twenty-off irregularly-shaped and sized puzzle pieces, and 2) William John Morrison, being true to the principles of the arts and crafts movement, had decided that the butterflies so cleverly compartmentalized in the mirror’s ghostly cloud looked far too modern in their execution. Thus, in true pre-Raphaelite fashion, he repainted the insects’ wings with scenes from the Arthurian legends (Mallory being all the rage at the time). Here was the birth of Mordred, there the arrival of the Green Knight in Arthur’s court, here Merlin speaking with his familiar, there Guineverre deceived. The entire panoply of Welsh-cum-English mythos whirred, clicked, and fluttered in a pewter-veined montage around the viewer’s form.
Most often the Questing Beast and the Grail were seen jumping from shoulder to shoulder of one Anne Skarsinkopolis, an underage Greek maiden who had fallen under the spell of William John Morrison, but whose romantic advances on the artist went un-noticed by the man himself, though another, a young calligrapher by the name of Blake Carmenson, was enviously aware of Miss Skarsinkopolis’s attentions to the oblivious William John Morrison. A strangely-disconnected love triangle developed with William John Morrison blissfully unaware of Skarsinkopolis’s infatuation, while the dark Greek vixen, in turn, spurned Carmenson’s love. Unknown to both of the younger members of the trio, William John Morrison had fallen in love with Carmenson, whose fine features and somber manner had set the miniaturist’s heart afire. Over the course of months, sexual tensions rose to flood stage, with Carmen finally challenging William John Morrison to a duel. So stunned was the elder artist by the attention, and so enamored had he become of the untouchable young Carmenson, that he agreed to the duel, seeing in its conclusion the fitting tragic end to an unrequited love. Among the Yorkshire hills (both having travelled several days by coach for the occasion), William John Morrison happily slid his now-broken heart over the rapier blade of his platonic love, crimson blood falling nearly as quickly as the tears that fell from Anne Skarsinkopolis’s cheek at the demise of her own platonic love. Ironically, William John Morrison’s will ceded all of his artistic accoutrements, including The Butterfly Mirror, to Carmenson.
Blake openly professed his love for Skarsinkopolis, who, as one might imagine, remained distant and unforgiving. Even the gift of the mirror did not move her stone heart. In fact, she viewed it as an insult that the young Carmenson should be so bold as to force upon her what was once her lover’s (her words), but could not, would not, give her back the man himself. Carmenson, on hearing her heartfelt words, retreated into the world of opium, not surfacing from the smoky underworld until well after the Great War.
As the calligrapher buried himself under narcotics and Chinese women, Skarsinkopolis had her name legally changed to Anastasia LeFebrve and moved to America. Where she met a rich young industrialist; Marty Jefferson – inventor of the heliopede. In time the pain of William John Harrison’s death was dulled and Anastasia LeFebrve-Jefferson lived a more-or-less typical middle class domestic existence until her husband forgot to renew patent on his device, losing almost all his money in the ensuing litigation that follows in the wake of all American forgetfullness. The depression soon followed.
In the meantime, The Butterfly Mirror collected dust in their basement while Anastasia raised her children in poverty and cared for an alcoholic husband.
A generation later The Butterfly Mirror was again brought back into public view by the chance discovery of the object by an avant-garde psychedelic painter who was acquainted with LeFebrve-Jefferson’s son; William John Harrison LeFebrve-Jefferson (known by all as, simply, “Bill”). For one summer of love the mirror, now