#005 – Beecher & Ward

Cold and even, rain fell on the shoulders of Kinnaston.  The raindrops sloped off his coat – a new coat – a brown duster.  He stood out on the street in the late November night before a storefront on the boulevard, the rainwater pooling around his feet and seeping between his bare toes.  On the far north side of the town, the boulevard flew straight to the south of him, past the square and the market and up the bluff, winding back and forth on its ascent.

In the window of the storefront, a long crack plunged from the top frame to the bottom.  How the window had not fallen from its frame entirely was a mystery to him.  His reflection was visible though muted.  His shaven face and shorn hair looking back at him, smileless.

Printed on the window in brown, arcing letters were two words: Beecher & Ward.  And printed beneath those words were a pair of scales, evenly balanced.

From the pocket of his coat, he pulled a ring of five keys and unlocked the front door. The door swung open with a heavy creak, and the man stepped through it and closed it behind him.

The air inside tasted like stale pages.  To his right, a chalky Georgian desk, topped with an Underwood typewriter and a brass desk lamp.  A set of three books sloping away from each other yet oddly supportive.  The top book was a mammoth, bound in faded red with a golden script title: Property Rights and Municipal Law.  Behind the desk, posted on the wall was a calendar from 1987.

The only light in the office came through the window from an outside streetlamp.  He tried the lightswitch, but no illumination.  In the slight-dark, he found his way to the far wall from the door and groped along it until he found the sconce.  Nestled within it was a hurricane lamp, with a bit of oil still sloshing in the bowl.

He set down the lamp on the desk and rummaged through the drawers.  In the second drawer from the bottom, a book of matches lay ajar.  He picked up the book and struck a match and pulled the glass shade from the lamp and lit the wick and let the flame burn a bit before replacing the shade and holding up the lamp to the darkness.  Amending bands of light reflected dully on the woodpaneling.

A stocky hallway ran back from the office, ending with an oak door, which was neighbored by two doors on the adjacent walls.  His footsteps slopped damp on the hardwood floor.  On the left side of the hall, the door bore the name Cranston Beecher.  On the right, Godfrey Ward.  With his ring of keys, he unlocked and opened Ward’s door.  Within the room, another Georgian desk with a typewriter and a lamp and a stack of manila folders stuffed with browning paper.  Behind the desk, shelves of broad books sidling next to each other for warmth.  Also on the desk, a pair of glasses, a rusty hacksaw and a violin of three strings.

He did not enter the room but watched the dust motes scurry from his lamp into the faraway corners of the interminable.

The oak door at the end of the hall opened with a twist of his key.  A flight of stairs rose before him, turning right and then flying above.  He followed the stairs up to another closed door.  He placed a hand on the door, feeling the resonant calls from beyond it and through it.  He did not open the door.

As he descended the stairs and stepped back into the hall, he saw the front door swinging open casually, the rain imploring him from outside.  With the lamp leading him, he approached the front office.  The shadows as he moved were unintelligible to him.  In the front office, he could feel a presence before he could see it.  He waited in the threshold and listened.  The sound of expectation in him.  The ringing of it.

Seated on the secretary’s desk with a large paper bag in her lap was a young woman with pitch-black hair.  Her suede jacket was dripping.  Specks of mud on her red strapless heels, swinging in her hand.  Her bare feet hanging above the floor, dripping.

“I saw a light,” she said.  “Wondered if it was you.”

“How long have you been back?” he asked.

“About two weeks now,” she said.  “I nearly gave papa a heart attack when he saw me.”

“How is he?”

“Not well,” she said, smirking and looking out through the open door.  “I don’t know.  He seems different somehow.  He’s kept me at arm’s length since I returned.”

“So why’d you come back?” he asked, setting the lamp on the desk.  He stood back from her.

“About the same reason as you came back, probably,” she said.  “How long have you been home?”

“Maybe a month,” he said.  “Not sure.  I’ve lost track of the days.”

She turned back to him.  “I heard about some troll sleeping under the bridge.  Was that you?”

He chuckled and put his hands in his pockets.

“Knew it,” she said.  “I saw your boots in papa’s shop the other day.  How did you wear that heel clean off?”

“Walking,” he said, frowning.

She laughed and ran her hand through her hair.  Even with the moisture, it did not clump but flowed surely to the earth.  “Clever one,” she said.  “Always with the jokes.  I missed you, Kinna.  The city was so horribly dull without you.”

“We lived in the same city,” he said, scoffing.  “You could have called.”

She returned the scoff.  “Exact same for you.  But you know how it is.  Ten blocks in that city is like a thousand miles.”

“True,” he conceded.  He pulled out the book of matches and lit one.  It lingered for a few moments before it reached his fingers.  He dropped it and stamped it out.  The girl watched him wordless.

“I saw your picture in a magazine,” he said.

She shook her head.  “I bet they made me look awful.”

“You looked beautiful,” he said, lighting another match.  “You still do.”

