Words for Wednesday January 11

This meme was started by Delores a long time ago.  Troubles led her to bow out, but the meme was too much fun to let go, and now Words for Wednesday is provided by a number of people and has become a movable feast with Elephant's Child as our coordinator.

  Essentially the aim of this meme is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given some prompts. These prompts can be words, phrases, music or images.
  What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore ...
  We can use some or all of the prompts, and mixing and matching is encouraged.

  Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog. This fun meme includes cheering on the other participants.

  And the more the merrier goes here as well, so if you are posting on your own blog then please tell us in the comments, so that all other participants, can come along and applaud.

Sandi has supplied us with Words for this Wednesday, as she will all through January. The Words can be found at Elephant's Child's blog. The words for today are:

Reflection
Mirror
Deception
Air
Heir
     and/or
 Seeds
Planting
Harvest
Forget
Due

I continue the story of  Susan and Knud in Italy. I'm afraid my fancy took flight ... this will surely not end up in my book, but it was fun to write.

Knud saw the reflection in the mirror only seconds before Susan.
"Susan," he said only a bit louder that a whisper, "that deception spell of yours, do you still know how to cast it?"
Susan gave a curt nod, and slowly pulled her wand from her stocking, where she had put it upon learning that backpacks, even small ones, were not welcome in the library.
The air felt a bit thicker, or maybe she was just nervous.
A man entered the library through the double doors, his long coat dripping small droplets of water on the floor. Susan wondered how as his long hair was not wet. It was unkempt, hanging down over his shoulders, giving him a regal or scholarly look. He looked at Knud with an intense stare. His dark eyes bored into Knud's blue ones. Then the man looked down on the book, Knud was reading. It was one of the real old tomes, chained to a lectern by a long chain of steel. You could lift it, read it, hold it to the light from the narrow, high set windows, but you could not just walk off with it.
The man extended one, grimy hand and traced the letters on the spine: "L'arciduca Cosimo terzo di Medici ed i suoi eredi," he said, translating the Latin title into Italian. "Siete storici - are you historians?" he asked. Susan cast the Mál sameinast, and Knud responded that indeed they were.
"I am Lorenzo" he said. "The seeds that the old archdukes were planting in the past, are alive and blooming in me."
"An heir to the old Cosimo himself," Knud said, "we hope to enjoy the harvest of these seeds in the days to come."
"Only if you do not forget," Lorenzo said, his not very clean face coming closer and closer to Knud's, the drops from his coat dripping right in front of Knud's shoes. But Knud stood his ground. "Do not forget," he repeated, shaking his finger at Knud, "do not forget that honour is my due. I am the duke's only heir, the only living Medici ..."
Susan carefully cast the Deception spell at the self-proclaimed duke, and he continued spouting incoherent sentences at Knud right until the police and the doctors caught him. The head of the library hurried over to Knud and Susan and began apologizing profusely: "We owe you an apology," he said. "Poor Lorenzo here is quite mad, but generally harmless. He loves to scare the visitors by standing totally still in the fountain and suddenly speaking to them. When there was no tourists, he came up here today. Terribly sorry I am, I should have watched him better."
"Is he an heir of the old archduke?" Knud asked. The poor Lorenzo sat on a stool, the epitome of dejection.
"As far as we know, no, he is not, even if he sure looks the part," The head of the library said, pointing to a portrait of the old duke over one of the lecterns. Knud looked from the portrait, back at Lorenzo, noticing the nose, the sleek hair, cut just so, and the intense black eyes in both men. "Yes, he sure looks like a grand-grand-gran-son of him up there."
The head of the library nodded and shook his head. The doctor took Lorenzo by the hand, and followed by the other men they left. When their steps had dwindled to almost nothing the head of the library looked at Knud.
"I'll tell you a secret," he said." According to the annals, church registers and so on, the old duke has no living heir. But we'll know soon enough. We had a DNA test made of all the Medicis buried here, and just because I could, I let Lorenzo join the batch. would you be interested in the results?"
"I sure would," Knud answered. "Here's my card. You have been very kind."
The head of the library left, closing the double doors behind him. Knud eyed Susan with suspicion. "Did you hex him too or are they all as mad as hatters here?"

... and the answer to this question, as well as an explanation and a continuation will just have to wait.