2019-07-12 - That Sort of Baxter?

Alexander does not look like he belongs in City Hall, unless he's an addict or a drunk trying to get someone to sign off on a drug test. His Seahawks t-shirt is faded to holes in places, revealing the white undershirt, he looks ragged and underslept, his jeans have holes, and his boots are stompy and muddy. People notice, and security guards give him that 'are you going to be a problem' sort of look. In apparent response, his body language is hunched and submissive, shoulders bowed, head bent, as he shuffles past security and makes his way towards the Historical Society offices.

As Alexander heads towards the Historical Society, another man is coming out. Unlike Alexander, he's impeccably dressed today in a three piece black suit, paired with a crisp white shirt and a gray tie. It's the sort of outfit one imagines he'd be blistering in outside in the summer heat, but Edison isn't sweating at all. He carries a sheaf of paper with a clipboard on top, a fountain pen between his long fingers, and one eyebrow raises as Alexander draws near. "Looking for something?" he ventures, in an accent that's hard to place -- British? Maybe? His voice is soft, but the words are well-enunciated.

Alexander looks up, starting a bit at the voice. And then he looks up some more, blinking a bit at Edison. In contrast to his appearance and the dark circles under his eyes, his gaze is sharp, assessing. "I don't know you," he says, curtly. Another quick look up and down, then beyond him, at the offices. "Yes. Historical records." He looks back to Edison. "Alexander Clayton. Who are you?" Then a pause. And, less defensively and more carefully, like he's reading off an invisible teleprompter, "I'm sorry. What I mean to say is...hello. I'm Alexander Clayton. Who are you, and do you work here?"

"No," Edison says, staring at Alexander's face. If he's assessing him back, it's kind of hard to tell. He could be thinking anything. "You don't." The apology gets an arched eyebrow from the well-dressed man, but a tiny smile plays on his face. "Hello, Alexander Clayton. I'm Edison Baxter." He glances briefly towards the door. "I don't work here, but my employer does. Perhaps I can assist you anyway. What are you looking for, exactly?"

Alexander starts. "Baxter." His eyes narrow. "But...you're not a local. You stand out. I'd have noticed." He seems quite certain of that - but then, it is a small town. His spine straightens as he seems to take a fully engaged interest in the conversation. A glance towards the door. "Historical records. On...local Baxters, actually." One eyebrow raises. "Who do you work for?"

"Oh?" Edison's intonation barely changes. Really, he almost speaks in a monotone. Not much affect. "How very interesting. But Baxter is a common name, is it not?" He opens the door to the office and gestures, as though he fully intends to see Alexander inside. "Hyacinth Addington. Are you acquainted, Mister Clayton?"

"Not around here," Alexander replies, simply. Then the other man goes on, and surprises a low, sharp laugh out of him. "Acquainted? With an Addington. Not usually." He pauses, though, his eyes ticking away for a second. "But that one. Briefly. High school. She was a freshman. And she fell into the mill as a child. I remember that." His gaze refocuses. "We never talked." There's a dry note to his voice, like that shouldn't be a surprise. "How long have you been working for her? Where did you come from?" He probably doesn't mean it to sound like an interrogation. But it sort of does.

"That sounds very difficult," Edison comments. His eyes, large and gray but perpetually half-lidded, continue to study Alexander's face as he muses on his past with Hyacinth. His lips quirk again at all the questions. "I've only recently been in her employment." A beat. "I was last in Portland. Why so many questions, Mister Clayton?" He makes a gesture towards the offices again. "Don't you want your research?"

Alexander gives a shrug to the difficulty or lack thereof. He continues to stare openly, even rudely, at Edison. "I ask a lot of questions." It's unapologetic, at least at first. Then he seems to wince, as if remembering something else, and the alert posture falters into something uncertain. His gaze flicks away. "I'm sorry. That's rude. I just...coincidence. Baxters and Addingtons. It's intriguing." A glance back to him. "Do you know the old story? About the founding of the town?" At that last question, he looks towards the office again, then says, "The books don't walk."

