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Mina

A Photographic Novella

in Twenty Episodes

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Text and Makeup by Jennifer Broome

Photography by Allie Mullin

©2012. All Rights Reserved

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Bonus! 2 Episodes:

‚Hatter’s Plan‛

And ‚The Descent‛

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‚Hatter’s Plan‛

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Hatter returned the next day several hours early. She had no trouble finding Tatter and Mina’s position in the cave, as Tatter’s grumbling echoed throughout the entire rock formation. Chuckling, Hatter ducked down under the low entrance and said ‚Hush, Tatter, I’m back and I’m early.‛ ‚It’s about bleedin’ time,‛ snapped Tatter. ‚What did yer see?‛ ‚It’s not good,‛ replied Hatter. She plucked Tatter’s parasol from her hands and began to draw in the dirt floor of the cave. ‚There are six entrances to Mt. Fuscus. Two of those are caved in solid, one is in the middle of a rockface so sheer I couldn’t begin to climb to it, and the other three are guarded by Derklings.‛ She marked a series of ‚X‛es on the diagram. ‚Two

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of the latter are guarded very lightly—four or five Derklings each. That tells me there are other defenses in play that we can’t see. Those are out—I don’t want to tangle with whatever the Derkling Queen put there.‛ ‚What is a Derkling, anyway?‛ demanded Mina. Hatter shrugged. ‚They’re difficult to describe. They’re sort of dark, winged, shadowy half-humans gone bad. They’re small things, not much trouble by themselves. It’s when they’re in large groups you run into problems.‛ She returned her attention to the diagram. ‚The last entrance is the one we’re looking for, I think. I counted twenty-five Derkling guards for each of the three shifts on that entrance.‛

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‚So we need to get by twenty-five of these things?‛ asked Mina. ‚Not necessarily. We have some options. If we choose any of the secondary entrances, we can easily overpower the guards. The problem is that once we’re inside we won’t know which way to go. That mountain could hold any number of passages, dead ends, and the like. We could end up wandering for days until our food and water give out. I don’t much like the idea of starving to death in there.‛ ‚Too bleedin’ right,‛ muttered Tatter. ‚We could try to shift the rocks on one of the blocked entrances, but we face the same problem if we get inside. Not to mention it’s difficult to move boulders stealthily. We’d be discovered

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before we’d finished prying the first one away from the others. So it looks like our only means of ingress is the heavily guarded entrance.‛ ‚If the Derklings are small, why can’t we just kill them?‛ Mina inquired. Hatter stiffened. ‚The Derklings are not our enemies. They’re to be pitied, for they’re hopeless, leaden-souled things. Besides, remember what Fleur said: the Derkling Queen won’t suffer us to live if we bring weapons to her home.‛ ‚Can we just ask the guards to let us in?‛ ‚We could, but then they wouldn’t be much good as guards, would they? Besides, they hate Philomorphs.‛

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Mina began to feel exasperated. ‚So what exactly do you propose we do, Hatter?‛ Hatter smiled. ‚It’s easy. We’re going to let them take us prisoner.‛

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‚The Descent‛

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Mina had not thought it would take so much to be captured by the Derklings. In the end, after three days of fruitless, overtly suspicious activity, Tatter and Mina were forced to stage an argument within a few yards of the main entrance. Hatter had lapsed back into her habitual silence but kept a watch on the movements of the guards. In the middle of Tatter and Mina’s argument, Hatter signaled that the

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Derklings were moving in. Tatter opened her parasol so it looked as nonthreatening as possible, while Hatter scrunched her improbable hat further down her face. Mina just stood there feeling a trifle silly.

Soon enough, six Derklings were cresting the ridge where the trio had staged their argument. The Derklings spoke among themselves in a chirruping sort of language. To Mina, it sounded

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like a poor cricket-to-bat translation at an animal Parliment.

Hatter seemed to understand what the Derklings were saying, but as they approached she gave no indication that she spoke Derklish. She pretended to be as confused as Mina and Tatter

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when they were rounded up and herded towards Mt. Fuscus.

