Chapter 3
3
Esther
E sther’s phone rang. Checking the ID, she answered the video call and threw it on her bed while she finished packing for work.
“Ah, yes,” came the tinny voice on the phone. “The tapestry-like face of my oldest and dearest friend. How are you today, Esther, my love? Would you call yourself a ceiling or an under-roof?”
Esther shoved her laptop into her bag. “Is that your way of calling me old, Uther, my oldest and most faithful comrade?”
“I would never. But if I did, words could never part us. We are the peas of a single pod. The Gimli and the Legolas. The Geralt and the Jaskier…”
“The annoyer and the annoyed?” She blew at a lock of hair tickling her nose.
“Esther. Come, let me see your face so I may properly profess my love for you.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“It very much is, yes. Thank you in advance.”
Esther dropped her bag and plopped onto her bed with a huff. He wanted something. Which was fair. When she’d left her tranquil solitude—nearly one year ago to this day—to attend an open game night at the local board game café, she’d wanted something too. What she’d wanted was a casual acquaintance—an accountability partner, if you will—to check in and make sure they were both completing their homework and to alert the local authorities if she ever went missing.
What she’d ended up with was her fellow wallflower, Uther.
“What do you want, Uther?” she asked.
“Please, let me come to work with you. I’ll behave. You’ll barely notice me. I can help you, even. I love books or papers or whatever crap you’re working with.”
Esther stood, taking her phone with her. There wasn’t any great way to make a serious face while lounging tummy-first on her bed, and he needed to know she would not be manipulated by his puppy eyes this time. “Uther, you are not coming with me. This is my job, and I can’t just bring people with me willy-nilly.”
“One, I can’t believe you just willy-nilly-ed at me, and two, you visit me at work all the time.”
“You work at a restaurant. It’s a public place. I work in a private residence.”
“Bitch, you just want him for yourself.”
“Hey!” She shot a warning finger at the screen. “You know how I feel about using that word.”
Uther sighed dreamily, ignoring Esther’s comment. “He’s like a young, queer Aragorn, which is literally my dream man.”
She couldn’t argue that point. It was probably August’s long hair. Or his brow ridge. God, that man could rock a strong brow ridge. But— “I’m more of a team Legolas, personally.”
Although, that wasn’t quite right either. If she was honest with herself, she was drawn to boldness with a hint of danger. But the closest comparison was when Eowyn ripped off her helmet, long blond hair flying in the wind, proclaiming, “I am no man,” before stabbing the Nazgul. There wasn’t a male example quite as sexy.
“You and your pretty guys. Just date a girl already.” Uther and the camera spun so she was looking down on him as his hair fanned out in a golden halo. “What I wouldn’t do for a hot, chauvinistic pig like New Hope Han.”
She ignored his joke about dating women. “We’ve been over this. You are a treasure and deserve to be treated like one.”
He flipped over again, forcing her to look away to avoid motion sickness. “You know I like them alpha. This is kink shaming, and I will not stand for it.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, despite her best efforts to remain serious. She’d had her doubts when first befriending an undergrad, but god, she was so lucky to have found Uther. He was just as quiet around new people as she was, but once he got going, there was no shutting him up. She wasn’t born with one of those personalities that opened up to people. Or even gave off an approachable vibe.
She thought of the blond girl at the front of her anthro class, Ashley. Always with the brightest smile and this vibe like she knew everyone, even when she was meeting them for the first time. It was unfair. There was something enticing about her. Like she had a glow you wanted to be around. Speaking of Ashley, Esther needed to text her to set up a time to meet for that assignment. She didn’t want to be the reason Ashley did poorly in class.
“Hey.” Uther snapped in front of the camera, drawing her attention back to the screen. “Stop daydreaming about men with long, blond hair and remember that I am your bestest friend and in need of this gesture of love from you. I can’t actually talk to him, so I need any opportunity for face time outside of class that I can get. Pleeeeeeease.”
He put on his puppy face, and Esther rolled her eyes. She knew this was coming, and yet some annoying muscle in her chest contracted as his bright, blue eyes doubled in size. “Okay?—”
“Yay!” The camera shook as Uther leaped from the bed and ran around his room.
“Uther, sit down and look in my eyes.”
He plopped belly-down onto his bed, his legs kicking behind his head, and bit his lip to hide his smile. It was the best she would get.
“Because you’re my friend,” she said, “I will not let you come to work with me and embarrass both of us.”
“Esther! I thought you loved me I’m going to cry how dare you say that to my face.” His entire run-on sentence was a single breath.
She winced at his use of the L-word. He was using it more and more lately, and maybe she needed to talk to him about that. But not right now. “But because you are my friend, and I need a ride, you can pick me up from work. And if you happen to come a few minutes early, you can hang out for a bit and wait.”
