Chapter Nine
By the end of the week, Alora had placed her orders with both Ms. Sherry, who surprisingly had almost exactly what she’d imagined, the solemn carpenter, and the boisterous carpeteer. In the meantime, she’d celebrate.
Mr. Whitters’ grand opening for Confectionary Delights appeared to be an even better attended event than the DeCollier’s Spring Has Sprung Ball from three months previous.
Alora hadn’t gone, but she’d read about it.
It appeared Mr. Whitters, already beloved by many, had the entire town’s support when it came to the rebuilding of his bakery, the previous one having burned down due to the unfortunate mishap with a faulty stove.
But the new one had arrived, if the smell was any indication, and the patrons milling about the entrance—and those tucked shoulder to shoulder inside—seemed to think it up to par with the previous.
Endless boxes tied with string emerged from the entrance, as the crowd grew thicker and ever more impatient.
Alora was thankful she wasn’t here to purchase anything, as she didn’t think there would be anything left by the time she made it to the counter. She hoped Mr. Whitters had hired on help.
She approached the entrance slowly to take in her work.
Ignoring the other patrons, she strode nonchalantly to the potted plants, brushing their leaves and testing the soil until she was satisfied.
She studied the sign overhead, swinging gently, and felt pride in how well the curling blue letters contrasted with the white background.
It looked like a proper place, even better than the one before.
Though she’d never tell Mr. Whitters that, obviously.
At the rate of this crowd, she didn’t think she’d get the chance to say anything to him at all.
For every one person who left, it seemed two joined the line, and the sight of it made Alora’s jaw ache.
It wasn’t as though she held an aversion to people—she worked with people all the time—but so many, and in one small space, was far from ideal.
She didn’t have great memories of such things.
In fact, she had one memory, and it was very, very bad.
“Excuse me, excuse me. Need to feel the sun on my head for just a minute. Oh yes, thank you. Very happy. Very happy, indeed. So blessed.” Mr. Whitters wove his way down the steps, taking even longer than usual due to the excessive handshakes and claps on the shoulders.
Alora grinned; he deserved every one of them.
She watched his eyes close for a brief moment when he caught the sun, light reflecting from the bald spot at the back of his head. He breathed deep once before swinging his gaze around and finding hers. He beamed.
“Why, Miss Pennigrim! How are you, my dear?” With large hands on either side of her arms, he wobbled her back and forth. “Looking lovely as ever.”
Alora smiled, taking in his bright, brown cheeks and even brighter eyes. “I’m well, thanks. But look at you! Look at this! Mister Whitters, it’s marvelous.”
“Thanks to you. I had to hire Glenda once I realized the opening was marked in the paper. Had people lined up before I even got inside, and I was here at four in the morning!”
Alora chuckled. “And is Glenda going to stay on?”
“No,” laughed Mr. Whitters. “She said she signed up to be my wife, not my assistant. We'll see how the week goes. Maybe I’ll need to hire someone full time. Someone young, who likes to keep morning hours.”
“I think you may,” said Alora, eyeing the swelling patrons.
“Are you planning to come inside?”
“I am, but maybe just not yet. I’ve had the privilege of an entire box of Confectionary Delights all to myself just this week, and I wouldn’t want to be greedy.”
“Nonsense,” chortled Mr. Whitters. “I’ve been prepping for days.
I’ll set aside some chocolate creams for you.
” He rubbed her arm once more, his smile reaching all the way to his eyes and beyond before stepping back.
“Thank you for coming.” Then turning around, he attempted to make his way back in.
“Oh yes, thank you. Very happy. So blessed.”
Alora watched until he disappeared beneath the awning. Chuckling to herself, she glanced over the staggered pots lining the walls, to the one near the top that she’d repaired after it nearly smashed her head.
Her smile fixed in memory, its edges drooping.
Alora backed away from the store front until she found herself in the alleyway, her recollection shifting from the pot mishap to the mysterious shadow.
Mr. Whitters had called them Urchins, a brutish gang who didn’t attack often, which meant they likely attacked with purpose.
And to leave their victims without memory of them at all.
.. That was a peculiar thing. Alora peered down the lane.
What did the victims know? Secrets? Were they defectors?
Witnesses? Alora wondered if they’d seen her, if they would have done to her whatever terrible thing they’d exacted upon the other poor soul, if only to keep her quiet.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard at all of the attack that happened. Not a whisper. Of course, she wasn’t very good about reading the paper, and she was quite preoccupied with work. She would buy one on her way home. But perhaps first—
Her feet carried her along the alley.