Tatter bit her lip as they walked, trying to keep both her temper and her parasol in check. Though she and Hatter had been through much together, Tatter was no spy. She was unused to surrendering control of a situation, and she especially hated having to submit to being frog-marched towards that looming mountain. Unbidden, an image of The Professor’s word-strewn corpse settled at the forefront of her mind. Tatter shifted uneasily, but realized that she couldn’t escape now if she wanted to. The trio was politely but firmly guided past the main entrance to the mountain, then down a complex series of paths lit by torches. Mina could feel the downward slope of their progress

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as they moved deeper and deeper into the stone edifice. After what seemed like an hour, the group approached a wooden door wedged into a carved opening. It was apparently held up by means of metal bolts forced into the surrounding stone, and it was guarded by another contingent of Derklings. The two sets of guards chirruped back and forth for a few minutes, then one of the door guards set to unlocking the sixteen different types of bolts that fastened the door shut. When the last hasp was cleared, a mass of Derklings hefted the wood out of the way. Without further ceremony, the trio’s guards shoved them into the space beyond; the other group of guards thrust the wood back into place and rapidly refitted the bolts.

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There was no light in the space, but Hatter rummaged in the improbable hat and produced a candle with matches. She lit the candle and surveyed the cell.

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It was clearly a place of confinement, in that there could be no doubt. The three were in a damp, cramped little space with manacles driven into the walls. It was so small that Hatter’s candle cast light into the far reaches of the walls. Tatter plunked down onto the dirt floor and glared. ‚Wot now?‛

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Hatter, serene as ever, replied, ‚We wait for a rat.‛

If Tatter was confused, she refused to show it. And indeed, Mina watched with amazement as Hatter pulled a bit of grain from her hat and placed it in the far corner of the room. Then she

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turned back to her companions. ‚Tatter, I need string.‛ Tatter stood up, glaring. ‚’ow much string?‛

Hatter looked at Tatter, thinking. ‚Your hem should do it.‛ Tatter stared daggers at her friend, but started to unravel her tatted lace without a word.

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‚I’m going to have to blow out the candle,‛ Hatter said to Mina apologetically. ‚Just sit still, but not against the wall. They’ll be more interested in the food than in you.‛

Mina obeyed, hoping Hatter knew what she was doing. After a while—Mina couldn’t judge how long—she heard a telltale scrabble of claws. Before she

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could think to scream, Hatter let out a whoop of triumph. ‚Got you! Tatter, light the candle, would you?‛

Tatter complied, and sure enough, Hatter had pinned a rather large and definitely ugly rat by its tail. The rat didn’t look scared, probably because Hatter was nudging bits of food in its direction..

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‚I don’t believe this,‛ Mina said. ‚It’s going to bite you, you know.‛ Hatter sighed. ‚I know, but we need it enough that I can afford a bite or two.‛ She removed more grain from her hat and kept feeding the vermin. Mina looked on helplessly. Of all the odd things that had happened lately, this was by far the oddest. In the dark, Tatter had finished unwinding her hem. She thrust the pile of thread at Mina. ‚Go on, now.‛ ‚And do what?‛

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Hatter interrupted, ‚I need you to tie the string around its tail.‛ ‚What?‛

Tatter became exasperated. ‚'Ave a look, it took me a bit to see what ‘atter were up to, right, but it makes sense. ‘ere not dead, are we, so there must be a’ air source. That means a hole somewhere. If a rat can get in 'ere, then a rat can

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get out. We need to be able to follow the rat to find out where 'e comes from and spot if we can use it as an exit. So just 'urry up and tie me string 'round that dratted fink’s tail, and make sure yer cover it tight! If the bleedin' string snaps, this’ll all be for nuffink.‛ Mina shuddered but did as she was asked. Once the string was firmly anchored to the rat’s tail, Hatter tipped it out of her hand onto the floor. ‚Time to earn your keep, little thing,‛ she murmured. The rat, sensing that its free meal was at an end, scuttled away. Hatter picked up the thread from Mina and gave the rat as much slack as she dared.

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Once the string was pulled taunt, the trio began to follow it to what had, until now, looked to be a wall of unnerving solidity. Hatter handed the string to Mina and began to pat the place where the string had disappeared.

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Hatter regarded the crevice. She tapped experimentally on the wall and listened for something—Mina wasn’t sure what. Hatter turned around. ‚Well, I hoped we could do this the easy way, but there’s not enough cover in here for me to use large explosives. We’ll have to create several smaller blasts and

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hope the entire thing doesn’t give way before I’m through.‛ She turned and began to unpack her hat. ‚Tatter, Mina, you go over to the other side, as close to the door as you can get. Keep your backs to me for safety. I need you to sing.‛ ‚Sing?‛ Mina wondered if Hatter had gone mad. ‚To cover the sounds of the micro-explosions.‛ ‚Oh.‛

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*Will Hatter manage to create an escape route? *What lies beyond the dungeon? *Is there anything that isn’t in the improbable hat? Find out the answers to these questions and more in the next episode, ‚Escape.‛ It goes live at 10 a.m. EST at http://literaturecouture.com/mina