Arnold stared back at Nicholas with a measure of respect, and no small amount of surprise. “Very well, Dabble. That’s three. Get ready to meet the reaper.”
Serena stepped from the backdoor of the bookstore, smiling pleasantly. “Good afternoon, Arnold. You are just the man I was looking for.”
She moved easily past Nicholas Dabble, sidestepping him as she might a signpost or a poorly placed coat rack, and walked up to Arnold Prosser. “I think it appropriate we should get together.”
Seconds earlier, Arnold Prosser was considering, with no small amount of relish, the prospect of tearing Nicholas Dabble’s spine out and showing it to him—or feeding it to him; which one, he wasn’t sure now. But the coffee shop owner had a presence that arrested his attention. “I really don’t think this is the time or the place, Serena,” Arnold said, finding it difficult not to look away from her gaze.
“I agree,” she said playfully, moving in an air of lilacs and spring, of opium and sweet grass, of smoke and peppermint and dead scarabs. “Join me tomorrow for tea. It will give us a chance to catch up, to discuss matters that need to be settled.”
Arnold’s gaze traded from Serena to the sun-sweltered alley and back. He could never read her; never understand her from one moment to the next. She was stability by way of change. Dabble’s polar opposite, Arnold abhorred chaos. Serena, by contrast, used chaos to affect order. Chaos was her clay, there for the taking to do with as she saw fit, her motives perplexing, intriguing, infuriating, arousing. She unsettled and interested him both, and he could not rectify the confusion.
“Will you join me tomorrow for tea, then?” she asked a second time.
And he knew she would not ask a third time. Arnold brushed the back of his hand across his forehead, and it came away dripping in sweat. When had the afternoon become so hot?
“It would be my pleasure,” he said, forcing a smile. A part of him wanted to reach out and take her hand, to plant a small kiss upon the knuckle. Fortunately, he squelched the urge before it could manifest into something embarrassing. He was a schoolboy with a crush on the new, young poetry teacher. Maybe some private lessons are in order, Arnold. Some extra credit activities that would—
“Come by my place at 1:45,” she said, Arnold’s reverie of alien thoughts and urges swept away like wind through honeysuckle.
“1:45. I’ll be there on the dot.”
“Splendid,” Serena said, looking girlishly pleased and smug both at once; paradox was her gift. She glanced over her shoulder, catching Nicholas in a sweeping gesture that included the doorway, the back of the bookstore, and that half of all reality he occupied. “Then I’ll see the both of you tomorrow.”
“Both?” Arnold turned sharply on Nicholas Dabble who, more adept at deception, merely nodded. And Dabble’s apparent collusion only fueled Arnold’s outrage. As if Nicholas Dabble, that miserable, foppish, salt-licking hider of another man’s things did this kind of thing all the time, wined and dined a woman like Serena while those like him toiled the hard road. “I don’t think so!”
Serena turned, looking genuinely concerned. “Is something wrong, Arnold?”
“Something most certainly is. I will not sit down to tea with that … that …”
Serena placed a hand gently upon the Garbageman’s shoulder. “Arnold, your nose is bleeding.”
Arnold swung a fierce, confused look in her direction, shrugging her hand away. His other hand wiped viciously at his face, finding the small string of bloody that had run between his nose and lip, and smearing it upon the ball of his thumb. “There is no way I’m sittin’ down to tea with this … this … salt-lickin’, lyin’, no good—”
“You’re declining my invitation?” Serena looked aghast.
The Garbageman dropped his eyes. Order was the cornerstone of the universe, and honor the key to order; he could hardly decline an invitation once accepted. “Of course not, Serena. I’ll … I’ll be there tomorrow for tea, I swear.”
“Splendid,” she said. “We’ll settle all differences then. You’ll see. Everything will be made right.”
“You know what she is, Serena,” the Garbageman challenged, refusing to let his petition go unheard. “She’ll unravel everything, you know that.”
“I am very aware of what she is, Arnold, and what she can do. Never pretend to understand more than I about the grand scheme of things. Arrogance is unattractive.”
She turned and started away. The Garbageman jabbed a finger in Dabble’s direction. “We’re not done, you and me.”
But Nicholas Dabble had already turned away, retreating back into his store.
Serena paused at the hulk of the garbage hauler. “Arnold, would you be so kind as to move your truck. It’s blocking the way, and I need to get back to my shop. We can settle all of this tomorrow. Until then, I suggest a course of mutual disassociation: no actions taken, no grievances aired. Everything about this matter is to be laid aside until tomorrow when it can be discussed in its fullest and broadest ramifications, all details attended to. It is the way things should be done, wouldn’t you agree?”
Arnold nodded sullenly, and returned to his truck, moving it so that Serena could get back to her coffee shop.
Until tomorrow.
THE WORLD WILL TURN
Jack toiled at the keys, working in his shadow as the sun slid into the evening. Somewhere across the limits of time and space, as far as infinity, as close as the screen before him, Ellen’s encroachment upon a world she did not belong in was being decided.
