Snowtear

by S. B. Davidson

  He still held out a small vestige of hope that she’d come round one of these nights and finally feel inclined to stay, but during those long stretches of time that he heard neither hide nor hair of her, it was a slim hope indeed. He didn’t plan on letting it slip from his fingers just yet, though.

  The smell of freshly baking bread tantalized his senses, and that old comfortable feeling wrapped around him as the bakery came into sight. Walking toward it, he looked up at the single window of the room he’d previously rented whenever on a job. What few memories it brought back were stale and empty, holdouts of an elapsed chapter in his life, better left closed. Riken took in a deep breath of the sweet air and looked away.

  Gilthorn Rath greeted him with the usual jollity, then seated him at the shop’s lone table in dark corner near the back.

  “I keep this table here just for you, you know?” the affable, white-haired man said. “It’s always in the bloody way, and my ass has the bruises to prove it.”

  Riken pulled the single chair away from the table and sat down. “Good thing there’s so much padding there, then.”

  Mon Rath tried to wrinkle his chubby, flour-stained face into a scowl, but the guise was so foreign to him that he gave up and broke into a beaming smile. “What will you have? Peppernut? Honey loaf? Betty’s got a fresh wedge of cinnamon pecan just about ready to come out the oven.”

  “Whatever’s warmest,” Riken said, resting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hand.

  “Be right back,” Mon Rath said, then hauled his girth around the counter, breathing heavy. He started rolling out a portion of batter, then paused as if a thought had just come into his head. He slapped his forehead suddenly, leaving a hand-shaped imprint of flour behind. “Oh, that’s right. Knew there was something I meant to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “There was a man here looking for you the other day. Came in a couple of times looking for you as matter of fact. Guess ‘cause you used to rent that old room upstairs.”

  “What did he want?” Riken asked, only half-interested.

  “Had a message for you,” Mon Rath said. “Said he was a…conveyer and deriver…and that someone had sent you a communication.”

  “From who?”

  “Didn’t say, but I got the man’s name written down here somewheres.” Mon Rath disappeared under the counter. Riken heard pots and pans clanking for a few moments, then the man popped back up, breathing heavier than before. “Here it is…Mon Feddleson…aye, Mon Feddleson. Got an office on Chastity Row.”

  He extended the strip of parchment to Riken, obviously not wanting to walk around the counter again. Riken stood and took it, then shoved it in his pocket. He returned to his seat. By the time Betty came over with his order, he’d already forgotten about the message.

  He ate an entire loaf of honey bread, washing it down with a pint of ale, then bid Gilthorn and Betty farewell and set off toward his lonely cottage. He was halfway there when he remembered the message in his pocket. He retrieved it, read it over again, and sighed hard, not enjoying the prospect of trekking the entire way to Chastity Row from here.

  If not now, I’ll just have to do it later.

  With an audible sigh, he started in that direction. Being forced to maneuver through the bustle of preparation for Reaper’s Moon made the journey twice as long, and by the time Riken reached the cramped office of Mon Feddleson, Conveyer and Deriver, his leg was smarting in unison with his mood.

  “Ah, Mon Snowtear,” a gangly man with a wispy, brown chin beard said, rising from an exquisite cedar desk. “You are a difficult man to find. Though I suppose I didn’t find you myself at all, now did I?”

  “Suppose not,” Riken said, in a hurry to commence with their business.

  “Won’t you have a seat?”

  “Won’t be here that long.”

  “Ah, very well. Let me just see if I can find that communication.” The thin strip of a man set about shuffling through the bevy of parchments littering his wide desk. It took him several minutes, but finally he found what he sought. He held the parchment between his thumb and forefinger. “Ah, here it is. Aye, all the way from Burden, no less. My apologies for not reaching you sooner. As I said, you are a difficult man to find. New residence?”

  “The message, Mon,” Riken said, wincing as a slight tremor ran up his leg. Burden? Must be my parents. Wonder which one died. His coin was on his father. He’d always figured his dear mother would outlive them all.

  “Aye, of course,” he said, but didn’t hand it over yet. “I regret I’ve had it in my possession for over a month now. Normally that it not my business practice, but as I’ve said…”

  “I’m a difficult man to find,” Riken finished, snatching the parchment from the man.

  Mon Feddleson screwed up his pallid face. “Difficult. Quite. That is exactly the word I would use.”

  “It’s the word you did use,” Riken said.

  “Of course.” The man huffed and returned to his desk and his parchments. “If you have a reply, let me know. I’ll leave you to your message. I have a great many things to see to.”

  “My thanks,” Riken said, lifting the parchment to his face with one free hand, wondering how he would feel once he read the words of one of his parent’s deaths. What else could it be? Had to be that?

  It wasn’t. There was only a simple phrase:

  Somewhere, and at the proper time, our two paths will cross again.

  The author had left no signature.

  Riken stared at the purposefully vague words. He didn’t have to think at all. He knew exactly who’d sent him this little surprise.

  Such elegant prose. Always the demure gentleman, Sefen. So you too made it out of that inferno.

  Riken tore the parchment in two, crumbled it, then mashed it under his boot.

  Mon Feddleson looked up from his desk.

  “Parchment is not cheap, you know? I could have reused that.” When Riken didn’t reply, the man sighed, then asked in a perturbed tone, “Is there any reply I can send?”

  “Aye.”

  “Very well,” Feddleson said, making a giant show of retrieving a pen and another piece of parchment. “What will it read?”

  Riken smiled. “Bet your fucking ass.”

  Feddleson’s feathered pen froze on the parchment. His angular shoulders noticeably slumped. “That’s very crude.”

  “You’ll have to take that up with my mother.”

  “Mon Snowtear…”

  “Fine,” Riken said, rolling his eyes. “Change that last bit to ‘hide’.”

  Riken Snowtear left the conveyer/deriver’s office with more spark to his step than when he’d arrived. Maybe he’d swing by Wicked Delight on the way home, see what Pollo and Gretchen were up to.