"No need to worry," Edison replies, sliding the black fountain pen in his hand back into his breast pocket. "Curiosity is natural, isn't it? One wants to know the new elements in a small town like this." But he raises an eyebrow again as Alexander continues. "Why, I'm afraid I don't. What is the story there, if you wouldn't mind enlightening me?"

Alexander's phone lets out a generic text sound. He grabs it from his jeans pocket, frowns at the message and texts back, briefly. Then looks up at Edison. "I don't mind. Maybe not in the hall." He walks towards the offices. Presumably Edison is supposed to follow, because he talks at the same softly conversation tone that quickly becomes unintelligible if Edison DOESN'T. "Baxters used to own a lot of land. Addingtons bought it up - Baxters left. Maybe. Won't find any Baxter graves in any of the graveyards. I looked. So, don't die here unless you've made other arrangements." A flash of humor there as he reaches the door and holds it open for...someone who may or may not be there.

Fortunately for everyone, Edison indeed follows. His well-polished shoes click on the floor as he walks along, posture straight. There's a brief chuckle at the joke, such as it is, and he catches the open door. "Thank you. 'Maybe,' you say?" Even when he's asking questions, there's not much of a rise to his voice. Everything he says is calm and level, and sometimes almost a whisper.

"Maybe. Hard to tell. Marrying out. Changing names. The records are not good." Alexander makes his way inside. His voice is mostly dull, toneless, with occasional moments of dry humor or intensity. "Some of them were burned." A pause. "Not recently. But in the eighteen hundreds. Burned by a Baxter. Awkward family gatherings after that, I imagine." He eyes the desk, then crosses to a waiting bench nearby. He sits down, hunches over.

"Why would they burn the records, I wonder?" Edison looks to the desk as well, then sits down next to Alexander. He takes out a completely unremarkable-looking black smartphone and quickly texts something. "Someone should be with you shortly." Then he turns to study Alexander again, grey eyes steady and unblinking from beneath his curtain of lashes. "Do go on. This is fascinating."

"No. Not the records, Mr. Baxter. The good Reverend Baxter burned Baxters. And Addingtons. And others. Witches." Alexander glances up with a wry twist of his lips, follows Edison with his gaze as he sits down. "So. My surprise, to find a Baxter working for Addingtons. But maybe not the same family. Do you know your family? Portland isn't far."

"Witches," Edison repeats, but he may as well be saying 'sandwiches' or 'corgis' or something else completely innocuous and unrelated. "And this was in the eighteen hundreds? Rather recent, for that sort of thing." He crosses his legs, which are very long, and offers Alexander a rather small smile. "Oh, I'm not from Portland, Mister Clayton. But it's the last place I came from. Why, do you think the likes of me could be related to the barbarous minister?" There's a note of humor in his voice, perhaps. Bone dry humor.

"Yes. The Americas typically didn't burn their witches, either. Hung them. Pressed with stones." Alexander smiles, faintly. "Guess the good Reverend was a fan of the classics." He shrugs. "You could be. You might not be. Coincidence exists. Thought it worth asking." He studies the other man. "Planning to stay long?"

"I see," Edison says mildly, slowly nodding his dark head. "Well. That ''is'' interesting, isn't it. I can see why you might want to research them." With a little bit of that small smile in place, he adds, "I'd be curious to see what your research turns up, if you're willing to share." To the question, he inclines his head. "As long as it suits me." A beat. "You strike me as a man who's lived here long. Your whole life, perhaps?"

"The town kills Baxters. Historically. Not," Alexander's eyes skip away, "intentionally, maybe. But accidents. Disasters. Things like that. Be careful. If you stay." To sharing his research, he shrugs. "Maybe. It's...fragmented. Odd. Not yet a narrative." He shakes his head. "Most. Not all. I left for college, some time after that. But most."

