Dear Iris,
How are you? This is my thirty-eight consecutive letter, and I take much pride in my unbroken streak whenever I arrive at the post office. Many of my colleagues have gotten used to it now; they don’t even bat an eye when I mention where I’m headed. Two years ago, they’d make the biggest fuss about it, teasing me for ‘having a wife back home’, and lamenting that they are yet to get hitched.
It’s their fault. I haven’t the faintest clue about what I have to do with it. Maybe if they shaved a little and stopped paying for ‘favours’ they’d be a bit more presentable.
Anyway. Enough about them, more about me.
Work at the grocer has gone very well, although my time at the butcher didn’t set the bar too high. You remember that, don't you? Since my family are taking care of food and rent, I’ve been able to save up for something. A new pen, can you tell? It was quite pricey, but the shop owner insisted that these things were passed down from generation to generation. Like stopwatches and trauma. The owner didn’t seem to like that joke.
The pen is nice. It’s a luxury, but since I look forward to writing these letters, I figured it’d serve me better than booze. But thanks to it, my room is still rather dull. My family has been insisting I decorate a bit, or it’ll seem suspicious when guests come over. They might get accused of neglecting me.
I’m too busy saving for clothes, though, and a frightening portion of my salary disappears thanks to my appetite. I’ve toured all the street food stands I can find around here, and now I’ve no choice but to graduate to slightly finer dining experiences. Once a week, that’s what I’ve limited myself to. So, without further ado, my unofficial selection for the first month of Winter, 1941.
- Killuar Rump Steak, rare (obviously), lightly seasoned, topped with mushroom sauce and served with a garden salad. Rather pleasant. The steak itself did not disappoint, brilliantly marbled, but I think it would have been better if I had spent the extra money to eat out somewhere nicer.
- Crab quiche with chopped green onion and red pepper. Very, very impressed. Originally, I doubted the meat to be real crab, but I was proven (to my joy) very wrong. Crab is expensive, so there's very little of it, but quiche carries the flavour decently well.
- Seafood spring rolls, fried and served on a bed of assorted leafy greens and seasoned with sweet chilli sauce. Too light for my liking, albeit good in its own right. I heard the dish originated in Geverde. I wonder if you know anything about it?
- Fish and chips from the local store. By far the best thing I’ve had all month.
There you have it. I hope these recommendations aren’t going to waste.
It’s only been a few years thus far, but some in my family have taken short vacations. We all tend to err on the side of overworking ourselves, but taking vacations now and then is customary. And it’s Vesmos, fitting in is quite important in the workplace.
So that got me thinking. When an opportunity arises, I’d head to where you are, maybe for a week or two. As much as I enjoy these letters, there are many things that I can’t exactly put into words. This year (and particularly the last month) has been quite stressful. Things seem to pop up at random, and workplaces have shifted from office space to office space. Restructuring of the company, apparently. I’m just hoping I don’t end up with a raw deal.
I still haven’t made too many friends. I’m friendly with the grocer, and I think the woman working at the post office recognises me, but apart from that, there have been very few opportunities. I buy books as well, which serves as my main pastime whenever I’m not on an errand or going to and from work. It’s no different to what I’m so used to, but I’m reminded of that distinct absence whenever I receive one of your letters.
Fingers crossed I can take that vacation, and fingers crossed your mother isn’t too upset with us meeting. Bad impressions stain, and I don’t want to make them worse by encouraging you to sneak out under her nose.
Short letter, but I’m afraid I wrote much of this during my four dinners. Time has been in short supply, but considering my last letter was five times the length, I think I’ve earned some slack.
Hope you’re well and say hello to your parents and your god-grandmother for me.
Sincerely,
Alis
“Are you awake or what?”
“No. Come back later.”
“There’s breakfast in the kitchen. Get your stuff ready for school, and then eat. God, I feel old saying that,” Elliot groaned as he closed Iris’s door. She listened as he stomped down the hallway to tend to a distant crackling from the kitchen. Iris waited for the sound to fade as she rolled over and buried herself into her pillow, getting the morning sun out of her face as best she could. She had asked to go into town and buy thicker curtains, but business had been too busy to set a proper date. Lately, she’d begun to forget her gripes as soon as she finished breakfast.
Iris looked over the side of her bed, Alis’s unfolded letter face up on the floor. She’d fallen asleep reading it and guessed it fell out of her hand at some point. She pouted, remembering how happy she’d been when finding it in their mailbox and then her disappointment by the letter’s untimely end.
