The Way Things Seem

by Mackey Chandler

  “Is there somewhere around you’d go to yourself for dinner?” David asked.

  “Keep on going along the creek,” She waved. “Down near the Interstate is a restaurant all painted blue. The sign says Sugar Shack. That’s my cousin’s place and if you mention you are staying at the Maple Lodge we don’t get any money back, but she trades referrals with us. It’s pretty decent food and the kitchen is clean. They aren’t Amish, but they hire Amish and that’s how the menu is themed.”

  “I’ll do that after I have a shower and change clothes,” David said.

  “You don’t need anything fancy,” she said eyeballing his suit. “You may be tempted to call the Fashion Police if you see some of the tourists eating. They dress so casual the Amish avert their eyes and have given up saying anything to them as a lost cause.”

  The man David had seen working came through from the back. He had some drips and smears of paint on his shirt but had cleaned his hands. They probably had their own living quarters and a way out the back there. He looked over her shoulder at their own monitor David couldn’t see and seemed satisfied with David’s ID and numbers.

  “The lady explained you are renovating room by room. I admire the entrepreneurial spirit. I see you’re having the roof done. Can you do most of the other work yourself?” David asked.

  “Pretty much. If I don’t have a friend who can show me how to do it I watch a half dozen videos about how to do it and can usually fake it. When we got it last year some of the stuff was so old it was a toss-up between replacing things or just cleaning them up and calling it quaint. But I’m not a big fan of quaint, so new it is. When you come back from dinner I suggest you don’t leave anything visible in your car. This isn’t a particularly bad area but we still sometimes have people ride along the road late checking parked vehicles for valuables. We really don’t want to gate the parking lot. That looks bad.”

  “I’ll do that thanks. I’m not traveling with any expensive equipment like cameras so it’s easy.” David took the key card off the counter and headed out to move his car. The roofers seemed to be finishing up for the day and the door was shut where the owner had been working. He was ready to call it a day from traveling too.

  The room had been refurbished. There was still a bit of new paint smell about it and maybe some odor from the new carpet too, David decided on inspecting it. His pants were a little short and he had to cut the stiff label out of the shirt or it was going to drive him crazy. He went to the office expecting the loan of a razor blade or scissors, but the lady had an actual little tool to rip seams open and loaned it to him. He didn’t know such a thing existed, but she said to leave it in the room. He’d do his other two shirts while he had the use of the little tool.

  The restaurant was easy to find and must serve an early crowd. It was only six thirty and there were a lot of dirty tables and a busboy working hard to clear them, but no line or wait. The menu didn’t offer anything exotic. Roast turkey or fried chicken, roast beef or liver. There were stuffed cabbage and Schnitzel. David asked if it was made with veal or pork. It was pork but he decided to try it anyway.

  They surprised him with a huge platter to accommodate a very large cutlet. It came with egg spaetzle dressed with a thin gravy, lemon slices adorning the pork, and fresh green beans pan fried with a little onion in bacon grease. The waitress pushed the apple pie as the perfect accompaniment so what could he do? He did draw the line at adding ice cream. He was going to need a regular program of serious exercise if he kept eating like this.

  There was a gift shop that had touristy items and more baked goods to take home. The sign outside had a maple leaf painted on it. Sure enough, the Sugar Shack sold maple syrup. They didn’t have a separate cash register for the gift shop. You paid for your selection on the way out. There was an older woman looking at a bunch of wooden disks you might use as coasters. They were felt backed and painted on the face with the same sort of designs the Amish painted on their barns. David had seen a few. There was one featured on the cover of his travel guide.

  The woman had one up to her mouth like she was talking into a phone and when David came in the little shop she gave him a mischievous grin. That look turned to a little bit of surprise. David was the only black person he’d seen in the business, although he’d missed the rush. He figured that was the source of her surprise. It was by no means a hostile glance. He didn’t take offense, as he was a novelty here apparently.

  What he didn’t expect was for her to look conspiratorial and speak to him in German.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak very much German and yours has an odd sound to it. It sounds a bit like I heard in Switzerland. I got maybe half of it,” David admitted.

  “Ack, I’m sorry. I took you for somebody… for something else, by your face.”

  David looked at the piece she laid down. It was a star with other points sticking out from behind all the way around. It was crawling with the false colors Uncle taught him to recognize. He reached out and traced them with his finger the direction they were flowing.

  “You do have the sight of it,” she said, a little accusing, as if he’d denied it.

  “Grandmother,” he said, hoping she’d take it for respect, “I do indeed see the difference in the one you spoke to, but I am uneducated in the purpose or how you did it.”

  “This is a five star. Its purpose is to encourage prosperity. Whenever I eat here I always put the power in a hex sign or two, because the owner is a preacher and he doesn’t hold with doing this. It irks him to find them among the others that are just for pretty to sell to the sightless tourists.”

  “How is it, if he’s so opposed to it he can tell one from the other?” David asked.

  “That’s his shame and why it bothers him extra hard. I like to poke at him to remind him he isn’t so pure as the things he holds true would make him.”

  “You said encourage. Shouldn’t it guarantee it if it’s arcane and strong?” David asked.

