This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?
Mr. Curtis munched on the bun. It was a roll flavored with sugar and cinnamon, and a very scant amount of icing kissed the top. It melted in his mouth, which was useful, as he usually liked his sticky buns filled with flies. That poor frog. He choked on me.
I turned around from where I was examining the drain and Mr. Curtis fell to his knees. “Mrs. Smith, get me a rag or something,” I said.
She ran off, her hands on her head, and I scrambled to my friend’s side. The man was on a roll. He hacked and coughed, but he couldn’t get up.
His monocle fell to the ground, but he held his top hat on.
I lifted him, and grasping him tightly around his bulbous body, I wrenched with my fist. He belched and from his throat popped something. I can’t say it was a roll. I can’t say it was an octopus either, but I could tell it was roughly golden brown, covered in what was icing or slime, take your pick, and it was spinning through the air away from us. I could tell tendrils were coming off of it, but it was moving so fast I couldn’t tell if there were three, six, or forty-seven. They were a blur until they hit the wall, and then they slowly flipped and slipped their way down to the floor.
“All right old chap?” I said, patting my friend on the back.
“Yes, yes,” said the frog, and he straightened up his jacket, shined his monocle, which was attached to his lapel with a thin chain, and placed it back in his eye.
We approached it, and looked at the flesh-colored thing, now slightly tinged with green. It squelched on the stone floor and wriggled at us.
“Oh my,” said Mr. Curtis. “What have we here?”
He leaned in and looked it over.
“What strange magic is this?” I said, taking a step back.
“I don’t know, Mr. James, but whatever it is, we have got to sort this out.”
“Indubitably.”
“Hand me that poker.”
I looked around and against the wall was a disused fireplace, with a poker beside it. It was so dark I hadn’t even seen it. I took it. The handle was covered in a fine layer of soot. I wiped it off absently, then gave it to Mr. Curtis, who reached out with it, hooking the little creature on the end of the rod.
Its tentacles closed quickly around the end and explored the poker. Mr. Curtis lifted it.
“Can you get a light?”
“Oh, yes.”
Mrs. Smith returned at that moment and gave me the wet cloth.
“Is he…”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine madam, thank you,” said Mr. Curtis. “Can I… do you have a light?” he was carefully watching the tentacles get closer and closer to his gray-green hand.
“Oh yes,” she said, quickly returning with a lantern.
We boggled at it. It recoiled from the light and crawled as far away from us as it could. Mr. Curtis kept it held in the air.
“Here, you take it for a moment,” he said.
I reached out and grasped the handle.
“Thank you,” he said, first wiping his face while the thing slithered down to grab at me.
I held the lantern up with my other hand and it recoiled again. “Come now, Mr. Curtis. Any ideas?”
“I’m working on it. Let me check something. Just a moment.”
He removed his top hat and looked inside. “Very Interesting.”
“What is that?” said Mrs. Smith.
“That’s an excellent question.”
He fished around in his hat and brought out a few other rolls he’d been saving for later.
“Just rolls. Okay.”
“Looking for a snack there?”
“No, I was wondering if it was the dark.”
He suddenly leaped on my arm, slid down it, yanked the lantern from me, and shuttered it.
“I say. You could have asked…” then I forgot everything as the tendril worked its way toward me. Mrs. Smith screamed as the light went out, then kicked Mr. Curtis for doing it.
There was light from outside, so we were not in complete darkness, but that hardly mattered. I switched hands and then flipped the poker over, holding the pointed end now as the creature explored the handle.
“Watch this,” said the frog.
“Oh no.”
“Here.’ He lit a match and held it under the creature, and frankly a little too close to my elbow, and the roll-creature fell back to the floor and scurried for the drain.
“Quick!”
I did not know what Mr. Curtis wanted me to do, but he bounded over me, pulling his hat from his head and leap-frogging toward the drain. One of his otherwise shoe-less spats came off his foot, and he slammed his hat down on the drain, just as the creature, for lack of a better term, disappeared down it.
The other rolls Mr. Curtis had been hiding in his hat lay strewn across the floor.
“Why not these?”
“I guess they can’t all be… Mrs. Smith?”
I turned to see her slumped against the door. She was unconscious. I suppose she’d have fallen to the floor entirely if she had been one step further from the door.
“Dr. James,” see if you can revive her, could you?”
“Now you call me Doctor, eh?”
“Please, sir.” Mr. Curtis was down on the floor. He reattached his loose spat and fixed his hat while I got out my smelling salts.
I held them briefly under her nose, holding her head, and waited. After a sniff or two, she awoke with a start.
“I’ll take you both apart. Don’t cross me, you pirate fiend!” she said.
“Mrs. Smith?”
“Sorry. What did I just…”
“Don’t worry about it. Can you get up?”
“I think so.”
