***
Her key was barely in the lock when Mrs. Gallaway opened her door. Her wizened eyes peeked left and then right, sharpening their focus on Alva, her face wrinkling from every edge.
“There was someone looking for you, Alva,” she whispered conspiratorially. “A handsome lad! A gentleman caller!”
Alva managed a smile for the old lady’s sake. Mrs. Gallaway suffered from a nasty combination of insomnia, loneliness and chattiness. Alva was tired and doubted this “gentleman caller” was looking for more than to try and sell her a new set of kitchen knives. Not that she’d really know what to do with those.
“Thanks, Mrs. Gallaway.” Alva perked up her voice and looked off with a dreamy look in her eyes. “I’ll go dress in my ball gown now and wait for my prince charming!”
Mrs. Gallaway cackled and waved Alva off as she closed her door, her laughter assailed by coughs. Alva grinned and put the key in the deadbolt. She turned it, but the familiar releasing thunk didn’t occur.
Could she have forgotten to set it? No, of course not. Locking the deadbolt was second nature.
She backed away, placing her keys between her fingers for a quick, easy weapon. Crude, but capable of inflicting lots of damage if necessary. She wasn’t weak and knew she could put up a fight. Unless they had a gun, of course, and blew her head off before she could reach them. But in her little town, that wasn’t too likely to happen.
Her feet firmly planted, she opened the door carefully. If anyone was in her apartment, they knew she was here now. Changing her tactic, she slammed the door open in case someone waited for her behind it. The door bounced off the wall and she caught it with her booted foot, quickly turning to face the kitchen. It was empty, but someone had opened all of the drawers. She thought of stepping back and calling the cops, but she was already here and if those bastards were still here, she wanted to give them a piece of her mind. And fists.
She ignored the barely used kitchen, which she kept clean and sparse. It was definitely empty. She turned back to the corridor and faced her living room/dining room/bedroom — a rather small room for its multiple purposes.
No one was there. The lights were all switched on, casting large shadows on her scattered belongings. They’d been there in the past two hours, after the sun had set. She stepped over her stuff and reached the converted closet Pete used for her room. It was also in shambles, her books scattered. Alva picked up her sister’s favourite books on legends and myths, relieved they weren’t damaged, and carefully placed them back on the small wall shelf.
“Some handsome man,” she mumbled. Mrs. Gallaway meant well, but she’d probably mentioned more than she should have, hoping Alva finally had a “suitor.” Damn thieves, too lazy to get jobs, yet skilled enough to pick a deadbolt without having to break down the door. Not that they’d have found anything of value here, except…
Alva crossed the living room quickly to the train set lining the back wall. It was old and too broken to be of any worth to even collectors, but it had been her dad’s when he was a boy, and it was the only thing they had left of him, save for the one thing she kept hidden in the small tollbooth station. She reached carefully across the dilapidated pine trees, the bear figure with the missing forepaws, and the faded crosswalk signal, and popped the top off the little tollbooth. It was meant to go with a car set and not on a train track, but her father had loved it so much that every time the train went around the tracks, it had to stop to pay the toll.
“Popular with the customers, I bet that was!” He laughed when he showed her, when it had been just the three of them in a small, but not as small, apartment. Her long, oil-stained fingers reached in and grazed cold metal. She let out a short sigh in relief.
She rolled her fingers around the metal and gently clasped the top, pulling free the old watch her father had given her, his grandmother’s watch, the only item of value they had. “If we need to, we’ll pawn it. It’s gotta be worth something, but still, old gram would be disappointed…”
He’d shake his head and place it back after showing it to her. The only other time she’d seen it was when he looked at it, when they’d been talking about her schooling. He had wanted her to go to university. Then Pete. He’d always worked the trains, and the rails were dying out. The trains had been a good job when he was a boy, but now he was older, scraping by with odd jobs and no formal certification in a world that demanded proof of learning over proof of knowledge and experience.
He’d wanted her to go and take higher learning. “That watch might be good enough for one year, at least. Maybe even two. I can get more odd jobs, get money for the other years in the meantime.”
He was already working 80-hour weeks.
Alva had signed up for her apprenticeship the following day. “Learn as you earn,” the tagline was. And she had, and she’d never once regretted it.
But her dad had always been a bit disappointed. He’d wanted her to do more than him, working with his hands on a technology that evolved too rapidly in the span of a lifetime. But she’d loved her job. And Gruff and her dad had become fast friends. Her winning argument had been Pete. With both of them saving money, they could afford to send at least the youngest Taverner to higher education.
That had been the plan, anyway.
Al had just turned nineteen when a drunk driver sideswiped her dad, and that was that. All she had left of him were this watch and the old train set.
She half fell on the futon, which was currently set up as a couch but would become her bed later. She missed him, but this watch somehow made her feel connected to him still – the sound of his voice as he’d tell old family legends late in the night, his tinkering with it trying to make it work, the way his eyes watered when he recited his favourite pieces of literature.
She held up the watch. It wasn’t tarnished – she certainly didn’t let it get that way. It was gold, or a metal resembling it enough. Dad had been convinced it was worth thousands. She doubted it, but had never had the heart to tell him so.
Its value was in its beauty, and in the stories it preserved. It was intricately carved. A small village on one side, a giant pine tree swooping over a small thatched house. On the other side was just one letter, which was her great grandmother’s initial. A promise that never came to pass.
She heard a thunk in the kitchen. Alva’s head jerked up and she jumped to her feet, threw the watch in her pocket, grabbed her keys and leapt in the hallway and then the kitchen in two bounds.
She threw one leg back behind the other and adopted a defensive posture, bringing up her “armed” hand.
There was nothing there.
She quickly crossed to the corridor. There was no one there, either. She glanced in the kitchen.
Hadn’t those drawers been open a second ago?
She was too tired. Long shifts and her obsession with fixing the watch were taking a toll. Having her place broken into was a violation she just didn’t need. Alva locked the deadbolt and the handle, and slid the nearly useless chain in place. At least it would warn her if the lock picker decided to come back. That, he’d have to break.
She pondered calling the cops for a second, but nothing had been stolen as far as she could tell, and she didn’t have anything else of value. Or any insurance, for that matter. She might as well save herself the hassle.
She thought about warning Pete, but she didn’t want to worry her younger sister. She was off in Toronto, checking out universities and the Royal Ontario Museum with others from her class. She needed to focus on her decision, and not worry about their home.
An hour’s worth of work and most of the apartment was back to its usual order. They didn’t have much, but the small space fared better when everything was organized.
It was nearing midnight and Alva almost fell into bed before thinking better of it, walking to her front door, and placing a chair under the handle.
Nigh - Book 1 Page 2