It was a resigned wave of the hand. Perhaps it was a wave of defeat, or maybe apathy. Grandfather grunted to underscore the general dismissal. “Those doors there are fickle. Never mind them.”
Steven looked over the oaken mass of the large French doors with a general weariness, but for different reasons than his grandfather. Alone, it was not in the strangeness of the door’s size or apparent elevated level of craftsmanship, but the knowledge of adding yet another improvement project to a growing, expansive list. Something made him stop and take them in, like an itch on his eyes that he could not scratch without first examining the door before moving on.
“How are they fickle, Pops?” Steven asked. He twisted the knob and rattled the doors in their frame.
Grandfather grumbled and huffed as the world weary tend to do. “Sometimes the lock gets stuck, sometimes the handle… and sometimes, the entire damn door. It has a mind of its own. I wouldn’t worry about it. You can ignore them.”
Which meant immediately to Steven that he had to do the exact opposite, because ignoring them would only lead to other problems down the road. He wished again that he was not the only family around to help Pops, but he was, so he knew he had to deal. He was the responsible one, the smart one, the one with the easy career, and the one sibling that would take care of it since dad had died. He was the sibling that would deal with all of it… Pops’ failing health, the way he forgot about what he had said the day or hour before, sometimes mistaking Steven for Gregory, Steven’s dad and Pops’ son. But Gregory had passed on before Steven had left primary school, and Pops had tried his best to be a good father figure. He was the one that had put Steven through University, and encouraged him to seek out what he wanted to do. All in all, he had been a great grandfather.
Maybe that was the actual reason that Steven was the one to deal with it. He loved Pops for what he had been in Steven’s own life, more so than what Pops had been to Steven’s brother and sisters.
Looking back on it now, Steven appreciated it all the way down to his core. But what he did not appreciate all the work it would take to get Pops’ place ready to sell on the open market. His grandfather needed care. Specialized care. The brochure, with its heavy card stock and high gloss finish again poked at Steven’s thigh through his pants pocket, reminding him incessantly that Pops couldn’t stay here, at least, not for much longer. His dementia was getting worse. And the house… it needed a lot of work.
Steven let his hand linger on the brass knob, and studied the doors. Pops kept moving down the hallway, headed for the study to get back to his tea and the afternoon Football Club match playing over the radio.
“Where did this…” Steven trailed off, Pops was already out of earshot. He continued, talking to himself. “Where does this door even go!?”
He racked his memory, trying to remember if he had ever been into the room beyond. He started to think like a typical engineer, breaking down the problem. These were French doors, internal to the house, and not on an exterior wall. Hinges hidden by the door frame, so the doors swung inward. A bathroom wouldn’t have French doors… the study-slash-library-slash-den was down at the end of the hallway where Pops had already retreated. The house was old and odd to boot, but having two libraries seemed a bit out of place even for an old country manor. A sunroom, maybe? A ladies sitting room? But why the ornate doors? Those would have stood out in his memory. He had been in this house countless times. And this would not be new?
Like so many larger estates across England, Wales, and Scotland, a large number of castles, country estates, and manor houses had sprung up over the centuries, but the families had slowly wilted under the pressures of modernity and the never ending assault of taxes and upkeep. Pops’ house was on that list. Maybe three hundred years ago, it was a well appointed respectable country house for a barrister or functionary of the court, but now, it was just a pile of rocks and beams that needed to be hit with a very large remodeling budget and teams of competent workers.
Neither of which Steven had on hand. He ran his hand over the carvings in the wood, feeling the ornate and complex patterns that seemed to make sense. As soon as he thought he found a pattern, the sense fled from his consciousness, leaving only a sense of perplexed confusion in its wake. The doors were strange. But in a house full of strangeness, it was just another item to be tacked onto the list.
Plaster falling. Old switches burnt out and the plates blackened. Exposed wiring. The leaks and the creaks, and there was probably vermin to boot. Wouldn’t be a surprise at this point.
