Chapter 259

|| #4: Reader Realm ~ The New Chronicler ~ ||

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!! I was referring to my reflection in the mirror in that crowded millinery.

Don't mistake me. I hadn't come to buy a hat. I had merely been sheltering myself from the sudden downpour. The nearest refuge had been this paradise of fancy ladies' hats, enveloped in pink wallpaper.

And mind you, I wasn't calling myself stupid for the deviation I had taken into bonnets and sunhats.

I was thinking about last night.

To think that she'd stopped the story short at such an important juncture, in the middle of nowhere. What had happened to them? Was Raoul defeated? Did the Raizadas perish? Did Arnav and Kushi live to see their unborn child walk the world? The answerless questions kept gnawing at my mind until I could breathe no more.

And how I had stupidly assumed that there was good in the Lady in the Dark Hood. I mean, who would have thought she'd have a hand in evil all along, teaming with that foul Raoul to wreck precious lives. I should have focused on the obvious hint of her dark robe. Good tidings come wearing white robes not evil black!

I was meditating on all these thoughts as I ambled along an aisle of white wedding bonnets when I caught sight of a familiar cowboy hat bobbing along a parallel aisle.

Alarmed, I ducked and peered across from the edge of the nearest shelf.

Yes, I had guessed the hat right! Captain Responsibility was prowling about in the vicinity.

My eyebrows scrunched. Why was he in a ladies' millinery? The only explanation was that he was after me! But how did he know I had come this way?!!

Just then someone tapped on my shoulder.

Startled, I looked up from where I was crouched beside a shelf of fancy trilbies.

My confused eyes studied the tall, lavishly dressed woman, donned in a short dark frock, black netted gloves and a black feather hat that sported a huge rim. And like a final touch to indescribable extravagance, this avatar was wearing sunglasses.

I mentally snorted. Who wears sunglasses INSIDE a shop? Was she blind? And what red lips!! So red that it's possible she ate half the lipstick!

And then those bright red lips moved and words trickled out with a heavy accent, "Da ya know whair de tophats arr?"

"What?" I blinked up at her, my figure still crouching beside the shelf.

"Da ya know whair de tophats arr?"

"Top hats?" I frowned, "Listen lady, this is a women's hat shop. There are no tophats here."

"Well, here's one for a change," she replied lucidly, minus the fake accent, as her gloved hand held out a marvellous, shiny tophat, fit for any Abe Lincoln.

"How did you-?" I was baffled and then it struck me, why that annoying grin of hers was familiar and that floating voice.

I instinctively scowled, "What happened? Where had you gone? And you were Raoul's sidekick, weren't you? And to think Fortune was on the enemy's side too!"

The disguised Lady in the Dark Hat-Not-Hood only smiled slyly and then bent down, "Believe what you will. But I want you to wear this tophat and not remove it until you are out of that Captain's sight."

I stared at her. So the Captain was after her and not me. And something about that tophat was what he was after.

I didn't know what to reply with, my mind being confounded by all that was happening. The Lady, finding my reluctance stalling of precious time, pushed the tall hat into my hands and vanished from sight.

I was still marvelling at the enterprise of the whole incident, when someone tapped on my shoulder again.

I turned my head, half-expecting to find the Lady standing there, but instead it was the face of a very annoyed man. He was short, nearly dwarf-like, but his face boasted a huge black moustache which made one wonder how he had the strength to carry it about. I found myself imagining him in a white apron, swirling a pizza dough in his hand which instantly, as the backdrop of our place conceded, turned into a white wedding tippet.

It only take a moment to recognize his face as the one painted on the signboard outside the shop.

"Excuse me," he hissed, his distrustful gaze analysing me while his hands remained importantly crossed behind him, and by his posture he was understandably quite peeved by my presence, "Can I help you?"

"Urm..." I gulped, staring up at the milliner from where I sat misleadingly crouched beside the aisle.

I slowly got up, remembering the tophat in my hand.

As soon as I got up, I caught sight of Captain Responsibility glancing down the aisle I was standing beside. Instantly, I placed the tophat on my head and turned my back to him before his searching gaze found me out.

"I am sorry," I mumbled to the milliner, "Wrong shop."

And then I was running for the door, sensing the milliner's frown and the Captain's suspicious stare boring into the back of my tophat head.

Even after I'd stepped out of the shop and into the pouring rain, my feet didn't stop running.

I ran till I reached the Inn and barged through the door, frightening the InnKeeper serving at the counter, "What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

I was panting horribly as I sat onto the stool at the counter, my boots and clothes squelching from the rain and my drenched advent earning a few questioning stares from the customers. The ones drinking beer at the counter inched away from me as I dripped all over the floor and table.

I placed the drenched tophat on the counter and caught the towel that the InnKeeper had flung in my direction.

While drying my face and hair, I watched the InnKeeper pick up the curious looking hat, "Fancy wear! Where did you get this from?"

"The Lady," I replied and won his interest.

I narrated to him the whole incident, leaving out the embarrassing part of the milliner finding me.

"What is it about the hat?" wondered the InnKeeper aloud, pouring me a scalding brew of coffee to ward off the cold from my rain-blessed insides, "Do you suppose a rabbit's gonna come out from under it like that magic man's trick last week?"

"I don't think this is a magician's hat," I remarked as I scrutinized the wet hat on the counter.

The InnKeeper prodded my growing curiosity that was identical to his, "Don't you want to know why she meant for you to have it? What if...what if it's a portal for timetravel?"

"That's ridiculous!" I replied and then picked up the hat and turned it about.

It was then that I found a tiny parchment tucked away in an inside flap of the hat.

"It's another letter from her," I said, having retrieved it and seen that it was written in the same script as the previous one.

It read thus:

The previous chapter had ended on a note that must have left some hearts flustered and some confused. Nevertheless, this letter will suffice to put matters straight. The story is not over, the remaining chapters of which must be narrated personally by me for it is a tale that has not been written for man to see. Accompanying this letter is another parchment which is the chapter to come. Once you've read it and told of it to your fellow comrades at the Inn, set out for the old fortress that lies north to the village where your Inn is. Only a little of the great fortress survives today but you will find a brook flowing underneath its once magnificent arched gateway. There you will all gather. There I will be.

I looked at the InnKeeper who was equally speechless at the aftermath of the revelation that the letter held.

"Well," he finally found the voice to track my thought line, "What are you waitin for? Let's hear what's really happened in the story, eh!"

With my heart beating excitedly, I nodded in acknowledgment, retrieved the second parchment and began reading.

As mentioned, college reopened and things just got a lot more occupying and trying. I had thought I could come every weekend but last week I couldn't come in any way. But I will try to be here as often as I can. Next chapter I will try to update within three days itself. Thank you my dear readers for being so patient with me. I have read through all your comments but didn't have the time or network dependency to press "like". But I assure you, I have read them all and love you all so much for your excitement and your support for all the events that are happening in this tale at present...