Chapter 2 #2
“Good evening, chaps,” she said. “As you may be able to tell, my friend here is a winter”—she indicated Katherine—“and I am a summer. I used to be blonde, you know.”
The two men gawped a moment. “Er, sorry?” one of them ventured.
“What is your favorite season?” Mrs. Chrysler persisted winningly.
The two men looked at each other, puzzled, and Katherine felt heat rise in her cheeks.
“Pardon?”
“Never mind!” Katherine said, reaching around to clamp down on Mrs. Chrysler’s hand, which had been working its way along the countertop to the small of the nearest man’s back. “Just get us some drinks, Imogene,” she whispered.
Mrs. Chrysler turned to her. “That, my dear, is what I am trying to do.” She turned back but the two young men had gone.
In fact, a growing distance had opened between the pair of old women and everyone else who had previously approached the counter.
“Oh, wonderful. Thanks a lot, Katty. Barman!” Mrs. Chrysler waved emphatically at him until the aproned man finished serving one of his other patrons and approached with a curious look.
“Yes… ladies?”
“When was Tin-Whistle Todd sacked, my good man?”
The bartender, who had worked very hard to cultivate the nickname Axe after answering to Archie for twenty-two years, looked between the two women with affable suspicion.
“I don’t know who that person is, ma’am,” he said.
The corners of his mouth lifted as he looked around the barroom, obviously seeking someone who was bound to know why there were two ridiculous old people at his counter.
Mrs. Chrysler followed his gaze behind her.
“Who are you looking for?”
Katherine’s eyes focused on him in the gloom and she inspected him closely. He had a stud in his nose that linked up via a chain to his ear. “Goodness! Doesn’t that hurt?”
“What?”
“Your piercing! Doesn’t that hurt? Don’t you get it caught on things?”
“Very impractical,” Mrs. Chrysler agreed. She began to elaborate on the functional nature of all her own piercings.
The bartender recoiled in horror, his ears trying desperately to shut themselves. To make matters worse, no one came bellying up to the bar guffawing and lifting wigs off of the two visions on the bar stools, and his face fell even further.
“Um, this is a joke, right?”
“What is?”
The bartender’s brow stitched, bringing two other piercings closer together. “The troll at the door—he let you in here?”
“Of course!”
“Peaty’s a dear boy,” Katherine said.
“So was Tin-Whistle Todd.”
“Well, he wasn’t a boy, was he, Imogene?”
“No… I suppose that’s true. Tree nymphs just kind of have that timeless look about them.”
“Probably older than us, in fact.”
“Yes. And I’m sure he was able to find employment elsewhere too. You don’t find many people who communicate by slide whistle. Very unique.”
“Probably in high demand in some industry.”
The bartender’s eyes darted between them. “Um, who are you people?”
“Oh, I am Imogene Chrysler—Missus—and this is Miss Katherine Winterhaven, both longstanding patrons of this establishment for many years… which Tin-Whistle Todd could vouch for, if he were still employed here.”
“Which he isn’t,” Katherine underscored pointedly.
“And, only if you asked him in just yes or no questions,” Mrs. Chrysler added, to clarify. “Because of the slide whistle.”
“Listen,” the bartender said. “I haven’t sacked anybody. And I’ve never seen you two before. Must be from before my time.”
“Well,” Katherine said, “we’ll ask you then, since Todd isn’t here. What do you know about a so-called Ipswich Planning Board?” She stared fixedly at the barman’s face, which scrunched with wary confusion under her unflinching gaze.
“Or why taxes have risen so sharply on certain retirees with very nice homes?” Mrs. Chrysler raised hopeful eyebrows at him. “You must know something, an important personage such as yourself, working at such a… lively establishment. Privy to all the latest gossip, yes?”
“Well, uh.” The bartender rubbed the back of his neck.
“I know Ipswich has attracted the attention of some wealthy personages recently for being all idyllic and coastal and whatnot. They set up some yachting club or something and want second homes here, overlooking the water. Maybe some enterprising people in town want to get ahead of the demand. That’d be the Planning Board, I guess. ”
Mrs. Chrysler clapped her hands on the bar. “That explains it, Katty. Rotten interlopers.”
“But the taxes? The foreclosures?”
The man shrugged. “People think a home’s worth more than it used to be, property values go up, taxes go up. You’re working, you deal with it. You’re retired, maybe you don’t.”
“Scandalous,” said Katherine.
“Look, ladies, I just pour drinks. I don’t get involved in real estate.”
