45

When dawn broke, Mick was sick of the sight of Connor Perry. He at least had a better idea of what he was going to do, though; the plan remained to deduce which of them was the real postmaster, and he thought maybe he had the means.

First, though, he needed to sleep. Just a little bit of shuteye, that was all. Even his Stakeout Stamina ability had its limits, especially at the low level it was now. After that, he needed to wash, dress in fresh clothes, and have a bite to eat. He’d have to miss his morning run. In fact, he’d had to miss quite a few of them lately. He was quickly learning that being a sleuth meant compromising a heck of a lot.

Soon, there was a knock at the door. Seelka Syrne had gotten changed, though she still didn’t look much fresher than Mick. If she’d managed more than a few hours’ of sleep, he’d have been surprised.

“Morning, Seelka,” said Connor Perry, smiling. This was repeated another five times by five pleasant postmasters.

Seelka gave them all an unsure wave. “They at least don’t weird me out as much today. The morning sheds new light, and all that.”

Mick nodded. “You sort of get used to them. Let’s talk outside.”

Sunhampton was only barely waking up. From Connor’s house, which was one of three dwellings on Bobbin Hill, he had a good view of the northern end of Coiner’s Way where some of the merchants were setting up for the day. Paisley Porter was standing outside her store, soaping her display window and then wiping away the smears with a huge, yellow sponge. Across the street, Percy Tattersall was doing the exact same thing at his bookshop, casting a glance back at Paisley’s windows every so often to gauge the comparative cleanliness of his own.

Though this was still early for some folks - people like Lewis Cooper, for instance - Seelka was perfectly at ease being up and about at this time of day. It was part of being a postie, after all. She made a cup of coffee for herself and Mick in Connor’s kitchen. The six Connors asked for one, too, but Seelka wasn’t as hospitable as Mick had been.

“I’m going to ask my pal Lee Hunter to see if he’ll watch over them for a while,” Mick said. He sniffed his armpits. “I could use a bath.”

“I could keep an eye on them.”

“Lee won’t mind. I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone with them. They seem pleasant enough, but you never know.”

“Why can Lee stay alone with them, and I can’t?”

“He has a crossbow,” said Mick.

“Ah. Fair enough.”

When Mick went home, he found Ma sitting on the couch, eating a slice of toast covered in so much marmalade it was less, ‘toast with marmalade,’ and more accurately ‘marmalade with a bit of toast.’ Mick was about to comment on this being why they got through so many jars of the stuff, when he noticed that she had a look like thunder. Suddenly, as he always did when Ma had this kind of look, he felt like a kid again.

“Look who’s finally showed his face.”

“Sorry, Ma. I should have sent word. I was out all night on a case.”

“A case, was it? Hope it was a good one. Important enough to miss dinner.”

The dinner! With a sharp stab of regret, Mick remembered that he’d promised he’d be home for seven the previous evening. “Oh, heck. The meal! I’m sorry, Ma. I really am.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to George. He made lamb casserole.”

“I’ll say sorry to him.”

“Well. That’s all well and good, then,” she said, in a tone that indicated it very much wasn’t all well and good.

“How about I take you both for some grub tonight at the King’s Head? To say sorry? Eh? My treat. C’mon, Ma. We both know you can’t stay mad at me.”

And it was true. The talent of keeping up annoyance at her only son was one Ma had never mastered. Kiera? Well, Ma could stay mad at Mick’s sister for days. The two of them were just so much alike. But not Mick, she could never keep a fire or ire stoked long when it was him who was in trouble.

A hint of a smile crossed her lips. “Fine. But if you agree to dinner again, you better not miss it.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

After a quick bath, a bowl of honey cereal, and dressing in a clean shirt and trousers, Mick headed out into town. He stopped by the King’s Head and reserved a table for the three of them that night. Next up, he made a call to Sunhampton library, where he was disappointed to find that they didn’t have a single book on magic or spells that might help with the ‘Six Connor’ problem.

