6.

After Everyone Came Back

Talon's Reach, AGH 1

Merrit Cade had their coat over one arm when the man from across the street asked where his watering can had gone.

“Under the bench.”

“I looked.”

“The other bench. In the yard.”

The man looked toward the kitchen door, then back at Merrit. “Would you show me?”

Merrit put their coat on the chair.

The can was where they had said. It had been used to carry water to a house farther along the street, then brought back and left behind a box of cloths. Merrit moved the box. The man took the can, turned it over to inspect the bottom and thanked them twice before asking whether it was all right to use what was in it.

“For plants, yes.”

“That's what I wanted it for.”

“Then yes.”

When Merrit returned to the kitchen, someone else was in their chair.

It was the broad chair at the end of the table, where a badger could sit without the arms pressing against their sides. Merrit had brought it down from their rented room upstairs. Their coat hung from its back. The woman occupying it was leaning forward to talk to Ada Benítez, who had come back yesterday and was making tea in the kitchen she shared with Merrit and the other tenants.

Ada's voice filled a place Merrit had got used to hearing empty. She was talking about a customer who might or might not be expecting her to cut his hair. She had found three messages, none with a date that helped, and her scissors were still in the bag where she had put them before she and the other humans on this street vanished.

Merrit stood beside the table until the woman noticed.

“Oh. Is this yours?”

“The coat.”

The woman passed it to them and continued her conversation. Merrit could have asked her to move. Instead they took the straight chair, sat too far forward on it and looked at the repair order protruding from their workbag.

A small motor, a replacement bearing, a customer who had already been told it would be ready. The bearing was waiting at the shop. Merrit had meant to be there when it opened.

Ada set tea in front of them. Her short brown hair had dried in a flat place on one side. Usually she would have put that right before coming downstairs; today she kept touching it as though surprised to find it there.

“Drink that while it's hot. And when you have a moment, could you look at the lamp? It still doesn't switch properly.”

“I did the fitting.”

“Then perhaps I'm doing something wrong.”

Merrit looked at the cup instead of answering. There was a hair caught crosswise in the fur on their wrist, which they had been trying to remove since they sat down. It came away between two fingers. They lost it at once.

The woman in the broad chair said, “Were you with the ones at the laboratory?”

“No.”

“I wondered. They said there were animals from all over.”

“I was here.”

On the radio they had heard that the animals defending the laboratory had held off a manifestation of Ruin while the portal was repaired. The repair had worked. The humans had returned. Merrit had listened to the announcement standing in this kitchen with a wet cloth in their hand, then put the cloth down and gone to the front door. There had been people in the street, people they knew, calling to one another. Ada had arrived carrying her bag. Merrit remembered the sound of it striking the hall floor when she let it go.

“But you kept all this going,” the woman said.

Merrit drank their tea. It had already cooled enough to swallow.

The woman asked what it had been like. Ada turned from the counter to listen too.

Merrit could have told them about carrying food from one refrigerator to another, about a window that would not stay closed, about finding someone asleep in a room they had thought empty. They could also have gone upstairs and shut their door. The thought of the pillow was so plain that they felt its cool cover against the side of their muzzle.

“There were a lot of things to do.”

“I can imagine.”

Merrit did not think she could, but explaining would have been another thing to do.

They put down the cup and picked up their bag.

“I have to get to work.”

The woman rose at last. In the hall she stopped beside the stairs, leaving just enough room for Merrit to pass if they turned sideways.

“I wanted to say properly. People haven't forgotten what you've done.”

“Thank you.”

“We know it wasn't easy.”

Merrit waited. Their coat was slipping. They hooked it more securely over the bag.

“And if there's anything you need—”

“Could you—” Merrit began, looking at the space beyond her shoulder.

“Merrit?” Ada called from the kitchen. “Before you go. Where are the cups?”

They knew where the cups were. It would take longer to explain from the hall than to point.

“Just a moment,” they told the woman.

*   *   *

Ada had opened the upper cupboard. The plates were still on the shelf where she had left them, and beside the plates was a space she was examining with both hands resting on the counter.

“Below,” Merrit said.

She opened the lower door. The cups sat in two rows, green specks showing through the clear glaze. Ada took one out and turned it until the handle faced her.

“These were my mother's.”

“I know.”

“They've always been up there.”

“I couldn't keep fetching the stool.”

Ada looked at the stool beside the refrigerator. Merrit had used it, and another stool, and once a chair that had shifted beneath them. They could remember the particular tightening in their legs while they waited for the chair to settle. They had not broken a cup. Now they wished, meanly and without wanting any cup broken, that they had something visible to show her.

“You could have put the ones you were using on the counter,” Ada said.

“There wasn't room.”

“There is now.”

“Yes. Now.”

She held the cup by its handle. Her fingers fitted through it easily. Merrit had always held the cup in both hands.