  “Ha, people work against it so hard nothing can guarantee prosperity. Have you read about people who win millions and millions of dollars from the lottery, but in a year or two they are broke again?”

  “You explain it very well. I believe I’ll buy this one as a keepsake to remember you. Is it permissible to ask your name?”

  “Mrs. Ayers is as much as you need, dear boy. But not this one,” She plucked it from his fingers and returned it to the table. “You need no help to be prosperous and you’re going to get a great deal more money soon.”

  The absolute certainty in her voice sent a chill up the back of David’s neck.

  “This is to confer protection,” she said, picking another. It had points like the other, but all in a layer like a rose compass, but of equal lengths. “You are going to have need of that I can see. These all work because of the expectation of the owner. You could as like make your own design and assign it a purpose. If you lied about the customary use one would work as well as another, but we’ll follow tradition. I see you could use a bit more… direct power, but I’m not a witch and I don’t hold with hexing, no matter what the preachers think of me, but this will be of help to protect you.

  “You said you don’t know the way of putting power in them. Now my tradition is I can only instruct a son, but if you happen to listen and remember what is that to me? If I happen to put a hex of remembrance on you that too is what the English call generic, just like putting the power in the signs is generic to their purpose. It can just as easily help you remember me and what you had for dinner tonight too. So if you have something that serves a purpose, putting the power in it will aid that. Of course if you surround yourself with powerful objects it will make you obvious to those with the sight. Do you understand?”

  “You sound like my father’s lawyer reasoning out how he can do what he wanted to do in the first place, no matter what the law or his colleagues say, but that’s fine with me. If I put the power in my tires will it help them not go flat?” David asked.

 
Mrs. Ayers was delighted. “Yes, if that’s your intent, but will you fight or allow it? If you feel the urge to steer a bit to the left to avoid the unseen nail, but resist it, then it may fail. You will need to yield to odd whims if there is no compelling reason not to.”

  “Do you know how it works?” David probed.

  “No more than I know how the sun shines. It’s enough for me it does,” Mrs. Ayers said.

  David nodded and dropped it. Mrs. Ayers was much like Uncle that way. The temptation to tell her he knew how the sun shines ran up against the hard reality of how much background that required.

  “Then speak to it please. May I offer you something for your service?”

  “It is not our custom to take money. I see you don’t have a chicken or a bowl of eggs handy, so don’t concern yourself with it. Take my free hand and hold the sign with me.” She brought it up and recited German to it. David thought he’d never remember, but listened carefully. She did speak up more than the first time.

  “That’s a fine one,” she said. Indeed the colors were intense and the blue that was flat before seemed vibrant now. Indeed it looked like an object covered with glitter that a pre-teen girl would just adore. “Put that in your shirt pocket facing in so as not to bother those what have the sight. It’ll get stronger the longer you wear it and it wouldn’t hurt to instruct it again from time to time either.”

  David was about to object he’d never remember it, but the act of thinking it made the words play in his memory like a recording. In fact he remembered the words she used to set his remembrance too.

  “Thank you for such a fine gift. Please don’t run off while I pay for this and my dinner. I’m going to get you a small gift in kind,” David told her.

  “Has that woman been bothering you?” the cashier asked when he presented his dinner bill.

  “Not at all, I found her charming and when we compared notes we think we may be distant kin.”

  David heard a snicker behind him, when he called her charming. Between that and the consternation on the owner’s face, judged he’d played it just right. Suggesting he was kin with this very white lady probably was frosting on the cake.

  “I’d like a gift card also,” David said, pointing at the display of plastic cards. “Make it for a thousand dollars and charge me for this also,” he said, flipping the hex sign over and laying it by his money. The card put a dent in his cash, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.

  The man looked at David with distaste, turning his head one way and then the other. He could see that something was off about David, but obviously didn’t have the vision to see it clearly.

  “This looks a bit shop worn. Let me get you another,” he said. He forced himself to pick the sign up, but David had seen people get more joy picking up after their dog.

  David wasn’t about to allow that. He was sure the disk would be discarded, or maybe even burned. He willed it to move like he had thrown rocks, and the wooden disk suddenly hopped straight up in the air from the man’s hand. David snatched it out of the air before it could start to fall and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. “I like this one,” David insisted.

  The man just nodded once. He’d yanked his hand back like he might lose it. David waited until he counted out every penny of change. It was obvious he was careful not to touch David’s hand giving it to him. David had to remind him to activate the gift card he’d just paid for. The fellow did, but slid it back across the counter rather than hand it to David.

  Outside Mrs. Ayers thanked him politely for the card. “It was a double treat,” David said. “I get to buy you to a few dinners and I get a second round of pleasure knowing I’m giving the owner the joy of your company.”

  “That’s terrible,” Mrs. Ayers said, grinning. “I like that about you.”

  David went back to his room feeling very good.

  Chapter 16

  When he returned to his room, David lay on the bed without undressing, he was full and fell asleep easily. It was full dark when he woke and only the pin points of light from the fire alarm and the room climate control broke the conventional darkness, but lying on the bed beside him fallen out of his pocket was the hex sign. It was like a camping lantern throwing off a glow of false colors that came near to being a beam. Yet when he looked up it didn’t reflect off the ceiling at all. It was still all very strange to him how this new reality interacted with the old familiar one.