Heading back to Connor’s house, he found Lee Hunter sitting in the living room on a couch. He had his hunting crossbow on his lap. Facing him, sitting on the couch opposite and on a few dining chairs, were the six Connors.

“They give you any trouble?” said Mick, nodding at the crossbow.

“They’re annoying, but nothing worth sweating over. Kept asking me to make brews and sandwiches. You got any idea where they came from, these mimics?”

“Mimics?” said Mick.

Lee nodded. “Well, that’s what they are, aren’t they?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Mick stared at the Connors. None of them objected to Lee’s suggestion. In fact, they all looked rather tired of the whole situation. Whatever they were, it seemed that they needed sleep, too.

Looking at them with this new insight, Mick could have slapped his own forehead. Of course they were mimics. You didn’t see those creatures much in this part of Easterly, but they weren’t completely unheard of. Why hadn’t he even considered the idea?

“You reckon he was bitten by a mimic?” he said.

“Sure enough,” said Lee. “I’d bet my last arrow on it. Happened to my Uncle Bert when he used to live down south. Came home with two of him. My aunt didn’t mind.”

“Reckon you could stay here just a little longer?”

“My cousin’s minding the store. You owe me a beer, though. Several, in fact.”

“You got it. Where’s Seelka?”

Lee said, “Opening up the post office. She said Connor’s always talking about the ‘rain or shine’ promise, and she isn’t about to break it today.”

Mick headed to the post office. Seelka was already out delivering mail, but she’d recruited Flo Anderson to mind the office in her absence. Flo was an artificer with her own work to do, of course, but she was Seelka’s aunt, and she’d do anything for her. Not an aunt by blood, but more in the way that old family friends are often introduced to kids as ‘Aunt Flo’ or ‘Uncle Pete.’

“Hello, duckie,” said Flo. “Quite the palaver, huh?”

Mick was unsure how to respond. He hadn’t wanted anyone in town to learn about the Connor problem, and he didn’t know what to say. Surely Seelka hadn’t told Flo about the six Connors?

Luckily, Flo spoke before he could answer. “Poor Connor, coming down with flu. Seelka is a darling, she really is. I told her, ‘of course I’ll mind the office for a bit. Can’t do it all day, though.’”

“Thanks, Flo.”

“What do you need, anyway, my chick? I’m no postmaster. I don’t even know where he keeps the stamps. But I’ll try.”

“I just need to take a look at all the delivery route schedules. It’s a guard business thing.”

“Oh, well they’re….ah! Right here. Is this them?”

Flo handed Mick a stack of maps, each depicting parts of Sunhampton. This wasn’t a large town, but there were still enough streets and houses to necessitate several delivery routes if the post schedule was to be kept up.

Mick took them to the Sunny Café, where his friend Spruce saw him, gave a quick hello, then retreated back to his kitchen to cook up fried breakfasts for a bunch of hikers. He told Mick he’d whip up a Mick Special, though it might take a while longer than usual.

Over a cooked breakfast and a coffee, Mick studied the delivery routes. From what he could gather, the route Connor had delivered to yesterday had encompassed the eastern part of town, though it also extended away from the town center itself and included some of the remote farmhouses and cottages on its outskirts, stopping just short of the boundary where Sunhampton met Perentee.

There was nothing for it. He was going to have to walk a route of his own. Call in at every house Connor might have delivered mail to, and see if there was anything he could learn. It might take a while, but what else could he do?

With all the hikers catered for, Spruce Wilkinson finally pulled out a chair and sat opposite Mick at the table. Mick studied his friend’s face, noting that he looked not just weary, but maybe a little perturbed. Upset, perhaps. Spruce was usually a hard guy to read, but he and Mick had been friends for years, and he could tell something was wrong, clear as day.

“Coin for your thoughts?” he asked, while cutting into a pork sausage.

“Hope you brought your pouch, then.”

“What’s up?”

Spruce sighed. “Remember I told you that a health inspector could call at any time? And how they never tell you when, and don’t even tell you when they’re actually here?”

