HENRY LOOKS DIFFERENT on Saturday.
A purple halo of light surrounds him. I blink and blink and blink. But the aura stays.
As he rings in customer sales, I sneak peeks at him over the top of the shelves. I can’t bring myself to say one snarky thing to him. Usually by now he would’ve chastised me about my guitar playing or asked me when I expect my luggage, which still isn’t here. But he hasn’t uttered a peep all day.
When he’s quietly working alone, the aura has dark streaks. But when he interacts with customers, recommending Hozier to the older ones and Damien Rice to the younger ones, he’s all smiles and thumbs and floppy hair, and the aura brightens to lavender.
I see the auras of every customer in the store. Greens and blues and yellows. They’re all there if I concentrate hard enough, but Henry’s is vivid. I don’t even have to try to see his. I’ve never met anyone else with a purple aura before. Purple auras indicate a highly sensitive, deeply spiritual person. They’re prone to depression. Relatable since, according to Pop, my aura is also purple. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never been able to see my own.
Pop’s aura was like tie-dye. Never the same color twice.
When the store is empty again, I open another box of albums to shelve and, before I can talk myself out of it, take a swing at casual conversation.
“So. Your dad tells me you’re a photographer for a website.” Not technically true, since I had to online stalk him to uncover the one clue George did give me. I’m betting on him not questioning my source.
He glances up at me, but his aura doesn’t turn lavender when our eyes meet. It darkens.
“I’m a freelancer.” He steps away from the register and makes himself busy straightening displays.
I refuel and try again. “So, I looked at the site.”
“Hocus pocus, child of nature stuff, but the pay is decent.” He doesn’t turn around. I narrow my eyes, because I know good and well that purple aura people don’t say things like that. Besides, his t-shirt from the other day and his interview responses in New Ages contradict him.
“So these ley lines. They’re energy lines?” I nudge. “I googled it. They’re a possible place of supernatural connection, right?”
Henry leaves his spot and rounds the counter. He reaches into the shelf below the cash register and pulls out a book, worn and frayed on the binding. It’s the book he was reading the day I arrived. He hands it to me.
Ley Lines of Britain by Alfred McFadden has a tree in a misty field on the cover. I flip it open. Copyright 1925.
“What is this?” I raise an eyebrow as he returns to his post. The pages smell like a basement. I skim through them, picking up words I stumbled across online. Geoglyphs. Dowsers. Magnetic fields. But everything else is watered-down pseudoscience. It doesn’t even try to assert itself as fact. A tad different from his quantum-whatever-whatever books.
“Are you trying to communicate with ghosts?” I ask, my voice a little squeaky and unsure. He stacks book after book in the rock biography section like he’s building a fortress that will block my attempts to converse. “Because if you are, I want in.”
He looks up at me then. Pauses a moment. “My mother…” Henry stops and regroups. “She taught me to be open to every idea, to pursue my curiosity even if the idea appears silly and unfounded. That’s all.”
The front door opens as more customers enter the store. Henry leaves his station to greet them. For the rest of the day, each time the store empties of customers, he takes a smoke break. I get the feeling he’s only doing it to get away from me.
: : : : :
We’re closing the store up when he comes in.
“Hello, love, would it be possible to put these flyers…” He squints ever-so-slightly, then his eyes widen. “Hey, I know you! You’re the singer! Well, the undecided one.”
The man from the pub stands in the doorway and shakes rain off his umbrella with one hand, holding out two neon-pink papers with the other. It’s more Open Mic Night flyers like the one I saw the other day.
“Could you perhaps hang these in your window? If you have to ask George, it’s fine. He knows me quite well. Trying to drum up a bit of business because the new place down on Scoresby keeps siphoning our patrons and we don’t have much in the way of signups tonight.”
I turn to get direction from Henry, but he’s stepped away. Probably to smoke again.
“Uh, I uh—”
“Nigel O’Neill,” the man says. “I’m the proprietor of Blackfriar’s Crow.”
I take the flyers and smile. “I’m Jo. And I’ll certainly ask George about these.”
“Lovely.” He grins and I try not to stare at his teeth. “Have you decided yet if you’re a singer? That is why you were poking around the other day, yes?”
“Well, sort of,” I begin, but don’t really know how to tell him why I want to play at his pub without betraying weirdo vibes. “My father used to play there, a long time ago.”
He raises his bushy eyebrows and chuckles. “Is that right? Back when folks wanted to play there, I guess.”
“Nigel!” George’s voice echoes through the empty store. Nigel and I both turn. George and Henry file out of the office. He makes a beeline for us as Henry goes to the cash register to pull out the till.
“Well hello, my friend!” Nigel says, as they clasp hands and firmly shake. George looks down at the flyers and asks, “May I?” and then takes them from me.
“I was just asking the young lady here if you could perhaps display these.”
“Oh, I think we can handle that. Help me decide the best spot for them.” George slaps Nigel’s back and leads him to the door.
I open my mouth to say the words. My father is Nate Bryant. Was. Nate Bryant. But the moment slips by.
Nigel pauses at the door and looks back at me. He points a finger in my direction. “And I’ll see you later, isn’t that right?”
This has to be a sign. Has to be.
“Yes.” I give him a sincere smile. “I’ll see you later.”
