2019-08-16 - Overdue Collection

It's a warm, pleasant day in Gray Harbor - one of the few without overhanging clouds or warm drizzles. Thus, the windows at 13 Elm Street are open, letting in the warm breeze, although screen coverings keep insects out and one small parrot in. Said bird is currently sitting on the window sill of one of the windows, attempting to explain to a sparrow outside that he, in fact, owns everything. Including the outside. Alexander is in the kitchen, humming to himself as he stares at his phone. There's an aubergine on a cutting board in front of him, and he's playing with a knife as he tries to make sense of the recipe before him.

There are four short raps on the front door. Rap. Rap-rap. Rap. Harper's voice calls from outside, more audible because of open windows, "Alexander, it's Harper." It's as though Harper wants him not to wonder who is at his door. Or perhaps she wants him to have the opportunity to not answer the door if he so wishes.

Alexander comes to answer the door fairly promptly, although the conure sets up a fuss, flying around and calling out an alarm. He retreats to the top of his cage to glower. "You're just going to have to get used to it, Luigi," Alexander chides him, gently, as he opens it. He's still holding the knife, and it looks very sharp. But his blank expression is no less friendly than it usually is. "Harper. Hello. Please come in." He waves with the knife for her to come inside. "Would you like some soda? Or water?"

Harper's smile is warm and bright, though her slides down to the knife and the gesturing motion before lifting once more to Alexander's face. "Alexander, I'm sorry I didn't call before coming by. I've had a bit of an -- experience. And I hoped you'd have a few minutes to share some wisdom as I plot a course of action." (outfit, not pb: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/30/fc/dc/30fcdc089c5cd82bc0f375fea693f46b.jpg ) She steps inside, her purse slanted across her body from one shoulder to the opposite hip. "I'm not interrupting?"

Alexander shakes his head. "No need to call. You're welcome any time, Harper." There's a pause. "Probably not any time. Three in the morning would be a bit odd. You're not necessarily unwelcome, then, but it might be awkward. I'm usually awake, anyway." He returns to the kitchen. "You look nice. And you're not interrupting. Are you well?" He stands before the cutting board, then gives her a dark-eyed stare. "'Experiences' in Gray Harbor often aren't very nice."

Harper rewards the welcoming words with another of her brimming smiles and follows Alexander into the kitchen. "It would be a dire case indeed for me to 'drop by' at three in the morning. But I'm familiar with insomnia, myself. I find that sometimes meditating can be at least partly restful, while trying harder to sleep just makes it that much more elusive." Harper glances down at her work clothing with a startled little look as if she needed a reminder about what she had worn to work that day.

She takes a spot near a space of counter that isn't being used and tips her hip in against it while folding her arms across her slim chest. "I'm well enough, thank you, Alexander. But something strange happened yesterday at work." She pauses and seems to consider her next words carefully. "If there are correct words for the creatures who come from wherever they come, I do not know. I've called that place the Sideways since I was a child. And yesterday I had a visit. Or I suppose you could say I was summoned." She pauses a moment, then adds, "At the library." That much said, she waits for a reaction. How Alexander reacts will determine just how short or extended this visit will be.

Alexander studies the eggplant. Which also seems to study him in turn, in its eggplanty sort of way. He raises the knife. The eggplant, deep in its soul, might be pleading for its life. He sighs, puts the knife down, putting off its inevitable demise for another moment or two, and turning his attention to her. "You were...summoned, to Over There? Or did you get lost? Or...?" He seems curious, more than anything, albeit with an edge of worry. For her, rather than of her.

"That's just it," Harper replies. "It was a cross between Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole and C.S. Lewis's wardrobe. One moment I was shelving books, the next a book had fallen open and, well, it seemed to suck me into another library altogether. A charming library one would read about in stories that take place on some British estate or university." Her friendly brown-eyed gaze drops to the eggplant and lingers there, her next words conflicted. "Alexander, have you ever found any denizens of that world to be neutral rather than malevolent? Or have you heard any hints of other beings that exist who are not bent on death and destruction to those of us who are here?"

Alexander thinks about it, then nods. "Yes. There's a sort of...mirror of City Hall, that I've been to a couple of times. There is an Archivist there who is somewhat," he grimaces, "repugnant in appearance, but not apparently hostile. The entire building appears filled with bizarre but at least not openly hostile creatures that serve as minor functionaries. For," he shrugs, "some sort of bureaucracy. And some people have been opening doors there. And it's not always," he frowns, "torturous. Although I don't think I'd call it safe."

Harper looks back up to Alexander's face from the cutting board, a bit of relief relaxing the line across her shoulders. "Marvelous," she answers in a quiet tone. "She did say that there were people from Our Side who had been accessing their world. Interesting." She cants her head. "Do you have a name for this place? Calling it the Sideways to anyone other than myself seems, well, childish."

Alexander hmms. "No. I don't. I've just been calling it Over There, when I've had to call it anything at all." He fidgets, picking up the knife again. He flips the handle through his hands absently, settling it into a hold that's more appropriate for a back-alley knife fight than a kitchen. He doesn't seem to notice as he thinks. "I don't like that place. I don't know enough about it to say that it's...good, or evil, or anything. But I've been lost too many times to really trust it. Or anything over there. But I can ask around among a couple of people who seem to be more interested in exploration? Maybe they've talked to things over there."

