sequined inlay work on the mirror formed a meaningless pattern on the floor, in the middle of what looked like a cotton candy explosion. Lady sat in the mess feigning nonchalance.
Anything for Mab.