Chapter 4 - Tea, Threads and Soft Things

I didn't sleep much that night.

Not from anxiety—though I won't pretend I wasn't nervous—but from *possibility.*

I kept going over the runes in my head. Rechecking the enchantment seal. Replaying what Clerk-17 had said, offhandedly, in that half-joking tone of his:

> *"You can grant masks to others. Temporarily. But remember—masks reflect not just the character, but the maker."*

I hadn't thought much of it at the time.

Now, with the fox mask packed in a padded pouch in my satchel, it felt heavier than ever. Like I was bringing more than just a trinket across the field to Lyra's cottage. Like I was carrying a piece of myself.

Because I was.

---

Lyra lived just past the old stone wall behind our house. Her little cottage sat at the edge of the treeline, low-roofed and slightly crooked, like a patch of earth decided it wanted to be indoors. Herbs hung from every beam, and a crow sat guard on the windowsill like it paid rent.

She met me at the back garden, wearing her usual robe and a thick-knit shawl that probably smelled like every tea leaf in Wiltshire.

"Well now," she said, handing me a mug before I even knocked. "You've got a storm in your eyes, love. Sit down before it spills."

I smiled. She always said things like that.

I took a seat on the low bench by her herb bed, sipping the tea slowly while the warmth steadied my hands. She didn't press me. Just watched with that same gentle patience she used on sick cats and startled garden gnomes.

After a while, I reached into my satchel and pulled out the bundle.

"This is going to sound weird," I said, setting it on the bench between us, "but… I made something. Something magical. And I think… I think you might be able to use it."

Her eyebrows rose.

She untied the cloth and lifted the mask with both hands, cradling it carefully—like it might whisper if she tilted it the right way.

"Fox," she murmured. "Hmm. Cleverness. Evasion. Treading lightly. Did you carve this yourself?"

I nodded. "It's part of something I can do. A kind of… magic craft. I can make masks. Magical ones. If someone wears one, they take on part of the form or power of what it represents."

Lyra didn't laugh. Didn't scoff. She just looked at the mask, then at me.

"And you want me to try?"

"Only if you're comfortable," I said. "I've only worn them myself. I don't know how it'll react to someone else. Or if it'll work at all."

She smiled. Not kindly—knowingly.

"Oh, love. Magic always works. The question is whether the people involved are paying attention."

---

She stood and, without drama or flourish, lifted the mask to her face.

There was no flash. No burst of wind or glowing aura.

But something *changed.*

Her posture shifted subtly—weight evenly distributed, steps lighter, head tilted ever so slightly to the side like she was already listening for movement.

She moved with uncanny grace across the garden, weaving between rows of thyme and lavender without brushing a single stem.

She paused at the gate, crouched low, and I saw her eyes gleam amber behind the mask's slits.

Then she took it off.

And exhaled.

---

"Feels like wearing a memory," she said, handing it back. "Not mine. Yours, maybe. Or something older than both of us."

I swallowed. "It worked?"

She nodded, brushing a few loose strands of hair from her face, then sat down again beside me. The sun had shifted just enough to warm the top of her garden wall. Bees drifted lazily between clover and chamomile, and the scent of mint lingered on the breeze.

For a while, neither of us said anything.

Lyra didn't ask more about the mask. I didn't offer. We just sipped tea, listening to the rustle of trees and the occasional muttering protest of her crow—who seemed to resent being left out of the conversation.

And honestly… it was nice.

I wasn't used to silence that didn't feel awkward. In my old life, silence usually meant I'd said something weird, or too much, or not enough. It always demanded something back—an explanation, a correction, a joke to patch the space.

Here, it just *was.*

---

After a while, Lyra reached over and refilled my mug with water from her thermos. Still steaming. She always brewed strong.

"Do you think it'll work with all of them?" she asked at last. "The masks, I mean."

I let the question sit a moment. Then: "I don't know. I think it depends."

"On the mask?"

"On the person wearing it."

She smiled without showing teeth. "That's a good answer. I'll take it."

---

I didn't go home right away. After we talked for a bit longer—about weather charms and garden toads and the latest gossip from the Magical Post Office—Lyra walked me back to the edge of the property, waving me off with a reminder not to overthink things.

("That includes magic," she added, pointedly. "And everything else.")

The walk back was slow.

I watched the clouds more than the road. Counted stones in the wall. Kicked at a stray pinecone for almost twenty paces before it rolled into a ditch.

It was quiet.

Not magically charged. Not plot-significant. Just… a walk.

And in that walk, I started to think about something I hadn't given myself time for.