Steven sighed, sounding more like his grandfather than he knew. Honestly a match and some petrol would fix this too, he thought. But he didn’t have the heart to do that to his Pops… the old man needed some money to cover the care that the NHS simply couldn’t do wholly. Steven moved to catch up to his grandfather in the study.
“Pops?”
His grandfather sat in his chair, his tea held in both hands, aptly listening to the match. A small bear sat in the seat across from him, holding a tea cup of its own in large oversized paws. The bear’s lips were pursed as they blew across the top of the cup.
“Uh.” Steven tried. Every word in his vast lexicon failed to be shaped by his mouth or his brain.
“This is Posey. Posey this is Steven, my grandson.” Pops waved at both of them with a free hand in an attempt to provide the heavy lifting of a formal introduction.
“Pleasure. Harold has told me so much about you!” The bear squeaked, gently placing the cup in it’s matching saucer with both paws.
“Careful, Posey,” Pops mumbled.
“Oh stop it, you old goat. When was the last time I spilt?” Posey admonished Pops, sliding off the chair and onto her hind legs. She only stood about four feet tall, at the most.
“Last week, and it took me an hour to scrub the rug. Because of your two sugars, I might add.”
“Three, love. I take three sugars. But it was exercise, wasn’t it?” Posey laughed lightly, her snout lifting with each bark of her laugh. She waddled over and offered a paw covered in her dark mousey fur for Steven to shake.
Steven’s eyes must have been the size of dinner plates, and his eyebrows probably had retreated from his face. But he fell back to the social norm he was trained to use, and he shook the bear’s paw lightly with his hand.
“Ah, Posey is it?” Steven finally managed. “Nice to meet you.”
Posey smiled? Can bears smile? And turned back to her seat, lightly jumping up and dropping into the chair, sitting like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Your tea is right there, Stevey.” Pops pointed at the side table, the cup was still steaming lightly in the afternoon light slanting in through the wide windows overlooking the rear garden.
Steven took the cup and saucer, taking the open seat across from the two of them. The transistor radio crackled lightly from the side table, announcing the play calling as the match progressed. Steven could only focus on the bear, sipping lightly from the cup, while they eyed the biscuits sitting at the side of the saucer.
“There’s biscuits?” Steven interjected into the radio narrative.
Posey pointed at the cellophane roll sitting near the radio, “Help yourself, love.”
“Come on! Another yellow card!? Simmons, you twat.” Grandfather added his own commentary over the radio announcer in consternation.
“So your Grandfather tells me that you are trying to shuffle him out of his house?” Posey asked.
“Um. Well. Yes. Not so much as a shuffle, but a change,” Steven took a bite out of a biscuit, thinking how to best respond to a bear asking personal questions. “Ah… he needs some… help.”
“I am not an invalid. My age catches up now and then. So what? I can feed myself, dress myself, and pay the bills and no brochure in your pocket is going to change that. Now, can you two whisper and conspire while I listen to the bloody game?” Pops grumbled without turning from the radio.
Posey leaned forward and held a paw up to her snout, “You think he needs help?”
“Am I hallucinating?” Steven took another measured bite from the biscuit feeling as if he was in a trance.
“Do I have five arms or something? Bug eyes? Ooh, wings like a fairy?” Posey teased. “Although to be fair, I would love fairy wings.”
“What?”
“Oh, I think having fairy wings would be terribly convenient. Flit everywhere, if I could.”
“No, the fact that I am talking to a bear. That can talk back.”
“If you would listen, you would discover everything converses in its own way. So a bear is not all that strange when you think about it. Although, I do suppose talking to a dumb bear would have its challenges. Do you converse with dumb bears often?”
“Well, no…” Steven said.
“…Well, that is strange, innit? You don’t converse with bears often, you don’t converse with dumb bears at all, then a right smart bear having a conversation with you shouldn’t be an event of any note.” Posey winked, taking another sip from her cup. “Although, if you are hallucinating, that would mean you are the mad one, and in need of help, not your grandfather, which seems quite sound in comparison, if I were to say so.”
