The clutching appendage whipped Barnaby through the depths, a keening howl shaking the water around him. He clapped his hands to his ears as the cry seemed to bore into his very mind. Then he landed upon his right shoulder amidst rock protrusions. His skin scraped open on the back of his right hand and he clutched to halt himself, opening his palm to the bone on jagged rock and coral. But there it was – the little glint rested just before him. He thrust his throbbing hand toward the glint and snatched. The grit, pebbles, sand kicked up, squelching between his fingers, but a small, weighted, and curved object rested firm in his grasp.
Pressure vanished. Barnaby rolled onto his side and vomited water upon the polished wood floor. A small silver fish flopped and writhed in the sick and Barnaby shut his eyes, shaking his head. His hair clung damply to his temples. He could do nothing but cough and gasp and heave by degrees. Forcing his eyes open, the blurry gold of the shop light and surrounds focused around him. Mr. Mince bent over him, paws clasped together in solicitous benevolence. “There we are,” he boomed. “A prize deftly won, along with a story of its procurement – double delight for anyone’s offspring, eh?”
“What-“
“-the deuce was all that?” Mr. Mince helped him to his feet. He steadied Barnaby as his legs struggled to establish solidity once again. “Remember, Mr. Harris, no one receives anything for free. You retrieved it to my amusement. You are the bester of the kraken, the conqueror of the depths! Only one with those titles is worthy of that inestimable trinket, Mr. Harris.” The rat twirled round with a wild laugh. His head threw back, his red eyes twinkling, mirrored in the gleam off his sharp teeth and the glint from the light on the burnished bronze of oil lanterns, brass telescopes, steel razors, blued barrels of elephant guns, faded tooled gold leaf of tome and book and pamphlet. “My wonders are sold dearly and hard won! The spear of Achilles, the bow of Odysseus, the horns of the altar – all fill my inventory with stories, my shelves besides the elves, my wardrobes next to the lions. And now!” Mr. Mince halted his whirling dance, a claw pointing to Barnaby’s fist. “The wishing ring to be a daughter’s gift!”
Opening his hand, Barnaby found a cunningly worked scallop shell. Pink and foam wove in opalescent hue across rib and curve. He unhooked a tiny golden latch and parted the shell lip to reveal a plain brass ring inside, just the right size for a young girl’s finger. Soaking, heart still crashing hard in his chest, he felt a strange feeling of exultation rise up. Then fall. “Is it really?” he asked. “Is it really a wishing ring?”
“You ask that of me,” clasping his paws over his heart, the rat took on a strange, wounded expression. “You ask that of me, now? Now as you stand there soaked to the bone? Now as you’ve risen from the depths, having fended off a krakenling with a tie pin? Now as you stand here listening to an incredulous anthropomorphous rodent?” With a scoffing sound, Mr. Mince clapped his paws together again. “Now, then. If your daughter’s wish is not granted, you are more than welcome to return it for something else. My coin is odd, but I do guarantee my stock.”
While the rat tucked the the small box into a velvet bag, Barnaby stood next to a boxy radiator which chugged and sent out warm, vaguely smokey odors of charred hair and peppermint by degrees. His boots, coat, and hat had been retrieved from the tank, already warming beside the unit. By the time Mr. Mince beckoned him to the counter and had him sign a register for his receipt, it was as if Barnaby had never plunged into the depths at all.
A buzzing vibrated the pocket of the coat. “How is that still working?” Barnaby blurted, fishing out his dry cellphone.
“It is an excellent heater, that one,” was all Mr. Mince said before tucking the ledger away.
Barnaby scrolled to find he had missed three calls and now had a dozen text messages. All from his boss.
Barnaby let out a sigh. With the return of dreary reality, his mind at last seemed to slow, accepting the fact he was safe and still very much in demand. Still, as he accepted the velvet bag from a bowing Mr. Mince, he took another look around. By the register, a candy jar held floating golden octahedrons. As he watched, they slowly orbited around one another, never touching, always drifting, flickering from golden hue to silver and back again. The wonder returned and he recalled when, as a boy, he visited the British Museum to see the treasure of Sutten Hoo. How he had longed, nose against the chilly glass, to reach past the barrier, to pick up and wear the crested and masked helm, to pretend he was a young anglo-saxon prince. How he had longed, restrained by yet more glass, to flip the pages of the Book of Kells in Ireland. How he had longed, kept back by velvet ropes, to wander through the life diorama of Tutenkamen’s tomb in the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, running his fingers over hieroglyphs carved into limestone and cartouche alike.
As the fragrances of old book, cinnamon, saltwater, and enigmatic ephemera of the shop wafted over him, Barnaby Harris breathed deep.
And his phone rang again.
He clutched the velvet pouch tight, feeling the scalloped edge of the box within dig into his palm. “You know,” he said to Mr Mince as he turned to away toward the door. “I wish I could work here.”
