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Uncle Richard disappeared at the brink of summer the year I was finishing college. The sun started peeking out of the ever-looming clouds and warming up the London concrete when the local apothecary called my dad, asking if Rich told us anything. By that time, it had already been three days since she’d last seen him. Rich was an odd, eccentric man, highly susceptible to his own whims, and it wasn’t out of character for him to take a spontaneous vacation.

So, we waited, and waited, and waited. One week, then a second, then Dad alerted the police. They weren’t of much use. A quick search of the place didn’t turn up any clues to where Rich might have gone. The place was undisturbed, as if the sky itself had swallowed him. Knowing Bright Bottom, it wasn’t entirely out of the question.

There was nothing left to do other than wait some more. At first, we tried to stay positive, but gloom slowly found its way into our home, through the cracks in our smiles, and the heavy silence over dinners. Dad held onto hope until Uncle Rich missed Dad’s birthday. After that his optimism withered away into a quiet melancholy.

My graduation ceremony was laced with the threat of finality, staring at me from the empty seat beside Dad as I recited my pledge. Rich’s absence sucked in all the joy around it like a black hole. Five years ago, Rich had been there when I got accepted into King’s College. Without him here now, the chapter felt unfinished. Tomorrow, I’ll be forced to find my way to the next one without closure.

***

“We can’t just leave it like that,” my dad said and turned off the telly.

It was a cold evening. Rain gently pattered against the windows, so we had all migrated to the fireplace and worked quietly to the background noise of A Good Year.

The sudden silence choked the fragile peace we’d built.

“Leave what?” my mum asked, gentler than she should have been, considering she’d been disturbed from her essay.

“The shop. It’s just collecting dust, unattended. It’s not right.”

“I’m sure Miriam is tending to what’s necessary,” Mum answered quietly.

Dad frowned and crossed his arms but had nothing else to say. There wasn’t much they could do; both had full-time jobs and no knowledge of how to tend to a resell shop.

I looked at the job applications I had lined up in my browser, all of them bleak and unenticing. Just something to carry me over to whatever was to come next, with no idea of what and when and where I wanted to be.

“I could take over,” I said.

They both looked at me incredulously.

I shrugged. “I have the proper artificer’s licence and I'm fresh out of school without a job. I can take care of the place until Rich comes back.”

“If,” Mum corrected, earning a grimace from Dad, “and so you’d just move out to live in the middle of nowhere and manage a dingy resell shop? Is that really what you want to do with your life? Think about it, Kima.”

I wasn’t eager to get into another carrier-oriented argument with her. It always ended with her throwing in my face how her family had to move all the way from Kapur and hadn’t been able to afford her education. How lucky I was to have these opportunities I didn’t really want, but my input was redundant, of course.

“Yes,” I said and crossed my arms, attempting to look as firm in my decision as possible.

Mum frowned and clicked her tongue. I waited for the inevitable return, but she simply went back to grading essays. Dad sent me a soft sad smile, but we didn’t disturb the silence again that evening.

I had expected more fight from Mum, but when she came into my room next morning, it was just to make sure I packed everything I could need. We didn’t talk besides pointing out items I should take with me. It was by far the most peaceful interaction we had since I started college.

By ten fifteen, I boarded a north-bound train in London, and four hours later I stepped off an AC-cooled bus onto the hot asphalt of Bright Bottom’s square.

The driver helped me dismount my bike from the rack and then took the bus out of town and back to its usual route as fast as he could.

I was left alone in the shade of the old stone fountain. Harsh weather had long worn away the features of the mermaid sitting atop the basin, but she guarded her wishes as stoically as ever. Afternoon sun bounced off the rippled surface, obscuring a school of tiny silver fish swimming among the pennies.

When I lifted my gaze from the water, I locked eyes with The Smiling Man grinning at me from the shadow of the town hall. I smiled back. Everything was just as I remembered, if a little older, but then again, so was I. The Wild seeped into my bones and it felt like warm embrace.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I tied up my skirt, mounted my bike and set off to End Street.

End wasn’t at the end of anything in particular. Where the street got its name was just as much of a mystery to me as it was to anyone who happened to live on it.

Rich’s shop was nestled between the home of Mrs Jankins, who’s favourite activities were gardening and spreading gossip respectively, and Sour Paw bakery, which had the best fresh sourdough bread in town five days a week. The couple was always nice to me, even if their howling sometimes woke me up at night, so I made a point to visit them later.

The shop sign gently swayed in the summer wind, and the chains holding it creaked, as if trying to imitate the call of two crows painted on each side of the gold lettering announcing: “Old Crows’ Riches, artificer’s resell shop”.

The front was firmly locked from the inside, so I circled the street to the garden. I chained my bike to the wooden fence and jumped over the low posts with ease.

