He gaped at her. “You live here?”
“I do,” she said. “It’s our home, so maybe show some respect? And don’t worry about the house. If we worry about the little things all the time, we run the risk of missing the bigger things.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you sound like a fortune cookie?” Wallace muttered.
“No,” Mei said. “Because that’s kind of racist, seeing as how I’m Asian and all.”
Wallace blanched. “I … that’s not—I didn’t mean—”
She stared at him a long moment, letting him sputter before saying, “Okay. So you didn’t mean it that way. Glad to hear it. I know this is all new for you, but maybe think before you talk, yeah? Especially since I’m one of the few people who can even see you.”
She took the steps on the porch two at a time, stopping in front of the door. Potted plants hung from the ceiling, long vines draping down. A sign sat in the window that read CLOSED FOR PRIVATE EVENT. The door itself had an old metal knocker in the shape of a leaf. Mei lifted the knocker, tapping it against the green door three times.
“Why are you knocking on the door?” he asked. “Don’t you live here?”
Mei looked back at him. “Oh, I do, but tonight’s different. This is how things go. Ready?”
“Maybe we should come back later.”
She smiled like she was amused, and for the life of him, Wallace couldn’t see what was so funny. “Now’s as good as time as any. It’s all about the first step, Wallace. You can do it. I know faith is hard, especially in the face of the unknown. But I have faith in you. Maybe have a little in me?”
“I don’t even know you.”
She hummed a little under her breath. “Sure you don’t. But there’s only one way to fix that, right?”
He glared at her. “Really working for that ten, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “Always.” She put her hand on the doorknob. “Coming?”
Wallace looked back down the road. It was full-on dark. The sky was a field of stars, more than he’d ever seen in his life. He felt small, insignificant. And lost. Oh, was he lost.
“First step,” he whispered to himself.
He turned back toward the house. He took a deep breath and puffed out his chest. He ignored the ridiculous slap his flip-flops made as he climbed the porch steps. He could do this. He was Wallace Phineas Price. People cowered at the sound of his name. They stood before him in awe. He was cool and calculating. He was a shark in the water, always circling. He was—
—tripping when the top step sagged, causing him to stumble forward.
“Yeah,” Mei said. “Watch the last one. Sorry about that. Been meaning to tell Hugo to get that fixed. Didn’t want to interrupt your moment or whatever was happening. It seemed important.”
“I hate everything,” Wallace said through gritted teeth.
Mei pushed open the door to Charon’s Crossing Tea and Treats. It creaked on its hinges, and warm light spilled out, followed by the thick scent of spices and herbs: ginger and cinnamon, mint and cardamom. He didn’t know how he was able to distinguish them, but there it was all the same. It wasn’t like the office, a place more familiar than even his own home, stinking of cleaning fluids and artificial air, all steel and without whimsy, and though he hated that stench, he was used to it. It was safety. It was reality. It was what he knew. It was all he knew, he realized with dismay. What did that say about him?
The cable attached to the hook vibrated once more, seeming to beckon him forward.
He wanted to run as far as his feet could carry him.
Instead, with nothing left to lose, Wallace followed Mei through the door.
CHAPTER
4
He expected the inside of the house to look like the outside, a mishmash of architectural atrocities better suited for demolition than habitation.
He wasn’t disappointed.
The light was low, coming from mismatched sconces bolted to the walls and an obscenely large candle sitting on a small table near the door. Plants hung from the vaulted ceiling in wicker baskets, and though none of them were flowering, the scent of them was almost overwhelming, mixing with the powerful smell of spices that seemed embedded into the walls. The vines trailed toward the floor, swaying gently in the breeze through the open window on the far wall. He started to reach for one, suddenly desperate to feel the leaves against his skin, but he curled his hand at the last moment. He could smell them, so he knew they were there even if his eyes were playing tricks on him. And Mei could touch him—in fact, he could still feel the ghost of her fingers on his skin—but what if that was it? Wallace had never been a man of leisure, stopping to smell the roses, or so the saying went. Doubt, then, doubt creeping up on him, sliding over his shoulders and weighing him down, fingers like claws digging in.
A dozen tables sat in the middle of the large room, their surfaces gleaming as if freshly wiped down. The chairs tucked underneath were old and worn, though not shabby. They too were mismatched, some with wooden seats and backs, others with thick and faded cushions. He even saw a moon chair in one corner. He hadn’t seen one of those since he was a kid.
He barely heard Mei close the door behind them. He was distracted by the walls of the room, his feet moving him toward them of their own volition. They were covered in pictures and posters, some framed, some held up by pushpins. They told a story, he thought, but one he couldn’t follow. Here was a picture of a waterfall, the spray catching the sunlight in rainbow fractals. Here was a shot of an island in a cerulean sea, the trees so thick, he couldn’t see the ground. Here was a gigantic mural of the pyramids, drawn with a deft but unpracticed hand. Here was a photograph of a castle on a cliff, the stone crumbling and being overtaken by moss. Here was a framed poster of a volcano rising above the clouds, lava bursting in hot arcs. Here was a painting of a town in the throes of winter, the lights bright and almost twinkling, reflecting off an unmarked layer of snow. Strangely, they all caused a lump in Wallace’s throat. He had never had time for such places, and now, he never would.
Shaking his head, he moved on, glancing at a fireplace that made up half of the wall to his right, the wood shifting as the embers sparked. It was made of white stone, the mantle, oak. Atop the mantle were little knickknacks: a wolf carved from stone, a pinecone, a dried rose, a basket of white rocks. Above the fireplace, a clock, but it appeared to be broken. The second hand was twitching, but it never advanced. A high-backed chair sat in front of the fireplace, a heavy blanket hanging off the armrest. It looked … welcoming.
Wallace glanced to the left to see a counter with a cash register and an empty, darkened display case with little handwritten signs taped against the glass advertising a dozen different types of pastries. Jars lined the walls behind the counter. Some were filled with thin leaves, others with powder in various shades. Little handwritten labels sat in front of each one, describing even more varieties of tea.
A large chalkboard hung on the wall above the jars, next to a pair of swinging doors with porthole windows. Someone had drawn little deer and squirrels and birds on the chalkboard in green and blue chalk, surrounding a menu that seemed to go on forever. Green tea and herbal tea, black tea and oolong. White tea, yellow tea, fermented tea. Sencha, rose, yerba, senna, rooibos, chaga tea, chamomile. Hibiscus, essiac, matcha, moringa, pu-erh, nettle, dandelion tea … and he remembered the graveyard where Mei had plucked the dandelion puffball from the ground and blown on it, the little white wisps floating away.