“Granted,” said a soft voice. The velvet bag collapsed, the hard shape of the ring box vanishing within Barnaby’s grasp. His phone silenced mid-ring.
“What,” Mr. Mince clapped his paws to the sides of his head. “In the name of Gilgamesh have you done?”
“I wished.” Barnaby opened his hand. “But I thought you said it would only grant my daughter’s wish?”
The soft voice chuckled and made a clucking noise. “He lied.” Barnaby looked around but could see no source of the voice.
“Begone!” shouted the rat. “You have fulfilled your oath.”
“I have!” The voice laughed harder. “And now I am free. Oh, the plans of mice and men-“ it trailed off into more amusement as Mr. Mince wrung his paws and cursed strange curses.
“I don’t understand.” Barnaby opened the pouch and turned it upside down. Fine grey ash spilled into his hand.
“Oh, nine-year-old girls wish for the easiest things – ponies, magic wands, fairy wings. But you had to complicate things. Now we are obligated to one another.” The rat doffed his top hat and scratched his left ear in frustration.
“Woe, woe for the beast
Who sought a tasty soul
Now deisul is widdershins
Up is down
The rat must retain the clown,”
sang the voice in a mocking, high tone. It broke out into chuckling once again.
“Enough,” Mr. Mince roared, almost dancing in rage. The scarlet eyes boiled and his form loomed over Barnaby who took a step back, then another as the rat advanced. “Look here, you don’t know what you’ve done. You wished and that’s that. You won’t walk out of that door your own man, now, do you realize? You’re my clerk, my stockboy, my fetcher. My whipping boy! My serf! My hireling!” Spittle flecked from the rat’s lips; he shouted on, heedless and looming larger in Barnaby’s vision. Barnaby continued to retreat. “You are old, taught with too much of the wrong strap, of no donum magicae, bereft of destiny’s mark and nobility’s bearing, and you smell common and plain.”
“So don’t hire me.” The slight draft at his neck told Barnaby he had reached the front door. He dropped his right hand to grasp the handle. “I’ll just go then.”
“Try.”
Barnaby did. “Oh.”
“Precisely.”
“How is this possible? How does a place like this even exist?” Barnaby pushed harder at the door. As before, it refused to open and his hand dropped by its own volition to his side.
“And worst of all you, you are absolutely in denial of your own senses.” Clapping his paw across his eyes, the rat bowed his head and turned away. His ears drooped and he let out a rattling sigh. “A wish is granted and I am subject to it and you are as well. Your path and my own are irrevocably changed.”
“This is crazy.” Reaching into his pocket for his phone, Barnaby frowned again. He checked his other pocket. “Where’s my phone?” No phone greeted his questing fingers in his coat pockets, either. He searched again, a sick sensation spreading at the pit of his stomach, threatening his throat. “I just had it!”
“Your past has changed to accommodate your present. People, places – some remain, others do not.”
The horrible feeling burned the back of his throat. Heart racing, Barnaby pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. With a sigh of relief, he found the picture of Eliza still within. However, his insurance card, work key card, his blood donor card – all were absent. “What else has changed?”
“You will find out.” The anger had condensed to a cool fury and sort of resignation. Mr. Mince continued muttered at length under his breath and thumped the wooden frame of his counter swinging door. “As will I. Now, be back here promptly at seven tomorrow morning for your first day. Make what arrangements you require and don’t expect to be home for a few weeks.”
About to protest, Barnaby shut his mouth as the rat turned and fixed him with a glaring red gaze once again. He swallowed and nodded. “Do I at least have Christmas day off?” he stammered. “I did promise my daughter. Even if things have changed around me, I did promise.”
“It is a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December.”
“You are no man,” said the voice from directly behind Barnaby’s left ear. Barnaby turned and saw no one, just as before. “You are a ruthless and cunning beast like many men, but a man you are not. Give him the day.”
“Do you linger here? Will we be blessed by your presence from now until entropic bliss?” the rat snarled. Nevertheless, he harrumphed and nodded curtly at Barnaby. “Very well. You may have Christmas day off.”
“And I’ll be here all the earlier the next day?” Barnaby managed a smile.
“It would be in your best interest,” the rat made a dismissive gesture and stepped behind the counter. “I release you for the evening.”
Opening the door with no difficulty and a sigh of relief, Barnaby shivered in the cold. He tucked his coat closer around him and his hands to his pockets, and then trudged off toward the street. For all the strangeness which had snatched him from the world for what felt like hours, he nevertheless identified a sure sense of anticipation to see more.
Of course, it was muted somewhat when he discovered his car was gone.
<—Chapter Three: Depths Plumbed
A/N: Here is the penultimate part of the first story arc! The epilogue will be up next week. Featured photo by Frank Tunder on Unsplash
Elk Writer 