Yesterwary

Demi’s eyes shifted from the skillet of asparagus to the face staring back from her wrist. She had burned all of her father’s personal effects except for the watch, and had adopted his habit of checking it frequently for no apparent reason. It barely worked, anyway. The second hand would, often, only tick once within the time it took for the clock tower to signal that another hour had gone by. Demi had never known a less reliable thing, save for maybe the man who had previously worn it.

“Order!” she shouted, tossing some asparagus next to a pile of noodles on a plate.

No longer feeling the need—or want—to hide, she had torn down the wall between the kitchen and the front room of the restaurant, replacing it with a wide, open window, separated only by a scuffed, bronze countertop. Her customers could see her clearly, and it made delivering food much easier for herself and for the waitresses. In the few weeks she had worked there, before Yesterwary had decided to tear her apart at the seams, she had saved more money than she knew what to do with. So, she funneled the majority of it toward making the restaurant as un-dreary as she could manage. The ceiling was covered in mismatched lanterns, possibly making it the brightest place in town. She had papered the walls with torn book pages, as they seemed to be the lightest-colored thing around, and she’d scrubbed as much of the rust and dirt from the tables and floors as she could. The Old Chicken certainly wasn’t a 5-star restaurant, but she was fairly confident that the place would have at least passed inspection in the old world. Customers were no longer visiting just to enjoy the food, but because it was one of the few places in the city that didn’t feel entirely depressing. Though, she still doubted anyone with a heartbeat and half an ounce of self-respect would willingly ingest food from a place with such a place.

She had put so much effort into the restaurant, partly, to honor Chef Kraus, as she fully blamed herself for his three-year jail-sentence. But mostly, she had done it as a means of distraction—not only from her grief and guilt, but from the terrifying contentedness she knew she would find if she spent too much time with Bastian. Over the last two months, she had gone from seeing him every day, to occasionally running into him when their downtime overlapped, which she made sure was infrequently. She still lived with him, and had even taken the leap of returning her apartment-key to Paul, wanting no attachments to the building in which her father had killed himself, but she spent the majority of her day at the restaurant. She would leave food in the refrigerator for Bastian, but it would be an exaggeration to say they’d had even half a conversation in over two weeks. And though it gashed at his insides, he allowed her to deal with everything in whatever way she needed. Because he hoped that the Demi who had bumped into him on her first day in Yesterwary would eventually return to him, and tell him stories, and maybe even smile.

“Order!” Demi repeated, taking a slip from the weapon-like spoke of slips to start on the next plate of food.

“Sorry,” Cindy said, hobbling up to the window that separated herself from the kitchen. “We’re just so busy. We could really use some more help.”

Demi looked up to the old woman’s exhausted face and glanced out over the restaurant. Every table was filled, and a line of hopeful customers weaved all the way out through the door. Perfectly syncing up with her huff of exasperation, the ground began to shake, and dust floated down from the ceiling, coughing up small, uneven puffs of smoke into the air as it landed on the red-hot stove-top. Dreary cheers and hollers rang out from the queue at the sight that the restaurant had grown.

“If one were interested in doing so, how might one go about hiring more people?” Demi asked with a suggestive grin, tucking a lock of freshly-dusted hair up into her hat.

Cindy sighed with relief and issued a grateful nod.

Demi glared up at the Wok Lament sign, which looked infinitely more decayed than it had on her second day in town. She took a deep breath and opened the door, letting her eyes adjust to the overwhelming darkness.

“What can I— Oh, you. Wonderful,” Adrian said from his desk. The tangy stench of alcohol saturated the entire room, and he looked to be in about the same condition as the sign.

“I know you don’t care for me,” Demi said distantly, “but I brought a peace offering. Or… a bribe, maybe. Whatever you want to call it, I guess.”

Adrian poked his nose into the bag of various foods and nodded, impressed. “What can I do for you, then?”

“I need more servers for my restaurant,” she said simply, taking a seat across from him.