  He got back up and took another shower. His time with Uncle made it a treat still to be able to stay clean. That might fade with time, but not this soon. It was past three in the morning and David felt wide awake. He thought of just getting in the car and leaving early but got an uncharacteristic twinge of fear at going abroad in the night. He decided that was exactly the sort of nudge Mrs. Ayers had advised him to heed. Instead he picked the labels out of his other new shirts.

  By the time he was done he did feel like he could sleep some more and when back to bed. It was probably for the better. He might have run out of steam tomorrow without a full night’s sleep.

  The room had a single cup coffee maker, but he’d seen a bigger machine in the office. When he awoke and tossed his few things in the car he went there, returning the seam tool and key card, said goodbye, and got a cup of coffee for the road. The Sugar Shack would be the logical place to stop for breakfast. He knew they had decent food, it was right along his route and the place was open and busy, but he had a disquieting feeling in his gut that he didn’t want to see the owner again. He had no idea what trouble the man could possibly cause him, but did as Mrs. Ayers suggested and followed his gut feelings, sailing past the place.

  On the other side of the expressway was a truck stop. The food probably wasn’t as good, but neither did David have that feeling like somebody had just cued ominous background music when he contemplated pulling in the place. He had a mediocre breakfast that was about three times the size anybody sitting in a truck all day should eat, but ate half the potatoes and none of the toast. More importantly he didn’t see any faces with hostile intent directed at him. Not in the old fashion manner he’d grown to recognize like every other normal person growing up, or in the harder to interpret new colors. Either it was his imagination or the sign in his pocket grew warm when he thought about it.

  It bothered him now that he was back in the states not to have the pistol he was accustomed to carrying legally. He wasn’t sure what the law was on reciprocity in Pennsylvania, but he was dead certain he couldn’t carry in New York, where he intended to return. A slow smile grew on his face as he thought of a work-around. When he returned to his car he leaned over and inspected the pile of gravel on the traffic island by his parking space. He picked four small oval stones, water worn smooth and small enough to close his fist over and hide completely. They weren’t too bulky in his pants pocket.

  It was a very pleasant day to drive with the windows down. The clouds were fluffy and the land was green like a perfect painting instead of reality. It was much more pleasant on two lane back roads than the interstate. He enjoyed seeing all the small towns. Some still had buildings that were substantial, of stone and brick, though they might be repurposed. The last three he’d been through had older bank buildings, but one was a restaurant named The Vault, one was a law firm. Only the last was still a bank. It however had a sign declaring it a branch of a big national bank. That modern sign probably covered up the original name, carved in stone, that the founders thought would be permanent.

  David stopped and bought a sandwich and a bottle of water at a little shop that only had two tiny tables if you insisted on eating there. He didn’t. Continuing down the road there was a small rest area maintained by the county that was much more pleasant. He sat at a picnic table to enjoy his lunch. The local chipmunks showed interest so people must feed them, but they were out of luck with him. Thinking on Mrs. Ayer’s words he pulled the four stones from his pocket and laid them in a row considering how to apply her words to them. All together might dilute the e
ffect he worried, so he spoke to them individually.

  While he was at it David spoke to the sign again as she’d recommended and was sure it worked because the scintillating colors picked up intensity and pace. The rocks acquired a sheen too if not as intense. He wished he’d gotten a few more so he could experiment with them. He’d do so when he got a chance, but there wasn’t a loose rock to be seen at the rest stop, just pavement and very healthy grass. The local sheriff drove through while he was eating, but displayed no interest in him. That meant his rental car plate wasn’t on a watch list, but it also meant it would be auto-scanned by the sheriff’s car into the system now if somebody did start looking for him. He tossed his sandwich wrappers in the waste barrel and kept driving.

  David had seen two barns and a garden shed with hex signs on them, but the farm he was approaching was different. It looked neat and prosperous, like it had been created for a movie set. It lacked the usual old cars and farm machinery parked around. The drive and area in front of the barn were paved instead of bare dirt with ill defined edges. On the barn were two identical hex signs of the sort Mrs. Ayers had identified as being for prosperity. They were alive with false colors and motion, the first he’d seen like that in public.

  There was a stand set back from the road to one side of the house with a hand lettered sign that said, zucchini, tomatoes, small potatoes, onions, and plums in a neat vertical list. It was a roof on columns like a gazebo and nobody seemed to be in attendance. David felt no inner sense warning him away so he stopped, hoping someone would come down from the house. He wanted to see the sort of person who would put those signs on his barn.

  The produce was laid out on homemade tables and in the middle of the display there was a sign and a cigar box. It said in hand printing. Working the fields – make your own change. Please remember to add 12% tax. The plums were three dollars a pint which seemed very reasonable. He looked and only had two ones, so he got a five and figured it for close enough. When David opened the cigar box to deposit it he was astonished to find a number of single bills and loose coins. Even though the sign said to make change he hadn’t expected there to be money left where it could be stolen so easily.