by J. J. McAvoy
“Fine! I’ll go in alone! No big deal.” I spun on my heels and looked straight at the building as two officers stepped out. One of them gave me a look over as he walked to his green and white squad car. I smiled and nodded at him as I walked into the building which was actually much smaller on the inside. As I looked around I saw that two drunk men lay snoring on the floor of the holding cell. Leaning against the counter with a coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other an old, white woman who had crow’s feet around her brown eyes and whose gray hair was cropped short behind her ears looked at the two men and shook her head before noticing me. She looked me up and down from my bell bottoms to my face, and her chewing slowed.
“Hi. My name is Esther Noëlle—”
“Let me guess…” She stood up straighter. “You were robbed coming into town yesterday?”
My mouth dropped opened. “How…”
“This is my town, young lady, I know everything that happens here—”
“Alfred Noëlle called yesterday demanding a manhunt to find you. I could hear him yelling on the other side of the phone.” A tall younger man with blond hair and brown eyes came around the counter and stood beside the woman who glared at him. “I’d never seen my grandmother get bossed around before—ouch!”
“You ain’t seen the inside of your own stomach yet either.” She lifted her mug up as if she were about to smack him with it. “And it’s Sheriff to you, Officer Richards. Sheriff Eleanor Richards, been that way for the last—”
“Last hundred years?” he asked smiling wide at her.
“Keep smiling. I’ll see how much you smile when I start docking your paycheck.” She nodded as she walked back to her office.
“Sheriff!”
“Let the guys know we don’t need a search anymore.” She nodded at me then frowned. “And tell your grandfather we’ll find the thief. We backwater cops know how to do our jobs thank you.” The door slammed behind her.
I cringed. “Please don’t tell me my grandfather called you all backwater cops? I’m so sorry I got him all—”
“It’s okay. Lieber is pretty backwater.” He grinned and handed me a clipboard. “Besides, like I said my grandmother has never been so tongue-tied before. Here, fill this out and we’ll see if anything pops up in a pawn shop or online.”
I gasped in relief. “Thank you, Officer Richards.”
“That was my father. You can call me David.” He grinned and I stared up at him. And to think Li-Mei said we all wanted bad boys. Ha! Give me a nice guy any day.
“You okay?” he leaned forward.
“Yeah, I’m just thinking you’re really nice.” I smirked
“I’m not always nice, you just happen to be cute.” He winked and nodded to the clipboard.
“It’s the bell bottoms isn’t it?” I asked as I twisted my leg for him to see and as he laughed so did I… finally.
MALACHI
How long did it take to file a damn report?
It was a minute after five in the afternoon and she still hadn’t called for me to come get her.
Was she lost again?
Should I go...why should I?
The sun was still up but knowing her she’d most—
Knowing her? How did I know her? I’d only just met her. Whatever! She was big girl…who managed to catch a ride with a thief, get lost, and fall down a flight of stairs in less than twenty-four hours.
Alfred, you better not die and leave me with this girl! I groaned as I dropped the paintbrush, rose from the floor and snatched my leather jacket from the bed while rushing down the stairs. I opened the front door just as the red and blue lights of the squad car pulled up in front of my house.
Great, what had she done now?
“Hi, you’re here!” She waved at me like we hadn’t seen each other in four decades and not four hours.
“Of course I’m here, I live here,” I reminded her once I reached the bottom.
Ignoring me, she and the blond-haired officer pulled out bags of… of God knows what out of his car. “This town is amazing! I love it!” She declared.
Coming up the steps he stood eye to eye with me. “Ah, so you’re Esther’s top secret client. Nice to meet you, I’m Officer David Richards.”
He stretched out his hand but I reached for the bags instead and took them from him.
“Thank you for driving her back, Officer.”
“And for the tour. If you see Mr. Baker before I do don’t you dare help him cheat.” She pointed her finger at him while struggling to hold her other bags.
“Me? Never.” He nodded as he glanced down at the bags in her hands. Before he could take them from her I reached down and pick them up as well. His brown eyes shifted to me. “It was nice meeting you, though I’d love to get a name other than ‘the author?’”
“Am I required by law to give you my name—?” I bit my tongue as she jabbed her elbow into my ribs.
“Told you authors are a bit crabby sometimes. Thank you again, David, and please tell the sheriff that I’m deeply sorry for the backwater comment on behalf of my grandfather. Let her know I’ll surely have a word with my grandpa about it.”
“You apologize too much.”
“Yep. I’m part Canadian, don’t you know?”
Was I not here? Was that what was happening? Had I become invisible?
“Mr. Author.” He nodded to me and I nodded back as he got back into his squad car and pulled away. Esther was giving him the same goodbye wave she’d given me.
“Wow, you really can’t help yourself can you?” She turned to me, daring to cross her arms. “He was being nice.”
“The last nice guy you met here robbed you, remember? Sorry if I don’t trust your intuition.”
“I never said the taxi driver was nice!”
“Oh? So you knew he was a bad guy and you got into his car anyway?”
Her fist balled up as she glared at me. “Why did you even come outside then?”