She was used to his letters being vague; Evalyn didn’t need to see a wax seal to tell they were being opened and read. His family and colleagues were his branch of ULEF, and the work he was doing for them paid for food and rent. The job at the grocer was a cover.
But after thirty-eight letters received and thirty-seven sent, she finally understood that the foody nature he had alluded to in his first letter was no cover or backstory. She found it intriguing and had even taken him up on his recommendations more than a few times, but Evalyn, on the other hand, was quite conflicted.
‘My daughter is pen pals with a foody terrorist,’ she’d often say, hanging her head.
But the promise of seeing him again gave her something to look forward to.
She would have begun to pen her letter, but like she’d been warned, her days were no longer hers to study, find cats or missing spouses and thwart evildoers. No. Something much worse.
She trudged out of bed and through her door, shivering and sneezing, each half of her brain taking turns moving their corresponding leg. She rubbed her eyes and unsuccessfully stifled a yawn when she felt a pair of hands grab her underarms and lift her up.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Coming through,” Evalyn said as she picked up Iris like a cat, walked her to the kitchen and placed her on an excruciatingly cold seat. Dressed for the train, Evalyn returned to her briefcase by the door, half-open and stuffed to the brim with a disorganised mess.
While she joined Colte’s investigation and Iris spent her days as a bodyguard, it was up to Elliot to cash in his—three years overdue—paternity leave and hold down the fort. A last resort, seeing that Marie had her hands full at the moment. Between her, Alis, and now Evalyn, it seemed like everyone had one crisis or another to deal with.
She watched her breakfast, appalled whenever she glanced at the hands on the clock and was reminded of how early it was. The office trading hours began at nine, meaning she could expect to wake up at eight, perhaps finesse an extra half hour if she was lucky. It was six-thirty, and she desperately wanted to shrivel into a ball.
Her plate stared back at her as her parents got ready, which reminded her that she needed to wear a special set of clothes for the day. She had begged, and Evalyn—through her liaison Ms Mallorine—had bargained with the academy to allow her to keep her jacket. Evalyn could barely give a coherent reason, but whatever Ms Mallorine said, the academy bought.
She at least had that comfort, both physically and emotionally.
“Don’t pick fights, don’t steal stuff, don’t show anyone what you can do, don’t tell people to their face that they’re stupid even if they are and…my word, you’re going to have to unlearn all your habits. Don’t swear! Don’t swear, okay? And some people don’t like it when you use the word ‘god’ in a sentence, like ‘my gods’ or ‘for god’s sake.’”
Evalyn’s thoughts ran wild as her train blared its whistle through the cavernous Excala Station, fake snow wafting from the roof to match the weather outside.
“Be good, okay? The study will be easy. Just focus on her and nothing else!”
She kissed Iris’s forehead and gave her another squeeze before standing up and kissing Elliot a ‘see you later’.
“I love you,” she said.
“I trust you,” he answered. They watched her jog to the carriage’s platform and hang from the handrail, waving them another goodbye as the train pulled out of the station. They waved her off, and she furiously returned the gesture, only ducking into the carriage proper when she came dangerously close to clipping a signpost. By then, though, she was out of sight.
“Well that was a little dramatic, wasn’t it?” Elliot said, putting his hands on his hips. “The way she acts makes me think she has separation anxiety, but every time I’ve talked to old Colte about it, he swears she’s as calm as a glass of water whenever she's working."
“Don’t you like that about mum?” Iris asked, to which Elliot pouted in agreement.
“Yeah, I love it. All right,” he said, ruffling her hair. “We’ve got an inauguration to get you to.”
“What’s that?”
“Entrance ceremony. You go, they give you a speech, and you sit and listen.”
“Did you have that?”
“No. My school had sixty kids; there wouldn’t have been a point. Everyone knew everyone, and that was probably the worst part.”
“Why?”
He took her hand as they headed for the station exit. “This thing called small-town mentality, you see. I am an unpleasant person, and I used to be worse. When there are only sixty kids in your school, that’s a surefire way to end up friendless.”
They entered the town square and began to cross it, following a path forever known to her as the way she had first ‘met’ Alis. “Take this from a former egotistical loner married to a girl homeschooled in an ivory tower from junior high school onwards, don’t be like us. Be approachable.”
“No. I’m working.”
Elliot sighed through his teeth, and his shoulders drooped. “Maybe it runs in the family.”
