Serendipity Part 2

Several moments, perhaps half an hour, passed before Serendipity was satisfied with the smiling face, and she eventually sat the doll head down carefully on the roughly hewn wooden table that held her paints and turned her attention back toward the fireplace, certain that whatever wayward piece of postage had haphazardly found its way into her chimney would be long gone. But it wasn’t. It still sat there un-charred and unblemished atop the dancing flames, staring at her almost as intensely as the blank canvas she had just personified.

Serendipity stood and stretched her back, noting that it no longer seemed quite as erect as it once was from so many hours of carefully examining her work, and crossed the few feet to the fireplace. Before she made a move to retrieve the stalwart article, she contemplated its existence a moment longer. Finally, taking the poker in her long, spindly, paint-stained fingers, she drew the envelope out of the flames, and it came to rest on the brick surround, no worse for the wear.

Again, Serendipity hesitated. The envelope sat seal side up, red wax with a mistletoe imprint anxiously awaiting the tear of a quick finger. She was certain that, once she flipped it over, she would see some print--something she would likely find indecipherable, as most writing was--and she did not like being faced with such a predicament within the solace of her own solitary abode.

At last, she bent down and took the letter in her hand, surprised that it didn’t even appear to be warm. With an audible sigh, she flipped it over and was surprised to see that she could, in fact, read the inscription. It simply said, “Serendipity Fizzlestitch,” written in neat, gold ink in legible, if not slightly fancy, script.

A soft squeaking near her feet caught her attention, and she sighed again, this time in relief. Glancing down, she saw one of the few living creatures she considered a friend. “Well, Pozzletot,” she said, bending to scoop the little mouse into her free hand, “it seems we’ve received a message.”

Pozzletot wiggled his little black, whiskery nose to and fro, rubbing his hands together several times before resting back on his haunches against Serendipity’s palm. His eyes were large and curious, and his tail wiggled back and forth as if he were trying to form a question mark.

“I haven’t any idea who it is from,” Serendipity admitted, flipping the foreign object over in her hand. “I would suppose it is some sort of a magic letter, if I still believed in magic,” she continued.

Once again, Pozzletot made an inquisitive sounding squeak, gesturing as if to ask a follow up question. He rubbed his nose with his hand and shook his tail. Then, looking off across the room, he squeaked again, louder this time, and within a few seconds several of his colleagues skittered across the room, congregating near Serendipity’s feet.

“Well, hello my little loves!” she exclaimed, dropping carefully to her knees and bending closer to the floor. “It seems like it’s been days since I’ve seen any of you, I’ve been so preoccupied with my work.” She lowered her hand so that Pozzletot could join the others and sat in silent observation as they seemed to chat in a language she could only assume to understand.

After a moment, she realized they were all gesturing toward the letter now, and she returned her attention to it as well. Once again, she examined the front and the back, turning it over in her hands several times, before shrugging her shoulders and addressing the small audience. “I suppose I could open it. It’s only… you know how I feel about… reading.”

Pozzletot stepped forward, an encouraging expression on his whiskery face. As she kneeled staring down at his innocent wide eyes, they momentarily seemed to morph into the shocked expression of pain and disbelief she had created the last time she was in a similar situation, and her stomach began to tighten, her breathing labored. “No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, my friends. I… can’t. Not now.”

Before she could catch a glimpse of their disappointment, she stood, tossed the letter aside, not even watching as it landed near her rocking chair on the wooden floor, and returned hastily to her work. There was hair to string, gowns to stitch, shoes to assemble. Whatever the envelope contained could wait. Eventually, most of her tiny roommates scampered off, back into the solace of the cottage walls, leaving only Pozzletot to accompany her as she worked. He made his way up the gnarled table leg and found a seat next to Serendipity’s spool of thread. Though a dusty Singer occupied one corner of her living space, she preferred to stitch by hand, as her grandmother had shown her when she was a wee lass, and she was quick and accurate with her weapon of choice. Pozzletot frequently watched her work, often in silence, though the occasional squeak of marvel served as quality assurance even if her mind wandered from her work to distant times, as it so often did.

Occasionally, she would share her remembrances aloud in whispered stories to her tiny friends. Pozzletot was often joined by other members of the household; Bitsy, Muffincrumb, Mr. Joggington, or Gypsim, perhaps. Today, however, it was only he, and after a few moments, Serendipity began to justify herself.

“It’s not as if I have invited the outside world in, mind you,” she began mid-thought, insisting Pozzletot infer the context. “It’s probably nothing anyway, you know. Perhaps a Christmas card…. I believe the holiday season has just past. Perhaps it’s nothing but a piece of recently discovered postage the postman mishandled. I should think it would have been better directed to… the main house, where Maevis or Ms. Crotlybloom could have given it some attention.”

Pozzletot squeaked, and Serendipity shifted her eyes away from her work momentarily before returning them to the hem she was working on so adamantly. “I have no explanation as to why it didn’t catch fire and turn to ash,” she admitted. “Perhaps the world has invented some flame-retardant paper in these past few years.” Once again, her eyes flickered in his direction, and he seemed to scratch his head in disagreement. Huffing, Serendipity’s pale blue eyes crinkled a bit as she peered closely at the small stitches she rapidly, yet precisely, placed along the folded edge of satin. “Don’t look at me like that,” she replied sharply. “You can’t begin to understand what it’s like for me….”

This time, Pozzletot seemed to disagree quite harshly, stamping his narrow foot and knocking Serendipity’s favorite paintbrush off of the paint jar where she had rested it a few minutes ago. “Now, now,” she scolded, righting the instrument, “I won’t have you questioning my motives. It simply won’t do. You’re a guest here, after all, my tiny friend,” she reminded him.

Pozzletot slowly shook his head from side to side, a disparaging expression on his pointy face. 

Serendipity tossed the dress onto her lap, paying little care for the sharp needle, which came loose from the thread and tinkled across the floor. The knot in her stomach was making itself known again, and flashes of grim faces, the wretched smell of vomit mixed with blood, and the harsh voice of her mother all came back to her. “Serendipity! What have you done? Foolish child! You’ve killed us all…”

“No!” she exclaimed, snapping back to the present. “I won’t do it.” Rising from the chair, she flung the dress on to the table, only slightly leery of the open paint jars, and turned her back to the astonished mouse sitting nearby. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Pozzletot, my head is aching. I think I shall retire to my quarters for some rest.”

Pozzletot squeaked at her retreating back as she made her way across the room to the rickety ladder that led to her loft. His protests fell on deaf ears, and Serendipity ascended to her private chambers with nothing more to be said from any of her permanent house guests.