The streetlamp cuts out.
“Are we sure this is just a pub and not an ancient nightclub?” Maz tips her chin up to the pub’s entrance outside.
Eli laughs as he steps closer.
“That’s definitely a bit much for a pub.”
Beneath the pub’s name, its symbol warms up in the low glow of the pub’s lighting that bleeds into the street. A mask cast in heavy bronze sinks into the masonry there. What sticks out holds a ribald grin with its cheekbones pushed high as if in the middle of a roar.
The light returns in stutters only to change the angles of the shadows on the mask.
Eli stares at the collapsed grin on the bronze. The eyes on it seem deepened into weeping pits, and the mouth dragged down into a mournful hollow.
“Ah… I thought it was looking cheeky a second ago.”
Music and laughter seep through the pub doors.
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.
“Well, these guys don’t look too decisive either.”
She spies the pub beyond the windows behind them. It looks amber-lit and crowded.
“Might as well.”
Ron holds the door and nods Maz and Eli through before following them inside.
Wooden floorboards greet them with their creaks. The smell wraps around them next in old paper and aged booze from spills and sweat.
A voice, from up ahead beyond the customers, 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. Better audience.”
Maz tilts her head towards the voice.
That voice sounds like glitter would smell if they smoked.
Maz and Eli walk past a handful of people standing by an ancient jukebox near the doors. It’s stuck at the start of a song that 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 fill the gaps for it.
“So…” Eli gives her a sideways glance.
“That was strange, right?”
“Which one? The bookshop, the mirror, Meg, or Mr. H? Or what we can’t seem to remember? Or a 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?”
“Going hippie for a 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 up for the source of the voice and finds bookshelves climbing into a ceiling so high it’s only a dark void overhead. His brow lifts.
I know that voice. Someone… Both dangerous and annoyingly magnetic.
Maz turns to Eli, and the wall past his shoulder catches her eye. Her gaze follows the rows of books, encyclopedias, tomes bound with worn leather, and the odd trinket. They are all stacked to ignore any sense of order. Soft lights turn them into cliffs slanting both in and out; which way they might fall in the end is anyone’s guess.
A few people laugh. A man nearby groans. A glass knocks against wood. The voice follows.
“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 following one of the bar staff in black waistcoats weaving through the crowd. They arrive at the circular bar at the centre. Maz leans her back against the bar. As her elbows rest on polished wood, Eli claims the stool beside her and takes the pub in.
The pillar at the centre of the bar has been given too many jobs. A clock hangs high with its sixteen pairs of hands sprawling over its face, each pointing somewhere impatient. The mirror beneath is etched with ‘The Archive’ at its top.
Meg and Ron are already angling towards the dartboard at the far end of the pub. Ari sidles up to them, pint glass in hand. Ron greets him, though Meg finds somewhere else to look.
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 watches 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 looks blackened, the rind curled like a secret forgotten to be kept.
Who eats a pomegranate outside a pub?
She blinks. It’s gone. She turns to the bar. Her gaze catches her reflection in the mirror. She looks away.
Eli’s already watching her, mouth tugged to a side.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head.
“Streetlight wants to join in on the day’s jokes.”
“Right. It’s been a day that keeps adding hours. Meg was at least right about the drink part.” He reaches past her to drag the stool beside Maz closer to her.
“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. It’s strong with lush fruits crushed underfoot that leave a fizz at the back of the tongue. A shadow falls over Maz’s hand. She sees hints of purple sequins out of the corner of her eye.
“Now, now.” A voice curls out from behind the taps, the same voice 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 wide and shallow vessel slides between their hands. Its two handles on either side are swept back like wings. The rippling wine inside the clay is so dark it might pass for ink.
Their eyes catch the sequined waistcoat first. They then see the gold choker that bears the name ‘Deon’ with a script so baroque it could sign forbidden paperwork. The lips curled around an unlit cigarette entering their vision last.
“You two look like you’ve been arguing with furniture, and it won.” They tower 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 bar with a grin tilted wide. A wink lands on Eli.
Eli cracks his knuckles.
“Is that on the house?” He nods at the shallow goblet.
“Unless we have to wrangle something with too many heads first?” He tips his head towards the door.
Deon taps on the vessel’s base and slides it back for a finger’s worth.
“Oh, Elisecco, I could put this on the house. I’m less sure I could put the night back where I found it.”
Eli’s hand stops cracking.
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 breaks through the chatter. A woman holding a motorbike helmet under one arm shoulders her way through the people behind them. Her black leather jacket holds onto the raindrops on the lapels. Platinum hair is pulled back in tight braids against her skull.
She slams her empty 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. They snap to Deon and back to Eli. It’s too quick to be casual, involving too many eyebrow manoeuvres to be accidental. Val clears her throat as her attention drops to the bar.
Deon refills her glass with a swoop, then holds it out of reach by a hand’s stretch. When they slide it left, Val steps in to take it, slips the helmet onto the bar, and has already taken the stool beside Eli.
She looks from her arm to the helmet to Deon. She picks up the glass, thumps its base on the bar, and laughs.
“You’re a terrible influence, Deon.”
“I prefer ‘architect of circumstances’. But I’ll take it.” Deon leans across the bar.
“That’s why the legends keep turning up. 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?”
Maz and Eli exchange a glance, and neither of them has an answer ready.
Deon slaps a hand on the bar between the pair of them.
“Ah. That look. People only do that when they’ve either shared a bed, a crime, or very bad news.”
Their eyebrow arches when their gaze lands on the helmet in front of the woman.
“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 from the bar with their arms wide, voice pitched for the whole room.
“Raise a glass for 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 a wink arrives 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 travels across the pub.
“Not that Queen! Relax. It could be any queen. There are too many, and none of them tip.”
Meg closes the distance to Ari until he has to decide where to look. Her arm comes up, and the serpent cuff catches the light, bright as a threat waiting for an occasion.
Her voice rises into a growl that cuts through the pub’s chatter and makes Maz and Eli glance over.
“Try feeding me that line again.” Meg’s eyes stay on Ari.
“See what else gets forgotten.”
Advance chapters available on Patreon now! https://www.patreon.com/TolaLone