Lupo and the Mirror

Dog Bend was not in the middle of nowhere. In the good old days, Dog Bend was in the middle of somewhere. In fact, Dog Bend seemed to be in the middle of everywhere. It was miraculously half way between anywhere anyone was, and wherever it was they wanted to go. Someone had noticed this unaccountable quirk of geography and built an inn for people on their way to interesting places to stop and gather their strength for the rest of the journey.

The inn attracted a post office. The presence of a post office attracted a railway depot. The presence of a railway depot attracted a railway. Inns, post offices and railway depots require employees, and employees have children, who require teachers so their parents can be employed. Soon there was a school, a library, an antique store, and a future.

Then they built the Great Northern Highway. The highway was amazing. Trips that used to take weeks suddenly took days, and trips that took days suddenly took too long. Dog Bend was no longer the place to stop when you couldn’t take another step. Instead, it was a yellow light, prompting you to hit the gas and kiss the dashboard because if you slowed down you had to stop. This was no longer the middle of somewhere.

The library is now a defunct and wildly haunted pizza parlor. The school is a thriving fireworks emporium. And the antique store… is an antique store. There is never anyone in them, they are full of things that never seem to sell and they never go out of business. The history of Dog Bend is written on the fading discount stickers.

The Antique Store was called just that. Just "Antique Store". It was nondescript and unadvertised. It was not a pawn shop. But sometimes it acted very, very similarly to a pawn shop.

Jerry had found a mirror. Jerry was always finding things like the mirror. He was not a thief–sincerely! Nobody ever seemed to believe that everything he found he’d rescued from the trash. The sort of stuff he sold, though, it was a poor reflection on him that anybody thought he would risk stealing it from anybody. Outmoded machinery, old armor, things that were broken and discarded. He honestly was not very good at it. He could never get a fair price out of old Bill.

Bill Bishop was generous with his customers. He was a good family man. But he approached business like it was business. He looked at the mirror. “Good quality reflection. Nice decoration, in good condition. I figure it’s worth…. Five drachma.”

Jerry coughed. “It’s real silver.”

“Oh, you think it’s real silver? Let me get my chemist in here, we’ll do a little test.”

Something in Bill’s tone was unsettling. “Lupo! Get in here!”
A young man slunk into the room. He was tall and frail, wrapped in a loose-fitting red flannel shirt and torn jeans. He wore a hunted, worried expression as he padded in.

“Real silver at this size would be worth 30 drachma. Lupo, is that real silver?”
“Looks real, Mr. Bishop, sir”
“I didn’t ask you if it looks real, Lupo. I asked if it is real.”

It took Jerry a moment to understand just precisely what this young man was being asked.
It took Jerry a moment further to understand that this young werewolf was not being asked. He found himself staring at Lupo. “Say no.” he thought.

There was a clink-clink-clink-clink-clink. He looked at Bill, who was holding a stack of coins between three fingers and letting them drop, one at a time.

“Tell him no.” Jerry thought. Lupo started to move.

Clink-clink-clink-clink-clink

“Say something.” Jerry thought. His hand hung in front of him.

Clink-clink-clink-clink-clink

“Ask me to make him stop.” Jerry thought. Lupo was reaching for the mirror properly now.

Clink-clink-clink-clink-clink

“I can’t help you unless you ask me to.” Jerry thought.

Clink-clink-clink-clink-clink

“I can’t help you.” Jerry admitted.

The werewolf reached for the mirror. Before his fingers met their reflection, there was an actinic spark. Lupo’s fingers twisted and thrashed, each finger moving with a life of its own to avoid touching the silver. The whole hand bent at the wrist, bones popping, nails growing, fur pulsing from fingertips, the whole hand flowing away from the mirror. He snatched his hand back.

“It’s– it’s real.” he whispered. “It’s worth 30.”

The coins clink--clink-clink-clink-clinked into Jerry’s hand. He did not look at the werewolf– at the … at the kid as he walked out of the Antique Store and climbed unsteadily into his mower deck. The machine coughed heavily to life and Jerry disappeared into the tall grass. Off to find more abandoned treasures. 

He sat outside, gazing up at the stars. He loved new moons, when there was no light in the sky but the stars. He was safe.

And he didn’t have to look at that moon.