She blushed, her cheeks a rosy gold in the lamplight.  “You don’t have to say that.  You’re a gentleman to say that, but you don’t have to.  Honestly, I’m a wet mess right now.”

He smiled and looked out the window.  The girl shifted on the desk, setting the paper bag next to her.  The flame in the lampglass wavered.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“Ask it.”

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” she asked.

“What?”

“Dinner,” she said, her body bowing back and hair shaking.  “Would you like to eat with me?”

He shrugged.  “I don’t think the kitchen is in service.”

“And why not?” she asked, her face glistening.  “What have you been doing here for the last month?”

He said nothing, shrugging again.

“Were you living out in the woods?” she asked.  He did not answer.  “Were you really?” she asked again, leaning forward.

He snickered.

“Why didn’t you buy a house?”

“Whose house?”

She considered the question and brushed it off.  “Anyway,” she said.  “You don’t need to cook anything.  I brought the meal. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans.  Some turkey.  Standard Thanksgiving leftovers.”  She nudged the paper bag with her leg.

He gasped.  “When was Thanksgiving?”

“Yesterday,” she said, her voice trailing.  She cocked an eyebrow.  “You’ve really been off the map, haven’t you?”

He nodded.  A split of lightning flared outside and caught the room unaware.  He saw the full picture of her then, older now but really just as lovely.  Her small round face and full lips tilted to the window with crinkles at the corners of her eyes.  Like a wayward sprite, she perched on the desk.  The roar of thunder followed and filled their silence.

After a few moments, she took the paper bag in one hand with her shoes in the other and shimmied off the desk to the floor.  Her feet plodded along to the hallway but she stopped halfway.

“Coming?” she asked.

He took the lamp and followed behind her into the hall, up the staircase and to the locked door.  She tried the handle.  “You couldn’t go in, huh?” she said, waiting for him.

He hesitated.  She looked back at him, expectant.  He stepped forward and unlocked the door and pushed it open.  Stiff dark in the room rushed cold and brittle past them as the lamp bore the room to its color.  He noted the familiar landmarks.  The sofa, its cushions spilling out their stuffing.  The television, a pair of glass tubes atop it and an antenna.  The dinner table, covered in dust and soot with two plates and two glasses and two forks.  Abrupt, the cutting angles of the room softened and rounded into his memory.

The woman stepped through the threshold and set down her paper sack on the dinner table, but he could not bring himself to follow her through it.  The world beneath his feet, unmoving.  Such a long time since he felt that.

“I missed this place,” she said, pulling out a chair from the table and sitting.

“Me too,” he said, standing there.

“Are you coming in?”

He paused.  “I’m not sure I can.”

She turned.  “And what supernatural forces are keeping you at bay?”

He let out a hoarse laugh.  “Just the regular ones,” he said.

“Come inside,” she said.  “I’m inviting you in.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

She rose and met him at the threshold.  With both hands, she clasped his head and tilted hers to meet him.  She paused before kissing him and inhaled deeply.

“You smell terrible,” she said, and suddenly she dropped back, pulling his face toward her.  He lurched forward and was caught in her embrace, her arms wrapping around him and grounding him.  A soft kiss on his cheek.

She released him and they stood together in the apartment and said nothing.  A grimace on his face.  Her eyes alack but her shoulders set.  “I feel sorry for that,” she said, “but I’m not sorry.  A month is too long not to come home.”

He shook his head.

“I know it’s difficult.  Being here.  I am sorry about your family,” she said.

He took a seat at the table, setting down the lamp, and looked up at her.  “Let’s just eat.”

She nodded and took one of his hands and squeezed it.  He squeezed back, softly.

Like a meticulous nurse, she pulled the containers of food from the paper sack and set them on the table in a measured arrangement.  He took both plates and forks and went to the window and opened it up and held the plates and forks outside in the downpour.  The water washed them clean.  He did the same with the glasses, first rinsing them and then letting them brim over.

“I tried the gas stove,” the woman said, returning to the table.  “It wouldn’t light.  We’ll just have to eat it cold.”

He set down the glasses.  “That’s fine by me.  Thank you, Irena.  Truly.”

She lifted a clump of mashed potatoes to her mouth.  “We need to get you some shoes.”

He nodded and speared a green bean.

She sipped her water and smacked her lips.  She wavered for a minute, glancing away, but said, “So I asked papa if he saw the person who brought your boots to the shop and he said it was a girl.  The girl who works at the market?  Do you know of her?”

He half-nodded.

“Should I be jealous?” she asked, grinning.

He shrugged.  “Can one angel be jealous of another?” he said, cutting into his turkey with his fork.  He took a drink of water, the cool rolling down his throat.

Irena stared back him, with a feigned smile.  She looked away, hiding the light from her face.

Kinnaston reached into the paper bag and found a dry bread roll, which he broke in two.  He handed half of it to her.  “After all,” he said.  “Don’t they serve together for the same purpose?”

“And what purpose is that?”

He smiled at her.  “A celebration,” he said.

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To read Chapter #006, click here.