Mystery Lake
[25] Never Wink
The named municipalities so prominently featured on the signs ended up being rather underwhelming. Climax was a single stretch of houses with a general store, an animal feed place, a post office, a church, and an unmarked storefront. Ample Hills was a nearby neighborhood consisting of mostly mobile homes, with some more stately homes scattered among the trees and a few small farms mixed in. It had a schoolhouse but no other signs of a town center. Lower Lips was actually situated on a hill. When they got to Neverwink, it was hard to miss it.
The town had an ornate sign in a slender oval placed on a stone base. The style of the name was looping and fancy, with golden letters and blue trim, and it functioned as a truncated advertisement for several local businesses, such as a bowling alley, a gun place, a hardware store, and a fish and tackle shop. The population was listed as just over 2500, and the red-brick-toned downtown stood out.
Miranda quietly grumbled to herself that her phone still wouldn't connect to the regular mobile Internet and update her map. That seemed more the fault of the service provider than any supernatural interference at this point. Chiara drove carefully through the narrow main street while the others scanned every storefront for the name Triton. The presence of an actual Starbucks occupying what used to be a bank was mildly surprising but cheerfully familiar.
Jake latched onto the small bookstore near the corner with a bold, white sign emblazoned on its covered, rounded awning called the Book Hook. The area even had something for Layla with a costume shop titled Dress Yourself. A classic rental store with actual DVDs and a bold assortment of records and eight tracks called the Crow's Nest caught Miranda's eye.
The others also found things to pique their interests, as Ross watched a large pet shop named Critter Corner, even though it wasn't at the corner. Chiara slowed the car down the most to peek through the tinted windows of a comic shop named Excelsior with all kinds of colorful displays. Literally something for everyone, which felt suspiciously like the perfect trap from a new set of clever fairies trying to eat or fuck them. Roxy wasn't gonna shake that concern easily, but she did her best not to stress. Nothing specific to her came up, but she wondered if that was because she was deliberately avoiding thinking about any of them.
The shop they were looking for showed up on a side street. It was in a faded, dark brown brick building with the slogans of old factories preserved and painted on the side. The store had no window or storefront. Instead, it was subtly marked with meager, classical lettering painted over an iron door in front of steps leading up. They parked at the back of the street next to a parking meter that made a louder-than-normal buzzing sound, like a disgruntled hive of bees.
Miranda led the way as best she could, twisting and turning while walking forward and backwards and testing the stability of her new balance. Chiara fretted about the ambiguity of the parking meter, noting that it was limited to two hours and allowed six after that, but there was also a sign that said the meters were not in operation after certain hours. Jake wrapped up Roxy more comfortably than the blanket she had left behind on the seat. Layla found Chiara's hand and swiftly dispelled some of the parking stress. Ross walked alone, weaving around the edge of the curb, almost into the street.
What passed for the entrance to the store had a plethora of small advertisements, both faded and fresh, splattered across the brick. Some of them were local businesses; others spoke exuberantly of UFO conventions passed, along with disclosure reports, ancient landmarks, and energy levels. It sure seemed like the right place, although Miranda wore her skepticism front and center about first impressions. Just inside, in a small nook, was an elevator with a narrow, manual sliding door covering the front. It smelled pungently of an impressive amount of paint and cleanser, raising concerning questions about what happened in there to require all that.
The stairs were sharply cut, rising with barely enough room to fully plant one's feet. The new boys, in particular, had a hard time adjusting, opting to prance sideways up them. As they got to the top, new smells hit their noses, like old wood mixed with teacher's supplies, 1980s lounges, and tuna fish. The worst of these began to fade as they approached the landing and faced a small hallway leading to a wooden door with an ornate brass handle. Miranda reached out first, turned it gently, and peered through the threshold.
Inside, the space was absolutely packed with just what it said on the sign: trinkets. The walls were covered in racks, shelves, and desks bearing everything from classical jewelry boxes to old lampshades, darkened glassware, faded posters, peculiar contraptions, esoteric furniture, psychedelic rugs, and a forlorn assortment of misshapen and disheveled toys. And that was just a glimpse, a small fragment of what was on display. Along the walls were an absolutely staggering assortment of tomes, ranging from delicate, darkly yellowed pamphlets to rich, ornate hardcovers that still glittered like golden treasures. The paranormal and supernatural interest slice was soon evident with an assortment of Ouija boards, scale model UFOs, labeled rocks, bottled curios, bright tarot cards, crystal balls, elaborate grids, and flickering, lit candles.
It was almost too much to take in. The six of them stuck close together, as if lightly worried that the sheer mass of objects all around might lunge out and pick off the weakest. A counter in the back held an old-fashioned cash register. Plenty of other items hung behind a table with a man swallowed up by a blue nylon folding chair that sagged in the center. Soft, puffing snores drifted around the room as he spread out with his eyes shut and head dipped.
They approached the man and glanced at one another. The guy had a practical wreath around his head of puffy, thick gray hair that bloomed somewhere between smoke, sea foam, and loose forest brambles. The dark accent of a light beard with a goatee traced his chin as a slow yawn drifted out. His clothing was a dense, vivid tie-dyed mix concentrated with light pinks and fair blues. A literal, colorful tie looped around his neck, almost down to his dark blue pants. The man shifted in place but picked up the snoring right where he left it.