Rich’s garden had held a special, magical place in my memories, but only now had I realised how they’d faded with time. Beds of herbs and vegetables were interspersed with meadow grass and stones set in twisting patterns all the way up to the brick patio. The magnolia tree I used to climb still stood in the centre, singing with a chorus of handmade windchimes hung of its branches.

I expected Rich to walk out of the backdoor with a jug of homebrewed iced tea in one hand, cookies from Sour Paw in the other, and a book tucked under his arm. He would give me a warm smile and call me down from the crown for a snack.

He didn’t. The memory faded and the house stayed silent as I stood alone in the untamed grass. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I gave Magnolia a brief hug and stepped up to the patio. The brass doorknob gave me a light zap when I touched it, and turned with ease, letting me inside. It still recognised me, even after all this time.

Inside of the house was an eclectic mess, to put it nicely. It had the personality of a wannabe mysterious bibliophilic bachelor and an elderly woman overly fond of poisonous plants. Most of them were still alive, to my surprise.

The ground floor was one big room split into a lounge on the left and kitchen on the right. One wall was completely covered by books, and the other by a dark wallpaper with an intricate pattern that would wriggle and squirm when I looked at it for too long. A wide leather couch and a coffee table from a solid block of wood sat on a faded Afghan carpet.

The kitchen corner was tiled with mismatched squares Rich had brought back from his travels. Four mustard yellow chairs stood around the large dining table; one with worn-off varnish.

It had been two months since Rich was last here, but the familiar smell of old books and herbs still lingered. I rounded every corner waiting to see him; tinkering in his workshop, sitting behind the shop counter, arguing with someone on the phone, writing at his bedroom desk.

When I walked up the creaking staircase to the loft where I’d be sleeping for the foreseeable future, absolutely sure that Rich wasn’t hiding from me, planning some childish prank, I let my bag drop to the floor with a dull thud; the last nail to an empty coffin.

I flipped my phone open and dialled Mum. It made for a short conversation of mainly her worrying and my reassuring. The apparent calm she held onto when I was leaving had completely vanished.

Second on the list was Ajah.

“Brilliant! You’ve got signal!” she cheered in lieu of hello. “How’s the weather in the middle of nowhere?”

“Less harsh than London,” I said. “Quieter, anyway.” The house creaked in response.

“I bet you can hear your own thoughts.” Ajah groaned. The city was her nest. Her roots were so thoroughly intertwined with London concrete that it was hard to imagine her thriving anywhere else in the world.

“You should come see before you start work,” I said, even if I knew the response. I knew her for five years, after all.

“Maybe I will,” she said, and it sounded empty as is crackled through the line. “Don’t forget about me until then, okay?”

I smiled, even though she couldn’t see. “As if you don’t know me. I still need to settle in. Say hi to Dan for me?”

Ajah must have pulled her phone away, because she sounded quiet as she said, “Kima says hi,” followed by even more distant but enthusiastic, “Hi Kima!” from Ajah’s boyfriend.

“Catch you later then?”

“Yeah, later,” I said and hung up.

Rich’s workshop was all dust and clutter, and I was pretty sure only half of it was intentional. There was no avoiding it anymore, so I put on a pair of suede gloves and got to work.

The tools were the easiest to organise since they came with neat toolboxes that Rich refused to use. I was mostly successful in finding them, with only six slots left empty.

The artifacts were considerably harder to organise, since they had no designated spots. Lockets, rings, glass and feathers and bones laid all over the place as if ready to be worked on. Some of the items I was familiar with; half-finished lucky buttons, looking glass, spell vials and such. Few of them I couldn’t place the use of even with my training, but that problem would have to wait for later.

I worked left to right, slowly turning a chaotic mess into a half-decent workspace. Sweeping under the table revealed even more mysteries; dirty pennies, forgotten ghost glass, a brass doorknob, an empty bag labelled “For Henry” and even one of the pincers missing from the toolbox.

The apothecary corner was marginally cleaner, probably because Miriam had some level of executive decision on the arrangement. There were only a few expired vials I took off and left the rest be.

I sat behind the front desk and watched the shop quietly breathe with all its books and teacups and pictures, a twinkle of light here and a quiet chime there, where all the clocks and watches sat.

Starting tomorrow, I’d be sitting here, waiting for the bell to chime. Here, where Rich had slowly built his little space in the world.

I wondered if I’d ever come back here if he hadn’t disappeared. If I’d manage to carve out my own space, find peace with myself, instead of occupying an abandoned nest like a vulture.

10th of July

Summer smells like sunscreen and grief.

I flew the nest and still I don’t feel free.

I dreamt of drowning again, but the surface was near.