“I only meant I'd like to put things back.”

“Then put them back.”

“I don't know where everything's gone.”

“The cups are there. The food's in the refrigerator. The lamp is in the front room. You can do what you like with all of it.”

Ada set the cup down. She missed the place she had been looking at, so it struck the edge of a saucer and made a small, hard sound. Neither piece broke.

“I didn't ask you to leave.”

“No. You keep asking me to stay.”

The words came out louder than Merrit intended. The woman in the hall stopped speaking to someone outside.

Ada glanced toward the door. Merrit hated having an audience for this almost as much as they hated the careful expression coming over her face.

“I pay rent here too,” they said. “I have work.”

“I know you do.”

“Do you? Because this morning—”

“I don't know whether I can take the wood off the window.”

Merrit stopped.

Ada pointed past them to the yard. “I tried to open it. It won't move. I don't know if you've made it that way, or if it broke, or if I'm supposed to leave it alone. The lamp lights but the switch sticks. I don't know what you've done. When I ask, you say it's dealt with.”

Merrit shifted the bag in their hand. The motor order had folded against its buckle.

“The catch was broken already.”

“I didn't know.”

“I told you.”

“When?”

They remembered saying it while Ada stood in the hall yesterday. She had been looking up the stairs. Merrit had gone on telling her about the window, and about the food, and she had asked where her bag was, although it was beside her foot.

“Yesterday.”

“I don't remember it.”

Merrit put their coat over the broad chair again and slid their bag beneath the table, farther under than it needed to go.

“I can show you.”

“All right.”

“Then I need to stop.”

Ada nodded. She moved the cup away from the edge of the saucer and followed them to the window.

*   *   *

The window opened onto the small yard, where washing hung from the upper rail and a stack of empty crates stood beneath the lower one. Merrit had fastened a piece of wood across the lower corner of the frame. It did its job. They had looked at it each time they came through the room and been glad it was there.

Ada put a hand on the catch.

“Not that,” Merrit said. “It doesn't hold.”

“Then how do I open it?”

“You don't. That's why I put the wood there.”

“I want to air the room.”

“Open the door.”

“All day?”

Merrit looked at the yard door. From the table it had seemed a perfectly good answer. Standing beside Ada, they could see the strip of hall through which everyone had been coming, and the open front door beyond it.

“No. Not all day.”

They showed her where the old fastening had worn loose. It was visible if she leaned close, and she did. Her shoulder brushed the curtain. Merrit held the cloth aside rather than tug it away from her.

“So that needs replacing.”

“Yes.”

“Can you get one?”

“I can find out if the shop has one. I haven't looked.”

Ada kept her hand on the frame. “I can ask when I go past.”

“They'll need to see what sort.”

She took a pencil and a scrap of paper from the shelf, then stopped. “Will a drawing do?”

“Take the old one in. The wood will keep the window shut till someone fits the new one.”

Ada looked toward the hall again. “After lunch, then. I can ask the others.”

Merrit almost offered to take it themselves. They knew the shop, and they knew what to ask for. They also knew how far it was from the part of the bench where their motor waited. They let Ada put the paper in her pocket.

In the front room, the lamp stood on the small table beside the sofa. Ada had left her hairdressing bag open on the cushions. Scissors, combs and clips lay in a precise row beside a crumpled piece of paper. One of the combs had a tooth missing. Merrit noticed it and looked away.

They held the lamp by its stem and moved the shade gently. It stayed level.

“That was loose. It isn't now.”

Ada pressed the switch. The light came on; when she pressed again, the little button caught beneath the edge of its housing.

“That's what I meant.”

“I haven't opened that part.”

“Do you think something's bent?”

Merrit could picture a small spring, a piece of grit, a worn edge. Any of them might account for what the button did. They had not seen the inside of this model.

“I don't know.”

Ada pressed it once more, then took her hand away.

“The woman at the end of the street repairs these. She used to bring her daughter to me. I'll ask her.”

Merrit turned off the supply at the wall and unplugged the lamp. Ada gathered the cord. The shade was wider than she expected when she tried to lift it past her open bag; she had to set it down, move the bag and begin again.

“I'll take it this afternoon.”

“You'll want to ask first. She may be busy.”

Ada looked at them over the shade.

“Yes,” she said. “She may.”

Merrit could not tell whether that was aimed at them. They did not ask.

Ada set the lamp by the hall telephone and made the call. Merrit waited in the doorway while she explained the sticking switch.

“After four,” Ada said. “I can bring it. Do you need the shade?”

She listened, then thanked the woman and put down the receiver. She took the shade off and left it on the small table in the front room; the lamp she set beside her bag.

The cupboard latch took less time. Merrit opened the door, let it close and pressed it lightly to show that it had caught. Ada tried it herself. The door remained closed. She pulled it open, watched the small tongue move and shut it again.

