Turn 3 of 8

Ask Iris to come out and join the conversation

"Iris," you say, without raising your voice. You don't need to. The shop is small and the back room is closer than he thinks.

"You can come out. You should hear this."

There is a silence that has a particular quality to it — the silence of someone deciding whether to pretend they were not eavesdropping. Then the door opens, and Iris comes through it with the careful, slightly guilty expression of a nineteen-year-old who has been caught at something and is trying to decide whether to be embarrassed about it. She has sawdust in her hair from the shelving, and her sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and she meets your eyes with the steady look she gets when she has made up her mind about something and is waiting for you to catch up.

"Sorry," she says, to no one in particular, and then looks at Aldous. She does not flinch. She takes in the soaked coat, the shaking hands, the coins on the counter, and her expression shifts from guilt to something more careful — not pity, not fear, but the focused attention of someone who is cataloguing. You have seen that look on her face when she is identifying a compound. She learned it from you.

"This is my apprentice," you tell Aldous. "She has good ears and better instincts, and if you are asking what I think you are asking, I will need her."

Aldous looks at her, and something in him loosens — not much, but enough. Perhaps it is easier to speak when the room is not empty except for the person you are paying. Perhaps he sees something in Iris's face that reminds him the world still has ordinary kindness in it. He nods, once, and his hands flatten against the counter as though he is trying to press them still.

"Iris," he says. "My name is Aldous Vane. I have something following me, and I have been told it cannot be killed. I do not want it killed. I want — I need — to find a way to let it rest."

Iris looks at you. You give her the small nod that means listen, don't speak yet, and she turns back to Aldous and folds her arms and listens. The lamp gutters again. Outside, the wind has dropped, and the street is very quiet, the way Little Halloway gets when the evening settles in and the farms go dark.

You lean forward on the counter. "You said you took something," you say. "Eleven years ago. In winter. Somewhere you were doing different work." You let the shape of it hang there, incomplete, an invitation rather than a demand.

"Tell us what you took, Aldous. And tell us where."