“Uh, yeah, I guess that makes sense?” Steven tilted his head and leaned back in reluctant defeat. What was he even trying to argue? Yes that was it, Pops moving out. He tried again. “He does need help though. It he isn’t getting any younger. He needs help here and there.”
“Of course. That makes sense. Of course, everyone needs a little help time and again. It takes a village to take care of the young, the old, and the sick. But… I think he is in good hands.”
“Come again?” Steven tilted his head at the phrase ‘good hands’. Wouldn’t it be good paws if she was speaking about herself? Was she?
“Between a loving grandson, such as yourself, and the folks in and around the neighborhood, your grandfather is in a great spot! All these great folk here to help him out and make sure he is happy, healthy, and well.” Posey laughed lightly, her voice was nearly musical. “The sheep on the property are useless, but that is because they are sheep. Baa baa and all that. Right helpless creatures, I, of course, blame the domestication. I have seen sheep in their more natural, untouched form and they are fierce!”
“The sheep?”
“Yes, dear, do try to keep up. The sheep? You are in Wales. Of course there are sheep.” Posey teased. “The sheep outnumber you all by three to one.”
“Yes, penalty kick! Go lads!” Grandfather yelled at the radio, his forgotten tea still clutched in one hand.
“Where do you live?” Steven was flailing. He knew he was flailing terribly. How does one converse with a bear and sound at ease? Can you be calm with a bear? Conversational Bear and Chill. That sounded like the name of a book somewhere.
“My house is next door.”
“With the Lancasters?”
Posey set down her drink in the cup. “No, silly. Not next door to the property. Next door to this room. Come, I will give you a proper tour. You can leave your tea.”
Steven looked at his tea guiltily and took a final swig. “Of course.”
She clambered down from the chair and crossed the room on her hind legs, turning the corner down the hallway. Steven felt as if he leapt from his seat to follow, setting his cup down on the table. Pops was lost in the broadcast. He turned down the hallway, attempting to catch up, and turned the corner to find Posey at the strange door, standing ajar.
“How? It was locked?” Steven said.
Posey grinned and tapped the carved door. “Naw. This door is clever. Like me. It opens when it needs to. It connects the neighborhood.”
“Neighborhood?”
“I swear to God you sound daft, Steven.” Posey rolled her eyes.
“I’m not!”
“You might be.”
Steven raised his hands in frustration. It felt like arguing with one of his own older siblings. “I’m not!”
Posey looked over him with an appraising eye, squinting as if making a decision. “Fine. You’re not. Come along. Mind your head.”
“What. The…” Steven stopped dead.
Posey was in a kitchen. A Posey-sized kitchen. The counters were a half a meter shorter, and everything was to scale to the small diminutive bear. It was quaint and cozy, decorated with small pots of greenery here and there, a window box of bushy herbs in the kitchen window, and copper pots of all sizes arrayed on hooks and wall boards.
“I borrowed the pans and pots designs from Julia Child’s kitchen design. It was very clever. Everything has a place and everything should be in its place.” Posey grinned widely and pointed to her table. “I have been working through her first cookbook. It takes some patience to get the ingredients for some of the dishes, but everything that I have tried so far has been delicious.”
“Its the butter.” Steven said distractingly, rock still in the doorway locked in abject wonder.
“Come in, Steven. Your previous assertion as to the state of your sanity is still very much in question.”
“Oh, of course.” Steven stepped into the kitchen, lowering his head, hunching over to fit. The air in the kitchen was warm, but fresh, and carried the hint of baking bread. He closed the door behind him, realizing it was a different size on this side. How could a door be different sizes on the same plane? His engineering mind attempted to kick in, but he was distracted on all sides by the oddness of being in a bear’s kitchen.
“Come out to the garden, I have some tomatoes and basil to pick for luncheon. Your grandfather bought some fresh mozzie balls… I think a Caprese will be splendid on a day like today. Oh! Since I have you here, you can help gather some honey. The bees should be lazy by now.”
“Bees?”
