The Frayed Spine’s lull, only tested for its cracks now and then by the pattering of rain against the windows, cracks as Meg storms out of the staff room and slams the door shut behind her.
Her ponytail snaps side to side as each one of her heavy footfalls makes the warped floorboards creak pitchier. The words she mutters lie on the fringe of a pop song and on the edge of a curse.
She keeps her gaze fixed on the trapdoor hatch and her face angled towards Ron, who stands behind the till, his back turned to the shop.
“Basement still off limits?” The toe of her boot kicks the padlock on the hatch, knocking it askew with a rattle and a clack.
Ron reaches for the old wooden radio, placed on a shelf as dark as itself, both dulled by a fine pelt of dust. His thumb finds the ridged plastic of the volume knob as his wrist leans against the curved wood of the frame.
“You know the rules.” He turns the dial a notch, more an upward nudge at its edge than a twist, and a mechanical snick erupts from the radio.
“Mr. H keeps the keys. Insurance, he calls it, and everything else.”
The rest of the radio wakes up with a tremorous thrum, beginning to vibrate through the wood and into his hand. Behind the yellowed glass of the frequency display, a glow lights up the numbered wheel before the scent of seared wire follows.
Meg sighs through her nose. She crouches and presses her hand to the hatch.
“It’s getting colder.” She glances down at her serpent cuff as it winds a little tighter and gives her wrist a small squeeze.
“If the Boss wants us to start with the basement work–”
The radio shrieks static through its speaker when Ron’s next touch tweaks the dial. He winces. His hand backs the dial off until the radio’s hissing softens into the sound of a distant rushing waterfall.
Meg takes a deep breath as she lifts her eyes up to the edge of the counter instead of Ron.
“So, if, yeah? If the boss wants us doing basement work…” She pulls her hand back.
“The least he could do is unlock the damn thing. Just saying.”
Ron keeps hunting through the white noise until at last a human voice surfaces.
The speech coming through the speaker sounds thin and reedy as if reading from a script they struggle to fully believe.
“…remains locked in this seasonal stasis,” the voice says as the signal burbles over the words.
“We are entering day three hundred of the unseasonal anomaly.”
Ron’s hand stops on the dial.
“Temperatures have held below the seasonal average for the tenth consecutive month,” the voice continues. The signal cuts to an electric hiss before resurfacing.
“Migratory patterns show no sign of resuming.”
A crackle jolts the speaker. The voice drops to a deeper register when it returns, the interference wearing the wires down.
“…for a winter that does not … arrive, following a spring that never began. In short, the earth is still waiting for a signal that is not coming. Root systems are holding. Seeds are holding. The tide tables…” A short radio fuzz.
“Everything is holding.”
Another buzz interrupts, not far off from the layered whispers of a thousand lost souls at once, with their voices all buried under the ambient, hissing chatter. It fades out and allows the voice on the radio to carry on.
“Agricultural authorities are advised…” The voice wavers without the help of the bad signal.
“…to postpone harvest preparations until further notice since existing schedules may no longer reflect…” Static gets louder.
“…the current conditions.”
The voice cuts off with a sharp pop of atmospheric interference.
Meg scoffs and turns it into a quiet laugh as she knocks twice on the hatch.
“There we have it.” Her tone mimics the hesitant voice from the radio.
“We’re as old news as the weather.” She stands, watching Ron turn to the till with his glasses dropped low on his nose.
“Tell me you’ve got a secret spare key at least.”
“If I did, it wouldn’t be spare.” Ron, head bowed at the till, peers over the rim of his glasses.
“And it certainly wouldn’t be secret.”
He opens the cash tray with a ping.
“We’re still following the Queen’s calendar.” Without taking anything out of the drawer, he begins counting out the till, coin by slow coin, each handled as if it might damn him if sorted in the wrong order.
“Harvest starts tomorrow. He will unlock it then.”
“Queen’s calendar?” Meg raises a brow.
“Don’t you think that ship has sailed?” With a slow turn of her wrist, she gestures vaguely towards the door, towards a time when the streets used to be more than a patchwork of puddles.
“Plus, we can’t do the basement assignment without involving them.” She tips her head towards the staff room.
“Is he planning to break their deal for them?”
Ron’s coin clinks grow loud and clear enough to punctuate Meg’s sentence, word by word.
“Come on, Ron. He didn’t even bother to wait for a co-signature on the basement work.” Meg folds her arms into a tight hold on one another as she turns and looks out into the street through the window.
“You know what I mean. His patience is clearly wearing thin…” She lowers her voice.
“Since they’re suddenly expanding the use of Ari’s abominable experiment.”
Ron adjusts his glasses, a finger sliding the bridge up his nose.
“I know what’s happening down there.”
“And?”
“And harvest starts tomorrow.”
Meg tosses her hands into the air.
“Oh, for the love of all gods. What’s he harvesting?” She turns back to Ron.
“Disappointment? Overgrown cucumbers?”
She laughs.
“Why is he pretending that she’s due any minute? We’re still stuck here, and don’t act like you don’t know how everyone’s been covering the Queen’s roster ever since. Even Val’s neck-deep in Quality of Death forms.”
Ron points at her with a coin.
“We’re only meant to follow orders.”
She shakes her head.
“Order’s already changed.”
Ron sets the coin down, careful not to let it make any sound.
Meg watches him place it.
“Yet he’s still got it all locked down like she’ll walk in any day and start grading us.”
“Always has.” Ron stops halfway to closing the cash tray.
“Keeps folk from wandering where they shouldn’t.”
“M-hm, let me guess…” Meg’s eyes drag back to the hatch. The label’s corners lift again as they flutter in a draught that Ron feigns not to notice.
“Wandering’s bad for business.”
Ron slips half a smile as she steps away before quickly regaining his composure.
“And worse for the wanderer.” He guides his murmur to stay on the counter, and it doesn’t dare to carry beyond.
The floor groans after Meg, and the echo runs deeper down than any basement should reach. She stops when the serpent cuff tightens around her wrist, her gaze finding the trapdoor again.
“Tomorrow, then.”
Advance chapters available on Patreon now! https://www.patreon.com/TolaLone