**Who was I, outside the masks?**

---

That evening, I didn't open the sketchbook. Didn't heat the glue pot or test varnish mixes or measure bark flexibility in the shed.

I just sat on the windowsill with a blanket around my shoulders, sipping leftover tea that had gone lukewarm and watching the fading light stretch across the Grimhart garden.

The world didn't expect anything from me yet.

No Hogwarts letters. No destined prophecies. No enchanted diaries or basement basilisk emergencies.

I had time.

So I let the day be a day.

---

Mum got home late. She looked tired, but still managed a smile when she passed me in the hall.

"How's our little artist?" she asked, ruffling my hair gently.

"Better," I said, which wasn't a lie.

She paused halfway down the hall, then turned back.

"Your magic's settling," she said. "I can feel it. Just a bit. It's like the air in your room hums more than it used to."

I blinked. "Is that… normal?"

She shrugged. "All kids' magic hums. Yours just has rhythm."

---

That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling again, thinking about the fox mask and Lyra's words.

"Not a soul," she'd said, "but something like a *trace.*"

She was right.

Each mask carried a bit of *me.* Not my thoughts or emotions exactly, but my intention. My memory of the character. My feeling of them.

And maybe… that meant the masks could grow.

Evolve.

Not just repeat what already existed—but reinterpret it. Like fan art. Or remix culture.

What did that mean for the long term?

I didn't know yet.

And for once, I didn't feel the need to know *right now.*

---

The next few days passed in that same slow rhythm.

Breakfasts with Mum and Dad. Walks along the hedgerows. A few errands in the village, where the magical and mundane blurred together in quiet ways—enchanted scarecrows trimming hedges, a mailbox that argued with the milkman, a baker who stirred bread dough with a wand tucked behind his ear like a pencil.

I helped Dad organize his shop one morning. He made clocks—real ones, with gears and springs and faces etched in bone or brass. Not magical, but deeply *precise.* There was something grounding about it.

I asked him if he'd ever made anything enchanted before.

"No," he said. "But I've fixed a few things that were."

He hesitated.

"I wouldn't mind learning, though. If you wanted to show me sometime."

---

I blinked at him, caught off guard—not because Dad was unwilling, but because I hadn't expected anyone *to want in.*

To me, Mascaromancy had felt like a secret. Something wrapped in the folds of my soul, too strange or delicate to explain. The idea of sharing even a small part of it… it hadn't crossed my mind.

But there he was. My dad, a Muggle-born clockmaker with ink on his fingers and brass dust in his sleeves, asking to be part of it without knowing what "it" even was.

I nodded, slowly. "Yeah. I think I'd like that."

He smiled, and that was that. No deeper conversation. No ceremony. Just quiet agreement, like we were talking about wood glue or how to re-string a cuckoo bell.

But it mattered.

It mattered more than he probably realized.

---

That evening, after dinner, I brought out a small bundle of materials I'd been quietly gathering. Offcuts of rowan, some of the better bark from the shed pile, a few scraps of waxed twine.

Dad watched as I sorted them by weight and flexibility, not asking questions, just observing the way he always did when fine tools were involved.

I handed him one of the blank faceplates I'd been working on. Just a rough shape carved into thin pine—no runes, no magic.

"This one's not enchanted," I told him. "I just want to show you the build first."

He turned it over in his hands, nodding slowly. "Symmetry's good. Bit thin on the edge here—splinter risk—but you can feel the balance. Light. Not brittle."

I grinned. "That's exactly what I wrote in my notes."

He chuckled. "Guess some instincts run in the family."

We worked for a while like that—me shaping, him adjusting—just sanding, talking about wood grain, the smell of resin, the right way to check for warping.

---

I hadn't expected how natural it would feel. Sitting side by side at the worktable, passing tools back and forth. Dad didn't hover or take over. He didn't ask too many questions or try to "improve" anything. He just… helped.

Every so often, he'd offer a suggestion—usually subtle. A softer angle here. A thinner glue layer there. The kind of corrections that made a difference not just in how something looked, but in how it *felt* when you held it. Balanced. Intentional.

Mascaromancy or not, I was learning more about craft than I ever had trying to brute-force magic through instinct.

"You know," he said as he sanded the edge of the next faceplate, "when I was about your age, I thought I'd be an engineer. Thought I'd build bridges, maybe fix airships."

"Airships?"

"Okay, hot air balloons. Same difference."

I smiled. "What changed?"

He looked thoughtful, rubbing at a speck of varnish on his sleeve. "I found I liked the little things better. Tiny gears, quiet clicks, things no one noticed unless they stopped to listen."

He glanced sideways. "Kind of like you."