An hour of Melitown history and lessons on the Obscure later, there is a chiming of bells and a familiar voice heading toward the courtyard. “Ah, my other guest, right on time,” Tuor says as Kika enters with Mr. Smith in tow.
Mr. Smith is wearing a gray tweed two-button sport coat with side vents and a crisp white shirt. His striped tie matches his navy trousers, and his dark brown leather monk strap shoes are soundless as he follows the soft clicks of Kika’s black kitten heels across the stone tiles of the courtyard floor. She is only a few inches shorter than the attorney who had had to duck to clear the doorway.
“Good afternoon, Madame Tuor,” he greets her, then nods to Henry, “Son.”
“Mr. Smith!” she says, standing up to shake his hand, losing sight of it past her wrist. He towers over her five-foot stature, yet her presence is vast. “I’m so pleased you could join us and relieved to find you are acquainted with Mr. Merlo.”
“How could I pass up an invitation for your hospitality?” he returns, “And I am pleasantly surprised to find he’s made your acquaintance. Quite a bit surprised.”
“Ah, well, anyone with Kika’s attention will have mine. She’s an excellent judge of character, so I knew we’d get on swimmingly.” She smiles at Henry and reaches up to gently push his hair out of his eye with a ringed finger, then pats his head before motioning to the lounges and settling back into hers. “Do have a seat. I’m sure you have a great deal of questions, and before we get sidetracked with chasing rabbits, I have a short agenda to keep us returning to our goals.”
The group nods, and she continues, “First, why has the Veil opened to Henry, a perfectly lovely human but not significantly predisposed to the Obscure?”
Henry’s rattan chair creaks with his fidgeting. “I don’t think I did anything to cause it.”
“Neither does anyone else, my dear,” she assures him and continues with the agenda. “Second topic: ensuring Henry’s protection. And lastly, what is to be done about the fear-eaters.”
Mr. Smith growls, “It’s Samhain. They’ll all be at the Combe while the Veil is at its thinnest.”
Kika sets a tray with two pots—a short, round, cream-colored one with an orange and green poppy design and a taller, narrower one in a geometrical pattern heavy with the same colors—in front of them on the low rattan table. Hands freed she produces her notebook and holds up the message, “We’re not looking for all of them.” It quickly changes to “Are we?” once it’s been read by the room.
“We certainly are not,” Tuor says, focus divided by the stern look she is directing at the nearly seven-foot storm cloud forming across from her and Kika’s hands, one balancing a basket containing a stack of small plates, forks, and cloth napkins, and the other carrying a three-tiered cake stand by its gilded handle. Honed in on the perfectly sliced wedges of Henry’s and René’s selections, she nearly forgets to be disapproving before Henry gasps and tips his chair backward as he shields himself behind Mr. Smith.
“It wasn’t a brooch?” he sputters, staring at the fan back of Tuor’s peacock chair, where her former black and white accessory sits, eight shiny black eyes staring down at them.
“Ah! My treasure is awake,” the lady coos. The spider stares—somewhere. Everywhere. Henry is unnerved more that its intentions are so indecipherable. Still, seeing that no one else seems particularly alarmed, he slinks back over to his chair, righting it, and sits back down, eyes glued to the arachnid he’d assumed was some sort of embellishment to her black dress.
Mr. Smith nods to the spider and waits in case more explanation is to come, but doesn’t expect it.
“Henry darling, if you have a fear of spiders, do let me assure you that this beauty is not at all like any you’ve imagined.”
“I’m not afraid of spiders. I am afraid of inanimate objects like jewelry unexpectedly coming to life. So this was a tad startling,” he says, hoping he’s not offended anyone.
Kika taps her notebook, “How do you feel about insects?”
“I’m happy they allow us to coexist with them, considering they outnumber us. But I prefer it if they can give me some privacy in my home, specifically, allowing me to keep my pantry to myself. The cost of groceries is so high, you know?”
Kika smiles, and her notebook asks, “What if there was something like an insect that was very large?”
“How large are we talking? Like relative to an insect or to … a car? Or even larger?”
It wasn’t until he was full of three kinds of cake, all maddeningly delicious, having left Mr. Smith to discuss further business with the ladies, and was on his way to pick up Avery from Neely’s, where he was playing with the triplets that he realizes Miss Kika had done a bang up job of distracting him from asking about the spider. But who could blame him for forgetting all about it? Her real form is incredible! A moth woman! One of the fuzzy, cute pink and lemony yellow kinds. A woman with wings! And she doesn’t even need to fly because she can turn into smoke. Or, as Tuor had said, a lot of little moths. Brilliant!
But what’s with the spider? He’s definitely going to ask next time. And the cake! Dear lord, he thinks, I get to work where those cakes happen? Getting brutally attacked by supernatural degenerates is maybe the best thing that’s happened to me? This is a very normal train of thought. I am doing great, he digs at his internal voice. Maybe Madame Tuor can recommend a good Obscure therapist.