It couldn’t be true that this lane was colder than the others, that the ice frosting her bones was related to the shadows cast by bright-colored buildings. Still, Alora felt these things as she walked, drawing nearer and nearer to where it happened. To the fight she was never meant to hear nor see.
She knew she’d found it by feel alone, her heart cold and fast, goosebumps erupting on every inch of her. Yet, it was only a door, a back entrance stoop, completely unremarkable from the one before and the one after.
Only—
Alora leaned forward, forehead scrunched, eyes narrowed. She reached out with a finger, brushing along the wooden frame until her fingertip was flecked red—as if with dried bits of paint.
Except the door was painted blue.
She knocked, once, twice, three times, and then stepped back.
The door creaked inward.
“Who is it?” the voice demanded.
“Alora Pennigrim, ma’am.”
The pause grew heavy. “Do I know you?”
“Perhaps? I think it’s too soon to tell.” Alora didn’t recognize the voice from inside, but she’d seen more faces in her time in Enver than she’d spoken to people. They might have crossed paths.
The door swung in, and the woman standing there was revealed to be as unfamiliar to her as any stranger. She was also crying. “Perhaps?” she managed before reaching out fast as a viper and dragging Alora inside.
They stood in a poorly lit back hall with threadbare jackets on racks and scuffed shoes lined in rows. The woman’s fingers hooked into the sensitive skin on the backs of Alora’s upper arms as her puddled eyes raked her up and down. “Perhaps I know you?”
Alora couldn’t keep up the pretense. “No, I’m sorry. I was mistaken.”
“Oh,” heaved the woman, her hands falling. “Oh.” She shook her head, blonde curls bobbing in time. “Forgive me,” she said.
“It was I who barged in on you. Forgive me.” Alora didn’t know what she’d been thinking, pressing herself upon a victim like this. What sort of person was she?
“It’s no matter,” said the woman, turning away. “I’m all out of sorts these days.”
Alora stilled. “What’s that there? On your head?”
The woman lifted a hand gingerly to the space just north of her ear, where the hair had been removed, the skin red, black thread puckering the wound. “I was hurt. A few days ago. Though I don’t remember it. It’s like I— Do you know what they took?”
The woman had spun back, eyes suddenly dry and wild. She reached for Alora’s arm and missed, as Alora swung it behind her.
“Who?”
“No! What did they take?”
Alora, realizing more than ever that some impulses shouldn't be acted upon, backed away. “Who are 'they'?”
“Stupid girl! I don’t care about them. What did they take!”
“I don’t know. How could I know if you do not?”
It was the wrong thing to say. A keening sound left the woman’s mouth then, her hand coming up to the wound on her head and wrenching. Alora cried out, grabbing ahold of her, forcing her to stop. Their fingers both came away bloodied. “Let’s bandage this.”
“They took it. They took it.”
“I’ll get this fixed up right as rain.” Alora exhaled through her nose, the sight of the oozing wound, one stitch pulled free, being quite grotesque. Her arm looped through the woman’s; she led them down the hall.
Alora didn't know where she was going, but the home wasn’t any larger than her own. She discovered the washroom soon enough, and plunking the woman down upon the vanity stool, set to work wetting a rag and cleaning up the mess she’d caused. She felt absolutely terrible and told the woman as much.
“Why? You didn’t do it, did you?”
“No,” said Alora. “Did you see a doctor? You must have, I suppose, to close the wound.”
“Yes, and they didn’t listen either. They stole it from me, from right here!” Again, the woman reached toward her head, though Alora intercepted her before she could cause further damage.
“From your head?” And then she didn’t need an answer any longer.
Memories. They’d stolen her memories.
“Look at it! Of course from my head. Hurts something awful, too, and what did I do to deserve it?”
“I don’t know,” said Alora, horrified. She pressed clean fabric gingerly to the wound. “What did the constable say?”
“That I’d fallen and injured myself. Is that the truth of it then? That ‘they’ is me and what I’ve lost are my senses?”
The woman’s distress wrenched at Alora; her lips parted, eyes pleading and full of trust though Alora had done nothing to earn it. So she decided to try.