“Ah, yes. Your restaurant. I suppose it is that, now, isn’t it? How does it feel?” Any person who hadn’t had much experience with someone who had a tendency of consuming too much alcohol might have had difficulty working out where one word ended and the next began. But Demi was well-versed in the language of greasy, arrogant drunkard.

Her eyes narrowed in on him. “Do you want the food, or not?”

“Fine,” he huffed, protectively clinging to the bag. “Are you looking for anything specific?” It is quite possible that no single person in the history of the English language had ever experienced more difficulty in pronouncing the word ‘specific,’ but stumbling over his own words had long since ceased to present itself as an embarrassing event for Adrian.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want someone who has worked in food service in the old world?” he asked, fumbling for a blank form from his desk.

“Oh… I don’t care. I just need people who can move plates from one place to another. Two or three would be good.”

“Two or three plates at a time?”

Demi squinted in her attempt to determine whether Adrian was messing with her, or if he was really just that drunk.

“No…” she said slowly, “two or three people.”

“Right, right,” he said, cupping his scarred forehead as he scribbled something illegible onto the form. Then, his lips pulled back into a tight sneer that likely would have shown itself even if he had been sober. “Have you checked the tenements? I’m sure you could get a pretty successful non-conformist operation going.”

Without hesitation Demi reached for the bag she had brought him.

“No! Sorry. Habit, you know,” he said, less than apologetic. “I should be able to shoot a few people your way over the next couple days.”

“Thank you,” she muttered, getting to her feet.

“Are you still hanging around with Bastian?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Demi’s gut wrenched at the mention of his name. “We live together.”

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” Adrian grumbled, dropping the sheet of paper on the top of a towering stack.

Demi turned to the door, but an uncomfortable, churning sensation in the pit of her stomach held her back. “It’s not his fault, you know.” She didn’t turn around, but she knew Adrian was listening, and, at that point, she didn’t care if he’d remember her words when/if he finally/ever sobered up. “We choose who we love. We can’t make them love us back, and it’s no one’s fault but our own for continuing to love them when they don’t.”

Moira was waiting at the end of the walkway, and shuffled backward to hold open the front door. The woman’s demeanor had changed drastically since their first encounter, the moment Demi showed up one night with a wheelbarrow containing enough prepared food to stock every fridge in the building. Having something as simple as flavorful food to offer had turned out to be a direct ticket to something that liked to masquerade as friendship, Demi had found, and she felt little shame in taking advantage of her unique skill. She had replaced nearly every appliance in the restaurant’s kitchen by bartering with food, she was offered unbelievable discounts at the stores, and she had gotten Kraus’ sentence reduced from ten years by making it restaurant policy that gendarmes ate for free. She had even managed to get Collet demoted to the old folk’s home, where his main purpose was to keep the less-sane ones from trying to run off into the fog. She had made life just a little better in Yesterwary—for herself and many others—but the only change she really cared about was for the orphanage. She returned, once a week, with carts full of food, and expected nothing in return. But she quickly found that food was not enough for the children, not since Michael had found it necessary to repeat some of her stories to his little friends.

Every Friday night, after the food had been put away and all the children had been provided with plates of snacks, nearly every single body in the orphanage—and, often, bored Yesterwary residents—settled in to the auditorium, which had previously been used only for speeches from the headmistress. Demi would sit at the edge of the stage, feet dangling from the side, and stare down at fascinated eyes as she did her best to string words together in an interesting order. Occasionally, a few of the more outgoing children would stand behind her on the stage, improvising her stories in, what was essentially, nonsensical sign language.

It hadn’t taken long for Demi to run out of stories that were related to her life in the old world. So, eventually, she just started making things up. Nobody seemed to mind, as most of the children thought even the real stories were nothing more than grand fairytales.

“And they lived happily ever after in the cottage on the clouds,” Demi said, chuckling as she glanced back to see a couple children using their fingers to pull their faces into somewhat-disturbing smiles.