Uther was back up and dancing around his room. She did her best to look serious and not laugh with him.
“Do not abuse this,” she yelled as he continued to dance. “I need this job to graduate.”
“You are the love of my life. I would never let you down. I will name our first child in your honor. Not your name because, um, Esther? Blah. But I will think of your beautiful face while naming Baby Han.”
“Didn’t you just say you thought Han was hot? This feels like a conflict of interest.”
“Legolas then. Again, in your honor.”
Esther grabbed her bag, bid Uther adieu, and set off for the historic Platt house. She didn’t need a ride. Plattsburgh was such a small town. It was barely half a mile to the place. But it would be dark by the time she clocked out, and she felt better getting a ride. And Uther would never let her be if she didn’t give him something.
She pulled out her phone while she walked and stared at the blank text addressed to Ashley. Don’t overthink it . This was a school assignment, not some chance to form a closer relationship with another human being.
Esther
Hey Ashley, it’s Esther.
Did she really use proper punctuation in a text? It looked like a letter. She deleted the message and tried again.
Esther
Hi.
Wow, that was a creepy one. Delete.
Esther
This is Esther.
Too direct. Was she a robot?
Time to consider this text objectively. What was her goal?
Ashley must think she forgot and that Esther was sabotaging her assignment. But every time she pulled out her phone, nothing came out right. She’d think of Ashley’s giant blue eyes and golden mane and that smile she had that was almost a laugh and?—
Esther stumbled on a sidewalk crack and lost her grip. Her phone bounced back and forth against her hands before landing with a wet thud in a puddle. Serves me right. She pulled the contraption out by a corner and dried it on her shirt. It sported a new crack bisecting one corner of the screen. Great .
At least it was working. Her phone pinged.
Ashley
Hey girl! When do you want to meet up? I’m free Friday after 6.
Oh, sweet Jesus, it sent the last message. Now she was a robot. She put her phone, The Betrayer, back into her pocket and walked the last block to the Platt house in ashamed silence. She’d text Ashley after work when she cooled down and had something brilliant to say.
Esther hopped up the steps to the two-story, redbrick house and rang the doorbell, one of those fun, manual twist ones that trilled through the house. It was the oldest private residence in town, built in the Neoclassical style.
August answered the door. “Hey, Esther. Come on in.”
She entered the foyer and slipped off her shoes, placing them in their usual spot under the half-moon console by the door, and followed August from the muted seafoam and beige of the foyer into the gilded white of the sitting room.
Two days a week, every week, since the start of school a month ago, this was Esther’s routine. Plattsburgh University required a practicum for the master’s degree in library and information science, and she had happened upon a posting looking for an archivist to catalog the Platt family’s historic records—soon to be donated to the local historical society.
“Do you have a minute?” August’s words stopped her progress to the stairs.
Her neck strained to find him—still standing in the living room—while the rest of her body remained frozen, facing the steps in its determined retreat to the upper floors.
“Yes?” She honestly wasn’t sure. This was not part of the routine, and routines were what kept her out of harm’s way.
“Good.” He gestured to the couch and sat cross-legged on the white-and-gilt chaise lounge across from it.
She approached the couch, giving him a once-over for anything else out of the ordinary. His long hair was pulled half back, as usual, and he was wearing a black tunic over black distressed jeans, making him stand out boldly from the white and gold and sunlight.
“Right.” He nodded as she settled into the couch, took a deep breath, and suddenly, he was normal August, chin up, shoulders broad. He transformed his perch on the chaise into a king holding court. “We’re looking for a book.”
“We?” She shifted uncomfortably on the couch’s old springs.
“I need you to find a book for me.” He waved generally at the ceiling. “While you’re going through the collection anyway.”
“Any particular book in mind? I’ve found several. There was a fascinating journal by Zephaniah Platt on the creation of the town charter.”
August made a face. “Not that. This is more of… Well, it’s older, for one. Kind of like a weird cookbook maybe.”
Now it was Esther’s turn to make a face. She warred between frustration that he wouldn’t just say what he wanted and annoyance that she wasn’t upstairs already doing her work. “I think there was a collection of family recipes by Zephaniah’s daughter, Hannah Comstock.”
“Definitely not that. Just, if you see anything…weird, let me know, okay?”
“Besides this conversation?” Esther hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but she was terrible at filtering her thoughts before speaking.
He rolled his eyes. “Just help me out, Esther.”
“Fine.” She stood and adjusted her bag. “I will look for a weird, old cookbook. Anything else?”
He sat a moment longer, a finger tapping at his knee like he was debating adding something more. But he shook his head, so she went upstairs to the collection—as usual.