Simple Things

by Press, Lycan Valley

  He jolted, an action that surprised him given the gallons of blood he’d spilled, the many bones crunched and sawed through, the lives he’d sent onto Charon’s ferry down the River Styx or to Anubis for heart weighing or to Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates for a thumbs-up or down. Heat blistered across Jody Coyote’s throat.

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “The museum. I don’t let the sun in here much. It’ll destroy our auntie’s delicate work.”

  She drew the drapes back. Darkness again plunged that corner of the Chalfont Inn in shadows, and the sense of disquiet surrounding Jody Coyote worsened. Breathing stopped being easy or involuntary. A chill tickled him unpleasantly beneath the belt. The meal he’d enjoyed now conspired against him and soured in his stomach.

  He turned and hastened toward the door.

  The mellifluous voice chose that moment to comment. “Oh, I wouldn’t go, not yet.”

  Jody Coyote dug in his soles. “Did you say something?”

  “Have a nice day,” said the woman in the sundress.

  He hesitated.

  “Is there anything else, sir?”

  “Yes, there is,” said Jody Coyote, and the words tasted foul.

  “You got an empty room upstairs?”

  He paid for a night’s stay—in cash—and instantly regretted it. It wasn’t the money, no; Jody Coyote had plenty of green scattered in offshore accounts and foreign banks, and tucked neatly away in various deposit boxes and hidey-holes. There was even a cool five figures wrapped in plastic and hidden about his late grandmother’s old place, which he held the deed to—buried in the backyard, secreted behind walls, and hidden in the dry toilet tank. No, it was something else. The dioramas, perhaps. The secretive glances of the woman in the sundress, which seemed to see through him, past him. None of it. All of it.

  Jody Coyote always travelled light. He pulled the backpack containing two changes of clothes from the rental’s trunk and, not sure why, slipped the gun between neat rolls of socks and folded under shorts.

  The day had turned balmy, and an edge of humidity sweated down from the surrounding mountains. What his grandmother used to call ‘the muggies’. He eyed the patch of road visible beyond the gravel. Time had blanched the asphalt to the color of comfortable denim. The temptation to jump back behind the wheel and drive, just drive, bloomed strongly within his guts and blood. As though to remind him of the dangers, Jody Coyote’s flesh beneath his left shoulder ignited with phantom pain. He’d ignored the voices once before and had an ugly scar and enough metal in him to set off detectors at airports as a result, hence his reason for driving the distances between assignments.

  He huffed an expletive under his breath and marched back up the flagstone path. He crossed the Chalfont Inn’s shadow-cloaked lobby, tromped up the stairs, and located his room—207. En route, he passed a single closed door and swore he heard a note of laughter from behind the oblong length of wood. The voice was there one moment, gone the next, just long enough for him to recognize its tone, quality. The voice from beneath the car seat.

  “That’s auntie’s old room,” said the woman in the sundress.

  She stood in the doorway to 207. Around her, Jody Coyote stole fragmental looks at his new lodgings: a brass bed, a patchwork comforter. Even the room’s walls matched the color of the one in the diorama from the museum of oddities downstairs.

  “Your auntie…” Jody Coyote started.

  “She was from the old country. Turkey. A brilliant woman. She knew things. Incredible things. Secrets and arts that are in danger of getting lost.”

  “And your auntie is gone?”

  The woman in the sundress breezed past him. Beneath her breath, she answered what sounded to his ear like, “Sometimes.”

  Sunlight spilled across the windowsill and puddled on the section of floor between brass bed and window. The lace curtain drifted on the muggy breeze’s exhales. Jody Coyote sweated as his mind wandered into the fading blue paint, past the wall, and back onto the road.

  Route 2, toward Boston. He’d exchange the car outside the city in a safe place he used that always reeked of skunk—marijuana, fresh and pungent. No questions asked. A new car, a different assignment. He’d gas up, drive; would keep on driving. Killing and driving, until Peak Oil hit. Or someone killed him first.

  A knock sounded on the door. Jody Coyote kicked his argyle socks onto the floor and answered. The woman in the sundress stood outside. She carried a tray, upon which sat a large ceramic cup identical to the one that had contained his late morning coffee, a small pitcher of cream, a honey pot and dipper.