“Excuse me? I live here! I can come outside if I like. You’re the one who disappeared for five hours.”
“You’re the one that left me!”
“Did I not say to call when you were done?”
“No!”
I paused as I realized I hadn’t. “Well, I meant to. Here, take some of these.” I outstretched my hand for her to take half her shit back. But she just stared. “Equality. I have half, you have half.”
“You’re every girl’s dream, aren’t you?”
“I don’t need every girl, just one.” We’d been going back and forth but the moment I said it I saw her eyes widen. “Not you—”
“You have a long lost love? Is that why your books always end tragically? For some reason it didn’t work out and so now your characters can never be happy? Is that why this new book is so hard for you to write?”
Return to sender. I wanted to stamp it on her forehead and ship her off.
“Give me your other hand,” I told her.
As she lifted her other arm with a confused look on her face as I placed the rings of the bags over it causing her hand to drop under their weight. Reaching into my back pocket I then pulled out a key which I placed into one of the bags.
“The guest house is around back. What you do with your day is your business. Just let me know. I don’t like people wandering around my house. Goodnight.”
“What happened to equality?!”
“This is equality. I came with nothing I’m leaving with nothing.”
“That’s justice, not equality.”
“Huh…” I nodded slowly. “That’s true. Goodnight.” I turned back around and walked up the stairs to the house.
“Oh, everyone is right! You are a massive jerk!”
“And you’re my number one fan!” I replied slamming the door behind me and the moment I was alone everything I’d just done came flooding back to me. Why was I acting like such a child?
Alfred. His name flashed through my mind. I was acting this way because if she’d gotten
herself lost or hurt again he’d come here personally to talk me to death.
That was the reason.
Heading back to my room I took off my jacket and tossed it onto the bed and turned back to the painting. Kicking off my shoes I sat in front of it and picked up the paintbrush. Dipping the bristles into the gold paint, I touched it lightly to the canvas, creating a thin streak that became her golden nose ring. Her hazel brown eyes sparkled too.
I don’t need every girl just one…Just one who apparently looked differently each time, I thought as I glanced from the painting to my bedroom window, watching as Klutzarella herself heaved all the bags she’d bought onto the deck of the guest house before collapsing there for a moment. The winds blew strands of her hair around her face and she muttered what had to be a curse at me though I didn’t know why. She had her own private place overlooking the water completely rent free because I was just that nice a guy. If she didn’t like it she could leave.
“Ah—” I hissed reaching up to my eye as the paintbrush dropped from my hand.
No. Not again.
“AH!” I slipped as I tried to make for my bed but fell just short of it.
1599 Ogrohayon (November) – Lahore, capital of Hindustan, the Mughal Empire.
“My son! Another victory—”
“WHERE IS SHE?!” I yelled to the court. I advanced and drew my sword as the guards rushed towards me.
“Salim!” My mother tried to hurry over to me however the guards reached me first and I slashed at their hands gashing one of them. In that moment it was as if time it slowed and they gasped, watching in horror as the blood fell upon white of the floor in the midst of the flower petals.
“HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!” My father, the Emperor, rose from his seat at the head of the hall, and all rose with him. “YOU DARE SHED BLOOD IN THIS HALL? MY HALL?!”
“Akbar!” My mother dropped to her knees in front him kneeling until her head touched the white titles. “Forgive my son! Our son! He has been hexed! He is blind! That is the only sense for this madness.”
“Anarkali!” I yelled over her. “Where is she?”
“Do you not see your mother pleads for your life?!”
“I have no life without my wife!”
“The one you call your wife put poison upon my table!”
He walked down the steps, his hands behind his back, until he stood beside my still kneeling mother.
“I, your Emperor, gave NO blessing of such a wife!”
“I needed no such blessing!”
All among the Great Hall gasped while my mother sobbed. Not only had I broken the law and cursed myself by shedding blood upon sacred ground, but I’d forsaken the Emperor, my own father.
“Lufti!”
“Yes, Father!” My younger brother dropped to his knees.
“From this day forth you shall be Salim, Prince of Hindustan, and MY HEIR!” He declared to all the world, and Lufti looked to me wide eyed as he continued. “Woman, rise and embrace your son. Salim rise and embrace your mother!”
My mother would not rise.
Lufti, rose and walked over to the woman who raised me, who loved me, who wept for me even now, and in my heart I was sorry, but I could not go to her. I could no longer be her son.
“Guards, take this…this…man…to his wife! Let them die together!”
I threw my blade, the tip of which was stained red, along with the turban upon my head and all the jewels from my body upon the bed of flower petals. Outstretching my arms for the guards—men I’d trained with, men I’d went to war with—to take me. As they pulled me back gently, as if to not hurt me, I looked into my father’s green eyes, eyes that were glazed over with rage and pain. Lufti held my mother as she covered her mouth to silence her sobs.
“GET HIM OUT!” My father bellowed for all to hear.
They said nothing as they took me through the halls of the palace towards the pit of the forsaken. It was the one place I’d never seen in all of my life. Within the chamber there was nothing, the walls and ground were devoid of any color and life. There was nothing but the dark pit that had been dug into the ground. Even the sun was only allowed through a matching circle in the ceiling directly above her, a circle meant to scorch when the sun arose, and drown when it rained.