“Yes, bees, silly. Buzz, buzz, wiggle their little fuzzy butts and make honey.” Posey laughed, shaking her own bear bottom back and forth. She stepped out the kitchen door, and looked over her shoulder. “Again, mind your head. Your grandfather calls my doorways ‘bloody scalpers’. The honey will be for the lemonade… I wonder if I should pop in on Mrs. Albright to see if she wants to join us.”
“She your neighbor?” Steven ducked through the doorway and stepped into a wide green country with tall trees and far off fields. The air smelled of sweet grass and heather, and brook bubbled its lazy way somewhere in the distance.
“She is in the neighborhood of course.”
Steven cupped his eyes and looked all around, seeing nothing but farmland and forest. “What neighborhood, Posey? I don’t see another building out here.”
“Oh, not here silly. This is my place. Mrs. Albright has a place all her own. I do have some neighbors, of a sort, about an hour walk in either direction on the lane. That was is the McCasilins, a nice family of badgers. Down the other are the Blackmasks.”
“And what are they? Possums? Foxes?” Steven felt that he had landed in Narnia. Any moment, Mr. Tumnus would come strolling up.
“No, of course not. With a name like that? They are obviously racoons.”
“Oh, of course. My apologies.” Steven said, teasingly.
Posey nodded seriously, missing his tone. “Of course you are forgiven, love. First time and all to my place, lots of questions to be had. Come this way, the apiary is near the fields. We can stop by the tomato garden and then move over to the basil, which is on the far side of the house.”
Steven spun in place and took it all in. The house was very much a house, a convential tenant cottage, with a bright yellow door and white shutters at each window. The walls were carved gray stone, set tightly, and wooden beams making up the frames, painted yellow to match. The house was a single level home, and over it all, a domed thatched roof that terminated at its center with a small spire topped with a weathervane. The weathervane was a black metal, and from here, Steven noted it was shaped as a bear.
“Nice place you have here, Posey.”
“Thank you kindly. I grew up here, but I sent my parents off to live with my sister once the farm became a bit much for them.”
Steven tilted his head, feeling a touch of irony. “That’s all I am trying to do with Pops.”
“Come again?” Posey walked on her hind legs smoothly, without making it seem like it was difficult or out of place.
“You sent your parents off.”
“To a lovely home, filled with cubs, close to amenities, and they can enjoy the opera and theatre. Out here is mightily pleasant, with the quiet and the fresh air, but it is far away from what they needed. The village, remember? It takes a village, Steven. So it is not the same thing at all, my young friend.”
“I am nearly thirty.”
“I know it, still youngest of the lot.” Posey pointed at the boxes sitting between two tall trees. The branches had been cut back ages ago and lent a sense of vaulted open space around the beehives.
“Well that’s true. I am.” Steven admitted. “Single and responsible.”
“I am the eldest. And a bit of a spinster. Just me, the farm, and my pets. Like these fat little guys.”
The bees were indeed fat, as thick around as Steven’s thumbs, they sounded like small helicopters as they tumbled through the air, their back legs covered in yellow and pink pollen. Posey lifted the lid of the middle column’s top most box and set it leaning against the stack.
“Aren’t you worried about getting stung?”
“Oh my bees don’t have stingers, love. Just fat, happy, domesticated little friends. No predators about in these parts. And if a wasp does show up, it gets killed by the heat they generate. So, I would say they are quite content in not having to sting anybody.” Posey slapped her hip. “Come on over here, grab that jar for me?”
Steven grabbed a small ceramic jar from the end of the row, removed the lid and attempted to hand it over.
“No silly, you have to hold it. Underneath the frame I pull up, right?”
Steven nodded. The buzzing wasn’t angry, but it was buzzing, so it still sounded angry. Every time a bee went near his head, he had the urge to flinch. Posey noticed, and smirked at his discomfort.
“You need to get out more often, I think.” Posey chuckled. She pulled the comb sheet from the front, and the cells glowed in the sunlight, bright with honey. “Hold the jar underneath, I will break a few chunks off.”
