As Maz and Eli step closer to the pub entrance, the lone streetlamp gives up at last and cuts out. Ron stands by one wing of the door, waiting with his hand poised to open it.
“Are we sure this is just a pub and not an ancient nightclub?” Maz tips her chin up at the sign above the doors.
Eli laughs.
“That’s definitely a bit much.”
Beneath the pub name, its symbol, a mask cast in heavy bronze, sinks into the masonry of the building. The low, warm glow of the indoor lights bleeds through the windows and into the street, catching the protruding bottom edges of the mask, revealing a ribald grin with the cheekbones pushed high.
The light slowly returns and changes the angles of the shadows on the mask.
Eli studies the bronze and its collapsed grin, the eyes on it giving the impression of having deepened into weeping pits, and the mouth now looking as if it has been dragged down into a mournful hollow.
“Okay… so much for it staying cheeky, then.”
“Well, these guys don’t look too decisive either.” Maz points at the marble statues on either side of the doors, one a much too tightly coiled hydra, the other a phoenix about to take flight.
She spies the crowded pub through the windows, where music and laughter leak out.
“Might as well.”
Ron pushes the door open and nods Maz and Eli through before following them inside.
Wooden floorboards offer a familiar welcome with creaks. The smell of old paper wraps around them next, drifting over the aged booze, likely from spills, and blending with sour sweat.
A voice, from beyond the customers up ahead, pierces its way through the pub’s noise.
“If you’re going to stand there looking tragic, you will have to do it near the bar. Better lighting and a much more remarkable audience.”
Maz tilts her head in the direction of the words.
That… sounding like glitter would smell if they smoked. That you know, from somewhere.
They stroll past a handful of people standing by an ancient jukebox near the doors. It tries to play a song, which sounds stuck at the start and might be about leaving or never making it home, hard to tell, as it never quite gets there. The clink of glasses and low chatter make up for the skipped parts around it.
“So…” He gives her a sideways glance.
“That was strange, right?”
“Which one? The bookshop, the mirror, Meg, or Mr. H? Or what we apparently can’t bring ourselves to remember? Or, maybe, the fifties-style jukebox with a book from the eighteen hundreds on top?”
“It feels–” A man bumps Eli’s shoulder as he goes in the opposite direction.
“Sorry – feels like all of them are somehow… one?”
“Did you decide to test the hippie waters for your pre-midlife crisis? ‘It’s all connected, man.’“
They share a single note of laughter.
The voice arrives again.
“Don’t come to me with dry lies, sweethearts. You’ll have to pick something I can garnish.”
Eli looks around, even upwards, searching for the source of the voice, and finds bookshelves climbing into a ceiling that must be so high that he sees only a dark void overhead. His brow lifts.
I know that voice. Someone… both dangerous and annoyingly magnetic.
Maz turns to him, and the wall past his shoulder catches her eye. Her gaze follows the rows of books, encyclopaedias, tomes bound with worn leather, and the odd trinket. All have their place and yet still appear as if they choose to ignore any sense of order. Soft lights turn them into cliffs slanting both in and out, leaving which way they might fall in the end to anyone’s guess.
A few people laugh to Eli’s left. A man nearby groans, knocking a glass against wood, and the voice speaks again.
“No, no, the wine. The red. The one that turns reasonable people interesting and interesting people absolutely mad. Yes. That one.”
Maz and Eli look at each other before tagging along after one of the staff in a black waistcoat weaving through the crowd. They arrive at the circular bar at the centre. She leans her back against the wooden surface. As her elbows rest on the edge, he claims the stool beside her and takes in the pub.
The pillar at the centre of the bar does more than merely provide a place for the staff to lean. Above the mirror with ‘The Archive’ etched at its top, a large clock hangs, sixteen pairs of metal hands sprawled over its face, each pointing somewhere other than the current time.
He spots Meg and Ron angling towards the dartboard at the far end of the pub, as Ari sidles up to them with a tall drink in his hand. Ron greets him, but Meg finds a wall beyond Ari to look at.
The jukebox burbles back to the same opening line it has been stuck on since they arrived.
‘You’re never ever really home, are you?’
Maz looks the other way, watching the street through the steamed window, past a slice of space between people. She sees a quarter of a pomegranate in the ashtray outside, its flesh blackened and rind curled like a secret someone forgot to keep.
Who eats a pomegranate outside a pub?
She blinks, and it disappears from her sight. She turns to the bar. Her gaze catches on her reflection in the mirror. She looks away.
Eli, already watching her, mouth cinched at one corner, leans a little closer to her.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head.
“Streetlight wants to join in on the day’s jokes.”
“Right, it’s been a long day anyway, and clearly it keeps adding hours. Meg was at least right about the drink part.” He reaches past her and drags the stool beside her nearer until it touches her leg.