Little bodies were already curled up on the floor, bundled in blankets they’d hauled down from their beds. Those who were still awake sighed breaths of relief, as they always did when the story ended happily. Demi had asked Michael about the reaction, once. He’d explained that they always expected something terrible to happen. From that point on, she’d made a point of ending every one of her stories on a joyful note, even though Moira had mentioned that she thought the stories might give the children too much hope. “There’s nothing wrong with hope,” Demi had told her, reciting yet another tidbit of Margo’s wisdom, “so long as you never lose it.”

“Thank you for the story, Miss Harper.”

“Thank you, Miss Harper.”

Small, tired voices muttered as they followed their caretakers from the auditorium. Demi smiled at each face, until only Michael was left to keep her company.

“Did you used to live in the cottage on the cloud?” he asked, hand firmly planted in a bowl of popcorn as he sat next to her on the stage.

“No,” she laughed. “I used to live in a place called the Midwest. There were a lot of clouds, but I don’t think there were any cottages on them.”

“So, it doesn’t exist, then,” he said, a hint of disappointment running through his voice.

“Of course it does,” she said with conviction.

“How do you know?”

“Because everything exists in stories. Everything you could ever imagine, and everything you could never imagine. It’s all real in stories.”

The young boy looked up with a look of utter contentment, and attached himself to her in a hug.

“Come on, Michael,” Moira said from the door at the back of the auditorium. “It’s time for bed.”

“Yes, Ms. Moira,” he squeaked, handing Demi the rest of his popcorn and hopping down from the stage. He scooped up his blanket from the floor beneath Demi’s feet, then hurried away.

Demi followed, but was stopped at the door.

“I would like to show you something,” Moira said, leading her down a hall on the main floor. “Since you have started telling your stories, the children have become a bit more… creative.”

The wall lining the entire hallway was covered in doodles, just as it had been on her first visit to the orphanage, but the content of the drawings had changed noticeably. Before, they had been only greyscale doodles, drawn out of sheer boredom and lack of imagination. Now, the pictures were filled with rough sketches of people, and creatures, and foods, and all sorts of things Demi had mentioned in her stories, and there were hints of color. In getting closer to the wall, she could immediately smell that the colors had been concocted from various food-items, mostly ketchup and mustard, she suspected, and combinations of the two.

“Wow,” Demi said, smiling up at the wall. Moira silently envied her expression.

“I was raised in Yesterwary, you know,” Moira said dryly, looking back to the wall. “When I took over the orphanage, I continued to run it in the way it had always been run. It seemed best not to let the children’s standards go above what we all know to be possible here. None of them will ever go on adventures, nor will they experience love. They will never be capable of smiling,” she said, which immediately wiped the grin from Demi’s face. “But… I think I would have very much liked to be told stories, when I was younger. I would have liked to hope, and to dream of things that could never be. I’m too old for that now, of course.”

“You’re never too old to dream,” Demi said. Normally, she only repeated words of advice she had heard Margo spout at some point or another, and she rarely believed it when it came out of her own mouth. But this was something she was certain of, with every fiber of her being, because if anyone ever tried to tell her any differently, she would have punched them square in the face with a fistful of angry words.

Moira stopped for a moment, mulling over the statement, then nodded appreciatively. “How is Mr. McCall doing?” she asked, walking Demi to the front door.

“He’s… he’s well, I suppose.” She looked down to her feet, suddenly feeling guilt-ridden for having avoided him for such a long time.

“You know, when he was young he used to save portions of his food to sneak out for the strays,” she recalled with amusement. “I never would have known, had I not found a kitten hiding in his pillow one evening. Mr. Goggles, he called it. Bastian has always been kind… selfless. He’s a good person. That can be very hard to come by, in this place. I’m glad he has you.”

He doesn’t, Demi thought. But she simply nodded and feigned her best smile.