Sweat ran across his scalp and neck, sliding down his face in distracting trails. He wiped it away with the heel of his hand, dried it on his jeans, and returned to the unfolding electronic pages. He was in the groove, on a jag, no stopping him now, no stopping the story so long as he stayed on. The single, greatest benefit of the Nexus was isolation and loneliness; everything he needed and no distractions.
He pressed his hands to the small of his back, arching until the bones emitted a satisfying litany of pops and cracks. He took brief respites to relieve himself, usually against the side of one of the numerous pieces of trash littering the junkyard. Sometimes he would wander as far as the kitchen for something to eat. Then back to work.
Hammerlock kept him supplied with fresh coffee, hazelnut-flavored and mixed with cream and sugar the way he liked it. It was a menial task for a Guardian, but could not be helped; there was no one left for Hammerlock to guard him against, the Wasteland purged of everything but Jack Lantirn and the Café, the landscape outside dead beyond repair.
In that moment, watching the robot guardian walking a hot cup of coffee out to him through the scatter of debris and dead machines, Jack had an insight into hell. Not demons and torment, blistering fire and freezing ice and all manner of pain beyond human endurance, but isolation and unending loneliness that begged a single question: will this ever end?
Yes, sometimes hell was that.
You are a romantic, Jack. Hell is nothing of the sort.
Hammerlock placed the coffee mug down on the open bed of the battered Ford truck where the Caretaker sat straight-legged, computer on his lap. He thanked him, but the robot simply turned and left. He did not speak; were he even able, Jack doubted there was much the two of them had to say to each other.
He sipped the coffee, catching a hint of subtler flavors: nutmeg, cinnamon, and something else, something secretive: scarab husks and cactus meat, lotus blossoms and black forest mushrooms brewed by ancient means stolen from the dark corners of the last rain forest where spirit animals still communed with men, and gods sometimes walked the earth.
Or maybe the Café had simply neglected to thoroughly clean the cup.
He placed his fingers back on the keyboard, let his eyes look at the blankness of the screen then through it to the essence of unfulfilled possibilities, and plunged back in.
Things were moving fast now.
* * *
When Nicholas Dabble came back from the alley, Ellen thought he looke
d tired, his expression sullen, brows knit in an uncharacteristically grave display of concern. To her knowledge, her boss had never demonstrated concern over anything. He was not uncaring, so far as she knew, just unemotional.
Until today.
“Are you okay?” Ellen asked.
Dabble turned and looked at her, a queer, distracted look as if he was refocusing his attention from somewhere far away, mind groping for answers. “I’m not feeling all that well,” he told her plainly. “I thought I would close the store early.”
It was Ellen’s turn to stare, unsure what to make of this unprecedented decision.
“If it’s all the same to you, why don’t you take a half day today and go on home?” He walked to the front of the store where he turned over the OPEN sign in the window to read, CLOSED — Please Come Again.
“Will you be all right?” she asked.
He looked at her again with that strange quizzical stare. “I’m sure, come tomorrow, I’ll be as right as ever. Everything should work out.”
Ellen went to the counter to gather her belongings, asking, “What did the man at the backdoor want?”
“Nothing. Something. Everything. It’s complicated.” Then he followed her towards the door, gently urging her on her way as if she were a willful child reluctant to go to bed. “I want you to forget about the man at the backdoor. I’m taking care of that. And I want you to go straight home. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t stop for anyone. Just go straight home, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Everything will be fine.”
“Are you sure? I could run down to the drugstore if you need something.”
“You’re very kind, Ellen, but you don’t really belong here … looking after me. You never did. This place is a way station for you on your way to better things.” Then he frowned, almost regretfully. “Just go on home and enjoy the afternoon.”
And to her surprise, Nicholas Dabble leaned forward and very gently kissed her forehead, the lightest touch, a snap of static and the unusual heat of his skin. Dizziness washed through her, starting in her toes and making her scalp tingle…
…And she was standing on the front step of Dabble’s Books, staring at the glass door as Nicholas Dabble pushed it slowly shut, no memory of stepping outside, no memory at all after his melancholic speech, after…
Nicholas Dabble, who had never so much as shook her hand before today, had gone so far as to kiss her on the forehead, as if bestowing a blessing, or perhaps merely sending her to bed: sweet dreams little one; off you go.
Behind the glass, the shop went dark, the shadows impenetrable.
Ellen went home as advised, the street unnaturally quiet. There was none of the usual mid-afternoon traffic, not cars or pedestrians. The world seemed empty, as if it had stopped. Not ended—neither so apocalyptic nor so final—it had simply … stopped.
She passed a white garbage truck parked in an alley. Ellen recognized it from earlier, the one that caused so much trouble outside of her apartment. Only now it sat quietly, cab empty, driver missing.
Where did he go, she wondered, the garbageman who knew too much about things he should know nothing at all about? She reached her apartment’s foyer without seeing him—without seeing anyone—but could not shake the feeling of someone watching her, following her with their eyes.
Dr. Kohler would have labeled her suspicions as paranoia. Except, of course, Dr. Kohler would not label her as anything. Not anymore.