“Maybe,” Iris said, bothered by how the pleated skirt felt around her waist. It fell to just above her knees, allowing those to breathe before long white socks took over. The blouse and tie were less alien but did little to make up for the travesty that was the rest of her outfit. Over a white blouse trimmed with a deep red outline, the field jacket looked less out of place than Evalyn had feared, but standing out was an immediate guarantee.
Iris didn’t care. She was there for the money.
Elliot gripped her hand, and she looked up to him. He was smiling sincerely, a rarity considering even his sincere smiles were tainted with sarcasm. He let go of her hand and instead grabbed her shoulder, pushing her into his side as they walked.
“I get to feel like a normal dad for once,” he giggled.
“—and we welcome in the new academic year, striving to meet and excel beyond our standards as students, staff and people. By doing so we may—”
Even when amplified through his mask’s powerful voice box, the pear-shaped Principal’s words entered through one ear and exited out the other without leaving a single extra wrinkle in Iris’s brain. To make matters worse, halfway into his speech, she was already sitting away from the main body of students on account of a misdemeanour.
She had walked in with the rest of the cohort, shuffling in from the central courtyard into an extravagant sandstone building while being funnelled and shepherded by staff into the main hall. Tall stained windows loomed over her left, using the student body’s black uniforms as a canvas to paint with, and to her right hung framed oil landscapes and maps, most taller than her and even wider than that.
Stained pine walls and ceilings had redirected her attention to the front stage, where a lectern stood before a wall of red curtains. It was at that point a woman with the nose of an eagle, yet none of the pride stopped her with an obnoxious ‘excuse me’, citing her jacket as against school policy. Iris had explained to her the deal with the Principal rather obtusely, which she did not seem to buy in the slightest. Therefore, time out.
How long had it been? Iris checked her pilot watch and counted five minutes. Besides the compass, she could barely read the other dials and bezels that adorned the watch face, but both her parents had sworn by their usefulness when she received it for her—retrospectively determined—twelfth birthday.
Either way, she was sitting at the back of the hall next to the eagle-nosed teacher, swinging her legs and glancing around the room for something interesting to latch onto. The students, although wildly different in their look and even species, all looked the same when in uniform, and the speech was doing more to lull her to sleep than ‘in-awg-yur-ate’ her.
Then out of nowhere, the room erupted into applause. Iris jumped from her seat and assessed for danger, of which she soon realised there was none. Flustered, she began to clap as well while she picked up on the nearby teachers glancing at her. The eagle-nosed lady gave her a particularly fuming look of disapproval. Iris gave a look of her own back, and this seemed to send the woman into a silent fit of rage.
“Class 7A this way please!”
“7G could I get everyone to follow me!”
The teachers who hadn’t found themselves preoccupied over petty disputes now began to herd the cohort like sheep while the sound of thousands of feet and hundreds of voices drowned out their efforts. Before Iris could even wonder where her class was in the suffocating amalgamation, she felt a bony hand grab her wrist.
“Come with me,” the woman commanded.
Iris’s heart jumped as she tore her hand from the woman’s grasp. She held it close to her chest, backing away as she scowled. “Don’t touch me,” she warned, holding the urge to clock the woman across the cheek.
The woman, beast, whatever she was, gritted her teeth as though she’d never heard a greater insult. Her thinning grey hair stood on its ends like a cat, and the folds in her skin turned cavernous.
“How dare you!” she seethed under her breath. “The Principal will—”
“What about me?” a pear-shaped Beak asked politely, addressing the woman from behind like a well-timed haunted house scare. His mask barely moved, but Iris could innately tell he was passing his attention back and forth between them. Something about the Aether.
“This young girl is acting unruly. First a uniform violation and then retaliation against disciplinary—”
“Yes, Evone, I’ve read a dictionary before,” the Principal sighed, tiredly dismissing her. “You’re needed for first period, aren’t you? Senior Accounting, was it?”
The woman bit her lips before turning away, disregarding the crowd, and exiting the building through a back exit. Iris watched her go, cursing her with every expletive Evalyn had banned her from using.
“Iris Hardridge-Maxwell, was it?” the Principal asked, and Iris turned and nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here at the request of Janice Mallorine, my client.”
“Client?” the Principal chuckled, “that’s an awfully strange way for someone of your age to address an adult.”
“Why?” Iris asked. It was the truth.
“It’s nothing,” the Principal insisted, waving a gloved hand before offering it to Iris. She took it, and they shook hands; awfully business-like for a first day at school. Or at least that was what Iris assumed the people around them were thinking. “I’ve already talked it over with Janice, but you’ll still need a uniform pass for that jacket. Come with me, and I’ll write one up for you.”