Chapter 6
The key Yannick had given me fit neatly into the lock, which made me start.
It seemed that it should have snapped off in my hand, or simply refused to turn, and I realized that I still hadn’t come to believe I’d been offered the shop, or perhaps that I’d accepted it.
I pushed the door open and then simply stood there, squinting into the shadows.
It was an hour before sunrise, but much of the city was awake, and several passersby eyed us as they hastened to their destinations, their collars turned up against the autumn chill.
élise did not share my hesitation and stepped past me as I dawdled on the threshold, her heels clicking smartly.
Within, we found the shop much as I’d seen it the previous week, its weary opulence and echoey proportions, the scarves scattered about like discarded magic tricks.
The place still had the smell of baking, something with nutmeg and cardamom this time.
I turned to find élise pivoting slowly around on her heel with her lips parted, blinking as if she’d just awoken from sleep.
“Well!” she said, and then seemed unable to say any more.
“Well,” I agreed.
“It seems haunted, doesn’t it?” she continued, after another moment had passed, during which we simply stared about us like two field mice who’d taken a wrong turn and found themselves in a king’s garden. “Though I can’t say why.”
I knew what she meant. It wasn’t just the age of the shop, the centuries visible in the grooved flagstones—the city had plenty of old buildings.
There was a palpable presence that seemed especially pronounced in the darker corners, as if the shadows were aware, and watchful.
Something creaked below—likely nothing, merely the arthritic restiveness of an old building, and yet it was difficult not to shiver.
“The cats,” élise said, a question in her voice.
“Won’t notice the difference between this and a hovel,” I finished. “So long as they’re warm and fed.”
This seemed to steady her, and she nodded. “We’d best get to work, then.”
And so we did.
Our first day in the former bakery passed in such a blur that I could scarcely remember it afterwards.
We spent most of it elsewhere, packing up the last few boxes at the old shelter and hauling everything across the city.
Mina, currently our sole volunteer, arrived after lunch to assist with all the bustling and turmoil that accompanied moving into any place.
Mina was a hard worker but difficult to get to know; she spoke little and rarely about herself.
As a child she’d been in foster care, living in more homes than she’d had birthdays before ending up on the streets and then in custody after a string of petty thefts.
She’d come to us initially for her community service, but hadn’t stopped returning once she’d worked it off.
I was proud of her now, for she had a small place of her own and a spot at the local university, where she was studying to be a historian.
élise and I overlooked the rare occasions when we noticed the donation money was a little short; I had seen the building where Mina lived, and anyway we would have paid her if we could have afforded it.
I awoke the following morning to a sensation akin to being stretched in multiple directions at once.
As it turned out, transporting fifty-two disgruntled cats and their various accoutrements from one neighbourhood to another was not the easiest of tasks.
We’d been able to hire a horse and wagon for an hour to move the heaviest items, but the three of us had still needed to make a half-dozen trips each, navigating narrow lanes and uneven cobblestones while laden with boxes and suitcases, and I suspected my back would be sore for another day or two.
To make matters worse, it had been raining, and the cats had spent the rest of the day sulking in their cages as their fur dried into uneven waves.
One item that was always in short supply at the shelter was blankets, a problem compounded by the rain—they had gotten as wet as the cats during transit.
His Majesty sat at the foot of the bed, glaring at me. He had additional cause to resent me, for we’d had to leave most of our furniture behind. I’d placed Robin’s pillow next to mine in the new bed, a creaky four-poster that had come with the apartment, but the cat was unappeased.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I was not entirely certain I was speaking to His Majesty. I lay there for a while, gazing at the ceiling.
But cats were at liberty to wallow in their misfortunes; I had to go to work.
Determinedly shoving aside the image of Robin’s bed sitting in the dark back at the old place, I made myself get up and prepare for the day, pulling on my favourite periwinkle blouse and wool skirt, and even taking the time to wrestle my hair into a tidy braid.
