A Thin Place For Two

A Millcreek Village Story

The morning was almost organized. After a glorious swim with Lillian & Rose, it was time to do a few errands. Next on Phoenix's list, the library. Jen promised to help her discern between science fact astronomy & astrology.

Her head was down reading the itemized list,

1. Library by ten.

2. Return the Agatha Christie.

3. Pick up the interlibrary loan she'd requested three weeks ago, the one about forensic handwriting analysis that she absolutely needed for chapter six.

   Then walk the long way home along the water…

The Christie was tucked under her arm when out of nowhere there was a cat under her foot.

He materialized with the unhurried confidence of a creature who had never doubted anything in his entire life. Enormous and fluffy. Moving the way royalty moves.

He twisted through her legs like water finding a drain.

“ What, Hey stop this non —”

The Christie went airborne. Her travel mug performed a brief and spectacular arc without spilling a drop of tea.

Phoenix stumbled hard off the the village path, caught her footing, lost it again and collided shoulder first into something solid.

Someone solid.

A new face.

“Whoa…:”

Hands caught her by both arms. Phoenix righted herself. Behind her, the fluffy black cat sat down on the path with profound dignity and began washing his left ear.

The stranger, a woman, maybe fifty. Crow's feet around dark eyes. Silver threaded through her hair like a salt & pepper fever dream. It was spectacular. She'd been walking for a while. Phoenix noticed that immediately. She also recognized, the stillness. A person actively deciding, moment to moment, if they should bolt. Phoenix lived it the last decade before she arrived in Millcreek.

“I'm so sorry,” Phoenix said as she retrieved the Christie from the path. “Your cat…” She gestured behind her.

The newcomer looked past Phoenix at the cat. Her expression, inching toward amusement. “He is NOT mine, but the way he laced through your legs, looks like he adopted you.”

Phoenix glanced back at him. He had moved on to the other ear. He appeared to smirk as he made eye contact with her. “I'm Phoenix. I live on that houseboat in the lake.” She nodded toward her houseboat. “I've never seen his royal highness before in my life.”

The woman blinked. “Celestine Varro. I've been walking since before sunrise.”

“In Millcreek?” Phoenix kept her voice easy. “We're not exactly a destination vacation spot.”

“No,” Celestine said. “You're not.”

She didn't elaborate. Phoenix noticed.

“The only thing open this early is The Brick,” Phoenix said. “Coffee, if you need it. Or Edgeworks, but you need to climb for your coffee.”

Before Celestine could answer, the cat stood and stretched with the slow theatrical luxury of a creature with nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there. He meowed then yawned. Stepped onto the path and walked north. He did not look back.

He didn't need to.

Phoenix and Celestine exchanged a glance. Then they followed him.

He led them along the water path as if on a guided tour. His tail rode high. His paws found the dry stones between the puddles with the casual precision of long practice. Once, he stopped to inspect something beneath a bench with great professional interest, then dismissed it. Moved on. He did not falter with a stray chicken that wandered town. Curious behavior.

They passed The Brick. Warm light in the windows, the coffee aroma drifting on the breeze, but the cat did not slow.

He continued north along the path, turned left, toward the beach terrace behind the dark windows of Pho Ghetti Girls and the sunflower garden.

Phoenix stopped.

The terrace was open. Two tables occupied. Steam rising from cups in the thin morning light. Mismatched chairs and solstice string lights, swaying gently in a breeze.

That door was locked since before she arrived in Millcreek. She had tried it herself in the first week, charmed by the name, and found it cold and unanswering. No one moved in. She would have noticed. Town would have noticed.

The people on the terrace were unfamiliar. In Millcreek, everyone knew everyone. Every face, every story.

“This shouldn't be…” Phoenix said.

The cat walked to the terrace gate, looked back at them once with the expression of a maître d' who has been waiting, and sat down.

“Bartelby, mon amour, where have you been hiding?” A waitress appeared from thin air & scratched the cats left ear. He looked pleased.

The coffee was extraordinary. Phoenix could not explain it. She didn't like coffee.

They took the corner table, farthest from the path, with the water moving silver below and the string lights casting their small gold warmth. Another woman appeared, unhurried, and unsurprised and took their order. Bartelby installed himself beneath the table as though he had a reservation.

Phoenix looked down at him. He was grooming his tail with the focused air of a scholar reviewing familiar material. “Sure,” she said. “Bartelby, you do you.”

Mackerel arrived on a small white dish, in light oil. She placed on the deck boards with care. The cat stood, stretched one back leg, and approached it with an air of mild acknowledgment. ‘Yes, this is correct.’

They watched him eat. He was meticulous. No hurry. No mess. Certainly not a stray.

“Bartelby,” Phoenix repeated.

He finished the last of the fish, sat back, and began washing his whiskers.

Celestine looked out at the water. Something in her went quiet. She looked at Phoenix, with a decisive trust in her eyes.

“I worked for NASA. Jet Propulsion Lab. Dark matter distributions. Mapped the outer halo of the Milky Way for nineteen years.”

Worked. Mapped. Present tense wearing past-tense clothes. Phoenix heard it. Curious. She was going to ask Jen about stars & astronomy today.

“Three weeks ago I found something in the Europa Clipper data. Impact craters on Ganymede. That's Jupiter's largest moon. The impact craters don't match any asteroid signature we've ever recorded. Ever.”

Phoenix waited.

“They're smooth,” Celestine said. “Clean edges. No debris field, no ejecta scatter. Standard impacts are very messy. They spread material outward. Something is coming up from below. Material from Ganymede's subsurface ocean. Punching through two hundred kilometers of conductive ice.” Her voice had gone careful. Quiet. “The signature matches a theoretical model. Dark matter. Macroscopic composites. Particles massive enough to collide with a moon the way a bullet goes through water. They leave a specific kind of wound.” A breath. “We've been calling them dark wounds.”

Below the terrace, the water moved quietly as if it were listening too. The string lights swayed silently.

“That sounds like a discovery,” Phoenix said.

“I filed it through proper channels Wednesday morning. By Thursday, my data access was suspended. Friday, I was relocated. New assignment. New facility. No explanation.” Her jaw tightened. “Someone above my clearance level decided in forty-eight hours that I should stop looking at those craters.” She looked down at her cup. “I vanished before they finished my paperwork. A friend said I needed to be in Millcreek Village.”

Phoenix thought about her list. The library. Chapter six. The forensic handwriting book sitting in the hold shelf with her name on it.

The locked door standing open in the morning light floating on the lake.

Bartelby delivered another mystery from thin air.

Under the table, Bartelby turned three times and lay down across both their feet.

He was, as always, unsurprised.

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Written for Millcreek Village shared world story & Indie Ink Fund prompt.

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My Creativity is fueled by tea. Lots of tea.