5
Esmeralda locks eyes with Senor. The dog scrambles to his feet and smiles the way dogs do, lolling his tongue, snuffling and slobbering, and thrashing his tail. She nods. “Sure, I’ll show you.”
Excellent. A Great Dane has green-lighted me.
“Is there some place where I can freshen up and change clothes? I’ve been driving all day.” I pluck at my sweaty tank top. “I’m not presentable for a job interview.”
I expect her to protest that I’m not welcome in her apartment, but she only nods again. “Sure.” To Senor she says, “Heel,” and strides to the glorious door. The dog trots obediently by her side.
I collect my handbag and suitcase from the backseat, lock Hi-Ho Silver, and catch up with her. A tall, arched plank of solid oak, the door is heavily carved with arcane symbols. In the adjoining wall is a console with numbered buzzers. An intercom connects to the residents within. I like that. Some apartment buildings this old aren’t wired for security.
Esmeralda pries a key from her jeans pocket and fits it in the lock. “You’ll need to get one of these from poor old Stanley. The door locks automatically, so don’t ever step outside without your key, looking for your morning paper, or you’ll find yourself locked out in your jammies.” She smiles in her sardonic way. “Unless the famous Abby Teller can open locks with magic.”
“Not yet.” Gosh. Every person with power I’ve met today has mastered more magic than me. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do at school.
Senor turns as I walk in behind Esmeralda and bares his fangs, favoring me with a full-throated growl.
“Good Senor,” I say. “Nice doggy.”
“Senor, don’t make me take the MacBook away,” Esmeralda says. The dog trots beside her, studiously ignoring me.
Huh. That is one smart dog. Does he have a web site?
We stride across the polished hardwood floor of a cavernous lobby scented with lemon wax and some sort of sweet spice. A picture window looks out at the roundabout and the fountain. Scarlet silk shantung richly covers the walls, and honeyed light streams from filigreed bronze wall sconces.
A bank of brass mailboxes takes up an entire wall. How many? I take a quick count. Twelve boxes across, five rows up. Sixty mailboxes. Sixty apartments. That’s a lot of responsibility for whoever takes the job.
Is that the catch? The salary doesn’t match the responsibility? It wouldn’t be the first time.
Esmeralda leads me past a splendid staircase braced on each side by wrought-iron banisters spiraling up from the lobby to the floors above. We leave the lobby beneath an archway and stride into a broad hall sprawling some distance in either direction.
No windows let in the last glow of sunset. The hall, spotlit here and there by ceiling lamps, holds pools of light and pools of darkness. Weird rustling whispers drift from the darkness.
I could get used to weird rustling whispers.
Esmeralda points to a pair of stately double doors standing ajar midway down the hall.
“We’ve got our own little library at the Garden of Abracadabra. There’s a lavatory. Lock the doors while you’re changing, if that makes you feel more comfortable, but leave them open when you go. The books like company.”
“I will.” I peer through the gloom. I could have sworn the hall was one long, unbroken expanse. But there they are, stately double doors standing ajar.
She points to a door at the far end. “That’s our place.” She turns and points to a door at the opposite end. “And that’s Number One, where you’ll find poor old Stanley.”
“Thanks for all your help, Esmeralda. I couldn’t have found poor old Stanley without you.”
She stares at me for a moment, wonder and skepticism warring in her dark eyes. “Are you really Abby Teller?”
“I’m really Abby Teller, and I’m really not dead.”
Esmeralda nods, apparently satisfied. I notice she doesn’t invite me over for a neighborly cuppa java, but that’s cool. Storm witches who trap tornados in pasta sauce jars and own big black snarling dogs want their privacy.
“Good luck with the interview, Abby.”
Senor growls a farewell.
“Thanks. And a good evening to you, too, poochie.”
The mistress and her Great Dane saunter down the hall, her high heels clicking on the hardwood floor in a rhythm with his canine toenails. They make a striking woman-and-dog couple.
“Senor, pipe down. You’re just asking for Alpo for dinner tonight.” She waves her hand at her door, the door swings open, and woman and dog step inside. Darkness swallows them.
She hasn’t used a key.
* * *
I step through the library doors, set my handbag and my suitcase on the floor, and stand there warily. I’m not about to lock myself in, not before I take a good look around. The feeling of being watched by someone or something I can’t see nearly overwhelms me.
Then there he is.
A man is lurking in a shadowy corner between two bookshelves. Silent, still, a strange silvery sheen to the look of him.