  “It’s four o’clock. In England, that’s—”

  “Isn’t it a little hot for afternoon tea?” he snapped.

  “Hot, sure. But that’s why you should drink it. Auntie always drank hot tea in the summer. She swore that it made her feel cooler. Besides, our bees make the best honey.”

  He accepted the tray and set it down on the nightstand. Anything to stop fixating on the road and how desperate he was to get back on it.

  “We open for dinner downstairs at six,” she said. “Until then, you’re welcome to read any of the books in the library, or take a walk.”

  “Thanks.”

  He closed the door, paced. Walking stirred the smells of Jody Coyote’s sweat, the heat spilling past the windowsill, and the room’s notes of agedness. He reached for the cup. The ceramic heated the skin of his palms almost past his tolerance. He dumped in cream, opened the honey pot. A smell wafted up, raw and musky, unfamiliar. So this was local honey, unprocessed, scraped directly out of the combs. He plunged the dipper into the dark amber gel, rolled it around, dunked it into his tea. Jody Coyote sipped. His throat stung. The tea hit his guts, and his core boiled. He imagined his flesh liquefying, melting. The temperature in the room skyrocketed. Briefly, he stood at the heart of a star going supernova.

  Then the sensation of burning up passed, and he could think again. He almost felt cool in the aftermath. Almost.

  A lone white hive stood against the colourful sea of flowers. Until that moment, Jody Coyote hadn’t questioned why the ornamental shrubbery was there, away from the Chalfont Inn, not closer to it. Purples, magentas, and vermilions crowded the slope, with one lone beehive lurking among them.

  There were other hives behind the section of the inn that housed the kitchen, at a decent distance from the screen door, he discovered. The afternoon dragged on with a miserable slowness, and a walk should have helped. But the urge to follow the road, to run and keep on running, smothered any relief.

  Jody Coyote sat on the hood of his car and listened for voices. Something buzzed past his ear. He remained perfectly still until he was certain the insect and its stinger were gone, headed for a brighter destination, like the hillside covered in rhododendrons.

  A warm breeze washed down from the mountains. He loosened another button at the top third of his shirt. Lights switched on in the dining room. He wasn’t hungry. No additional cars were parked in the gravel lot. It wasn’t looking like there’d be much in the way of a dinner rush.

  A book from the library. Sleep. In the morning, he’d test the possibility of escape and take his chances. Jody Coyote slid off the rental’s hood and marched up the flagstone path. Through the vestibule. Into the darkness of the lobby.

  The odd little museum glowed under lamplight. On his way toward the staircase, Jody Coyote tipped a look into the room. A woman in a sundress sat on the camelback sofa with the tired upholstery. He halted in place, looked again, right as she vanished deeper into the room and out of his vision’s range. Not sure why, Jody Coyote doubled back, his steps slow, plodding. The room appeared, filled with tiny, precise scenes of life as displayed like cartoons. A cobbler making wooden shoes while a half dozen barefoot children frolicked in the background. Two girls and their dolls at a tea party—though, he again thought, it wasn’t easy to identify which was doll and which was supposed to be girl.

  Light reflected off glass covers and d
appled the museum room’s walls. But there was nobody else in there and, as though to taunt him, a chill tumbled down his spine, briefly driving out the heat.

  ***

  Meatloaf and mashed potatoes, gravy with a bit of kick to it, Brussels sprouts pan-seared with bacon, a green salad—parmesan peppercorn dressing, house-made, on top. Ice water with a wedge of lemon. Tea with musky, local honey. All of it was delicious, though Jody Coyote pushed the food around with his fork more than he actually ate.

  The woman in the sundress refilled his sweating water goblet. “Wasn’t it good?”

  “Best food I’ve had since…lunch,” he said and forced down another bite. “Why is one of your hives up there, separated from the others?”

  He aimed his fork in the direction of the rhododendrons and ignored the memory of another fork he’d once held, and what it had done to the man’s eyeballs—the sickening pop and crunch; how those eyes had run down his cheeks like raw eggs; how Jody Coyote hadn’t eaten a single egg since, not one.

