"Oh no worries, I'll just catch you later." He snapped back to reality as Ms. Fulcanelli passed by him and out of the library. Shaking his head, he collected the clipboard and saluted to the librarian. Adjusting the helmet and snow goggles on his head, he passed through the doors, just avoiding Chrys. Trying to balance on his over eager foot, he swung around her and shook his head in apology. "Sorry Chrys, I'm all kinds of clumsy today." Jumping back onto his bike he kicked off the stand and peddled into the snow and ice. He hadn't time to socialize, as there were still three packages to deliver today. For the most part, the small town seemed ignorant to his crime, to the loss of such a bright flower among them. Certainly he wasn't going to bring it up and every glance or wave had the possible edge of suspicion attached to it.
He swung by the pharmacy, a package of new meds before heavy snow closed off the roads, and back-peddled back to Mia's place for a package rattling like a change purse...new paints and brushes likely. She wasn't home, and Byron had to wedge the package into the mail slot part way up the door. Small towns bred a sense of familiarity and he figured he would run into her on his usual rounds. For some reason around night, she was nowhere to be found...a little recluse living and breathing by the paints in her blood. To some effect, everyone in the town who wasn't born here was odd...and even those who WERE sometimes seemed antisocial or strange compared to the other places he'd been. It elicited a sense of camaraderie, that secrets were held like currency, none giving one without another. It was just as well, he felt all the more exposed in a world with no secrets. His wasn't the sort for polite company, any company really, and so the general notion he wasn't alone was calming.
Even monsters deserved a little peace of mind.
Pushing on the pedals, Byron weaved a tangled ribbon through the road and between slow moving traffic. Brisk wind felt strong against his face. Part of him wanted to feel guilty beyond the fear of discovery, to truly reconnect with that human aspect of his soul. But...
There was nothing.
He couldn't draw a line of connection between his heart and hers. She was, as many were before her, prey. A fox does not mourn the rabbit and a hawk does not lament the fatality of a snake. But even criminals felt pricks of compassion, humanity pushing through the dirt thrown on morality. He hadn't always been this way, once there was just a small town and a young but vibrant soul. How far away it seemed when he thought about it, like watching the intimate details of a different person.
Ottepeg's toy shop was next on the list. Some puppet supplies likely. Reece was another anomaly in a sea of oddity, the young son of a master puppeteer and now he toiled behind the shutters for products few would buy. Fifty years ago, longer still, Reece and his business would have been received warmly, even prospered. Now he filled a niche of souvenirs, quiet collectors, and impulse buyers. Who would appreciate his craft in ten more years? Twenty?
Personally, Byron was unnerved by the pale youth. He carried a sense of unease about his eyes and skin, the lack of pigmentation adding to his already ghostly persona. They'd talked little over the last two years, the small talk between deliveries and every time...Byron had the idea Reece wanted desperately to return to work.
Where did all those toys go?
Skidding to a stop in front of the shop and knocking down his kickstand, Byron grabbed the two packages and pushed open the front doors.
A thousand tiny glazed eyes watched his arrival placidly, an unblinking horde of tiny frozen creatures. Smile faltered slightly, hitched in the idea they could see his sins written on his skin. He broke the spell with a chuckle, shaking his head. Imagine, frightened of toys.
"Hey! Mr. Ottepeg, delivery for you!"
He hadn't fully realized there was another occupant until his voice echoed in the shop. With a wince he recognized the girl he had nearly run over, the writer right? Yeah. He never talked to her...his list of contacts were those that received packages...she did not. She wasn't the only one of course, but he always pitied the lack of attention the world seemed to show her. Her work was the quiet sort, a constant editing tirade hoping the masses would like her work. Writers as a whole were a mystery. Why anyone worked so hard just to scrawl their soul for someone else, to live off their own creativity, always bleeding for people who barely knew them.
"Er, sorry," he apologized stepping beside her and laying the two packages down on the table, "About earlier and now, just an off day for me I guess."
Reece wasn't in the front, but the wendigo could hear him just beyond.
"Odds and ends for your work," He smiled, his eyes were hungry, "Just need your signature and I'll get out of your hair."