“Cindy come by earlier,” Kraus said though a mouth full of spaghetti. Demi had made an arrangement with the guards where, if she brought enough for everyone on duty, she could bring food for the chef. “She say you maybe hire more people?”

“Yeah,” Demi said from the other side of the rusting bars that separated them. “The girls need help.”

“Well,” he said, noodles dangling from his lips, “thank you for taking care of them.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me. I’m the reason you’re in here.”

“Eh,” he shrugged, “this place not so bad. Food taste like everything I make for last twenty years. Everyone too sad or lazy to cause problem. I use time to work on my muscle,” he joked, flexing an arm.

“But—”

“You listen to me, woman,” he said, staring into her eyes and aiming an accusing finger at her nose. “I been in Yesterwary long time. I know what I am doing when I hire you. And if I go back in time, I do it all over again. Besides,” he said, looking back to his plate, “I come back in three years to make sure you not running my restaurant into ground. You in big trouble if you fuck it all up, you know?”

Demi laughed and nodded in agreement, then checked her watch out of habit.

“You are doing okay?”

Looking up, she noticed his eyes shift from her wrist to her face. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Bastian say he is worried about you. You not talk to him anymore. He say you hide from him.”

Demi stared blankly. “He said that?”

“Mm hmm. I remind him you not so good at hiding,” he teased. But then, his face went serious and sad as he dropped his fork to the plate. “He really care for you, you know? It hurt him that you are treating him like this.”

Demi stared in distant contemplation, then jumped to her feet. “I have to go, Chef,” she said, glancing back to her watch.

Kraus looked up in approval. “You go talk to Bastian. Make him happy. Make you happy.”

With a silent grin, Demi allowed a guard to accompany her to the door.

“Evening, Miss Harper.” Mr. Dallon, the owner of a grocery store she frequented, tipped his hat as she passed him on the street. He was one of the kinder folks in Yesterwary.

She gave him an acknowledging nod, but hurried on her path home. She burst in the door, out of breath, hoping she’d find Bastian on the couch, rambling something to Mr. Goggles about how another newcomer kept asking too many questions—he’d taken to telling the stuffed cat all the things he normally would have told Demi over dinner, and she realized this had probably been the norm before her arrival—but the first floor of the house was empty.

“Bastian!” she shouted, bounding up the unstable stairs two at a time. “Bastian!” she called again, pounding on his bedroom door. “Bastian!” she yelled once more, anxiously rattling the unmoving doorknob.

“What?!” he asked, lurching open the door, eyes shifting worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she breathed, throwing her arms around his neck and pushing her lips to his; a kiss she hadn’t felt in months.

Backing away, he examined her with mild confusion, before a smile crept across his face. “Okay, then,” he said, pulling her into the bedroom.

“I thought I had lost you,” Bastian said, tracing shapes onto Demi’s bare shoulder. “I was worried you were gone for good.”

“Temporary lapse of sanity,” she explained surely, tightening the blanket around her cracked chest. “I hear this place can do that to a person.”

“Sounds reasonable,” he chuckled, glad to have a reason to laugh again, and to find that he was still capable of doing so. “What brought you back?”

Demi sighed, snuggling in to his neck. “I was keeping my distance because I didn’t want Yesterwary to take you away from me,” she said. “But I realized that I had managed to do that all on my own. I took you away from myself.”

“You’re not worried that we’ll be too happy?”

Demi sighed, somewhat amused that her biggest concern in life was possibly becoming too happy. “I am. But I would rather be too happy and try to fight off the possible repercussions than force myself—both of us—into darkness out of fear.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” he said, grinning.

“As long as we stay together and keep away from the fog, nothing bad can happen… right?” She didn’t believe her own words, and she didn’t know that she’d believe them anymore if he agreed with her. But she wanted to.

“Right,” he said, but, much like a shelter-employee trying to convince a potential adopter that the puppy is definitely potty-trained, his voice lacked a certain amount of confidence.