The Looking Glass (Short Story, 1st in an Anthology)

[TheProfessor]

Hey! I used to b on the boards and posted a lot of my work. I just got back on and im excited to start showing somethings that i have done recently. I just finished a short story called The Looking Glass. Its the first in an Anthology called Mr. Howell's Toy Wonders, named after the lead character and his toy store in Paris, and about an item that is sold to him and how he learns to use it. Its around 8 pages single space, 10 pt font, etc. Here's the first part, if people like it, ill post more.

The sight of Paris in the early hours of the morning always delighted Mr. Howell as he made his usual rounds and erants. His first of priorities was always to wake himself up from his previous night’s sleep by sitting in the farthest corner table possible at a different outdoor café everyday. He sipped a single mug of decaffeinated coffee with just the tiniest bit of cream imaginable, and watched the different kinds of people as they passed by or drank at the café’s many tables. You see, Mr. Howell was, of many things, an author of prestigious children’s books. He had penned hundreds of different books and short stories, all of which featured characters that he had based off of his witness accounts. But now, Mr. Howell was planning not another short children’s book to pass the time by; but a novel, the great novel. The novel in which he had dreamt his life’s entirety of writing. But Mr. Howell wanted neither fame nor fortune from his novel. All Mr. Howell wanted was to hand his job over to the hands of his young apprentice so that he could complete this task.
You may seem confused by the statement above. If Mr. Howell was an author of prestigious children’s book who was planning his much dreamed great novel, then what job would he have to hand over to his young apprentice? The day job of this author, was manager (a third generation one at that!) of Paris’s famous Toy Wonders store in the heart of the city of Love. Mr. Howell’s grandfather had opened the store in the year 1901, after arriving in Paris from the small town of Strawsburg only a month earlier. It had been his grandfather’s dream to give the entertainment of young children, and even young adults, to them through his toys. After Mr. Howell’s father, Jean, had handed him the store twenty years ago, Mr. Howell had been searching for the perfect young apprentice to hand the store over to. Sadly, Mr. Howell had neither a son, nor decendant of any kind to hand the store over to. It was, instead, in the hands and his young friend Dario that he would hand give the inheritance.
As Mr. Howell got up from his back corner seat, he watched an old woman slowly walk by the café. She wore a black shawl, something that was not often seen any longer in Paris, a city known for its fashions. He watched her for a moment and decided that she was the apple of his creative eye that morning. He quickly ripped the appropriate amount of change from his pocket out and left it on the table for the waitress, then set off down the street. Mr. Howell tried his hardest not to pass the old woman with the shawl as she slowly crept down the sidewalk. A sigh of relief came upon his thoughts when Mr. Howell realized that the woman with the shawl was walking in the direction of his store. He would save time.
Upon reaching the store’s front, Mr. Howell decided not to go ahead of the women and open it up, but instead, he watched her from a close distant. She stopped just before the door of the store and leaned in to read the sign. Her sight must not have been all to healthy, for she sat reading over and over and over again a sign that clearly said the shop was “CLOSED”. But, nonetheless, she kept staring, and staring into the sign. After around a minute or two, she looked to have given up, and slowly began to walk the length of the store. Mr. Howell smirked and chuckled the slightest bit for his selfishness, then walked to the front door and unlocked it with his large brass key.
Toy Wonders was the oldest and most lavish of all toy stores in Paris. The inside of the store made its visitors feel as if they were put under a spell. This was because while the outside made the store look like an old shop, a very old shop that looked too similar to that in the older parts of the city, the inside look like the Wonderland described in the adventures of Alice. The colorful toys and candies line the walls through shelves that looked nonexistence thanks to its clear color. A large oak desk sat in the middle of the store where Mr. Howell would sit and cash out his customers. Dario would stand up on the second level, over looking from the balcony, keep a mental check on the toys quantities. An elabrorate system of dominoes were setup around the entire store. No one really knew what the dominoes would reveal when knocked over, and no one wanted to be the ones to find out! They had been set up in 1902, and no one had touched them in over a hundred years.

After this I talk more about Dario and then I bring in Alice, who sells Mr. Howell the looking glass. (Alice is the old woman with the shawl)

Comments please!

 

[TheProfessor]

alright, im gonna post more, because i dont know if i gave enough for ppl to get interesteed, so im adding a lot more...

Dario Giachelli was an Italian immigrant who had first come to the city of Paris three years ago. He found Toy Wonders and also found it to be a great place to sleep. Every night when Mr. Howell would close the door and leave for home, Dario would creep out from some corner or closet, and gaze among the many toys in which he dreamed of playing with. He would sleep in various spots of the second level every night and would wake up in the mornings right before Mr. Howell would arrive. This was when Dario would hide in a closet near the stairs to the second level. When Mr. Howell would go off into the back room to get his things ready, Dario would run out of the store and return at various times during the day before returning for his shelter. Mr. Howell had discovered the young Italian one night after he forgot a list of new toys in the store. He walked in, only to find young Dario playing with the latest mind bending puzzle his store had to offer. He recognized him as the daily patron and took him in.
Three years later, Dario was a very important member of the Toy Wonders staff. He was second in command… of a staff of two. No matter, Dario loved his position. He got to oversee all the toys and play with them whenever he wanted. Even though he was of the age of eighteen, Dario believed that no one was too old for the joys of some childish things like certain toys. Sure, dolls and action figures were for young children, but some puzzles and strategy games were always for the young at heart.
The mystery surrounding the old woman with the shawl lasted throughout Mr. Howell’s entire day. He watched every person go by his store, in hope that she would be back. Unaware himself as to why he was so interested in the old woman with the shawl, Mr. Howell still found himself watching for her. When not watching the door, every time he heard the ringing of the bell atop his door, his face shot up to see if it was her.
By his lunch break, the woman with the shawl was still no where to be found. Mr. Howell put Dario in charge, as he always did at one o’clock in the afternoon, and set off for lunch. As he walked the sidewalks of Paris, searching for a great sandwich place, every woman who was the least bit bent over made Mr. Howell wonder if that was her. No matter how much he searched for her, he realized there was no point in searching for a woman he could certainly not find. So his hunt stopped.
The woman with the shawl was of course found. But it wasn’t until Mr. Howell was returning the next day that he found her standing up against the door, this time waiting for someone to arrive. She was wearing the same shawl as the day before, and looked exactly the same. Mr. Howell did not acknowledge her as he opened the shop any more than by the simplest tap of his hat’s brim. He opened the door and shut it before she moved an inch. He turned the “CLOSED” sign around to “OPEN”.
Dario was sweeping the floors of the second level when he turned around. “Dario,” he called up to him. Dario’s attention quickly turned to Mr. Howell.
“Si?” Dario answered.
“There is an old woman outside. Would you care to let her in?” he asked, taking off his coat and folding it over his arm. Dario nodded and set his brush up against the railing of the second level. He then crept down the spiral staircase that led down to the first level and walked for the door. As he did this, Mr. Howell turned and went into the back room, letting his young assistant let the old woman in.

