Ecclesia's Wind

"Did the stranger give you his name?" Mr. Trice asked, his hand held out above the counter as three gold coins hovered above his palm. They danced in the absence of gravity, occasionally clinging into one another.

My elbows sat on the counter, my hands fisted beneath my chin, mesmerized by the floating coins. "I wouldn't have called him a stranger if I knew his name."

"Aye," he glared at me from beneath his white caterpillar eyebrows. "But I swore he gave you his name? Maybe my old ears deceived me."

He clasped his hand, and the coins struck the counter top simultaneously.

I smirked with a roll to my eyes. "Maybe he gave me a name, but I prefer stranger for right now. That's all he is."

I slid from my cold stool, and stepped lightly forwards the end of the counter. The windows were still damp of dew, but the east sun dried the top corners into a dusty film. Across the street stood another small building who's roof had fallen in over the years as if it had lost its mind and it's skull collapsed in on itself. I had always thought it odd that no matter how new anything was, when it was left unattended to for such a short while, it caved in on itself.

I explained these thoughts to Mr. Trice once upon a time. He loved the deep conversations. He looked at me seriously, and right after he rolled his lips around a few times, he said to me: "You won't fall in on yourself, though. You're much stronger than that."

And to the stranger who I let enter the store early because he was clearly in a hurry, if I left him unattended, it would eventually die and collapse the same way the building across the street did.

"You know," he began curiously. "He doesn't always have to be a stranger."

Looking at him would only embarrass me. I took more personal advice from the old man than I did my blood sister. Instead, I starred at the blurry figure walking past the store. His cane shook at times, but overall, he kept a steady pace.

"I know that he doesn't have to stay a stranger," I told him. "No one wants a Human, though. This isn't the life I'd choose if given the choice."

"Serenity," he began boldly, "you may have no abilities, but you are a rare gift among Humans as well as Inhumans."

Again, he embarrassed me. I closed my eyes and attempted to ignore the compliment, though it boosted my levels of confidence every time. "Thank you," I said expressionless, the clouded outside still in my focus. "Thank you for a lot, actually."

His broom shuffled across the floor. "I'll tell you now that I'm closing the shop down for good."

My eyes widened: "Mr. Trice, you can't close the shop!" I shook my head and threw out my arms.

His head bobbled across the tops of shelves in the center of the room. "Yes, Sere, I'm closing the shop as of now. The only reason I've kept it running for these last few years is because of you."

"Then let me run it by myself. You can still keep the profits," I shrieked.

His broom stood still, and silence fell upon the cold early-morning walls. He bowed his head as he always did before he laid out an ugly truth. "I haven't seen any profits in two years now. I've given you all I have to give."

A suffocating guilt waved across me as I clasped my hands numbly together, and bent my head down to stare at the floor. My tongue swelled before I found the courage to speak, and when I did, my words were quiet: "Mr. Trice, why didn't you tell me sooner."

He responded quickly, with little thought. "You needed the help: and not only was it financially. I knew your father very little, but if there's anything I knew about him, I knew that he was a great man. He did a lot of great things for the village, and I wanted to make sure that his good traits didn't fall away from his children."

I sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled it slowly. "He was almost lost, once upon a time."

Mr. Trice kept his eyes on me, but I could only make contact every few moments. My focus kept to the floor, or the countertop. "Thank you again for everything."

He shook his head. "We don't have to talk about your parents though. Take that job that your stranger offered, and do something for a change. Make some friends, sneak out past the night guards, get into some trouble, and--"

My laughs were muffled behind my words: "How can you give such amazing advice yet be a bad influence at the same time?!"

He laughed my question off, and the broom continued shuffling across the floor. "You want my advice? You take the job. What's the worst that can happen?"

I pulled my stool next to the window and waited patiently for the west sun to rise. A thirty minute window sat between it and the east sun, and typically most businesses opened following it's rise. As a result, everything and everyone emitted two shadows, yet they were always dim. Again, Mr. Trice and I discussed these hidden meanings. The rain fell on that evening a few years ago; it rained for days it had seemed, and our business depreciated as a result.

"I miss the suns' light," I said staring out the same window as tiny rivers cut rifts in the muddy streets, and mist sat heavy across the hillsides beyond the fallen building.

Mr. Trice sat at the counter as a colorless pencil floated above the wooden counter, tapping against the side of the register, and falling back into the grip of his sandy palms. "Everyone has two shadows--have you ever noticed?"

His chair creaked as he leaned in to me.

"I've noticed."

The glass of the window chilled the nerves of my hand, the print of my palm sketched within the dew. I peered through the cracks of my handprint.

"I've often wondered what it means," he said. "Why we always cast two faint shadows."

"Midday, when the Suns are closest in the sky, our shadows are small and darker." My observation excited him on many levels.

"Is it," he began with a rise to his hand, "that the closer we get to the light, the less our shadows become? Or might it be that the closer we get to the light the darker our shadows become one?"

The muscles in my face knotted in response, confused and much deeper than I cared to think during such boredom. "I think that our shadows represent a split in two evils: and while separated, they create a neutrality that's bound by the light."

He Jared his head back and nearly fell from his stool. "You came up with this all on your own?!" he presumed to laugh, an intelligent chuckle that I often found soothing and homely.

I turned back to the window, slightly embarrassed. "I have thought about it many times--the hidden messages within the world."

"Have you heard the Legend of Singe?" he asked.

I turned my head to the side. It sounded dangerously and eerily familiar, as if it were a limb--a sixth sense--that I had failed to control. "I haven't heard it."

"I rarely hear it spoke about anymore..."

He came out of his seat, and moved to the other side of the counter. "There was once only one Sun. The people whom walked these grounds were followed by a single shadow. I don't know many more heavy details. But supposedly, a single man was born who's gifts were beyond comprehension: he was the Sun, the giver of life, as well as the destructor. Wars came in response to such power--the results of envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.

"This man who brought such wars found the evil inside of him--and somehow, he became two beings."

I squeezed my knotted arms, the story resting heavy within me, as if a hole had been filled. "So, he separated the Sun?"

His smile came meekly. "I suppose that's one way to look at it."

It still sat heavy with me, and as I looked upon the empty walls of the shop, I thought to myself how it'd never happen again--how I'd never be able to share these conversations again. Mr. Trice wanted the best for me, I knew, and we both knew that a shop keeper was nothing. He continued to sweep his floor, and why I'd never ask, though if I'd ever guess he would want to leave his past in a clean slate.

I envied his wisdom in the same fashion I envied my fathers. These walls would soon collapse though, but

(To be continued...)