“Here. This place doesn’t need help getting any stranger than it already is.”
As she takes a seat, a new scent rolls across the bar. Strong with lush fruits crushed underfoot, it leaves a fizz at the back of her tongue. A shadow falls over Maz’s hand before she sees sparks of purple sequins out of the corner of her eye.
“Now, now.” A voice curls out from behind the taps, the very same that has been filling the pub since they stepped in.
“No moping at my bar. That’s a controlled substance, and I haven’t issued any permits tonight.”
A shallow clay vessel, wide as a blooming lotus, slides between their hands. Its two handles, swept up in a subtle curve on either side, brush their fingers, rippling the wine inside that looks so dark it might pass for ink. Their eyes move from the wine to the sequined waistcoat. They then see the gold choker that bears the name ‘Deon’ in a baroque script, as if fashioned only to sign forbidden paperwork. Finally the lips come into their view, curled around an unlit cigarette.
“You two look like you’ve been arguing with furniture, and it won.” Deon towers over them, all swagger and sharp shoulders.
“Perhaps nerves. Bad night for both, honestly. Either way, I do a special for that.” They plant both elbows on the polished surface with a grin tilted wide. A wink lands on Eli as they move the cigarette to dangle between their fingers.
Eli cracks his knuckles, nodding at the shallow goblet.
“Is that on the house?” He points his thumb towards the door.
“Unless we have to wrangle something with too many heads first?”
Deon touches the vessel’s base and slides it backwards by a finger’s worth.
“Oh, Elisecco, I could put this on the house, but I’m less sure I could put the night back where I found it.”
Eli’s head tilts slightly.
Elisecco? Like Prosecco? Obviously that’s a wine. Why does it have my name attached to it? It could easily be that the bartender heard it from a distance. Bartender or owner? I’ll just… move on.
A laugh that would rather be a battle cry overpowers the chatter in the pub. Behind Maz and Eli, a woman, platinum hair pulled back in tight braids against her skull, her black leather jacket still holding onto the raindrops on the lapels, shoulders her way through the people. Under one arm, she carries a motorbike helmet, while she keeps the other raised, waving an empty pint glass.
She slams her glass down beside Eli.
“If you’re battling hydras now, do show some manners and buy them a round first.”
Her eyes move from him to Maz before they snap to Deon and to Eli, too quick to be casual, involving too many eyebrow manoeuvres to be accidental. Val clears her throat as her attention drops to the bar.
“Last one for me, D. I shouldn’t stay long.”
Deon refills her glass with a swoop, then holds it just a hand’s breadth out of reach. They slide it left, and Val steps in to take it, slips the helmet onto the bar, and takes the stool beside Eli.
She looks from her arm to the helmet to Deon. She picks up the glass and thumps its base on the surface, laughing.
“You’re a terrible influence, D.”
“I prefer ‘architect of circumstances’, but I can accept that too.” Deon leans across the bar.
“Why else would you think the legends keep turning up here? The ones who remember how to party, anyway.”
They lower their voice and direct their look at Maz.
“Oh, were you expecting a regular night?”
Both Maz’s and Eli’s mouths pucker as they attempt to open. Neither of them seems to have an answer ready.
Deon slaps a hand on the bar between Eli’s hand, poised for a tap on the surface, and Maz’s empty clench.
“Ah, there, that look. People only do that if they’ve either shared a bed, a crime, or very bad news, except you’re about to have a stroke.”
When Deon’s gaze lands on the helmet in front of the woman, their eyebrow arches.
“You riding tonight, Val, or just out collecting regrets for the hall?”
Val salutes Deon with her glass.
“Just passing through. Someone has to log the brave ones before they forget they were.” She downs half the drink and grins.
“Careful, I might just put you up for a medal.”
Deon pulls back with their arms wide, voice pitched to carry across the whole room.
“Raise a glass to the queen!”
They watch the pub with a gaze that sweeps all the way to the farthest ends, from the door to the dartboard, before they send a quick wink in Val’s direction.
Meg’s throw at the dartboard jerks wide. Her drink slips from her hand and hits the floor in a wet burst of glass and ice. She steps back. Ari catches her elbow and earns himself a sharp jab to the ribs. Ron’s already reaching for the napkins.
Deon’s laugh from behind the bar rings out in the pub.
“Not that Queen! Relax. It could be any queen. There are too many, and none of them tip.”
By the dartboard, Meg’s voice rises into a growl that cuts through, making everyone’s head turn.
“Try feeding me that line again.” Her eyes stay on Ari while her arm comes up, and the serpent cuff catches the light, bright as a threat waiting for an occasion.
“See what else gets forgotten.”
Advance chapters available on Patreon now! https://www.patreon.com/TolaLone