Avery was waiting with the triplets on their porch when he arrived. Neely is wiping his hands with a wet wipe from their mom’s stashes in every room. “We had a little cider mishap,” she says. “Sorry about his shirt.”
“Sorry, Hen,” Avery pouts. Henry is pretty sure this was more the work of the triplets, none making eye contact and each occupied with invisible things in every direction except his.
“No worries, bud,” he ruffles Avery’s mop of ginger waves. “But we gotta boogie home quick to change for our next stop. Thanks, Neely, and thank your Ma for earlier?”
“You betcha! Her and I are big Avery fans. He’s an angel.”
“Woah, an angelic pirate. What will the rival crews say?”
Avery does his best to scowl meanly. So cute, Henry thinks, pulling him to him in a side hug and lifting him with a dramatic twirl from the top step down to the sidewalk. They wave to Neely and the still bashful triplets. (This is the closest he’d seen them get to remorse or apology in their history of shenanigans, and he’s slightly impressed with this almost-growth.)
On their way home, he explains the plan to check out his new workplace and how they will both be on their best behavior and not ask for one million cookies even if their whole heart is screaming for one million cookies. “The cookies there are like nothing we’ve ever experienced, Ave,” Henry says wistfully.
“Your cookies are the best cookies in the world,” Avery says without a hint of duty.
Henry hooks his elbow on Avery’s shoulder as they walk and reaches across his face to poke the opposite cheek and squeeze it. “You haven’t had enough cookies to make that comparison, but I love you too, man.”
“Mr. Smith said so, though, and I bet he’s had more cookies than me.”
“I bet. Wow. You guys really must want me to bake more. And that’s what’s so great about this new job—I’m going to get to learn from an actual baker. A really good one. Like… oh my god, Avery, the cakes today.” He continues to unintentionally brag about his treat consumption as they head inside and upstairs to clean up and make themselves presentable—well, one is seeking presentableness, the other one to be a dashing young corsair.
As Avery stands at the entryway mirror, considering the eye patch he’s holding up to his face, he looks over as Henry pauses briefly after a particularly dreamy sigh and says, “Today I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a popcorn ball and an apple. No caramel or red candy coating involved, by the way.”
“Now, I am sure Mrs Skeates wanted you all to take it easy since there’d be so much candy later. She is not ungenerous with the treats, and that house is practically made of sugar.”
Avery shoots him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, but you keep talking about shiny chocolate, sugared berries, and all that fancy stuff.”
“Sorry, sorry, I’m a jerk, huh?” Henry smacks his hands to his cheeks a couple of times and gives himself a good shake to return to the present.
“Only a little. I’m glad you are going to work at a new place. The old one is gross. Why do people even go there?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said, “But I won’t have to go there much longer. And I’m sure I’ll get to bring home amazing things. Are you having an eye patch dilemma? You want me to tie it on for you?”
“I dunno. Do I look piratey without it?”
“You sure do, very swashbuckly. Very buccaneer. But do you want a gnarly scar across your face? I have some eyeliner.”
“Will you draw it?”
“Of course!”
Ten minutes later, they were back in the entryway putting their boots on to leave: a handsome new bakery employee with freshly fussed-over hair and a dashing and now-danger-escaping privateer.
The sun is low and getting a last look at the youngest trick-or-treaters waddling through the streets of Melitown with their guardians, pillowcases, and pumpkin buckets. With a half-full sack of candy and plastic spider rings, the Merlo boys enter Goat’s Café, jaws dropped. The place has been transformed in the few hours since Henry left to deliver Madame Tuor’s cakes into a Halloween festival. A riot of garlands in purples, oranges, and greens twist around twiggy branches suspended from the copper ceiling. Skulls and all manner of skeletons that seem real are posed in glass display domes on pedestals where there had been vases and stacks of books customers had not reshelved. There’s even a large toad statue sitting on a bookcase that almost looks alive.
A tray of proper candy apples sits on a table. Another is laden with a large platter of individually wrapped caramel popcorn balls piled into a pyramid and sprinkled with chocolate shavings. Cake stands covered in cupcakes adorned with insects made of icing line the path to the counter, where his new boss presides over a line of adoring customers. He could’ve sworn he was dressed like a devil for a moment.
“Mr. Merlo and… Oh, Captain Avery, I presume?” he says, one perfectly shaped brow arching higher than the other.
“Hello!” Avery beams as Henry waves. “It smells so good in here!”
Mr. Akerregi smiles back. “Please take a seat anywhere you like. I’ll be right with you.”
“His costume is so cool,” Avery says as they slide into a booth with a good view of the café. Henry looks back up at the counter and blinks. Mr. Akerregi’s eyebrow is all the way up now. As their eyes meet, both of them say, “Oh.”