Steven held the jar with both hands, and with deft flick of her paw, the honeycomb fell, with long strings of seeping honey trailing behind it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Posey winked.
“It is.” Steven nodded. He could smell the light sweetness carried on the air from the jar between his hands. He placed the lid, and Posey lowered the frame back into the box. She returned the box lid to its previous position, and nodded as an item was checked off of her mental list.
“On to the tomatoes! This way.” The bear spun towards the fields behind the cottage.
“How did you meet my grandfather?”
The trees spread wider and further apart as they walked, and small grasses started to spring up among the ground covering. Steven was glad the buzzing, angry or not, was fading into the background noise of the grounds. Birds called out in the trees, crickets called out here and there, and the snicking sound of hoppers bouncing through the grasses beyond. The sun was warm, but not oppressively hot. It reminded him of the summers of his youth, laced with melancholic nostalgia.
“I was cleaning up the kitchen, after a particularly good potluck with some of the neighbors, and your grandfather walked in. Quite calm and collected, introduced himself properly, like a gentleman. I asked him if wanted a cuppa, he said yes, and we sat and chatted the afternoon away. Been connecting for tea and some meals ever since.”
“How long is that?”
“You are a curious one, aren’t you?” Posey glanced at him over her shoulder as she walked, her feet knowing the path by heart.
“Not a bad thing to be curious, right?” Steven shrugged.
“Of course not, love. Just an observation.” Posey stepped over a small root, and the trees opened up to a short plot of perhaps fifteen or twenty heavily laden tomato stands nearly as tall as her. “We have been meeting for tea, for maybe, ten years or so?”
He felt his face twist and shift as the shock expressed itself. “TEN YEARS?”
“That sounds about right.” Posey grabbed a wicker basket laying nearby. “Ah, the weavers left me some baskets, so kind of them.”
“Weavers? Another family?”
“Oh goodness no, small birds that live out in the fields. Right smart birds, though. They make baskets for nests, and I feed ’em stale bread hunks every so often, so they make them for me too. Absolute dears. I consider them pets, I suppose.” Posey appraised her row of plants and plucked three tomatoes the size of Steven’s fists put together. Steven marveled, but was stuck on how long Pops had been visiting his bear friend.
“Ten years, though?” Steven tried again. “Why have I not met you or heard of you or anything before today?”
“I don’t pry, Steven. Harold’s business is his own. But I think he realizes that you need to know. He is right. You should know. He does need your help, just not in the way you think.”
“Hmmmm.”
“To the basil!” Another nod, and another check off her mental list. Posey headed at an angle towards a shaded small field near the tree line, but on the other side of the cottage. They walked past other farmed sections, and all of it was in full growth. The corn was taller than he was, the beans climbed among the stalks, and lettuces and cabbages nearby were thick and lush. Carrots and potatoes seemed to be busting free from the earth they grew under.
Then there were the plants he could not readily identify. Twisting stalks of blue, topped with green bulbs the seemed nearly translucent. Bushes that had berries of some sort on them, but the berries were square, bright orange, and covered in armored spikes, like oversized goat heads that would get stuck in your socks and shoes on countryside hikes. Then a row of small bushes that moved their leaves as if they were waving in a soft breeze, but he couldn’t feel any notable breeze about. It felt like a sunny late summer day, not a cloud in the sky.
“What is this place?”
“As far as I know, I call it home.” Posey tittered. “I know what you mean. This land is named Avondie, means Avon-on-the-Dells. The Avon is a large river to the west, it separates this part of the country from Nordin, also to the west. There is a major city near the sea, capital of Nordin, named Axton. Your father calls it London in your part of the neighborhood. Mrs. Albright calls it Tontine, and it is also the capital of the Three World Empire she lives in. Our other neighbors have different names for it, and variations of all sorts, but the general shape of it all is the same. Except for you. And me. And Mrs. Albright. And the others as they are.”
“What does that mean?”