“I saw shadows outside your back door, the day of your attack. Urchins were thought responsible, though I can’t say I know anything about them. But I’m told they steal memories. Perhaps that is what you feel is missing?”
The woman nodded, bungling up where Alora tried to tie a bandage in place. “Yes,” she said, on a contented sigh. “That’s it.”
***
Alora left the house in better shape than she’d found it.
After fixing the woman a cold lunch, she’d tidied the sparse kitchen and neglected living space, setting tea outside on the veranda to steep.
The flowers in the windows hadn’t been watered all week, so those she’d helped as well before paying her respects to her new acquaintance, Ms. Vittabean, and departing.
Though the haunted look had remained in her eyes, they’d stayed dry all the while Alora was there, and Ms. Vittabean had even smiled when Alora left, bright beneath the bandage, relieved to know now what was missing even if she hadn’t a hope of finding it again.
Alora steered herself in the opposite direction of Mr. Whitters’ shop, wanting to avoid crowds for the time being, hunting instead for a newspaper. Could such attacks on Enver’s residents really go unreported? And as Ms. Vittabean questioned, what had she done to deserve it?
She circled back home, entering Prints and Papers, the printer’s shop below her flat, with a prepared smile. “Today’s newspaper, Mister Zanfold. Please and thank you.”
“I’ll have one as well,” said a man’s voice from behind her, and Alora swung her head around, unaware anyone had come in after her.
“Good afternoon,” said William, grinning.
Alora stumbled over her reply, her theories of prisoners and punishments dashed to a heap with great relief. William was here, in Enver. She found herself scanning for Lennox but came up empty. They were the only two in the shop, aside from Mr. Zanfold.
“Hello,” said Alora, uncomfortably breathless. “I was in getting a paper.”
“So I’d heard.”
Alora hardly managed a sound of protest when William purchased both newspapers from the stoic printer.
She’d neighbored this shop for two years, and not once had Mr. Zanfold asked her to call him by his first name or introduce his cat, though she knew it was Hector and the cat was uptight.
Still, she smiled at him and the orange tabby that draped lazily over the counter, accepting his quick nod for what it meant: Have a good day.
She returned her attention to William and the outstretched paper, taking in his silken shirt and striped trousers and the way they clung nicely to his slim frame.
Once reaching his face, she found him smiling still, though it didn’t seem to reach his eyes, which were trained upon her intensely, leaving her feeling as if she’d been swallowed.
She took the paper but wasn’t sure of what else to do. “Not in a practice today?”
“Not today. I followed an urge to come into town instead. Can’t say I’ve been disappointed.”
Alora, having already been swallowed, felt herself sinking further. She made for the door—a path which William eagerly followed. “It’s hard to be disappointed in a town like Enver, with all its beauty and magic.”
“Do you like it here then?”
Alora glanced at William as he said it, standing outside the printer’s shop, steps from her own stairs, but he didn’t appear to mean this precise location.
After all, how could he know where she lived?
“I like it very much,” she said. “I hope to open my own shop one day.” And then, because she was burning with curiosity, she asked, “Do you like it?”
“The town?”
“The town... What you do.” She pretended to examine the paper as she spoke, not at all dying to know what he might say.
“Ah, curious are you?” He leaned in close, and Alora fought the urge to back away.
Instead, she counted the freckles on his nose.
“To burn is the most exquisite pain; I'll happily burn for the rest of my life.” He brushed a strand of hair back from her temple, tucking it behind her ear.
“As for the town, I think we may have different definitions of magical.” He rolled the newspaper, tucking it under one arm, where it began to drone in a soft, male voice.
“Oh, you’ve squeezed it. Mister Zanfold’s papers are enchanted for those who must—or rather like—listening for their news.”
Brow furrowed, William retrieved the paper. He thwacked it against his opposite hand until it silenced. “Come enjoy an early dinner with me.”
Alora met his eyes and immediately felt as if she were out to sea, one that was endless and without hope of escape. She thought she might drown—and, with that sensation, the indigestion returned. Or perhaps it really was her intuition this time, warning her away.
Regardless, she really couldn’t accept. “I have samples to pick up for a client, I'm afraid. Maybe some other time.”
“Don’t say “maybe”. Not to me,” said William. With one last perusal of her, he turned away. “Return to us when you can.”
Alora frowned after him. Until he disappeared across the street and entered the next. And while she did appreciate the paper, she did not appreciate him leaving her mind an uncomfortable jumble.