A Place To Bloom

Janju Cakes

I couldn't blame Oasis for drifting off; she'd been exhausted. I was exhausted, too, but I had another problem. I'd spent all of Davod's money, and I needed to tell him.

I slid the door closed as quietly as possible on my way out.

In the hallway, the air was thick and warm, and the song of the water organ downstairs echoed through the staircase.

Down in the lobby, a middle-aged Goloagi woman dressed in a gown with layers of white tulle with woven red and pink flowers sat playing. Her eyes were closed, and her curly hair moved with her shoulders as she massaged the keys, inciting melodious tunes of dizzying complexity. I sat in one of the plush chairs and listened, trying to work out in my mind how to explain to my best friend that the money he'd given me for supplies instead went to buy medicinal herbs for a complete stranger.

The woman was a practiced virtuoso. Her fingers danced across the keys as her whole body flowed into the melody. She blended herself into the song as though the instrument were an extension of herself.

If it was one in the afternoon, what beer number would Davod be on, and how many would it take to have him in a forgiving mood?

I sat and listened. When the organist was done, she turned to me and smiled before floating up the spiral staircase.

I needed to go see Davod. I couldn't wait any longer.

Out on the street, I stood and stared. Over people's heads I could see the pub where he'd said he would be, just beyond the giant Falcon statue. So I took a deep breath, and with my heart racing, I mustered all my courage, crossed the street, and entered a totally different shop.

Beside the door was a light-colored wooden table with some curiosities on it. One of them was a box with a hand crank on one end and a fan on the other, and the top was open to display a host of gears and belts.

When I turned the crank, the fan started turning. As I turned faster I heard a click, and suddenly the fan started turning faster and faster with each crank. It clicked again, the tension in the crank grew, and the fan turned even faster with each revolution. I thought to start over, see if I could make out how it was doing that when a voice came from behind me.

"Can I help you?" It was an older Herali man with long, straight hair that hosted streaks of gray and cascaded down his shoulders.

"What is this place?"

He scowled and fixed his emerald eyes at me. "We're engineers. We engineer things. Don't touch any more of the demos."

With that, he disappeared behind a gray curtain that filled a doorway to the rear of the shop. I held my hands behind my back and looked around. Mounted on the wall was an insect made of wood and paper, easily three feet from wingtip to wingtip. It had an open casing on its back with a box of strange gears and levers along with a coil connected to a small crank that I badly wanted to turn. Another exhibit was a long metal railing with several marbles held in a pool. The rail ran the length of the wall and followed a series of jumps, bridges, and other obstacles. I wanted to touch that one, too.

The one that truly grabbed my attention stood alone in the corner. At the bottom was a tub filled with tiny glass beads and a scooper, and at the top was a chute. My eyes traced the chute downwards past a wheel with paddles that was connected to another box of gears and levers that didn't appear to do anything at all, but ended in two small copper spikes with a tiny space between them.

I needed to know what it did, and I couldn't tell by looking. So, I scooped up a cupful of the beads and fed them into the chute. They fell through a hole in the bottom and dropped down a slide, clattering against the wheel paddles like rain, turning it. Then, as it gathered speed, I heard a sound like a loud popping that rattled off. Between the copper spikes, tiny shards of lightning split the air. I was spellbound. I was desperate to see it again