The Doldrums

The spring blossoms were stunning and I look forward to seeing what everyone is cooking up for the summer festival: Saturday, July 10th. And save the date for the autumn festival: Saturday, September 27th.

By the time he used all of the stamps, Archer had a paper cut on his tongue and his mouth was rife with glue.

“That’s all there is,” he said, and stood up to leave.

“Hold it,” his mother replied.

A large pile of unstamped envelopes sat next to her. She grabbed her purse and went to buy more stamps. Archer groaned and plunked his head to the table. This was not how things were supposed to be in Helmsley House. Helmsley House was a shrine to exploration and adventure. Not a place to spend your days licking stamps.

Archer had always thought his grandparents would return and whisk him off to incredible places. Instead, they whisked themselves onto an iceberg and Archer was left alone. He continued thumping his head up and down. The doorbell rang. Archer paused, thinking he’d knocked himself silly, but there followed a second ring. He poked his head into the hall.

“Don’t answer it,” said the badger. The fox agreed. But Archer went to the door.

♦ SCARLET TRUNKS ♦

Not only was someone ringing, but they were also jostling the doorknob up and down. Archer was too short to reach the peephole, so he went to the window and pressed his face to the glass. The front steps were cluttered with trunks that hid whomever they belonged to.

It’s them! he thought, dashing back to the door.

Archer threw it open, but the man who stood before him was not his grandfather. This man was tall and slender and wore a dingy jumpsuit stained with grease and grime and smelling of gasoline. He had a kind face and a gentle eye, but only one. An eye patch covered the other. Archer swallowed hard.

He’s here for the glass eye! Archer thought.

“So this is the Helmsley House,” said the Eye Patch, peering over Archer’s head and around the foyer. “I’ve heard it was lovely, but this is the first I’ve seen it with my own eye!” He directed that eye at Archer. “Are you Archer?” he asked.

Archer went prickly and nodded carefully. He knows my name?

The Eye Patch must have sensed his unease because he quickly stood to the side and pointed at the trunks.

“I’m only here to deliver these,” he said. “They belonged to Ralph and Rachel—were at the Society in Barrow’s Bay for nearly two years. Not sure why no one brought them before.”

The trunks were scarlet, well-worn, and beautiful.

“These belonged to them?” Archer asked.

The Eye Patch nodded. “Mind if I bring them inside?”

Archer helped the man lug the trunks into the foyer. There were five in total, and once they were all inside, the Eye Patch returned to the front steps.

“Those trunks won’t be in here for long,” he said with a somber look in his eye. “I know what everyone thinks, but I put my bets on your grandparents being alive.”

Archer wanted to believe that. “It’s been two years,” he said.

“That’s true,” the Eye Patch admitted. “But Ralph and Rachel have seen worse.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Now I’d best be running. A few of your neighbors looked like they might call the police—don’t think they see many greasy eye patches roaming Willow Street these days.”

Archer would have smiled, but he was too busy wondering who this man was. Before he could ask, the Eye Patch tapped a finger to his forehead and disappeared down the sidewalk.

Archer shut the door and knelt before a scarlet trunk, grateful his mother wasn’t home. She wouldn’t have let these into the house. But he had to be quick. She was only getting stamps. He clicked the latch on the trunk, lifted the lid, and all at once he was surrounded with peculiar smells—a bit of seaweed, a whiff of mist, and a faint yet distinguishable hint of swamp.

Inside the trunk were his grandfather’s belongings, but just as he began to dig, he stopped. There were footsteps outside. Someone was at the door. His mother. Archer slammed the trunk, grabbed the smallest one, and dashed upstairs. As he sprung for his bedroom, a shrill yelp sounded from the foyer. He threw the trunk under his bed and casually returned downstairs.

The trunks were already gone, and in their place stood a dusty and sweaty Mrs. Helmsley who looked at him as if he had a spider crawling on his forehead.

“Have you been upstairs this whole time?” she asked.

Archer nodded. “I was trying to brush the glue off my tongue,” he replied. “Why?”

Mrs. Helmsley wiped a dirty hand against her cheek. It made a streak.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “That’s the end of it. Now, into the kitchen—I have more stamps.”

Archer couldn’t stop guessing what was inside the trunks as he licked his way through a second mountain of stamps. When Mrs. Helmsley released him, he hurried upstairs with three more paper cuts on his tongue.

♦ HELMSLEY GOLDEN AGE ♦

Archer sat on his bed across from the small trunk. Inside he found a pair of binoculars, a bundle of old journals, and a tape labeled “audio conversion.”

Archer untied the journals and carefully flipped through the pages. They were filled with details of his grandparents’ travels, and from the dates he figured they had been around twenty-seven when they wrote them. Archer had leaned back on his bed and was reading a journal when something struck him. He sat up and removed the tape.

“‘Audio conversion,’” he mumbled. “But that means—”

He ran from his room with the tape in hand.

At the end of a narrow third-floor hallway was a large room lined with skinny windows on one side and maps on the other. Stretching down the center was a long wooden table littered with more maps and globes. Archer hurried past it to the corner of the room, where a smaller table held a complex audio system. He inserted the tape and sat down.

For all its dials and gauges and knobs, the system had one simple on/off switch. Archer clicked it and hit another, but instead of hearing his grandparents’ voices, he heard static and a voice saying, “Bonjour?”

Archer grabbed the microphone. “Brochure?” he asked.

“Oui, bonjour.”

“Free brochure?”

“Oui! Bonjour.”

“Thanks, but I’m not interested in a free brochure.”

Archer wasn’t sure who this person was or what they were selling, but he didn’t care. He flipped a different switch. The tape clicked on and began rolling. Archer leaned forward.

T A P E S T A R T

A LOUD CRASH / A STRANGE SQUAWK / THE POURING OF TEA / AND THEN THE VOICES OF GRANDMA AND GRANDPA HELMSLEY

A PHONE RINGS AND GRANDMA HELMSLEY ANSWERS

FOOTSTEPS RUNNING FROM THE ROOM / GRANDMA HELMSLEY STILL ON PHONE

FOOTSTEPS OF GRANDPA HELMSLEY RETURNING / GRANDMA HELMSLEY HANGS UP