The pub calls itself The Archive, or at least that seems to be what the bronze letters hammered across the stonework above the double doors claim.
They don’t make it to the doors.
Meg’s arms shoot out. She catches Maz by the sleeve with one hand while the other lands flat on Eli’s back and shoves them both into the narrow alley beside the pub’s entrance before anyone has agreed to it.
“What–”
“Shh.” Meg joins them without breaking stride while the two stumble into the dark alley.
Eli accidentally elbows Maz in the ribs.
“Sorry.”
Maz’s back meets cold stone bricks.
“Was that you?”
“That was definitely the wall.”
Meg leans close to them.
“Shhhh.”
They go quiet.
Ron ambles into the alley, in his own time, as if he always intended to come this way all along. He stands at the alley’s mouth with a coin that flicks across his fingers so fast it blurs. His face gives 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 into 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 joins him by his shoulder.
What used to be a standing A-board lies folded on the pavement. A car idles parked across the street under the street’s only working lamp opposite the pub, both its rear and front doors flung wide on the driver’s side.
A woman in a long black coat stands by the rear door. She faces partially away from the alley as her body angles slightly towards the street. The umbrella in her hand flutters and snaps in the wind.
Mr. H stands in front of her with both hands placed in his pockets and eyes fixed on the woman. The three dogs stand behind him, all next to one another, torsos pressed together.
Meg pulls both Maz and Eli by the arm a little further back into the alley so that they don’t stick out past Ron. All four carry on watching.
Mr. H’s reply travels clean and full.
“She was never mine to keep.”
“You could have barred the gates that night.” The woman’s voice is louder than Mr. H’s.
“You watched her slip. You let her fall through.”
His smile is more absence than presence.
“No gate ever held her. Not when the wind turned, nor the world with it.”
She keeps her face angled away from him.
“I count the days in rot and withering.” She scrapes a gloved hand across her cheek to wipe away drops of thickening rain or a tear.
“Bury your bargains if you must. The seasons bury me.”
Meg stops watching the street altogether, and with a turn of her head, she gives a look past her shoulder to the side 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 moves to the alley mouth. It stops just short of catching the four sets of eyes.
Maz stands like a stone. Her hand clenches the hem of Eli’s jacket.
You almost definitely don’t know that woman. Almost certain. The ‘almost’ is doing a lot of work.
Eli frowns as his attention remains on the street.
Buried by memory? Try lack of it. Gates. Rules. Bargains. They should mean something. Obviously, they do. Just… not to me yet.
The woman directs her look back at Mr. H.
“So what keeps you here? Her shadow?” Her attempt to lower her voice only makes it spill out in ragged splinters.
“Oh, you are hoping like the rest of us that she’ll wander back by accident.”
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 into 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.
“…let procedure 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 before Ron’s hand reaches out in front of him, more of a barrier to block the alley’s mouth.
Maz only notices when she has to tilt further forward to see past Eli. Her hand tugs at the sleeve of his jacket subtly to reel him in.
The woman’s voice takes on a steely edge as her trembling free hand balls into a fist.
“The orchards wait. The roots wait. The–”
“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 back and forth 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?”
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 as her coat billows 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 car. He shuts the rear door and follows.
The car peels away and leaves the street behind.
Rain takes the street back only to itself. Nobody in the alley dares to move. Meg’s hand keeps holding her 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 of the alley and starts stomping towards the pub.
“Either of you.”
Ron pockets the coin as he follows Meg out.
Meg stops at the entrance, gives them a look and one second’s worth of a wait before she shoves the pub’s double doors wide open with both hands.
“Drink. Now.”
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