“That used to come open when someone went past.”

“Yes.”

She pushed the kettle farther back on the counter. “Good.”

Merrit found they wanted to show her the old screw, which they had kept in a little dish. There was no reason she needed it. They left the dish where it was.

At the refrigerator, Ada crouched to look inside. Merrit stood behind her and named the containers they had moved there. The jar on the door was something one of the neighbors had brought; Merrit had not opened it. The two square boxes had come from the same kitchen, but they had only eaten from the first.

“There's bread in the tin,” they said. “Not much.”

Ada lifted the first box and looked at the stew inside. She set it beside the other one.

“We can have those. Who's here for lunch?”

“I don't know.”

“All right. I'll ask.”

A man appeared in the yard doorway carrying an armful of wet sheets. He had been staying in the back room since his return; Merrit had found clean bedding for him last night. Now he wanted to know who had stacked crates under the lower drying rail.

“I need to get these up,” he said. “Merrit, can that lot be moved?”

Ada straightened. “What's in them?”

He looked past her toward Merrit. Merrit had got as far as the yard door before they noticed.

“Empty,” they said.

“Then we'll move them,” Ada said. “Will you help me after you've put those down?”

“I can't put them on the ground.”

“Use the basket by the door.”

He looked. The basket was there.

Ada took the top crate. “Here?”

The man considered the space she had indicated. “No, the door opens that way. Along the wall.”

She moved it to the wall. He put down his sheets and took the next one.

Merrit returned to the table. Their coat had slid from the broad chair and lay on the floor. They picked it up, shook a strand of thread from the sleeve and sat down.

*   *   *

By the time Ada had found out who wanted lunch, the kitchen had become quieter. The man with the watering can had gone home. The woman who wanted to say thank you had found someone else to talk to outside. From the yard came the squeak of the upper rail as sheets were drawn along it.

Merrit was looking at the repair order again. They had smoothed it flat, but the fold still passed through the customer's name. On the third attempt they read it correctly, used the telephone in the hall and told the shop they would not be in until tomorrow.

Someone at the other end said something about the motor.

“I know. The bearing's there. If nobody can do it today, tell him tomorrow afternoon.”

They listened, pressing the receiver against the fur below one rounded ear.

“No. I'm going to bed.”

When they came back, Ada had both square boxes open. One contained stew. The second was thin stock with a few loose pieces of onion at the bottom.

“I thought there were two,” she said.

“There are two boxes.”

“I can see that.”

She looked at the bowls she had set out. Merrit could divide the stew, thin it with the stock, find another pan. They knew where the pans had gone.

Ada opened the bread tin. “There's enough if I toast it.”

“Only if nobody wants much.”

“Then they can have eggs too.”

She took eggs from the refrigerator and put a frying pan on the stove. Merrit watched her find the pan without asking. It had been in that cupboard before the disappearance. They had not moved everything.

The man from the back room came in with the empty basket under his arm.

“Is that for us?”

“It was going to be stew,” Ada said. “Now it's soup, toast and an egg.”

“Fine.” He put the basket beside the door. “I don't need an egg if there aren't enough.”

“There are enough eggs.”

He drew out a chair. Ada asked him to get spoons and he did.

Merrit ate a piece of toast while Ada stirred the pan. The toast was dark at one corner and scarcely warm at the other. They ate it all. Their hunger, which they had lost track of, arrived with the second bite, and they accepted a bowl when she offered it.

After lunch a woman knocked on the front door. Merrit heard her ask for them, then the particular rise in her voice when Ada said they were resting.

“They said they'd tell us what happened.”

“I haven't said that,” Merrit called.

Ada came back along the hall. “She'd like to bring someone with her.”

“Tomorrow after supper.”

“Both of them?”

“No.”

Merrit rubbed their eyes with the heels of their hands, careful of the claws. They were tired of hearing how tired they sounded.

“By herself. If she wants to know about the laboratory, I wasn't there.”

Ada nodded. At the door she repeated the time and the invitation. The woman tried once more to explain who she had wanted to bring. Ada said that tomorrow was what Merrit had offered, and closed the door when the woman had finished.

Merrit had stood up while she was speaking. They put the repair order back in the bag and lifted their coat.

“Do you want me to wake you?” Ada asked.

“No.”

“All right.”

Upstairs, their room smelt of the laundry they had never put away. They shut the door, set the bag down and hung their coat on its usual hook. The bed was as they had left it, one corner of the blanket folded back, a book lying face down where it had fallen from their hand.

Merrit turned the book over and put it on the floor. They meant to take off their waistcoat. Instead they lay down and listened to the kitchen below.

Someone opened a cupboard. The latch clicked. A chair scraped, then stopped. Ada said something Merrit could not make out, and the man from the back room laughed.

