The tall woman in pink stands on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop, drawing the attention of every passerby. She nods at a few as she reaches into the purse, its handle resting in the crook of her elbow, but instead of the notebook as Henry expects, she pulls out a few cards and hands him one: dark blue heavy stock paper reading in gold script:
Questions answered, problems addressed
Mme Tuor, Antiquary & Archivist
#6 Baines Street, Melitown
He flipped it over and puzzled over the gold-embossed outline of a tower surrounding the outline of an eye.
“M-miss Tuor?” Henry stumbles, unsure of the abbreviation. He’d taken German in school, although he hadn’t put much effort into it.
She passes him the next card, this one a 3×5 note card reading, “I am Madame Tuor’s assistant, Kika,” in her flawless handwriting.
“Miss Kika, I just thought maybe you would know… I, well,” he fumbles around with his thoughts that feel less tangible the more he tries to catch one. Do you believe in monsters? How can I possibly ask that out loud to a stranger? Here?
She taps the card with a pink nail to get his attention and makes a little circle in the air with it, prompting him to turn it over. The reverse reads, “It will be all right, Henry Merlo.”
He blinks up at her as new, more pressing questions arrive, climbing on top of the elusive ones, clamoring for him to choose them. She shakes her finger and hands him another card. This one reads, “We are always open. Hope to see you later.” When he looks up, she is gone. Scanning the street in both directions, he cannot figure out which way she left, but it would be impossible to move out of sight so fast on foot.
Looking back at his hands he is relieved to find them still holding the cards. Clutching them to his chest, he shivers in the crisp autumn air and remembers the jacket he’d accidentally left in the shop yesterday. Stepping back in, his coworker says, “Hi, how can I help you?” before noticing it is him. “Forget something?”
Stepping around to the employee door, he reaches for his shearling-lined gray utility jacket with its carefully stitched wool patch on the right elbow. “Just my jacket.” It had been his dad’s, and he had always been so careful with it, but his mind was all over the place lately.
“Yeah, it’s fully fall out there, man, you’d be mad at Avery if he went anywhere in his shirt sleeves,” she chides.
“You’re not wrong. I am duly ashamed,” he says, one hand to his heart while the other tucks the cards into the internal chest pocket. He zips up and heads back toward the door.
“Dontcha wanna take some cookies for later?” she asks, and he turns back. They look at each other and laugh. Not even Avery enjoys the decidedly not fresh-baked, not in-house goods of the chain coffee shop that is certainly a front for something—what, he didn’t know—but it couldn’t possibly be turning a profit with its meager sales and complete disinterest from the owners.
He briefly glances at the cake pops he’d unboxed and set in the case that morning and wonders if they are hard enough to use as weapons, imaging himself carrying one in his hand with the stick poking through his fingers keys-in-the-dark-parking-garage style or hurling them like stones. “Nah, I’m all set. Have a good evening! And thanks for taking tomorrow night so I can take Avery out trick-or-treating.”
“No problemo! He is my favorite kiddo.”
“Neely, the triplets would cry if they heard that.”
“Repeat what you just said, slowly, and really listen to yourself,” she says, smirking.
“Okay, fair. I would lose my mind if I lived with them.”
“Thank you for giving me an out for Halloween duties,” she grinned and waved him off.
Outside, the leaves are scraping the newly paved section of Ramble Ave that some have been attempting to make a new business district away from City Centre, which had always been the hub of Melitown. His bosses are somehow involved but he really has no idea what the politics are surrounding these sorts of things. He does know that the further you go on Ramble away from Melitown Square, the rougher things get. Not that there is anything truly rough-looking in any part of Melitown. The buildings just aren’t as big and ornate, nor are the houses as well maintained. A little more peeling paint, the occasional cracked roof tile—the general shabbiness of money spent on more pressing priorities—but the gardens are still tended, and the sidewalks diligently swept by residents who love the place.
The addition of one of those predatory payday loan shops, some seedier bars, and a strip club closer to the periphery had caused quite a lot of dissent from the community, but Henry has other worries to focus on. Namely, all his time spent convincing an endless parade of concerned civil servants, teachers, and psychologists of the need for their father’s wish that Avery remains in his care to remain in effect. Fortunately, they’d had time to go over the plan together before he became too ill, certainly not enough (it’s never enough). Still, his attorney had filed more paperwork than Henry had ever seen or wanted to again to ensure Avery, technically Henry’s cousin, was officially adopted by his father so his aunt couldn’t decide to show up years later claiming custody.
