Mirror Changed – Chapter 03
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Jayde~

In between the upsells and button pushing's at work my coworker Becky and I were managing to have something of a conversation. Sore feet and Taco seasoning the next two most prevalent things of note in my senses.

“Come on it'll be fun.” Becky said as soon as we had a quick break in customers.

Lanie gaped at Angelina. Deep down, she knew Angelina was telling the truth, but she still couldn't get herself to believe it. A horrible woman like Angelina...Lanie's mother? The idea sickened her to her very core. "But how?" Lanie asked. "How can you be my mother?"

"I hooked up with your father nearly seventeen years ago," Angelina answered.

"What?" Lanie asked. "I thought you hated men."

No map ever drawn, on earth, on sea, or in outer space,
has ever presented a cartographer as daunting a challenge
as the seating chart for a wedding reception.

The next day was Sunday. Lanie slept in late that morning, but when she woke up, she decided to just go ahead and take a shower. While she was soaping down, she heard Rachel come into the bathroom.

"Hey Lanie!" said Rachel. "Conner's here!"

"Oh, shit," said Lanie. "Tell him I'll be out in just a minute!"

"Okay."

Mirror Changed – Chapter 02
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Jayde~

I didn’t really know where I was. I felt that I should know, but for some reason it was just out of my reach. I stood on a barren path of sorts. Rather indistinct. Looking down I saw that I had nothing on, but it felt natural to be that way here.

Where ever here happened to be.

Could I be dreaming? Since I rarely remembered my dreams I had a hard time telling. However there seemed to be very little of … well anything where I found myself. Wasn’t that a hallmark of dream logic?

"Women!" he exclaimed. "You can't keep a secret! None of you!"

"Well, to be fair," I interjected, "I wasn't a woman at the time."

He gaped at me, incredulous. "Seriously? Seriously now? That's your excuse?
That's supposed to somehow make it better?"
 

Chapter 11

When we had finished the meal, Suzette and I packed the dishes in the washer while my mother chatted with our guests. May was regaling her about some of the odd ladies she had made dresses for and when she mentioned that a few had been men my mother said “Wouldn’t that be difficult?”

I said “Mother dear, have you looked at the photos in the window of the shop?”

She nodded so I carried on. “One is of a lot of local ladies at a celebrity wedding and the other is a group at a party.”

Mirror Changed – Chapter 01
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Through most of the world many people have commented that fast food places are really all the same. The same basic concept and layout. Whether it is burgers or tacos or pizza they all share the same formulaic approach. The same waiting in lines. The same grease. Whether inside or out in the car. The same basic eating areas, and if you are lucky the same indoor children’s play places. Sitting down to eat in one of them contained so much of the sameness that to eat in one you could feel like you had eaten in them all.

ANOTHER QUICK NOTE: Thanks to Heather Rose Brown for responding to my dilemma with organizing this story's chapters, and helping point me in the right direction. Thanks to erin as well, for helping me with the technical stuff that allowed me to access the "Outline" tool for my stories and organizers. Your help is greatly appreciated.

***

Lanie, Rachel, and Jenny rode the train for the rest of the day until it started to get dark out. The train kept going for a little while until it came to a train yard at the edge of a city.

It was sometime after seven on a Saturday evening, maybe they had closed for the weekend? I turned and looked around, trying to see if anyone else were moving anywhere in the complex.

It was cold in the High Lady Jenwise’s office, perhaps colder than it should have been. I stood there a good distance away from her desk while she chatted with some dignitary that I didn’t recognize. To the left and right, two guards, each in a pressed blue uniform, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders. Their faces were expressionless but I knew that they were watching me, even as I stood there in my tattered prison uniform and barely passable footwraps.

Lanie woke up bright and early the following morning. When she awoke, she saw that Rachel and Melody were already up and getting some of their clothes out of their dressers. "Good morning, guys," said Lanie.

"Hi Lanie!" said Rachel. "We're just getting ready to shower for the day."

"Nice," said Lanie. "I guess I should do that too."

"The showers are in the bathroom area," said Melody. "Just beyond the bathroom stalls."

Chapter 10

Jules took us to a small restaurant where we had a table isolated enough so that we could talk business. May was brought up to speed with the new structure and I could see that Jules was warming to the future.

I asked him to give May a raise and that slowed him just a little, until it came home to him that he was going to make a thousand pounds a dress more than his usual sales, without even needing to sweat over a drawing board.

Chaos filled the common room of the girls dormitory.

Apparently having more than one dorm key was a good thing, and the tougher girls were stealing as many as they could from anyone who couldn't or wouldn't defend themselves. I could only watch as a crystal covered girl came towards me, flames erupting from her nostrils with every breath. Looking around for help, or maybe a distraction, things didn't look good.

"Speaking of Lorelei's resemblance to Elliot..." Claus intoned,
"Did you know that Amber sincerely believes that Lorelei is actually Elliot?"

Dave looked sly. "I heard it involves a cheerleader."

The stairs seemed to go on for a very long time. At the top they were your typical dungeon stairs, dank, dirty, poorly lit by ever-glow torches, and very narrow, so we had to walk in single file. Then they started to open up, becoming cheap wood, widening so two or even three people could walk side by side, and lanterns lit the sides, putting out a nice warm glow. Further down we were walking on a marble staircase, glowing fae spheres floated around us, dancing in the air, making me feel good just watching them.

"The more you clean," Melissa told me, "the more you'll see that needs cleaning."

"It's a weird twist on Sisyphus," I commented.

"If you say so," she responded.

Chapter 7

The appointment at the fashion house was on a Wednesday morning so I made an appointment with Hector at his rehearsal rooms in the late afternoon and worked my butt off putting together a folio of drawings for him and the troupe to look at.

We had eight different guys, all built a bit differently but, thankfully all reasonably slim and about the same height. I had a basic shape but each had subtle differences to suit the individual characters.