I crouch in the position “Street Smarts for Women” taught me. Fists clenched against my chest to ward off a blow or deliver one, feet ready to dodge or kick or flee, whichever comes first.
“Hello, sir? Sorry, am I disturbing you? Esmeralda Tormenta tells me there’s a lavatory in here, and it would be all right if I came in and changed clothes. Do you know Esmeralda? I’m Abby, Abby Teller, and–”
My voice dies in my throat.
Total silence. Total stillness.
That’s kind of rude. I stride across a luxurious Persian carpet of dark scarlets and blues to where the silver man stands.
He’s not a man at all, but a genuine medieval suit of armor of forged and hammered metal, intricate chain mail, and heavy stitched blood-colored leather. He stands strictly to attention, his gauntlets hanging rigid at his sides.
What a marvel! What’s he worth? Priceless, no doubt. I’ve never seen such an artifact outside of a major museum housing medieval antiquities. And there, in the museum I went to, the suit of armor stood well behind a rope of scarlet velvet.
What a cutie! Men of five centuries ago and much leaner days grew to manhood as a tiny, scrawny lot. Even noble knights. The top of this knight’s helmet barely reaches my shoulder.
I peek in the helmet’s eye-slots. Darkness, darkness, nobody home. I rap my knuckles on the breastplate. The rap echoes in an impressive regression as if bouncing around in a cavern far vaster than the breastplate could possibly contain.
I step back, and now the suit of armor clutches a blunderbuss in his left gauntlet. Wait a minute. Where did that come from? Did medieval knights carry firearms? Even primitive firearms?
“You’re holding an anachronism, sir. A weapon way after your time.”
Skeptical silence.
“Knights in armor carried battle axes, bludgeons, hatchets, lances, spears, swords, sure. But not firearms. Not even blunderbusses.”
Insulted silence.
“Don’t sulk. Now that we’re friends, I shall call you”–I consider the question–“Sir Tin Man. Beware of rain and rust. You like?”
Disapproving silence.
“No, I don’t like that much, either. I don’t know what metal you’re made of, but it’s certainly not tin.” I think again. “I shall call you Sir Little Big Man. Better?”
Grudging silence.
“Better, definitely.”
A chill crawls up my spine as if someone is standing right behind me, watching me. I whirl around. Nothing, no one. I sprint to the double doors, yank them shut, and shoot the dead bolt home. Now that I’m sure—mostly sure—no one is here but me, I look around.
The library has an odd shape to it. I run my eyes around twice before I realize there are five walls. The place is a pentagon. Magnificent teak bookshelves line each wall from floor to ceiling, and each shelf is crammed with books of every size and color. Each book glows faintly and smells of dust, calfskin, a touch of mold.
The scent of Knowledge. Ancient Knowledge. Secret Knowledge.
Another scent of magic.
Teak armchairs offering plush scarlet-leather seat cushions crowd around a pentagonal table with a cherry-wood pentagram inlaid in the teak top. Tiffany lamps adorn the side tables, their multicolored glass lampshades glowing like jewels.
A soft creak startles me. Sir Little Big Man has lifted his left gauntlet and points the blunderbuss toward a shadowy doorway between two bookshelves.
The lavatory, has to be.
“Thanks, Sir Little Big Man. I knew I could depend on you.” I retrieve my handbag and suitcase, step inside. I run my hand over the wall and toggle a light switch. Fluorescent light flashes on in a ceiling lamp, lighting up a tidy little white-tiled lavatory smelling of lavender soap.
I shut and lock the door, set handbag and suitcase on the white porcelain commode. I strip off my sweaty tank, step out of my short shorts, unbuckle the Isis sandals. I unclasp the silver chain with the Eye of Horus and lay chain and amulet on the little glass ledge above the wash basin. Same for my rings and bangles.
The amulet certainly got a rise out of Esmeralda. But why? What does she know about the Eye of Horus that I don’t?
Standing before the basin in my peach lace bra and panties, I worry about the antique-looking bronze faucet. But a twist of my hand coaxes hot water out of the spout. I foam soap in my palms and relish washing away the sweat and grime of a very long day on the road.
Rinsing off, I gaze in the mirror.
Who is that woman staring back at me? A woman with haunted eyes of hazel and gold? Whose face is that, a face dripping with water like too many tears?
No time for tears? No time for grieving?
Now grief nearly blindsides me, a constriction gripping my chest, an ache overwhelming my heart.
Only days ago, Mama had looked up at me, her face strangely rigid like a mask of yellow wax, her breath rattling deep in her lungs, and whispered, “Abby, listen.”
********
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