He isn’t sure how Mr. Smith had tracked her down after she’d left a tiny, underfed Avery bundled in a few towels with them “for just a week” and then promptly sold her car for cash and disappeared, leaving her apartment across state lines empty but not so spotless one would fear something sinister had taken place. At least not at that address. He’s even less sure how he convinced her to sign away her right to custody. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know—that was between Big Henry and his legal counsel.
A bear of a man, Mr. Smith’s public persona was stern, with an oppressively cold stare that could quiet a dispute and take the wind out of the biggest blowhard’s sails. One of the main reasons the concerned citizen flock that descended on the boys after Big Henry’s passing calmed their feathers and moved along without strong objections was Mr. Smith not standing for anyone questioning his father’s determination to allow Henry to take on raising Avery as the boy had wished. The teen had cried at the thought of the little one being given up again, and the idea of being alone himself was unthinkable. Avery was his brother, and that was that.
As his father’s good friend and the one in charge of the estate after his death for the two and a half years until he turned eighteen, Mr. Smith appeared only to have one hobby: checking in on the Merlo boys. “Is the HVAC still working well?” “Any problems at school?” “Does Avery like the daycare?” “You can drop off your car at the garage this week, and they’ll put on your winter tires. Already paid for.” Bringing snacks, toys, and clothing ostensibly from his nice secretary Miss Green.
Henry would never question him. If Miss Green somehow knew his favorite kind of plaid and was spot on gifting in size increases perfectly matched to his growth spurts, well, aren’t old ladies something! Very sweet of her to keep doing it for the boy who hadn’t been able to continue taking care of her lawn or shoveling for several years now. “I hope she knows how much I appreciate everything she’s done,” he’s said, one raised eyebrow being met with another and a curt nod ending that conversation.
Being in his presence always made him sit up straighter and pay attention to his every word down to the slightest inflection, not wanting to fall out of his good graces. Not that he’d ever shown an ounce of anything less than compassion to the sad teenager whose father was dying as the three of them planned for his and Avery’s future together, or the melancholy graduate surprised to see him clapping for him as he received his diploma, or the dutiful elder brother asking for his thoughts on the baby sitter applications he mulled over for days.
He still pops in frequently to make sure he wasn’t working too hard to supplement the trust he’d set up for Big Henry. Thinking of the trust fills Henry with a crackly sort of anxiety. Little pins and needles move down his extremities when he gives any thought to how the savings of the Library’s custodian could continue to sustain them through Avery’s future educational plans. Mr. Smith has repeatedly assured him there would be enough funds for both of them to attend and seemed surprised when Henry barely looked at the brochures for the culinary schools his father had made sure to have him pass along when the time was right. His troubled silence when Henry took the coffee shop job, he realizes now after working there, spoke volumes. At seventeen, he’d intended it to be a short research expedition—full immersion into how not to run a business, for when he was ready to open his own restaurant. Sure, culinary school was a smart path in the direction of his dream, but he had a three-year-old to raise, and the schedule was perfect.
While he’d dreaded disappointing the man, to him a living reminder of his father’s intentions and hopes, he had his own. He’d had his dad for as many years as his dad could give, but Avery only had him for such a short time. The money wouldn’t make up for what he’d missed out on, but for now, all he has to offer is the best chance at doing what he wanted in the future and the promise of always having a home.
It is in the blurring borderline ring of Old and New Melitown where the Merlo house stands, a few blocks over, closer to the Library side of the Square that leads to the city’s southern end. Henry crosses over the small side street between the shop and his car, waiting in the small lot the shop shares with some offices. Once inside, he pulls out the cards from his strange customer. He’d been forgetting about her all shift, but now, holding them and looking at her perfect penmanship, it’s all come back to him. Vibrations in his back pocket pull him from his rehashing of their conversation. He smiles at the screen, tapping accept.
“Hey, Mr. Smith. How are you?”
“Doing well, son. You’re not driving, are you?”
“No sir, still in the parking lot, about to leave to pick up Ave.”
“Do you boys have dinner plans? Mrs. Green made a lot of pierogies and said I should give some to you.”
“Oh! I’d never say no to Mrs. Green’s pierogies. I’m glad to hear her arthritis is better, and she is feeling up to cooking again. It was really troubling her when we spoke the other day.”
