Kingfisher(12)

Someone loomed into his dreamy stupor. He started, found the disquieting Carrie in front of him, holding sheets and a towel now instead of a cauldron.

“My dad told Ella you’re staying the night,” she said briskly. “She asked me to take you upstairs.” She raised her chin slightly, catching Tye’s eye. “Number three okay?”

“Far as I know, nothing leaks in there.”

“How much do I owe—?”

Tye shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll settle up in the morning.”

“Thanks.” He drained his glass and stood up. Nothing fell over; the floor didn’t rise to meet him. He laughed a little. “I lost track of how long I’ve been sitting here.”

“You’re not the first,” Tye answered. “Sweet dreams.”

Carrie led him to the far side of the room, where the old reception desk with slots behind it for mail and keys emerged bulkily out of the shadows. She had begun to climb the stairs when he remembered his manners.

“Here. Let me carry that stuff.”

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

He trailed after her around the elegant curve, trying not to gaze at the taut figure on the step above, sure she would read his mind and dump the linens on his head. He thought of food instead.

“That salmon was unbelievable. How— What did you do to it?”

“The salmon?” She sounded incredulous.

“Yeah. I would never in a million years have let it anywhere near a deep fryer. My mother would have fired me. But you—”

“You’re asking me about the salmon?”

“Well. Yes.”

She flashed him one of her wide-eyed glances, a bewildering mix of amazement and exasperation. She made a noise indicating something major wrong with his head, and opened the door at the top of the stairs.

“Ella, Hal, and Tye all sleep on this floor; you won’t be alone up here.” She dropped her armload on a tapestry-covered chair and flicked on a lamp. “Bathroom’s in there. Don’t worry. It’s not a chamber pot, and there is hot water.”

“What did I say?” he asked softly, genuinely wanting to know. To his surprise her expression became complex, bittersweet, and strangely sad. Should I ask you to stay? he wondered. She turned away quickly, whipped a sheet open across the bed.

“Nothing. You said nothing.” She shifted around the bed, tugging the corners tight without looking at him. “There are so many things nobody will answer when I ask. I thought you might—they might answer you. If you had asked.”

“Asked what?”

Her lips pinched again; she only said, “Go down and get your things while I finish this.”

When he came back, she was gone.

He woke sometime in the dark of the night, chasing down a fading dream in which something he wanted very badly kept eluding him, no matter how fast he moved, how desperate his desire. He was covered with sweat, as though he truly had been running. It took him a few groggy moments to remember where he was. When he finally did, he fell back into sleep as into some soundless, bottomless nothing.

He woke with a start in a pool of light from the unshaded window. He saw blue water, a paler blue sky, the sun burning away the last of a morning fog. He groped for his watch. The lovely room caught his attention first: the rich, dark wainscoting, the pale rose walls, the high ceiling and fine moldings of an earlier era. Light, airy, full of morning, it drew him upright to walk down the shaft of sunshine, peer at the bay and wonder, as he saw the fishers already out, how long the world had gone on without him as he slept.

He showered, dressed, and packed quickly. He heard no sounds in any of the rooms around him. Everyone was up, he guessed, and he hoped the restaurant might still be serving breakfast. When he went downstairs, he found the bar empty. He dropped his bag on a velveteen couch and went to push at the swinging doors. They refused to budge. He found the sliding bolts holding them fast, pulled them out of the floor and looked into the restaurant.

He heard nothing from the kitchen: not a voice, not a clatter of pot or plate, not a sizzle.

He turned after a moment, slid the bolts back into place, and listened. Not a floorboard creaked; not a door opened or closed. Maybe they were outside on the water, or running errands, shopping. The bar had been cleaned, everything tidied, put away, shut up. He wandered aimlessly a moment, waiting for Tye to appear, present him with a bill.

A gleam in the shadows near the reception desk caught his eye, drew him over to look at it more closely, for something to do while he waited. A tall, wide glass cabinet stood between the desk and the massive fieldstone fireplace. Its curved door was made of intricate diamonds of beveled glass framed with thin brass rods; its latch and hinges were a bygone age’s fantasy of brass, curved, etched, scrolled. Inside the cabinet he saw the gaff, the gold platter, the cauldron.

He gazed at them. Again they teased at him, eluded him when he tried to make sense of them. He turned finally, beginning to feel the oppressive weight of the silence, the emptiness around him. He wondered if he had partied with ghosts.

He saw the knife then, lying on the desk, along with the brass key. He stopped, holding his breath. The knife hadn’t made it into the cabinet with the other oddities. He picked it up, weighed it in his hold, turned it in what light he could catch from the high windows to study the hammered silver, the blade and haft shaped of a single piece of metal. It fit his hold like a friend’s handclasp, its fine edge, under his thumb, keen, dangerous, and ready for anything.