Harper shakes her head slowly, though she drinks every word in. "Well, this librarian was an ethereal creature, like something from a high fantasy novel, with occult markings on her forehead, but she was quite friendly and engaging. She went by the name Whisper, though she claimed many other names. And she told me she was hoping I would help her with a ... task. It seems that, if what she said was truth, their world and our world shift and different 'thin' places move, making it easier to cross in those spots. And most recently during one of these shifts a number of her books had found their ways to different locations around Gray Harbor. She wants me to retrieve these books for her." Harper pauses, watching Alexander's reaction to her words before she continues. "I have never interacted with any creature from there who was not openly malevolent, and I shared my reticence with her. We came to an initial agreement of sorts. And I offered to retrieve one of her many books for a show of faith from her. An exchange of information. I told her that information was most valuable to me. That I would accept either information about the relationship of the Baxters to their world or -- I do hope you won't be upset by my presumption -- information about how to dispose of the bones that were causing you so much harm, if they were still an issue." Harper's brown-eyed gaze skims around the confines of the kitchen before wandering back to Alexander.

Alexander makes a noise. It's a thoughtful noise, but at least it makes him put down the knife again. The eggplant continues to avoid its terrible fate. He paces past her into the living room. Stretching his legs and his mind as he makes a circuit around the room. Luigi flies to his shoulder and starts preening his too-long hair. "I can't say that I would object to helping. Just on general principles, even. Things from over there belong over there, not here. The sooner we can return them, the less trouble they're like to cause, right?" A glance to her as he comes back around to face her. "Okay. I assume you would like aid in finding a book?"

Harper remains where she is standing, leaning into a kitchen counter as she watches after Alexander's pacing into the other room "You don't have to -- no. That's not why I came by. But it is just like you to offer, Alexander. I wouldn't feel comfortable risking others on this task. Plus after the first of the fifteen books, we will meet again and she will share with me what she was able to find on the topics I raised. I came here," Harper continues, drawing a slow breath in and then exhaling just as slowly. "-- to make sure I wasn't being duped by something wicked in disguise. What you say seems to confirm my experience of the strange librarian. She was worried that should the books not be returned forthwith, they could cause harm to individuals here. On our side. Apparently if one reads one of these books for too long, they can become permanently stuck inside the books." Harper lifts one of her hands from where here arms are crossed to brush her hair out of her face and then lowers the hand once more to rest on the opposing elbow. "I also, honestly, wanted to check with you about the information I asked her to find for me. Are the bones still an issue?"

Alexander stops pacing so that he can stare at her better. "Hm. Well. All right. Happy hunting. I don't consider the bones to be much of a problem. As long as no one attempts to destroy any more of the damned things, I should be fine. The burning eventually faded away." A brief smile. "It was kind of you to be concerned, though. And those books sound dangerous. If you end up desiring help, just let me know? After the affair with the ring, I have been thoroughly broken of any desire to interact with magical objects for too long." His voice is dry.

Harper bestows the warmest of smiles upon Alexander as if he had just bowed or shown some other gesture of noblesse oblige. "I wouldn't risk your life on a task I took on myself, Alexander. I don't squander precious things." She nods to the information about the bones. "And the Baxters? You are still interested in information about them?" Because if not, she may still be able to change her request of good faith from the librarian. "After the affair with the ring, I would not blame you if you wanted to have nothing ever to do again with anything from 'Over There'. I do not like how much you seem to end up suffering." The librarian is protective of her friends. Probably too much so. Still the intent is well-meant.

"Oh, yes. Quite interested. If she seems to have any sort of useful information, I'd be happy to hear it." Alexander crosses his arms over his chest, just furrowing his brow a little at the compliment. "It's fine. Suffering just means that I'm alive. Better than the alternative. But thank you for caring." A brief flicker of a smile. "And for offering to find information for me for this boon of yours from the librarian. I'll owe you a favor. On top of the others that I owe. It's starting to get rather lopsided. I'm sorry."

Harper laughs a hushed little play of notes at the quasi-definition of suffering. "You're welcome, Alexander. Thank you for being a friend and for sharing what you know. I feel more at ease about the whole affair now. And to be honest, I did very much hope it was all on the up-and-up. Whisper was really quite lovely. It could be the beginning of a fruitful partnership if pursued diligently." She shakes her head and pushes her hip away from the counter. "Not at all. Your research has simply been the most interesting and applicable to the situation of all my pursuits. If it ends up benefitting you, so much the better, yes?" She utters a little sound and tosses her head dismissively at the apology. "And now it seems as though you have an eggplant to dispatch. I won't keep you from it. Thank you for your time."

"I don't mean to say this entity is on the 'up and up', as you put it," Alexander says, with a frown. "She just might not be evil. And it might be true, about the books. But that doesn't mean she's told you everything, or that her agenda is the same as yours. Be careful, Harper. Don't die." A hard look, then, making it more of an order than a request. "And as I said before, you're welcome any time. Most. Most any time."

Harper meets Alexander's hard look with her own. "I promise not to walk in to anything with assumptions or too-generous expectations. For you, Alexander? I'll do my best not to die." An amused little smile. And she heads out of the kitchen toward the door that admitted her. "You promise the same and we'll be even."

Alexander smiles. "I always do my best not to die. It is something of an obsession." He follows her to the door, opens it for her, and watches her go. It's Elm; even at this end of the street, it's better if people know someone's marking who is going where, so that no unfortunate accidental muggings happen.