“Ah, yes, well. I’m sure there are good days and bad days, and you do what you can when you can. Do you want me to pick him up on my way? I am closer.”
“If you don’t mind. We’re always glad to see you, I hope you know.”
“Then it’s settled. I’m half a block away.”
“Hey, Mr. Smith?” He asks before the man disconnects, “What do you know about that antique store over on Baines Street?”
“The one that’s never open? Why do you ask?”
“Oh, the owner’s assistant told me she’s always open.”
“You—you spoke with her … assistant?”
“Yes, she said her name is Kika.”
“She told you her name?”
“Well, she wrote it down, I mean. I think she’s mute, right?”
“Oh, um. Yes?” Mr. Smith’s tone has a quick spike of surprise before he regains his usual cool. “Where did you meet her?”
“She was a customer, tipped me really well, and gave me her card,” Henry says, attempting to channel some of that Smith collectedness. “Don’t suppose she was flirting with me, do ya?” he asks with an unnatural laugh. “Just kidding. A smokeshow like her, flirting with a loser like me?”
“Wait, smo—what? No. Henry, you are far from a loser. Hurry up and come home, and we’ll talk. I’m getting Avery now.”
A few minutes later, the three of them meet up on the walkway to their front porch. Mr Smith with a giggling Avery squirming under his arm and a covered casserole dish in the other.
Unlocking the door and taking the dish from him, while he set Avery down on the bench, they all take off their shoes and hang up their jackets. Unseen, Mr. Smith gives the woolen-patched elbow of Big Henry’s a slight squeeze before following the boys into the kitchen.
“I’ve got that kielbasa you dropped off that’d go nice with this, yeah?”
“Perfect,” Mr. Smith approves.
While they heat dinner and eat, Mr. Smith asks some questions Henry assumes are to keep Avery feeling included. Something tells him not to bring up their earlier conversation around his brother, so he waits.
“You boys been sleeping well?”
Avery nods, his mouth full of potato and cheese. After a gulp, he says, “Yep. Lots of good dreamin’.”
“He’s having all sorts of pirating capers, aren’tcha? I sure hope my little brother isn’t gearing up for a life of crime,” he sighs dramatically.
“Henry, dreams are just stories. It’s just fun.”
“Well said, son. What do you dream about, Henry?” Mr Smith asks, looking a bit more serious.
“Oh, um. I don’t really remember them. I think last night’s must’ve been nice because I slept better than I have in ages.”
Mr. Smith hmm’s and looks thoughtful while Henry dishes out slices of his latest pie; pear and walnuts with just enough Gorgonzola to make it borderline savory. He adds a scoop of vanilla ice cream to one to satisfy Avery’s sweet tooth, and motions with the spoon to the serving closest to his guest. “Oh, none for me. But I will take you up on some,” his eyes crease with a smile as Henry sets the jar of honey on the table before he finishes, “Melitown’s finest!”
The younger Merlo having wolfed his down and is sent off to clean himself up and finish anything he hadn’t completed during after-school daycare.
“So you were asking about that shop on Baines?” Mr. Smith asked.
Henry nods. “Yes, Miss Kika said—well, with her notecards—that they are always open, and she hoped to see me later?”
“And she gave you one of Madame Tuor’s cards?”
“Blue and gold, with I think a chess piece on the back?”
“A tower with an eye.”
“Yes. What’s it mean?”
Mr. Smith pushes his plate forward and sets his elbows on the table. Resting his head into his hands, he slowly scrubs them down his face before looking up at the young man across from him. Letting out a deep breath, he says, “Well. The lady will explain what is meant to be explained. Did she say ‘later’? Not ‘soon’?”
Henry gets up and goes for his jacket, returning with the cards. He slides the third one across to him.
“Mmm. Yep, my boy, you’ve been summoned. It’ll look a bit dark, but ring the bell. Maybe we should drop you off.”
“It’s not far enough to bother moving the car. Or should I get there faster? Am I keeping them waiting?”
Mr. Smith shakes his head, one of his short brown waves escapes from his styling product’s hold to dip forward, nearly poking him in the eye. He runs his hand through his hair to swipe across the back of his neck. Henry, not used to seeing a lot of emotion other than “chill” and “business” from him, isn’t sure how worried he ought to be. “It will be all right, Henry. They’re open exactly when needed.”