“How long has she been here?” I whispered as they released me at the edge of the pit.
None of them answered. Instead, Rashad, my General…no Salim’s General said. “You’ve given up the world in exchange for a woman who is leaving it.”
She was still alive. I held my chest. Turning back to him I smiled.
“Rashad, returning from war, as I sat by the King’s side, Love came to me and asked: ‘Will you die for me? Will you walk through fire for me? Would you forsake the sweetest of wines and the greatest of feasts to never let go of my hand?’ And I said yes.”
He took a step back from me. “Love was cruel to ask such of a Prince.”
“Love did not care that I was a Prince. And so goodbye my friend. Protect Lufti as he is now the prince you once followed.”
He gripped the staff tightly but was unable to push me into the pit. None of them seemed able to and so I stepped back. The sun blinded my eyes as I fell into the darkness towards her, the woman, whose face was like pomegranate blossoms…my one and only love in this life and all lives.
7. MOURNING
ESTHER
SUNDAY
“You can do this.” I reassured myself as I drew in a deep breath and knocked.
No answer.
I waited for two more minutes before knocking again. And it took another minute before I heard the doorknob jiggle. I expected him to open the door wider than a small crack, but it was wide enough for me to see half of his body. His right eye was bloodshot and it looked like he’d been crying. His hair was completely disheveled and he still wore the clothes he’d had on yesterday.
“What is it?” he asked his voice deep and sore.
“I wanted to talk about your next novel—”
“It’s Sunday. The day of rest. Let me rest,” he replied as he closed the door in my face.
I stood there stunned for a moment before I turned around and walked back down the stairs. As I stood in the driveway I paused and looked back at his house. “Was he hungover?” But I hadn’t smelled any alcohol on him.
Maybe he was still feeling ill?
“I guess I’ll go back into town.” I stuck my hands into the new pair of jeans I’d bought and headed down the road. But with every few paces behind me I felt like turning back and checking on him.
He’s a big boy. He’ll be fine. Right?
MONDAY
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
“If you don’t answer I’m going to think you’re dead!” I yelled from the other side of the door. “I’ll end up calling the Sheriff and—”
“Shut up please.” I heard a voice from his side of the door.
I put my hand on it. “Are you okay?”
“I would be if you stopped yelling.”
“I’ve been out here for an hour and called nine times!”
“Esther.” He sighed. He cracked the door an even smaller distance than he had the day before. I could only see his face and it was worse. He was pale, too pale, and his eyes, they weren’t bloodshot anymore but now he had dark circles around them.
“You look—”
“I forgot to tell you, I don’t work on Mondays either.” He tried to give me his usual smirk but it fell flat and I was stunned that when he closed the door I didn’t realize he was lying faster.
“Malachi!”
“Go away!”
My temple throbbed and I could feel a headache coming on. Inhaling deeply, I stood up straighter. “It’s okay, Esther,” I said to myself. “He’s sick. Give him space. He can take care of himself.”
But he barely had anything in his fridge during his birthday, other than two steaks, some ham, and some bread. What in the world was he eating
now? Was he even eating? The better question was, was he sleeping? He looked like he hadn’t had a good night’s rest since…since I’d gotten here if not longer.
Taking out my phone I texted Li-Mei.
Operation the Great Malachi Novel—day two: Fail.
She texted back immediately and I responded while making my way downstairs. First, we need a new name for this operation. Second, it’s day four. The day you got there and his birthday counts. Third, seriously what is up with this guy? Is it part of his artistic process or something?
No…I don’t know. I replied. But I wasn’t giving up. If I had to nurse him back to health so that he could write then that’s what I would do.
TUESDAY
I walked up the stairs to his house holding the grocery bags from Nevis’s Grocery and Liquor Store. I was fully prepared to drop it next to the door and knock, but as I approached I saw that his door was cracked open and creepily swaying back and forth on its hinges.
“Malachi?” I called out but got no reply.
Leaning closer I called out once more. “Malachi? You home?”
Silence.
Sucking up my fear, I pushed the door slightly and peeked in. Seeing no sign of him, I finally let myself in.
It was hard to believe I’d cleaned the place on Saturday. Notebook paper was everywhere, along with mugs—not one or two, but at least four different mugs, just laying all over the living room. Two of them were shattered. The handle of one was sitting in a pile of its own broken body on the ground. The couch was moved oddly, the lamp that had previously resided on the coffee table was now on the ground with its lightbulb shattered as well.
“Malachi?” I called again as I placed the groceries on the couch. I turned towards the stairs but bent down to pick up a few of the papers from ground.
Ink.
No, it was paint. Black paint. There were Arabic words, the calligraphy was frantic, jarring, with paint spatters all over it.
Father. The first word read, on the next paper: Forgive. Followed by: Pain. Then Anarkali which was a name. My Arabic wasn’t the best but I believe it meant red blossoming. The longest phrase was written in red. Love asked and I said yes.