Mick nodded.

Spruce continued, “Well, must have happened recently, because I got this in the post.”

He passed Mick a folded slip of paper. Mick read it, feeling his stomach sink. “An ‘F’ rating? Here? That can’t be right.”

“I’m in trouble, Mick. An ‘F’ is the worst rating you can get! Might as well have written ‘F you’ on it, it’d mean the same thing. If I employed a bunch of rats as waiting staff, I’d still get a better rating than that.”

“But you keep this place so clean. No way, Spruce. This doesn’t seem right.”

“Well it’s there, plain as flour. Got the official Food Safety seal and everything. Given me three weeks to turn it around. Only thing is, there’s nothing to turn. There really isn’t. This place is so spotless you could eat off the floor. I’m serious. I’ll do it right now.”

“Settle down, pal. Let me see that.”

Sure enough, the letter had a seal on it, which Spruce had broken. The official-type language it was written in looked genuine enough. All the same, Mick couldn’t shake a feeling in his sleuth gut that something wasn’t right here.

“Leave this with me,” he said. “I’ll find out what’s what.”

Leaving the café with a full stomach, he set upon walking the postal route that Connor Perry had delivered to yesterday during the time when the whole copying thing must have happened. It was a winding trail, weaving all along the odd-numbered houses on a street and then the even side, and repeating this for every street, avenue and road in the eastern pocket of Sunhampton.

Mick wasn’t delivering mail, of course. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. Nor could he knock on doors and ask - this was the kind of problem that he couldn’t afford to let anyone get wind of. Sunhamptoners could gossip like the best of them, and if someone like Terrence Smedge on Holdcroft Way, for instance, got hold of the news, it’d be all over this part of Easterly like a bout of gastric flu.

Besides, there were just way too many houses on the route for him to stop at each one and have a chat. Even if he had an assistant or two, it’d be hard going. All he could do was walk the route and just hope something suspicious stuck out, that something snagged his sleuth instincts. In any case, he reasoned that whatever had happened, it was unlikely to have occurred on one of the busier, inner town streets.

Eventually, the route took him outside of Sunhampton town proper, though still within its land boundaries. He followed the rocky traveler road eastward, soon finding himself walking a path only barely wide enough for a wagon, sandwiched between hills on either side. These mounds of grass sloped upward and downward like waves frozen in time, and it wasn’t so hard to imagine they might thaw one day and become a green, muddy ocean. Birds chirped hello to him from unseen perches on the many oak and acorn trees dotted around, and Mick gave a cheery greeting back, beginning to wonder if maybe being a postie might have been the life for him. Then again, it might not be so nice walking these paths in winter.

Following the route, he paid a visit to the Tartyke farm, Hattie Greaves’ woodland cottage, and a couple of other remote abodes that were still classed as being in Sunhampton, but barely. Nothing at all struck him as strange, though. Not a single one of his instincts flared up.

Reaching the end of the postal route at a small patch of woodland near town, Mick took a second to sit on a tree stump. He took out the route map and studied it, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. Judging that he hadn’t, he rolled the map back up into a cone and put it in his pocket.

Standing up, he told himself he was just going to have to chalk this up to a failed lead. But that was when he saw it.

It was just a chance glance across the woodland, that was all. It was enough, though, for his keen sleuth’s eyes to light upon a lodge in the distance, partially hidden by huge belberry bushes. He glanced down at his map, then at the lodge. Sure enough, this place wasn’t marked on the delivery route.

Making his way through the woods, Mick slowed down the closer he got to the cabin. He activated Keen Eye. The ability took a second or two to work, but when it did, his eyes lit on a few details; a tree stump with an axe on it and cut logs piled up nearby. A fenced area with five lengths of chain attached to six brass hooks dug into the ground. Rose petals scattered all around. Windows on the northern facing wall, the room beyond them dark and watchful. And beneath it all, sitting in his gut like sediment in a river, was a sense that something wasn’t right.