I helped her up and took her by the hand back to her bakery. Mr. Curtis followed us a moment later.
The place was bustling a bit.
“Oh dear, the lunch crowd is coming in, and we aren’t ready!” She fixed her apron.
“Are you…” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“We’ll take it from here.”
“We’re on the case.”
Mr. Curtis and I took a booth near a side window, and he gingerly placed a bun from his hat on the table. He stared at it, leaning deeply in to get a close look. He nudged it with a fork.
“Mr. Curtis.”
“I want to go through her stock.”
“Poking them all.”
“Maybe later. Say au revoir for us. I’ll go get us a cab. “
He stood up and pushed several rolls into his hat.
“Where are we going?”
“To see the owl.”
“The one in the…”
“Yes, now go.”
I went off and explained that we had a lead and would return shortly, then went outside to see Mr. Curtis patting the dog and hopping into the carriage.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Curtis to the dog. “Oh good, here he comes.”
I crossed the busy sidewalk and opened the carriage door. “Hello Charles, are you well?” I said to the dog.
“Very good sir,” He barked at me.
I stepped in and sat across from the bullfrog, looking backward. Almost immediately, the cab sped off, and I had to hold on. I’d forgotten how Charles was, and sometimes I think the old dog just enjoys running through the larger puddles.
We hit a bump, and I went flying from one side to the other and ended up on the floor. I got up, dusted myself off, stooping a bit, and sat back down. I don’t know how Mr. Curtis stayed calmly where he was, but I suspect it had something to do with his little sticky feet.
I brushed my waistcoat and jacket down, in time for Charles to yell from outside the carriage, “Tallyho!” and we took another sharp corner, too fast for my liking. I was upside down, looking at Mr. Curtis, looking into his hat at the rolls. He took one out and licked it inquisitively.
“Please don’t eat another one, not here,” I said.
“No, dear boy. I’m not quite that stupid.”
I waited for it.
“Though many times I am moderately stupid.”
I rested my chin on my fist.
“Sometimes doing something wonderfully dumb can yield such interesting results.”
“Just don’t eat…”
“I know, I know. Choking isn’t my favorite way to find a clue either.”
“Tallyho!”
I grabbed onto my seat, and a strap that hung above the window for this, and nothing happened. I was just about to relax when…
“Sorry, here we go,” came from Charles ahead of us.
We slashed through a magnificent puddle that caused sheets of water on both sides of the car to spray up, and the corresponding bumps in the road left me scrambling for the strap on the other side of my bench seat.
“Good grief.”
I clung to the chair. Mr. Curtis just put his hat back on.
Soon we came to a stop.
“Thank goodness.”
I turned the handle and let myself out.
Mr. Curtis bounded out.
“Dr. James, give Charlie there a coin or two.”
“Very well.” I fished in my pockets and dropped the coins into Charles’s hip pouch.
“Thank you kindly,” said the dog, and he winked at me.
The streets were quiet.
“Curtis, no one comes here.”
“I know.”
“We’re liable to get carried off.”
“He’ll see us.”
“He should eat us.”
“In a normal world, I’d say you were right.”
Before us was the city’s clock tower. It looked over everything, rang the hour faintly in the distance, and everyone knew you don’t go too close to the clock tower because the owl would surely snatch you up.
I looked up and saw it closer than I ever wanted to, through the crack of the clock’s face. It was a large triangular missing piece of stained glass.
“I never noticed that the eight was missing,” I said.
“How do you think he gets in and out then?” said Curtis.
We made our way up the stairs, into what worked as a lobby on the clock tower’s main floor.
“We are not supposed to be…”
“Come on rat. Get with it.”
I was nose-to-nose with Mr. Curtis. He rarely did this to me.
“I… uh…”
“Now come on, this way.”
He hopped ahead of me. The lobby was made of marble and gold, but the doors we came through were broken and there were leaves, dust, debris, and old newspapers everywhere. I followed him through. It certainly didn’t look like anyone used this entrance. I’d still keep my guard up, though. I wished I’d had my gun.
He pressed the elevator button with his green finger. It lit up, and while we were waiting, he took his hat off again, took out a roll, put the hat back on, and played with the roll like it was a ball, rolling it around his fingers.
The door opened, and we stepped in.
“Let’s see, what floor…”
“The top,” said the frog. “Don’t fiddle about.”
The elevator whisked us away after I pressed the button. I could feel the pit of my stomach drop and was grateful I couldn’t see outside. I closed my eyes and listened to the ding after floors went by until the doors opened and I could see everything.
The windows went all the way around this floor, and I could see the whole town, including our little nook down on Shadow Street.
I heard something clamp and rustle above me, and a single feather fell at my feet, clearly as long as I was tall.
I slowly looked up into the inner workings of the clock to see an enormous eagle owl standing above us.
I could not move.
Mr. Curtis was practically beaming.