They waited for their name.

There was the sound of water, then a plate set down. Merrit loosened the top fastening of their waistcoat, pushed one foot out from under the blanket and slept.

*   *   *

Early AGH 2

The front door caught Merrit's coat pocket on the way in. They freed it, checked that the stitching had held and stood in the hall, smelling something cooked with onions. Ada had asked them to supper after work.

“Kitchen,” Ada called.

“I've got to put my things away.”

“I'm not serving yet.”

They went upstairs. On their table lay a bill they needed to pay, beside the book they had been reading. They put the bill in the workbag for tomorrow and changed out of the shirt that smelt of oil. There was time to sit on the bed, and they did, working a stiff finger against the palm of the other hand. The shop had been busy. They could have stayed on the bed comfortably for a while.

Below, Ada dropped something and said a word loud enough to reach the landing.

Merrit smiled. They got up and went down.

She had set the table for two. There was a shallow dish in the oven and a small bowl of sliced oranges on the counter. Her hair curled away from her face on both sides now. She was wearing a shirt with a fine spray of someone else's dark cut hair clinging to one shoulder.

“You've brought work home,” Merrit said, pointing.

“Oh, that man.” She rubbed at it and made it worse. “Don't start me until we've eaten.”

“Where do you want me?”

“Anywhere. Leave that chair for the dish.”

Merrit took the one nearest the window. It was open a little at the top. They looked at the new fastening and reached out to touch it. Someone had fitted it neatly, with the plate sitting square against the frame. It could be worked without having to hold the window in just the right position first.

“Who did that?”

“The fellow who was here in the back room. His work's a little farther away now, but he came over.”

Merrit moved the catch once. It held.

“The other sort would have fitted,” they said.

“This was what they had.”

“Yes.”

Ada brought the dish to the table. Merrit moved their hand from the window and took the spoon she offered. The onions had browned along the rim; beneath them were soft potatoes and pieces of fish. They wanted the edge where it had caught against the dish.

“Will you have that?” Ada asked, seeing where they looked.

“If you don't.”

“I had some while I was cooking.”

They lifted the crisp piece carefully. It broke before they got it onto the plate, and Ada caught the smaller part with her fingers.

“Cook's share,” she said.

The cups were on a different shelf. Merrit could see them through the open cupboard door, with Ada's other things gathered around them instead of stacked behind. One had been left beside the kettle. She brought it to the table and sat down.

For a while they ate. Ada asked whether the shop had taken on someone else, and Merrit told her about the new assistant, who labelled every drawer before learning what was in it. Merrit had spent part of the afternoon putting things back under their former names. Ada wanted to know whether the former names were any better.

“They were the names of the things.”

“To you.”

“To anyone who wanted a spring.”

“Did he put the springs somewhere else?”

“He put them under tension.”

Ada looked at them, then laughed with her mouth shut because she was still eating. Merrit had thought that was funny at the time too, though they had not said it to the assistant. They let her finish before explaining that it had meant they could not find the one they wanted.

“Now,” Merrit said. “The man.”

Ada put down her fork.

“He wanted his part on the other side.”

“So you put it on the other side.”

“I tried. He said that wasn't the side he meant.”

“Which side did he mean?”

“The other one.”

Merrit waited.

Ada pushed her hair flat on one side and drew a line through it with a finger. “I showed him in the mirror. This way?”

“He said yes?”

“He said, 'Not that left.'”

Merrit laughed. Ada kept her finger against her head with the offended expression of a person being asked to do something quite unreasonable.

“I said, 'Point to your ear.'”

“Did he?”

“He pointed at the mirror.”

This time Merrit had to put down their spoon. Ada abandoned the expression and laughed too. A strand of her hair fell across her forehead, and she left it there.

“What did you do?”

“Went round the chair. Pointed to each actual ear. We established which was which.”

“And then?”

“I moved the part. He liked it. He said it made him look younger.”

“Did it?”

“It made him look as if his part was on the other side.”

Merrit helped themselves to another small piece of potato. Ada was still eating from her own plate, picking out a last piece of fish.

“I've got him again in three weeks,” she said. “I'm going to make a note.”

“Which ear?”

“I ought to take him outside and mark the direction on the pavement.”

“He'd have to sit facing the same way.”

Ada considered that. “I'll stick to the ear.”

They cleared the dish between them. Merrit carried it to the counter, where the browned corner had left a little patch worth scraping. Ada handed them a piece of bread without comment and brought the oranges to the table.

“Tea?”

Merrit looked toward the hall. Their room was upstairs; the bill was in the bag. They pulled their chair out again.

“Yes. Have you got any of that ginger left?”

“A little.”

“Put it in mine.”

Ada took a knife from the drawer. Merrit sat down and began separating two slices of orange that had stuck together, while she told them what the man had wanted done with the back.