The pub calls itself The Archive, or at least that happens to be what the bronze letters claim, hammered across the stonework above the double doors.
A few paces from the pub entrance, Meg spins back, arms shooting outwards. She catches Maz by the sleeve with one hand while the other lands on Eli’s shoulder and shoves them both into the narrow alleyway beside the pub before either of them has a chance to agree to it.
Maz’s head manages a half turn.
“What–”
“Shh.” Meg joins the two stumbling into the dark alley without breaking her stride.
Eli accidentally elbows Maz in the ribs.
“Sorry.”
Maz’s spine meets something cold and dense.
“Whoops, was that you?”
“That was definitely the wall.”
Meg leans close to them.
“Shhhh.”
They share a look and go quiet after a shrug.
Ron ambles into the alleyway, in his own time, as if he always intended to come this way all along. He stands one step inside the mouth of the alley with a coin that flicks across his fingers so fast it blurs, his face giving nothing away.
A woman’s voice carries through the rain.
“…should never have let her near your damned rules. She–”
The wind picks up, and a gust slams something wooden down with a sound that echoes through the evening.
“She is not yours to lose,” she finishes.
Eli steps closer to Ron and leans out to have a peek at the street. Maz sidles up to him, sneaking a look past his arm.
What used to be a standing A-board lies folded on the pavement. Across from the pub, a car idles under the only working lamp on the street, its front and rear doors flung wide open on the driver’s side.
A woman in a long black coat stands by the boot of the car. The red lights at its rear glow towards the alley, from which her body only partly angles away. She struggles with the open umbrella she holds as it flutters and snaps in the wind.
Mr. H stands in front of her, both hands in his pockets and eyes fixed on the woman, with a clear line of sight to the alleyway opening if he looked beyond her. Behind him, the three dogs stand next to one another, torsos pressed together.
Meg pulls Maz and Eli by their arms a little further backwards into the alley so that they don’t stick out past Ron. The four of them carry on watching.
Mr. H’s reply, deep and imposing, fills the street and beyond.
“She was never mine to keep.”
“You could have barred the gates that night.” The woman raises her voice, louder than Mr. H’s.
“You watched her slip. You let her fall through.”
His smile arrives, more a straight line than emotion.
“No gate ever held her. Not when the wind turned, nor the world with it.”
She turns her face away from him.
“I count the days in rot and withering.” Her gloved hand scrapes across her cheek, wiping away drops of thickening rain or a tear.
“Bury your bargains if you must. It is the seasons that bury me.”
In the alleyway, Meg stops watching the street altogether, and, with a sly sway of her head, glances to the side, past her shoulder, at Maz and Eli.
Mr. H pulls one hand from his pocket only to push it back down.
“We are all buried. Some by memory, some by waiting.”
The rain slides sideways on the open car door as the wind picks up. The woman’s umbrella flaps and creaks. She tilts it low to her side and closes it, her gaze sliding towards the alley mouth, stopping just short of catching the four pairs of eyes set on her.
Maz swaps her stance for that of a stone, bunching the hem of Eli’s jacket in her grip.
You almost definitely don’t know that woman. Almost certain, but that ‘almost’ is doing a lot of work.
Eli frowns, his attention fixed on the exchange of words.
Buried by memory? Try lack of it. Okay, gates, rules, bargains, all that should mean something. Obviously, they do. Just… not to me yet.
The woman’s eyes pin Mr. H.
“So what keeps you here? Her shadow?” Her attempt to lower her voice only makes it spill out ragged, as if each word were made of splinters.
“Oh, you are hoping like the rest of us that she will find her return path by mere serendipity.”
Mr. H stays silent for a moment before he takes in a breath that seems to add wrinkles all over his face.
“She will only return if she wills it.”
“You…” She takes a step closer to him before driving the tip of her umbrella onto the pavement. It strikes the concrete with a clack. The puddles around them crackle as they begin to grow a thin skin of ice around their edges.
“…allowed a procedure to stand where a hand should have been.”
His shoulders draw back. He holds her gaze while water runs down his face.
“You mistake restraint for indifference.”
“Find her.” She forces her voice into a controlled rasp to prevent it from becoming a growl.
“Or I will.”
“If you could, you already would have. She chooses absence. Not even the surface holds her now.”
Eli takes a step forward and leans towards the street as if drawn in by the conversation. Ron’s arm reaches out in front of him, serving as a barrier at the alley’s mouth. Maz only notices when she has to tilt her head farther to the side and upward to see past Eli. She tugs at the sleeve of his jacket subtly to reel him in.
The woman’s voice takes on an icicle edge as her trembling free hand balls into a fist.
“The orchards wait, the roots wait… Your–”
“The dead keep waiting too.” Mr. H adjusts his cufflinks harder than the gesture needs.
Meg’s hand slips beneath her coat sleeve and wraps around her serpent cuff.
Ron lowers his head. He guides the coin he has been rolling across the length of his knuckles to the centre of his palm and curls his fingers to cover it loosely.
The woman laughs, and it cracks halfway through.
“Do you wait for her or for absolution?”
Mr. H remains unmoved as the rain intensifies.
“All reckonings come.” The woman makes the words sound brittle and laboured.
“I. Will. Not. Forget.”
Mr. H inclines his head.
“No, sister. Forgetting was never your craft.”
She strides past him, her coat billowing in the wind behind her. The ice at the puddle edges remembers how to melt as her steps fade into the darkness of the street.
Mr. H stands until the three black dogs slip from his shadow and climb into the back seat of the car. He shuts the rear door and takes the driver’s seat.
The car peels away and leaves the street behind for the rain to reclaim it.
Nobody in the alley dares to move. Meg keeps her grip around the serpent cuff under her sleeve. Ron’s fingers stay closed over the coin. Eli’s jacket hem remains caught in Maz’s fist, as if she has no intention of letting go.
Eli turns to Meg.
“Did she just threaten him?”
“Don’t.” Meg steps out to the street and starts stomping towards the pub.
“Either of you.”
Ron pockets the coin as he follows her out.
She stops at the entrance, gives them a look and one second’s worth of a wait, or a chance to say something else, before she shoves the pub’s double doors wide open with both hands.
“Drink. Now.”
Advance chapters available on Patreon now! https://www.patreon.com/TolaLone