"Who's the last Baxter to be killed here, and when?" Edison asks this without skipping a beat. If he's concerned, apparently his curiosity overrides it. The pointed black shoe on his long foot, supported up on the knee under his crossed leg, bounces once, then twice, then stops. "You returned, then. What brought you back to this charming little berg?"

Alexander spreads his hands. "Couldn't answer that. Don't know all the Baxters. At this point, I'd be surprised that any of them call themselves Baxter. Maybe. I've heard rumors, but," a wave at Edison himself. "The most recent that I've tracked is from...the forties?" His head tilts. "The first Ferris Wheel at the boardwalk went up. And then it went down. Over forty children injured, over twenty killed. Five those children were not from Gray Harbor at all, but were orphans visiting from the next town over - but their mother was a Baxter, from Gray Harbor. She killed herself here and they were taken into care. And then they died, here." It's a curious recitation - not exactly /pleased/, but intrigued and a little excited by the information, if not the blood.

"Tragic." Edison shakes his head, though his hair barely moves. "Bad engineering causes so many issues. To think that bad blood could do the same." His pile of papers and clipboard sits beside him, leaving him free to spread his hands. They're large hands, with long, tapered fingers and well-manicured nails. "Perhaps I should offer myself up to science. Experiment on my own misfortune, all in the name of learning more of the Baxter connection to this town." But he says this in such a deadpan manner, it's hard to tell if he's being serious at all.

"If you find anything interesting, then I'd certainly like to hear it. It seems a worthy experiment," Alexander returns, just as deadpan. He glances down at the pile of papers and clipboard as they're set down. "Just try not to die. It's hard to interview dead people about their experiences."

Edison lets out a small snort of laughter. "Oh, quite." He glances at Alexander out of the corner of his eyes, giving him a slow smirk. "I don't intend to die anytime soon. Gray Harbor will have its work cut out for itself." He draws something from his suit pocket -- it looks to be an ordinary length of string. "Why such an interest in town history, anyway?"

"My degree is in history," Alexander says, sitting back on the bench, and crossing his arms over his chest. "And I found an interesting book. Started me looking. I've always been interested in crime - obscure crimes are best. Interesting." He tenses slightly when Edison reaches into his pocket, then relaxes when it's a length of string. "What about you? You're listening to me ramble about disasters and death. Most people don't."

Edison takes the length of string and immediately begins winding it into a perfect cat's cradle. Then he unwinds it...then he winds it again. It's almost mesmerizing. "Disasters and death are a part of life -- especially for a Baxter, it would seem." He gives Alexander a wry look. "What's this interesting book you've found? I'm guessing it can't be found in the local library." Though one never knows.

Alexander watches the winding and unwinding, his attention clearly caught by it. "Ah. No. Not in the public library. It's self-published by someone a while back. It wasn't very popular." His tone suggests that's an understatement, although his gaze doesn't waver from the stringplay. "It's a bit overwrought, and fictionalized. But some interesting material." There's a pause, before he adds, "You didn't answer my question, Mr. Baxter."

Edison's long fingers move deftly, constructing and deconstructing the little string creations. He was looking down at the string, but now his gray eyes are back on Alexander, unblinking. "Where did you come across such a tome?" An eyebrow raises, and his lip again with it, as he's accused of not answering Alexander's question. "How could I not be interested in this town's history, now that I've been told I'm doomed here simply due to my name? Wouldn't ''you'' be interested, Mister Clayton?"

"An antique shop. Memento Mori." A pause. "She only had the one copy, though. There's another bookshop - Likely Stories? Who knows, you might be able to find a copy there. If it interests you." Alexander meets his gray eyes with his own, flat and near-black ones. "I didn't say doomed. You may not be the right sort of Baxter." Another long pause. "But yes. I'd be interested." He continues to stare, thoughtfully. Until his phone chimes again, and he looks down to check it. His brow furrows. "I have to go. Edison Baxter. I'll remember you." He stands, and leaves - no doubt confusing the poor clerk who was waiting for someone to actually ask something of her - without any sort of goodbye other than that.