* * *
Arnold Prosser watched Ellen Monroe from the moment she left the bookstore, careful to avoid her notice; he would allow Serena that much on the matter. She revealed nothing he did not already know, most of all the secrets she kept from him. And that bothered him. He would allow Serena to speak her mind out of respect—and maybe something more, who’s to say—but it would not affect his decision. There was only one thing left to do, one fate left to befall her, this strip of a girl who so affected the doctor and Dabble and the derelicts and the woman from the coffee shop. The order of the universe was at stake. The dead had no place in the land of the living, forgotten or no. There could be no exceptions. Once the threads started to unravel, the entire tapestry was jeopardized.
No, no matter what Serena had to say, rules were rules. The world was what it was.
* * *
Slithering through alleyways like fog retreating before the sunlight, Gusman Kreiger followed Ellen Monroe, keeping her in sight, keeping in earshot of each soft step she made across the sidewalks and pavement of this humdrum reality. The avatar was still about, watching and waiting, biding his time. Kreiger kept an eye on him as well, watching for any sudden movements that might signal the moment he had been waiting for. As for the others, he had been a fool not to see them before. They hid themselves better, more adept at dissolving into the world around them, becoming a part of the living landscape, invisible to outsiders like Ellen and even himself. But he should have smelled them. At least then he would have had some warning.
Now all that was left was to run—run fast enough that you never realized your feet were treading on nothing but air.
* * *
Ellen climbed the stairs to the landing of her apartment. Written on the wall leading up to the roof were the words STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN in thick letters like a kind of direction for the lost. Someone had obviously hand-printed them in magic marker.
Probably herself, though she did not remember. How like her, of late.
She went inside and locked the door. The world outside had changed. There was no more sanctuary in its steadfastness, its unchanging form. Something was happening; she was unsure what, but somehow it involved her.
Jack knew, but he never told her. His book ended where it ended, and there was nothing more. She’d read it and reread it, searching for clues, looking for meaning, or sometimes just taking comfort in reading his thoughts and descriptions, feeling, even briefly, like he was there with her.
But he existed only in dreams now. And somewhere far over the edge of reality, across a great sea fished by a cat in search of ghosts to crew his ship, he was waiting for her in a small café, writing because that was all he really knew, all he really understood.
No, that wasn’t true. He knew one other thing. He knew her. And he loved her. And he would not abandon her so long as she did not forget him.
Ellen put water on to boil, and poured some of Serena’s special blend of tea into the bottom of a teapot. She had enough for one more then it would be gone. What would she put in the teapot then?
Do you remember exactly when or where you got this teapot?
No.
Do you remember much of anything from before?
No.
Are you absolutely certain there was a before? Not just bits and scraps of memories like random lines torn from a book, but an actual life with a mother and a father and a high school prom, and a fourth grade teacher you hated, and the little boy from next door who you played doctor with, and that boy who first kissed you on the lips? Are you certain you had any of that?
No.
Maybe it’s something less linear, something involving too many drugs, a few mistakes that might have been misconstrued as an attempt at suicide, a time in an asylum where you were abused by drugs in a different way, and a segue to a saloon on the edge of reason and madness where the trains would come and go bound not simply for other stations, but other worlds. Maybe not so much a saloon as a way station.
This place is a way station for you on your way to better things, Nicholas Dabble told her. And then he kissed her forehead.
She stood very still in the middle of the kitchen, listening to the water boiling on the stove, and trying to make sense of it all.
Finally, she gave up and poured boiling water into the teapot. While the ground leaves and herbs steeped, she sat down to read The Sanity’s Edge Saloon. It was the only book she read; the only book she owned. Only maybe there was more to it, something left unfinished, a work in progress.
Things set in motion.
> She poured some of Serena’s tea into a coffee mug, wondering idly if tea in a coffee mug was sacrilegious, and breathed in the steam, sipping from it while she read.
As the pages turned, so did the world.
And slowly, it turned into night.
FEVERISH DREAMS
Time ran differently between his world and hers; Jack knew this, had always known this. The same way he knew his heart was beating, his lungs breathing, his mind forever returning to thoughts of her. It was fundamental. Sometimes her days would pass in minutes. And sometimes whole days in the Café could be consumed in mere moments of her life.
They were not yet in synch.
If she did what he needed her to do—what he hoped she would do—they would be. After all, she was the one who’d first discovered how to fly.
The night was cold, but he remained in the bed of the truck, hunched over his laptop, the screen glowing blue-white on his face like the cerulean moon. His fingers clicked across the keys: sometimes slow, sometimes stopping altogether, and sometimes running across the board in a fevered pace so consistent and rhythmic as to be mistaken for the sound of an insect in the night.
Only there were no insects in the night. The Wasteland was dead, drained, sterilized. It might come back one day, might spontaneously generate the bizarre creatures that bubbled up from the dust, spiders and insects and dregs of every description, dangerous animals that lived each off the other like desperate cannibals in the final days of Rapa Nui, a vicious circle of life that favored only the cruel. It might all be as it was before—before he squared off against Gusman Kreiger.
The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2) Page 31