  She set down the pitcher and glanced around the room. No one else was in the Chalfont Inn’s restaurant. Still, after taking the seat across from him, she leaned in and whispered, “It’s special.”

  “Special?” Jody Coyote parroted.

  “Yes, that’s where we make the mad honey.”

  A look came over her face, that of a young girl with a juicy secret. Jody Coyote waited for her to elaborate, feeling uncomfortable as seconds dragged on with the weight of what felt like hours.

  “Mad honey,” she eventually said, and spilled. “When the bees harvest their pollen from oleander, azaleas, or rhododendrons, the honey they make is, well, magical, poisonous. Eat it, and it causes all kinds of hallucinations, disorientation, sometimes even death. In the old country—”

  “Turkey?”

  “Yes,” she said, and smiled. “Long ago, when the Roman soldiers pressed deeper through our land, marching to the Black Sea and seeking to take what was ours, my ancestors left the honeycombs where the centurions would find them. The Romans ate the mad honey. Many of them died. Those that didn’t were disoriented, and easy to kill.”

  Jody Coyote pushed the mug of tea away. The woman in the sundress laughed.

  “Oh, that isn’t the stuff. Like I said, mad honey’s also magical. People pay top dollar and buy it from us for medicinal purposes. It’s one of the inn’s best kept secrets.”

  He flashed an unconvincing smile, stood, and dropped a twenty and two fives on the table. “Keep the change.”

  “If you want to try some…”

  “Try?”

  “Our mad honey. On the house.”

  “Are you out of your gourd?” Jody Coyote barked. And then he shouted a blue streak of expletives on his way out of the restaurant and up the soaring staircase.

  He passed auntie’s room, backtracked. Beads of fresh sweat bloomed across his face. The door was closed. He listened. No sounds emerged. Testing the cut glass doorknob, he found the room locked.

  Jody Coyote hurried down the throat of the hallway, which had seemed to narrow since his last pass through. He closed the door and locked it. The room boiled. He shot a look at the windows. The curtains stood vertical-perfect. No breeze stirred.

  They’d boxed him in, the crazy woman in the sundress and her mystical auntie, who was supposed to be dead. Gone at least. Auntie had moved beyond miniature dioramas to full-scale vignettes of life. If he reached past the curtains, out through the window screen, his fingers would meet glass, he was sure.

  Jody Coyote sweated and struggled to sleep. He closed his eyes. Seconds later, they again snapped open like the old shades in his grandmother’s place when drawn too fast. A shiver teased the nape of his neck. He fought it, failed. The ripple spilled down. He was being watched.

  He sat up. “Who’s there?”

  Nobody answered. He switched on the lamp. Light sent nightmares back into corners and under the bed. He sucked down a deep breath through his nostrils and smelled the exotic fragrance of rhododendron blossoms among the piney scent of his own sweat.

  He attempted to get back into the book borrowed from the inn’s library, but closed it after reading the same paragraph thrice. Then Jody Coyote tossed the book, all emotion ironed off his face. Eyes not blinking, he pulled on his socks, pants, and shoes. He tucked his belongings neatly into the backpack, grabbed his keys, and froze, waiting for a voice or voices to warn him against such folly. The voice held its tongue.

  Escape, he thought, and walked through the door, into the tightening throat of the hallway. It was pressing in, Jody Coyote was convinced, just like in old movies where the walls squashed unlucky cast members flat as pancakes. At first he was so focused on this one fact—a fact, yes; he was sure the way out had grown narrower, the hallway more like honeycomb—that he didn’t see the door to auntie’s room standing open.

  “Wait,” said a garbled voice.

  Something buzzed past Jody Coyote’s ear. Recognition dawned, and his steps slowed. The remaining distance to auntie’s room passed through what felt like levitation.

  The room was lit by reflections, though he didn’t see any lamps. Inside, a dark-haired woman in a sundress sat at a craft table. She fiddled with beads, bits of fabric, and a paintbrush. About her were stacks of old fashioned hatboxes. A cup of tea steamed beside the woman’s elbow. The bee that had nagged at Jody Coyote’s ear buzzed into the room and landed on the woman’s head.

  “Auntie,” gasped Jody Coyote.