I exited my bedroom cautiously, starting a little when the floorboards creaked underfoot, feeling like a burglar who must disguise my movements.
The bedroom across the hall contained a dressed bed and wardrobe, but it was full of shadows, the heavy curtains drawn.
I wondered who had lived there—had the baker had an assistant?
The basilica was announcing half seven as I made my way carefully down the stygian staircase and into the shop, where the autumn light streamed reassuringly through the mullioned windows and élise and Yannick were already bustling about the echoing space, which was now crowded with boxes.
“Breakfast is on the counter,” élise called from the cages we’d stacked against the south wall, where she was tipping food into Thoreau’s bowl.
Yannick was dangling a bit of string for Marmalade, one of Clowder’s kittens.
He gave a delighted laugh when the cat missed the string and pounced on his hand instead, kicking impotently with his tiny back legs.
“Ah,” I said, staring at him. “Did you need something?”
He rose, looking flustered. “Yes—I mean, no. My apologies if I’m interfering. I only thought I’d drop by to lend a hand. If you need it.”
“We certainly do,” élise said, giving Yannick a smile that made the young man blush.
I went to the counter to apply myself to the breakfast élise had purchased, wood-fired bagels wrapped in paper, which I guessed she’d obtained from the bakery down the street.
When I returned, Yannick was on his hands and knees with a basin of water beside him, scrubbing one of the cages.
I gave élise a look. “You shouldn’t smile at him like that,” I muttered. “He isn’t used to you.”
élise only shrugged and replied, “If ever I have the chance to trade a few smiles for clean cages, I’ll take it,” with her usual ruthless pragmatism.
I was unsettled for most of the morning, feeling both too busy and at loose ends. I suppose that’s to be expected in a new environment, but also I was still waiting for some curse to fall upon me.
I quieted my anxiety as I always did: by putting things in order.
There is no better balm for the cares and tribulations of life, I’ve found, than throwing oneself into the organization of one’s environment.
I went through the boxes; sorted the file folders of receipts from the last quarter, which had become horribly jumbled in transit; directed élise in the unpacking of food and supplies; swept the floor and wiped dust from the sills and sconces; and generally put our new shelter to rights.
And if none of this did anything to solve our larger problems—the ominous mystery that the shop presented, the constant precarity of our finances—nor lighten my lingering melancholy, still I felt, looking about the place, which now contained only a single stack of boxes and crates, as if I’d created a little harbour for myself in which I might take shelter from any storm.
“Is your former tenant returning for her scarves?” I asked Yannick.
I was running my hand over one, unable to help myself.
They were the finest garments I’d ever touched, the cashmere as soft as new-fallen snow.
Many were woven with threads of actual silver or gold, which lent them a weight that was pure wealth.
A few were trimmed with cream-coloured pearls.
“Ah—no,” Yannick said. “I was planning to donate them to charity. But you’re welcome to wear them, if you like.”
I glanced back at the scarves. Banshee had hopped onto the table and was kneading one patterned with some sort of aristocratic hunting scene, dogs baying at a fox in a tree. “Charity,” I repeated.
And with that, our blanket shortage was solved.
Absolutely nothing strange or magical happened that morning.
As expected, we struggled to find the supplies we needed, for they were still packed away or stored in unfamiliar places.
As we cleaned and organized, though, the shop seemed to brighten, as if it were waking up.
The uncanny shadows weren’t banished, but they retreated farther into the corners.
Banshee followed me from room to room, yowling as if another apocalypse were nigh, though I knew she was merely protesting the size of her breakfast.
“You’re on a diet,” I scolded her. Banshee, despite my careful rationing of her food, gained a pound with each passing year, and her white stomach had reached a queenly circumference.
I suspected His Majesty was abetting her somehow, perhaps by allowing her his leftover mice.
The black-and-white cat killed for sport, not sustenance.
We hung the sign upon the door and decided we might as well open for the day. Though I hadn’t yet worked out how to use the cash register, I doubted our new neighbours would be beating down the door with donations.