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Miranda offered a subtle throat clear to rouse who seemed to be the proprietor of this establishment. The sound made the man stop snoring for a few seconds before getting right back to it. Next up, Jake tapped a hand on the counter and rang the bell.
The man shifted but didn't awaken. Long snores drifted out of his mouth as the group struggled with ideas of what else to try. Miranda proposed a next level of calling the listed number of the shop. Roxy raised an eyebrow and gestured at the sleeping man in front of them.
"Hello!" Roxy hollered at the top of her lungs. "Anybody home?"
Surprisingly, the man behind the counter didn't stir. Her swift speculation was that a fairy enchantment had rendered him unresponsive. Though not everything needed to involve fairies. He could just be deaf. Or a very hard sleeper.
The group scanned the area for anything that might surely produce a louder noise. A strange grandfather clock seemed like it would produce a rumble to quiver the entire room. After searching around the apparatus, Layla found a button marked simply "test" and gleefully pressed it.
As expected, a deep, thrumming gong sounded through the antiquated wood and vibrated against the firmament of the building as if one of the Ancient Gods were clearing its throat in anticipation of its return. The six of them had to shield their ears to stand the noise. The sleeping man behind the counter shifted his head position slightly but experienced no interruption. Considering how hard Roxy felt that shuddering wobble in her legs, she didn't know what this guy's deal was.
They could waste their breath and effort on countless other methods of trying to wake him, but Ross suggested roaming around and seeing if there was anything posted, along with going ahead with that phone call. He suspected that leaping the counter to physically shake the man out of whatever state he was in would more than likely do the trick, but also probably prompt alarm, fear, and more local police than they wanted. Dealing with those two mysterious agents of whatever was more than enough.
Several silver music boxes on display were beautiful but didn't seem to produce enough sound. Ross and Chiara crouched before a dense set of antique bells from all around the world, some made of glittering crystal, some with intricate brass designs, and a few resembling a cross between a church bell and a small chandelier. Plenty of objects in this place seemed to make enough noise to wake the dead from an eternal slumber, but every careful test wasn't enough for this dude. Roxy's idle theory about fairy enchantment sure seemed like the right tact.
Chiara found a small collection of tin wind-up toys, most with faded labels. There was a proud, muscular cowboy, a stoic figure of a Native American from decades past, and a dainty, girlish figure with a pink parasol. Winding them up set off a series of noteworthy sounds, with the cowboy whooping, hollering, and firing off his pistol, the Native American chanting and singing in a way that made Ross narrow his eyes in annoyance, and the girl loudly singing an old Southern song. They each felt some ringing in their ears afterwards, but the snoring behind them continued unabated and unaltered. This was getting to be silly.
Running out of options, Miranda called the direct number for the store on her phone. She expected a loud, screaming ringer to burst out in alarm, but the room remained silent. A click issued from Miranda's phone, and a voice calmly picked up, "Triton's Trinkets and Oddities. How can I help you?"
The voice sounded like it came from an older woman, but one with a well-honed stubbornness to her words. Miranda glanced around curiously for a moment before responding, "Good afternoon; we may need some help. We're at Triton's Trinkets and Oddities, but there's a gentleman who's asleep at the moment. Are you the answering service?"
"I'm his mum. Has my son conked out again? You oughta give them a slap for me. I'll be right down in a minute. Sorry for all this." The voice on the line soon hung up, leaving them with hopeful anticipation but still plenty of questions.
From the back of the room, a solid minute after that call ended, they heard methodically ambling footsteps with a steady, awkward cadence descending from somewhere above. Moments later, a wall that didn't look like a door at all popped open to reveal a series of stairs leading up. Through the new opening ambled an older woman with stringy, distressed white hair curled around her head like a plume of tea kettle steam trapped in place. She wore high, black stockings around her legs and pink sandals. A cane with a screaming eagle head clutched in her grip supported her as she crossed the carpet behind the counter.
Miranda started to speak, but the old woman raised a finger with a prominently poised eyebrow to silence her before any words came out. The old lady was dressed in shimmering green polka dots, stretched and contorted across a black outfit like stars under the influence of a black hole. Roxy felt casually proud of herself for remembering this scientific tidbit.
Even as the old woman reached the counter on the other side and gave a few noisy cracks of her joints, she still resisted speaking and encouraged silence from the group. She moved a display over to the center of the table and spread her arms out theatrically behind a tiny silver bell set on a matching plate. Printed words, secured and wrapped in heavy tape, adorned the front and read, "RING ME".
Having presented this, the old woman took several steps back, glanced at the still-sleeping man, and waited for something that none of them quite understood. Skeptically, Roxy approached the bell and checked out the mechanism. The handle at the top, partly made of wood, pulled back like a small lever, or slicking down prominent, errant hair. Not knowing what else to do, Roxy pulled and released.
The strange top slid along the grove to the other end, like a pendulum following what a pendulum does, and when it ran out of momentum, it made a sharp, distinct, but ultimately reserved tinkling sound in a high-pitched tone, nearly at the edge of her hearing. Instantly, the sleeping man left his relaxed, restful state and sprang to his feet with an unsteady wobble, quickly correcting his balance and opening wide gray eyes that matched the simple color of his hair.
"My apologies; welcome to Triton's Trinkets and Oddities. How may I help you, fine folks?"