“The smart ones. The ones with souls. Those are different behind each door. Humans as you know them are not humans here. Whatever our version was went extinct sometimes during the last ice age, the sciences say, and they definitely did not appear to be intelligent, nothing more than aggressive predators. Only the Avidlys are smart, and all Avidlys are omnivores. We think it is because of our propensity to survive that our kinds developed the brains we have. It’s strange right? How everything is different, but not.” Posey pointed at the plot of the herbs and smaller plants. Basil was easily identifiable amongst many of the others. “Pick a couple dozen of the large leaves, dear. Just the leaves, not the stalks or other stems if you can’t help it.”
Steven knelt between the rows of plants, and his nose was immediately assaulted by a myriad of scents, the basil among them. He pulled the leaves gently, pinching them at the base of the stem, avoiding the smaller leaves as best he could. The big leaves that bruised at the bottom of the leaf released a basil scent heavier than he was expecting or had ever smelled before.
“These… are so much more… basil-y,” he held one of the leaves to his nose.
“Some things are better here, some things are better elsewhere. Come along. We can check in Mrs. Albright. She is a bit like your grandfather. Needs help occasionally, and loves to join in on lunch.”
“You plan on helping him? How? What about his medical needs? Or his memory problems?”
“I don’t have all the answers, love. But it wouldn’t just be me. It is the neighborhood. And now, you. Between all of us, I think we have it quite covered. Come, come, by the end of today, you will see truth of it all.”
“Maybe.”
“I can guess as to the next question you are going to ask, and I will save you the time. Yes, Mrs. Albright is what you would call an octopus. And yes, she moves about by swinging from hooks or rods, and in a pinch, with her cart. And yes, she is able to talk, you just need to allow her to fill her air bladder to respond. Its about half a second longer than you would expect in a normal conversation. Also, she is not really a she, but she picked the she, and we are ok with the choice, so we call her Mrs. because she is lovely and deserves it. She was a schoolteacher prior to becoming a revered elder, and she has learned English better than I. Mind your manners.”
“Ok…” Steven trailed off so the k turned into an exhale. He followed Posey back around the cottage and entered the door they had started from. “Wait, how do you know English?”
“Never mind that. For now, you can help rearrange the kitchen.” Posey set the basket that contained the jar of honeycomb, the tomatoes, and the basil leaves in the sink. “And then you can wash your hands and help with the prep. Things to do, love, things to do!”
Steven chuckled, knowing there was no choice but compliance. “What first, then?”
“Grab that coat rack, and put in the on the far side there. The chair, you can set in the sitting room. I don’t think anyone else will pop in, but if they do, they can join us on the spare chair in a pinch.”
“Coat rack?”
“We have Mrs. Albright joining us, and she has to sit somewhere to eat, silly. Although, I suppose it is a bit more hanging than sitting, isn’t it?” Posey put one of her claws up to her lip and thought it over. “Yes, it would be considered hanging, but I suppose it is the same as our sitting, because she is relaxing in her own way.”
“Alright, can I just stop for a moment and say all of this strange?” Steven moved the coat rack anyway as he said it, and put the chair down in the center of the nearby doorway, dropping himself into it heavily. Something hit him in the chest, and he couldn’t identify the feeling. Helplessness? Fatigue? It tumbled about inside of him angrily.
Posey continued to move around the kitchen, gathering ingredients, plates, knives, and other prep instruments; a bowl here, a cutting board there. “What is strange?”
“All of this,” Steven sighed heavily. “I came over to help Pops understand the process of moving him out. I mean, I can’t… I just…”
Posey stopped, and wiped her hands off on a nearby tea towel, watching him carefully.
Steven continued feeling something start to shift in his chest, “I don’t know if I can do all this. You know? This is all so… bloody strange! I don’t have any help from my family. My sisters and brother are all but useless. The health service is only providing the bare minimum. But Pops was putting coffee cups in his underwear drawer! And he forgot my name the other day! He called me Gregory! Gregory!”
“That’s his son, Steven. You must remind him mightily of his own.” Posey’s tone was comforting.
