Chapter Three
“Hush!” I leapt over the counter and clamped my hand over his mouth. “Be quiet!”
With wide eyes, he slowly reached up and removed the hand. “Well, pardon me for asking and striking up a conversation.”
I looked around nervously, praying my father wasn’t lurking in the shadows. Or worse…my arrogant sisters with their fancy husbands. “Strike up a different conversation,” I whispered, “before you get us married off.”
His forehead crinkled with confusion, and I pressed my hand against it to smooth them out.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“I’m correcting your confusion and worry. It doesn’t do to crinkle one’s skin.”
He looked at me as though I was the odd one but didn’t move my hand, letting me iron out the wrinkles. “Is everyone here like this?”
“Like what?” I questioned, making sure to keep the same crinkles from appearing on my own skin. My hand dropped, and I picked up the broken press. There was no sense in rinsing it out when it wouldn’t be used again, so I dropped it into the rubbish bin and set to work wiping up the counter.
“Er…” Aleixo shifted from one foot to the next. “Wouldn’t you like to change?”
“Oh, of course.” The slimy sensation that inched down the inside of my sweater wasn’t a feeling I had forgotten, but it was a sensation I’d been distracted from.
I swished a cloth over Aleixo’s face before completing a spin and discarded the dirty dress where the dirty aprons sat.
The new dress wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.
“Did you… Did you just change? Just like that?”
I blinked at him. “Of course. I couldn’t very well leave the espresso unattended.”
“What? Did you have a trick up your sleeve?” He leaned lower as though trying to see if something could be hidden on the counter behind me.
“A trick? No, no. Just a dress.”
“A…dress?” Aleixo questioned.
“Yes, that’s why there’s a streak of dirt still on it. Unfortunately, I got some coffee sludge in my sleeves.”
Completely dumbfounded, he was finally silent, though it didn’t last long—only for about two minutes, but it was the quietest the room had been since he walked in. “I need a moment.” He took a deep breath, and I turned my attention back to cleaning the counter and floor.
“Suit yourself.”
“You… You mentioned a living fancy? Silver hangs in strange places. I’m not to…crinkle my skin. There was a dress up your sleeve,” he mumbled with his hand raised to his forehead, like he was ironing out his own crinkles. “Where am I?”
“What do you mean?” I broke into his strange words. “You’re in Coven Haven, a district nestled in Wylionis.”
“In… Where?”
Realization slowly dawned on me. This man wasn’t just a traveler passing through; he must be someone who was very much lost. He had no satchel on him, and I doubted he had much of an arrow director on him. He could be well and truly missing from somewhere, for he surely didn’t belong here.
“Are you—”
“Lost,” he stated confidently. “Completely and utterly lost.”
“Where is it you’ve come from? And how have you arrived here?” I couldn’t stop myself from walking around the counter to stand in front of him. Perhaps he looked this ordinary for a reason. Perhaps, in his realm, everyone appeared like this.
“I’m not sure how I’ve arrived.” He didn’t answer my first question, but this answer would suffice, for what more could there be to know?
“Well, you’re not from here, and you haven’t said where you’re from, so that’s clearly not important.
Because, even if you had said where you were from, it’s not as though it would help us when you don’t even know how you got here.
It isn’t as though we can get anywhere from here, given your feet haven’t told us where they’ve been. ”
There wasn’t a hint of understanding or recognition in his eyes. In fact, it was the most vacant expression I’d ever seen in my life—more vacant than the insufferable woman from the other day. “Pardon me?” he sputtered, at a loss.
“Well, you can’t cross a chasm if you don’t have a bridge, so what’s on the other side doesn’t matter until we’ve figured out the bridge. It won’t matter where you’re from if we haven’t got a bridge for how you got here.”
He looked down into my eyes, a smile lighting his face. “That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes sense.”
“You’re really more like a riddled self than a human.”
The crinkles returned. “And now I’m lost again.”