  The ancient woman glanced up. She had no eyes, only sunken hollows. The bee wandered down from her hair, over skin as fragile and crisp as onion peel, and into one of those empty sockets. Other bees moved about in the hollows, an entire hive he saw when auntie opened her mouth, and a line of dark, amber drool spilled down her skeletal chin. Auntie was the hive as well as the Queen.

  “The voices from beyond,” the ancient husk said, burbling the words through a mouth filled with scurrying bees. “They suggest that you stay with us a little while longer.”

  Jody Coyote didn’t remember descending the staircase or making it past the Chalfont Inn’s front door. Sharp stings bit at his soles and, in a disconnected way, he worried that he’d somehow stepped through a hive of angry bees. In the car, he realized he’d lost a shoe somewhere along the way, and that the jabs were from gravel.

  He inserted the key and gunned the gas. In his haste to escape the inn, he forgot to switch on the rental’s headlights.

  “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” he screamed.

  Onto the road again, he headed east—away from Chalfont and the sinister inn attempting to imprison him within its walls, in a living diorama, behind glass.

  He hadn’t travelled far when the car’s wheels left pavement, struck guardrail, and flipped. As the car tumbled, Jody Coyote’s head struck the windshield.

  Ah, this is the most expensive item in our shop. A genuine 18th century mahogany wing chair covered with green damask. Please note the carved ball-and-claw feet. Exquisite workmanship, I’m sure you’ll agree. This isn’t your ordinary high-priced antique room decoration. This chair begs – no, demands – to be sat in.

  The chair was brought to us by Jacki Wildman Wales, a South Florida writer living in The Palm Beaches, where they know their antiques.

  OLD FRIENDS

  Jacki Wildman Wales

  As Emma Louise turned the page of the local section, the ad for a grand opening of a new antique store caught her eye. Day One of the rest of her retired life now had an agenda. It was certainly odd waking up on Monday with nothing to do for the first time in forty years. All those years of wishing she was retired, and now here she sat, without a plan. “Damn you Charlie, why did you have to die a year before retirement? We had so much planned.” She wiped away a tear.

  After washing her breakfast dishes, Emma headed down the hallway to get dressed, still talking out loud to Charlie as she did so. “You never wanted kids, so we didn’t have them. You said it was better, just us, we’d have m
ore time to ourselves to do the things we wanted. Why did I listen to you? Now I’m here alone, with nothing but money and memories. Damn you, Charlie.”

  I’m here. She heard his voice in her head.

  “Just stop it Charlie, you are not here, it’s just my inner voice playing tricks with me again.”

  Dressed for the day, she grabbed the ad and her car keys, and made her way past the eighteenth century antiques that filled their eleven-thousand square foot home. Over the years, as both of their careers blossomed, each piece had been carefully chosen by her. Other than Charlie, it was her only passion. Lovingly she touched each piece of furniture she passed on her way out the door.

  Pulling into the parking lot, Emma laughed out loud at the name of the new antique store. It looked so inviting painted on the glass display window. Not Angie’s Antiques, or Pete’s Attic, or even Terry’s Treasures, just plain and simple, Old Friends. Deciding immediately that she was going to like this store, Emma parked and hurried inside.

  On second thought, as she breathed deep the aroma of a time from long ago, she decided she was going to love this store.

  “Welcome,” a voice from behind a desk off to the right called out.

  “Hi,” she replied taking it all in. Even though the store was very small, it was filled. He had quite a collection. “Your shop is beautiful.”

  “Is there something in particular that you are looking for? I’m afraid not all of my collection is displayed. This location proved to be smaller than I thought it would be.”

  Turning around, she faced the proprietor of Old Friends. If he was a day over a hundred, she would not be surprised.

  “Nothing specific, but I am very fond of eighteenth century furniture.” She said. “But it doesn’t look like you have room for much of that in here.”

  He stood still for a moment as if lost in thought, then quietly said. “Mmmm…I don’t usually get much furniture, but I do have one piece you may be interested in. Indeed, it arrived early this morning just in time for my grand opening. I haven’t unboxed it yet, as you can see, that is something I have to hire someone to do for me. Maybe you would like to take a look?”