“I know! I get it! But…” Steven pulled the glossy brochure out of his back pocket and handed it to Posey. “But… I don’t think I can handle it.”
“Handle what, dear?” Posey set the brochure, still folded on the table.
“I can’t handle losing Pops. Like he was my dad after my dad passed, right? Like I can’t…” Steven started to cry, feeling the unnamed burden finally given a definition, and all the worry, anxiety, and fear woven around the problem seemed to fall away. “I need him. I can’t do any of this on my own! Responsible one, and all that. Rubbish. I can barely handle getting dressed some days. I can barely handle work most days. And now I have to fix this place up, I have to find a place for Pops, I have to do all these things…”
“Shush, love. Its all solvable, love.” Posey laid a hand on Steve’s shoulder and pulled him into a hug. Since he was sitting and she was standing, it was almost a completely normal hug. Almost. “Just need some luncheon, some talk, some eye to eye with your grandfather. Mrs. Albright is right smart, I am here to help… and we have others. Lots of others…”
Steven leaned back and wiped at his eyes guiltily. Posey kept her paws on his shoulders.
“You need help. You just were looking in the wrong place, right? There is help, then there is real help. I think we can do both, alright love? Now, wash your hands. You can slice the tomatoes. I will wash the basil. And get Mrs. Albright in here.”
Posey strode to the familiar door, the one that had lead from his Grandfather’s hallway. She laid her hand on the knob, gave the French door a pull, and the door opened to a blue room. The light was brilliant, shifting and layering through a ceiling of glass with trees above stippling the rays across the floor. For a moment, it gave the illusion of waves just overhead, and Steven felt like he was snorkeling without the water. The room had bright paintings on nearly every wall, not framed, but hung on individually knotted frames, pulled taut on ropes and attached to pegs that were hung around the room.
“Mrs. Albright? Are you available to join us for luncheon?” Posey called from the doorway.
“Oh, Posey dear! Yes, luncheon would be lovely. Just a moment.” There was a gentle humming sound, and a blue and gray octopus rounded the corner on a well crafted metal cart, with no visible batteries, just a bar set above it between two poles, and a number of controls along the top of the smooth surface of the cart. Presumably, it Mrs. Albright which hung from the center bar, her mantle shifting and pulsing behind large bulbous expressive blue eyes. Two tentacles looped around the bar, holding her floating in space, and the others dangled below, operating the many controls built into the top her transport.
She indeed had eight tentacles, but they appeared to have varying lengths and purposes to Steven’s eye. The cart though, it was something else. It was something that he knew was unlike anything he had ever seen before. He was struck out of his appreciation by the voice of an octopus’s exclamation.
“Oh, ho, ho. You have a new guest! A human. That would mean it is Harold’s boy, Steven. Don’t get up. I mean it. Just stay there and I will come to you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Good afternoon.” Steven felt strangely calm. Is this how one feels meeting a talking octopus that did not live underwater?
The cart hummed into Posey’s kitchen, and came to a stop a foot or two from Steven in the chair. Her eyes were blue, but the pupils were nearly square, shifting to a barbell shape as they focused on him.
“By what I have read in the magazines, you appear to be handsome. Good for you, young man!” Her voice was light and airy, sounding like a voice box pushed by a bellows cramp.
Steven smiled embarrassingly, caught entirely off guard by the comment. “Thank you?”
Her skin shifted colors wildly along her tentacles, and up to her mantle, and back down in pulsing waves.
“Mrs. Albright is laughing heartily at your discomfort, love.” Posey grinned, and turned back to prepping lunch. “Spit spot, Steven. Wash your hands!”
“Yes. Hands. Right.” Steven stood and crossed over to the sink. He knelt down, washing his hands carefully, then the each of the tomatoes under the crisply cold water. He grabbed the cutting board, a small knife that was probably a large chefs knife for Posey. “How thick?”
“A hisket-thick is fine… apologies. About half your finger width? Doesn’t need to be perfect. The tops can go into that bucket there near the door, compost bound.” Posey said. “How is your day proceeding, Mrs. Albright?”
