Alma stood in the doorway of the shop, her hand on the doorknob behind her. For the past three months, she had avoided unpredictable places—like the busy school hallway, like anywhere new—because she was sure that being startled in an unpredictable place would lead to an episode. The flash of light, the sound of the footsteps, and the voice had all startled her.
But the episode hadn’t come.
Instead, something else had happened: that light inside her—her Alma-ness—had flared along with the blue light, just as it had with the flyer and the telescope.
Alma waited because of that feeling.
She did, however, keep her hand on the doorknob.
Upstairs there was a flurry of activity. Alma heard cabinets creak open and drawers slam shut. She heard jars being unscrewed, feet shuffling here and there, a shrill humming. Then the blue light went out.
Someone was coming down the staircase.
The someone—the owner of the voice—was so tiny that at first Alma wondered if he was a child. Then the figure rounded a spiral in the steps, and she saw that he had an enormous white beard that covered most of his face and hung down almost to his stomach. Probably, she concluded, not a child.
The little man was wearing weathered brown leather gloves and a cream-colored smock-like garment that came to the tops of his weathered brown leather boots. On his head was what looked like a brass hard hat and covering his eyes were oversize bronze jeweler’s glasses with the magnifying lenses all fanned out. The only parts of his skin that were visible were his nose and a bit of his temples. Both were smeared with blue paint. All of him, in fact—beard, hard hat, smock, and gloves—was smeared in paint.
“You’re here!” the tiny, bearded, paint-covered man cried. “Oh, I’m so very glad you’re here. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Alma stayed pressed against the door.
“The door was open,” she said uncertainly. “That’s why I came in.”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know!” the little man replied. His voice was rhythmic, almost singsongy, and tinkly, like wind chimes. “I opened it, dear soul! Do you like the shop? It’s mine, you see. I am the ShopKeeper.”
The ShopKeeper had reached the bottom of the staircase now, and he was gazing expectantly across the room at Alma. At least she thought he was. It was hard to tell since she couldn’t see his eyes.
“It’s … unusual,” she said. “Are these—do you fix these things?”
“I try,” the ShopKeeper replied. He started across the room, nimbly sidestepping a pile of rusted bicycle parts and a stack of half-disintegrated newspapers. “When I was younger, I traveled a great deal, and everywhere I went I collected.” He wiggled his gloved fingers around him. “A holey hat on the side of the road here, a stuffing-spilled teddy bear in a garbage can there, an earring without a match, a shoe without a sole—homeless things, you see. Lost things. So I would take them along with me. And now that I don’t travel anymore, I have more time to tinker with them, fix them up, paint them.”
“Do you—do you sell them?” Alma asked. She glanced down at the telescope case, hoping that the answer was yes.
“Oh my stars, no!” the ShopKeeper cried. “I should, I should, but I’m quite sentimental. They have become part of my home, you see.” Now he was on the other side of the shelf in front of her, where the telescope case had been. The shelf was almost as tall as he was, and he had to stand on tiptoes to peek over at her. “Where, may I ask, is your home, my dear girl?”
Alma’s disappointment about the telescope-she-could-not-have was interrupted by a jolt of surprise at this unexpected question.
“I—I live here,” she replied. “In Four Points. But I’m new. I mean, I’m not from here. I’m from Old Haven.” She paused before finishing, “That was my home.”
The ShopKeeper was nodding, his brass hat chinking gently down onto his jeweler’s glasses and then rising back up, his beard wagging along sympathetically. “Then you understand,” he sighed. He reached a hand through a gap between the shelves and pointed down at the telescope case. “I see you were admiring my quintescope. I made it myself.”
Again, Alma found herself surprised by his words, this time because quintescope sounded so much like the word from the flyer—quintessence. “Quintescope,” she repeated. “Is that like a telescope?”
The ShopKeeper fluttered his gloved fingers this way and that. “Sort of,” he said. “Kind of. A bit. But a telescope, my dear soul, shows you what your eyes could see if they were better, sharper. A quintescope, well, a quintescope shows you what cannot be seen with the naked eye—the invisible things, the true things, the Light within!” His voice had grown higher, more melodic as he spoke, so that the last words were not just singsongy but an actual, belted-out melody. The last note was held for quite some time before the ShopKeeper ended with a loud trilling cough. “Excuse me!” he said, his voice back to normal. “Tickle in my throat.”
Listening to the ShopKeeper, Alma felt again that the quintescope was for her. This was what she had been hoping to find here in this mysterious place—something special, something magical. She had to try again. Steeling herself with a deep breath and gripping the doorknob even tighter, she asked, “Wouldn’t you ever sell just this one thing? Give it a—a new home?”
But the ShopKeeper shook his head sharply, the hat smashing into one side of the jeweler’s glasses and then the other with a loud crack! crack! “No, no, indeed! I would never sell it,” he cried, smashing Alma’s hopes as well. Until he added, “But! I do lend it out to very particular someones. And I think you may be the next particular someone I’ve been waiting for. Let me see now!”
The ShopKeeper came dancing around the edge of the shelf. He flipped down the magnifying lenses on his glasses and craned his neck toward Alma.
Alma pressed herself more firmly against the door. Her heart began to pound. She started to twist the doorknob, and she might have run away then and there if the ShopKeeper hadn’t given a little leap and let out a high-pitched, ringing laugh.
“Yes, indeed! Mostly fire, as I predicted!” he sang. “Only a spark, it’s true. But it’s growing brighter, it’s growing brighter.”
This was the most astonishing thing the ShopKeeper had said so far, because it sounded to Alma like he was talking about her Alma-ness. But how could he be? She wanted to ask what he meant. She wanted to ask if he knew what quintessence was. She wanted to ask who on earth he was. But she felt too flustered to gather her thoughts. All she could manage was, “I can bring some money. For the quintescope, I mean.”
“Heavens, no,” the little man said, pulling the magnifying lenses back up. “No money. I only ask that you use it. Use it tonight, my dear girl—what was your name?”
“Alma,” Alma replied. “Alma Lucas. I promise I’ll take good care of it. And I’ll bring it back!”
The ShopKeeper bent down and hoisted up the quintescope case. “Not until the end, Alma Lucas,” he said, pressing it into her hands. “You come to the top at the end. Until then, I’ll be in and out, I’ll be around, but really most of the quest has to be done with the other three elementals.”
Alma clutched the quintescope case to her. “What quest?” she asked. “The other three who?”
The ShopKeeper was reaching around her now and pulling the door open. “You’ll know, dear soul, you’ll know,” he assured her with a radiant smile. “Just remember: Find the Elements. Grow the Light. Save the Starling. And now goodbye!”
“What elements? Save who?” Alma asked.
The ShopKeeper took her arm and pivoted her toward the door. His glove was so warm that she felt the heat through her jacket.
“I’ll see you by and by, Alma of the Growing Light!” He gave her back a gentle push, moving her through the doorway and out into the sunset streets.
“But—”
“By and by!”
And the south door of the Fifth Point slammed shut in Alma’s face.