Page 13 of Crossroads Magic
I adjusted the hang of my bag and jacket and blew out my breath. It fogged the air in front of me and I watched the cloud disperse, startled at the novelty of seeing my own breath. I’d been startled every time it had happened.
Ghaliya caught my hand. “You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
I nodded and headed for the open door, and stepped inside.
The light was gloomy, in there, compared to the light outside and I paused to let my eyes adjust.
We were in a hallway that looked quite normal. Directly in front of us was a wide staircase with a black, wide, gleaming banister. The steps were also painted black. A wide runner, mostly red with flecks of black and white, covered them.
To the right, through an open archway, was a big room filled with a dozen or more square, polished, wood tables, each with four big dining chairs pushed under them. The chairs were also wood, the slatted back frames dark from years of being handled. Cushions adorned each flat seat, tied with bows to the corners of the frames.
None of the tables were set, but it was only three p.m. Dinner was a few hours off, yet.
But spotting the dining room oriented me. The kitchen would be behind the dining room, accessed through a door under the stairs in front of us.
“The bar is that way,” I said, pointing to the left. There was a door just ahead of us, also propped open by another old iron. A curtain hung over the doorway, which would muffle noise from the bar. It was a very old-fashioned treatment, but it matched the building.
We both stayed where we were, Ghaliya clutching my hand.
I cleared my throat, untangled my hand from Ghaliya’s and moved over to the doorway. I pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the room beyond. Ghaliya was right behind me, crowding up close.
Itwasthe bar, just as I had suspected. It was a very big room, running the whole depth of the building, because windows were on all three sides. The long side, opposite the doorway we’d just come through, had a black door with glass panes at the top. The outer door we’d spotted in the parking lot.
Up against the wall that was common to the corridor we’d just left was the bar itself. I’d never seen any bar look more traditional and quaint. The counter was black wood—and I didn’t think the darkness came from paint, but from years of alcohol spills and the oil from thousands of palms and fingers. It was a rectangle, jutting out about a dozen feet into the room. The front of it was heavily carved wood, showing grape vines and fruit, and barley twists everywhere. A brass railing ran along the floor, for feet to prop themselves upon.
The same barley twists adorned support beams thrusting up from the bar, holding up more wood façade that reached up to within a foot of the twelve-foot-tall ceiling.
The rims of glasses peeped beneath the façade. They were hanging from racks behind the wood panels. From the top of the panels hung more lights like the reproduction lamp outside the side door, four of them spread across the length of the bar.
There were no beer pulls anywhere along the bar.
Behind the bar, the barman, wearing a green apron, stood drying glasses. He was a very thickset man, with a barrel chest and a belly to match. He had a full beard, well trimmed. His hair was long, but pulled back in a neat pony. He glanced at me and nodded.
Surprised, I nodded back.
The floor of the room was unadorned wood. Perhaps it had once been varnished and sealed, but many shoes had scuffed it back to raw wood, which, like the counter, had soaked up dirt, spills and more. Now the wood looked black.
Small tables and wooden chairs with curved round arms and backs that rose no higher than the tables, dotted the other side of the room, and were grouped in clumps near the windows at either end. Toward the front windows, along the outer wall, was a huge fireplace, which was actually burning an honest to goodness wood fire. The coals were banked to a dull glow, and a single thick log sat on top of them, with small flames licking around the edges. It would soon catch fire and start burning properly, but the room was plenty warm enough already.
I could feel my skin relaxing at the touch of the heat.
At one of the tables close to the fire sat three men. They all twisted to look at us, for the rest of the room was empty. They had big metal mugs in front of them, that I presumed held beer. The mugs were different from the usual tall glasses in which beer was served, or the big mug-shaped glasses the barman was drying, but they matched this room and the whole building.
I moved over to the bar. It seemed sensible to start there. “Hi,” I told the barman.
“Getcha something?”
“I’m not here to drink—”
“Everyone drinks, here,” the barman said. “It’s part of the charm, see?”
I didn’t see. “I’m really not here to drink,” I repeated. “I’m looking for someone. I’d phone him, but my phone is dead, and so is my daughter’s and the car I rented doesn’t have a charge port and—” I made myself stop, because I was babbling. “Anyway, could you tell me which house across the road is Benedict Marcus’ house?”
The barman put down his glass. “I’ll have to ask. Meantime, what can I get you?”
There was an odd tilt to his chin that I read as stubbornness. I sighed. I was going to have to pay for my information. “Hard Lemonade,” I requested.
“I’ll have straight lemonade,” Ghaliya said, beside me. “Thanks.”