“Well, well. Thank you for asking. I received a missive from my youngest great-great-grandchild, her name is…” Mrs. Albright cascaded a series of whistles and clicks, and then continued on. “The closest translation I have been able to ascertain is ‘peach’, but that is a not quite correct, as a peach is edible, but my fourth-daughter is not. English is a strange language, I understand why German does what it does with concatenations.”
Steven looked over his shoulder and nodded appreciatively. “You speak German?”
“Most of the your ‘European’ languages that Harold has brought over for me. He loaned me his ‘laptop’ and his ‘wifi’ for something called ‘Duolingo’. But the ‘internet’ thing you all use is quite fascinating! Your grandfather warned me that most of it is quite terrible, but I have found a few ‘sites’ that are useful indeed. Do you speak any other languages?”
“Sorry, no. Just the English, and poorly at that,” Steven joked. “I’m an engineer.”
“Hand me those tomatoes, love.” Posey nudged Steven lightly. “And hide that brochure lying on the table before you give your Pops a conniption.”
“Well, English is my sixteenth language. Serendipity I suppose that it landed on a lucky number.” Mrs. Albright sighed.
Steven could watched as her mantle adjusted and changed shape with each enunciation, and colors appeared to shift subtly as she spoke. He snatched the brochure off the table, folded in on its crease and shoved it into his back pocket once again. Mrs. Albright seemed to shift one eye towards him, as if she was raising a non-existent eyebrow.
Posey strode towards the ornate French doors once again, closed it slowly on the shifting bright blues of Mrs. Albright’s house, and twisted the knob again, opening the door right back into Pop’s hallway.
He stood at the ready, a plate of sliced mozzarella balls held between both hands. “They lost the damn game, Nil-two.”
Posey took the cheese from him, nodded towards the table with a smile. “There is always next week, Harold.”
“Football?” Mrs. Albright wheezed.
“What else, Mrs. Albright?” Posey tittered as she started to assemble the luncheon. “Steven, love, take the pitcher and the glasses over. Also, the bread basket.”
“They could not get an opportunity across the box. They had multiple opportunities to make something happen, but half the team must have been sleepin’ on their feet,” Pops grumbled. His eyes brighten when he poured glasses of the lemonade. “Oh the good stuff.”
“You silly goat, its always the good stuff. Steven, dear, take these to the table.” Posey pointed at the plate of beautifully dressed Caprese salad.
Steven felt his stomach rumble in anticipation. New experiences make for an ample appetite, he supposed. Although his breakfast seemed a world away, which in a way, it was.
His grandfather took the basket of bread, and Steven laid the plate in the center. Mrs. Albright flashed a number of bright colors, and Posey nodded at the implied approval as she and Steven took their seats.
Pops took Steven’s hand, laying his other over Posey’s. “Good God above, bless this meal, bless our friends, and bless the lads so they can kick a ball straight next week. Amen.”
Steven hiccupped a repressed laugh, while Posey laughed brightly into the kitchen air, and a flurry of colors ran down Mrs. Albright’s tentacles. The emotions were expressed differently, but Steven noted how much alike the emotions were, underneath the obvious and apparent differences, laughter was universal.
The door opened again as they started to eat, while Mrs. Albright was asking Grandfather about the intricacies of football. A small electrical flash of plasma popped into the room, bouncing lightly across the room and out the still ajar garden door, leaving a trail of ozone behind it.
“Oh dear,” Posey grinned. “It seems that one of Phasme’s kids wanted to get out. Hopefully, it wasn’t because they were in trouble.”
“Let ’em burn off a bit under the sun, I think,” Pops shrugged. “Kids have to find their own way back.”
Steven noticed Pop’s eyes were looking right at him, and Steven smiled. “We will figure it out, Pops.”
Posey squealed, “These are so good! Goodness me, I love mozzie balls!”
The kitchen rang with laughter, and the door swung back quietly, knowing everything was well and as it should be.