Outside, Dario opened the door to find that there was no woman, young or old standing out against the store. He looked back and forth in the different directions of the store. As he stepped back into the shop, he called out, “Mr. Howell, there is no one there.” But there was. For when Dario finished turning, he saw the old woman standing at the desk where Mr. Howell spent his day. “Hello,” said Dario, stunned at the appearance of the mysterious old woman.
“Hello Dario, my dear. May I speak to Mr. Howell,” she said. Dario was confused. “Mr. Howell,” she said, elevating her eyebrows when he didn’t fetch Mr. Howell right away.
“H-How do you know my name?” he asked, taking a step to the side, away from the woman as if she were infected with a virus.
The old woman smiled and revealed a set of bright white teeth. “Dario Giachelli, I know your name because I must know it.”
“I do not understand,” he said, taking another step to the side.
“You may understand in good time. Now fetch Mr. Howell. I have something for him,” she said. She reached her hands into her pockets, but never took an eye off of Dario as he side stepped his way to the back room.
When he reached the back room, Dario found Mr. Howell writing a note. “Mr. Howell,” he said, closing the door to the back room. “The woman is inside. She was gone when I was outside, but back when I was in,” he said. “She asked for you, literally.”
Mr. Howell looked up from his note, “She just appeared?” he asked. Dario nodded his head. “Your imagination is growing Dario,” he said as he got up and walked out of the room.

The woman with the shawl was standing at Mr. Howell’s desk when he entered the shop’s main room. Mr. Howell saw that his desk was no longer empty on the surface. An object wrapped in a golden linen sat on the top of the large desk. “Good morning… er…” said Mr. Howell extending his hand and pausing for the mysterious woman’s name.
The woman did not take Mr. Howells hand, she instead just looked at it and answered Mr. Howell, “My name is Alice.”
“How do you do?” asked Mr. Howell. Alice said nothing, but she instead turned and pointed to the gold linen covered object on the desk. She picked it up by what looked like a handle.
“I found this on my last travels, and I have no use for it,” she flipped it over and felt her hand across it. “Whenever I go away, I always look for something interesting. A book or some sort of object. Something that look appealing to not only myself, but what I fell many people. I then will sell it when I return to Paris,” Alice said placing the object back down on the desk. She looked up at Mr. Howell who was giving her a confused look.
“I do not understand… why would you buy something just to bring it back to a foreign country and sell it again? Just so that it can be sold once more?”
“Because, I believe that beautiful and amazing things should be in circulation and not just left un one place. Spread out. I thought this store would be fitting for this particular finding,” Alice answered.
Suddenly Mr. Howell understood her reasoning. Why should something beautiful be limited to one certain people. Why can’t people from all over the world hold in possession things from other nations? Mr. Howell picked up the gold linen and began to unwrap it. The head of a snake was revealed down near where Alice had held it before. Already it wasn’t looking like a child’s toy, or anything else that Mr. Howell sold in his store. As he kept unwrapping it, more snakes appeared all circling around a mirror. Two large snakes curled out at the head of the mirror and faces opposite directions while another snake’s head looked into the eyes of the mirrors beholder.
“It’s a looking glass,” Alice said. “I found it in a flee market in Brazil near Rio de Janerio.” Alice looked for an expression upon Mr. Howell’s face as he finished unwrapping the looking glass. She then looked down at her finding.
“A looking glass?” Mr. Howell asked, “In my store?”
“It is much more than just a looking glass,” Alice said “It shows you things, a great many things. All you have to do is ask, and you shall see,” she told him. Mr. Howell now looked down at the looking glass in both amazement and also in suspicion. How can something so wonderous actually exist? And if it did exist, as Mr. Howell thought it did since he was holding it, was there a catch? Alice must have read his mind, for she answered the questioned he had nod yet asked. “There is a catch,” she said. Mr. Howell looked up at her, “Every time you use this looking glass and its power,” she hesitated the smallest bit before continuing, “you lose something else. Nothing with this looking glass can go without a price.”
“But-,” Mr. Howell was confused. Alice cut him off before he could finish.
“That’s all I can say,” Alice walked to the door, but turned back as she grabbed the handle. “Good luck.” As she turned the handle, she said without facing him, “Good bye Christophe.”
Mr. Howell yelled after her, “How do you know my name? and what do you mean by good luck?!” But he was too late, for Alice was already out the door, walking into the sunshine, gone from his life. She left Mr. Howell to look at her looking glass. “Impossible,” he said. Mr. Howell set the glass on the desk and walked away.


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