// MARSCAPONE SUMMER HOME //


Every day, I start the morning with a healthy dose of guilt.

I am overindulging in fire magic.

[ SWICK -- FWISH ]


I must do more if I am to save the world.


CEDRIC//

How's shit been?



I cannot answer right now. I leave my father to answer his inquiry.


VINCENT//

He's fine, he just can't respond right now.



It wasn’t exactly true but what else was there to say? I was knee-deep in research. Wading through the muck meant reduced mobility.


KEVIN//

Doing lots of reading.



If I ever truly get you out of here, it will be your last chance. No banishment from Elysion. No second-chance marriages. Just you and yourself to set things right.

But maybe this is a message of how things are meant to be. Are the elves capable of telepathy?


KEVIN//

How are you doing, Mother?

MYRTLE//

As well as well can be.

KEVIN//

Tell me again of how you met Father.

MYRTLE//

Oh, unfortunately it was so many years ago that I hardly remember the fine details.

KEVIN//

I'm sure you remember more than you give yourself credit for.

MYRTLE//

The year was 1919 when my father acquired a new business partner.

KEVIN//

Father had his fingers in many pies.

MYRTLE//

Why would you say that?

KEVIN//

Well, Dad was a lawyer, wasn't he?

Yet he found a way to be involved with your father's foodservice.

MYRTLE//

The law finds its way into all avenues of business.

KEVIN//

Even ones as simple as the origin of the fortune cookie.

MYRTLE//

The fortune cookie had nothing to do with us, it was immigrants from Nihon that settled out West.

It had nothing to do with us!

KEVIN//

Of course.

MYRTLE//

Your father helped us obtain a new piece of property that would have been difficult to procure without his expertise.

KEVIN//

Your father died shortly thereafter?

MYRTLE//

Unfortunately, yes. He had always worked himself to the bone.

Times were different then. Nowadays, you have an ill, there's this and that doctor to help you. But it was not like that then. My father probably hid the details of his sickness for many years before he finally succumbed.

KEVIN//

Was he a good man?

MYRTLE//

He was not like fathers today who dote on their children and try to give them every need.

He was distant not in a personal way but defensively, in the manner of all adult men who felt obligated to hide their true selves from others. He was not any different than others of his generation and I do not fault him for it...

but make no mistake -- he did not interrupt his evenings to read to me each night as your father did -- He provided for me in innumerable other ways -- sent me to nice schools and always made sure my shirts were starched -- He was not loving nor was he imaginative.

Unless, of course, he kept a dear secret realm from me. He was entirely Ordinary and I did not expect acceptance of my supernatural beliefs from him.

KEVIN//

That must have been hard.

MYRTLE//

It certainly limited my early progress.

But when I first laid eyes upon your father, I lost a bit of myself.

I had not been without friendships but all of them seemed child's play when I overheard him speaking to my father. It was raining outside, in that soothing, cleansing way of summer rain. And when we first laid eyes on each other, I wondered if he, too, were magical, for his gaze seemed to peer into my soul and expose me for the phony I was.

In that moment, I was instantly and irrevocably smitten.

KEVIN//

That's cute, Ma.

MYRTLE//

I was lucky enough that your father felt the same way about me.

Times were different then. My father quickly gleaned that this business deal had potential to be just the first point of interest.

I suppose, too, his impending mortality weighed heavily upon his mind.

KEVIN//

How did it feel, your future being decided by others?

MYRTLE//

It did not bother me precisely because it was what I wanted to happen.

I waited with bated breath for any news my father brought of the new contact. Of course his tendency to be scant with description tried my patience.

KEVIN//

You had grown out of your father.

MYRTLE//

What a cold thing to say!

But I suppose it was true enough of our relationship. It cause me no ending guilt once he passed just a few years later. I sunk myself deep into my studies.

KEVIN//

I always meant to ask you where you found your spellbooks in those early days.

MYRTLE//

Oh, it's not important.

KEVIN//

Did you steal some?

MYRTLE//

Kevin!

KEVIN//

Okay okay.

MYRTLE//

Let it be known that more than a few overdue library books number themselves among our collection.

KEVIN//

Library books? In a city like this? I'm surprised they weren't found and located a long time ago.

MYRTLE//

It didn't happen many times, but...

KEVIN//

Perhaps they were planted there by an onlooker.

MYRTLE//

You're calling into doubt my story?

KEVIN//

Only because it seems extremely unlikely. Especially to happen more than once in a city with as many mages as ours.

Maybe someone from one of the families located you and fostered your progress.

MYRTLE//

That seems extremely unlikely to me.

KEVIN//

Sorry for getting off-topic.

MYRTLE//

It wasn't until I went to fight in the War that I knew anything about the families.

KEVIN//

That doesn't mean they hadn't discoved you.

MYRTLE//

Why are you so determined to spoil the past?

KEVIN//

There are mysteries left unearthed that I need to uncover.

MYRTLE//

Your future lies ahead of you. Focus your efforts there.