Mrs. Chrysler scoffed. “But the retirees are the ones who made Ipswich what it was, long before all you young people were born. They’re not wealthy people. They didn’t buy those waterfront homes they live in. They grew up in them.”
The bartender threw up his hands. “What do want me to do about it? I keep my head down, don’t get involved, and I can’t tell you any more than I already did. I really can’t help you, ladies.”
Mrs. Chrysler sagged in her seat, her encouraging smile gone. “Well, things certainly have changed around here,” she said.
“We used to do a lot of business at this tavern,” said Katherine, “and, back then, both Tin-Whistle Todd and the bartender knew pretty much everything about everything, and everyone. A fountain of information.”
There was a beat in which the barman considered this. “What kind of business?” he ventured.
“Little of this, little of that.”
It was at this particular moment that the dim light from a lamp overhead caught the golden hilt extending above Mrs. Chrysler’s messy bun. The barman’s eyes opened a little wider.
“All right,” he said, appearing to make up his mind about something. “Listen, can I get you something to drink, or what?”
“Yes,” Imogene said. “A beer for me.”
“Really, Imogene? We pretty much found out what we wanted to know.”
“I know, Katty. But, let’s stay a bit longer, huh? Our night out, remember?”
Katherine sighed. “Fine. A cider for me, please,” she told the barman. “Plus a dish of cold water.”
“A dish of—?” Three pairs of yellow eyes suddenly appeared in Katherine’s lap and stared at him over the edge of the bar. “All right. Comin’ up.”
After they had gotten their drinks, the two women seemed to feel a bit more at home, and they settled on their stools to survey the tableau around them.
“Certainly a lot of atmosphere in here,” Mrs. Chrysler said.
“If by that you mean smoke, then yes.”
“Rather interesting music, too.”
“That is a word for it,” Katherine replied tactfully. She sipped her cider while the three cats on the bar lapped up their water.
Ember amused herself by turning droplets of spilled liquor to steam with her paws.
“You still like it here, Imogene? Given how different it is?”
“Sure. We have to go with the times, you know. Keep up with the trends.”
“I’m afraid that’s not what we’ve been doing.”
They watched the other bar-goers as they chatted boisterously or flirted together in corners.
“Look at all the room we have to ourselves over here,” Katherine observed presently, gesturing at the empty stools to their left and right. “Maybe this place isn’t as popular as it used to be.”
“Um, I think that’s us,” Mrs. Chrysler corrected her, in a brief moment of self-awareness.
“Well.”
“Not too late to roll up your skirt a bit.”
“No.”
They continued to study the room. The barman cast them a sidelong glance every once in a while, and Katherine wondered how long they would have to stay until Imogene was satisfied. Then, she sensed a presence behind her and felt a dry, twiggy tap against her arm.
“Er, excuse me.”
Katherine turned toward the creaky voice at her elbow and found herself looking down into the weathered but amiable face of a tree nymph.
Unlike their willowy friend Todd, this one was a short scrub oak, barely chest-height, with a crown of salty, wind-shorn branches for hair.
She wrung her gnarled hands and shuffled her stumpy feet.
“You’re looking for Todd?” the nymph asked.
“Willowy fellow, yes? Speaks in whistles?”
“Yes!” Mrs. Chrysler said, turning squarely to face her. “I’m sorry, but do we know you?”
“No, ma’am,” said the nymph, bowing her head. Her dry, brown leaves rustled as she moved and a few acorns fell to the floor. Mr. Scruffles darted after them. The barman threw up his hands and turned away, and the nymph went on. “But I have a message for you, from Todd. My name is Rosalind.”
“A message?” Katherine said. “For us?”
“Yes, ma’am. At least, for two women matching your description, to be found at the Giddy Horseman. And I haven’t seen anyone else matching your description in this tavern.”
Katherine cast her eyes at Mrs. Chrysler, who returned a blameless shrug.
“I’ve been in here every day this week to find you, but no one here knew you or where you lived.”
“It’s very kind of you to keep trying,” Mrs. Chrysler said.
“Yes, it’s evidently been a long time since we were known in this tavern,” said Katherine, aiming an injured look at the bartender, who looked hastily away.
The tree nymph rubbed a knot on her shoulder in apparent embarrassment.
“It was no trouble. I’ve been traveling down the coast along the dunes and caught the word on the wind.
The trees gossip, you see. And pass on messages when they feel like it.
I said I’d bring it, since I was on my way through Ipswich anyway, to spend the winter farther south. My joints prefer warm weather.”
Katherine nodded vaguely. She supposed if any of the oak trees by her cottage had a chance to escape the cold rather than sleep through it, they would. “What was the message?” she asked.