It is a quiet morning. The birds are singing outside. A breeze moves through now and then. I am in the den, settled deep in the lounge chair with a hot mug of tea in my hands. The mug is warm against my palms. The chair holds me. The birds keep singing.
I put my hand on my heart and breathe. Then I take another sip. Cinnamon and sweetness.
I heard him first in my mind.
He asked if he could come into the room.
I nodded and looked up as he came in from the kitchen. He had to stoop a little beneath the archway.
He was wearing a long dark coat and heavy black boots. He had a close beard and brown eyes. By the time I looked down at my tea and back up again, he had taken off his duster, pulled a chair near mine, and sat with his legs stretched out in front of him as though the chair were made for leaning back.
I asked his name.
“Eiron.”
It sounded at first like he was saying, I run.
I asked how he introduced himself.
“Less is more,” he said.
I took a sip of tea.
“What brought you here to Rowan Hollow?”
“I knew you had arrived,” he said. “I didn’t want you wondering about belonging here.”
I looked down into the floorboards and let that sit where it landed.
I wondered where he was when he wasn’t here.
Outside, the birds were still singing.
I closed my eyes. Not to listen better. The listening was what made my eyes close.
For a while he talked the way some people write in a journal, beginning in the middle and saying only the part that mattered most.
“Bread and jam,” he said.
At once I could see a little market. Tables with cloths over them. Jars catching the light. Bread. Jam. Honey. Dried meat. Cheese. Socks laid out in pairs. Then I came back to the room so I would not lose what he was saying.
“Margie used to be one of the sad ones,” he said. “So was Micha. The market made the difference.”
He shifted in the chair.
“Suppose it is like planting a garden,” he said. “Or setting up a home. Everything has a place. Lili on the stone wall in the sun.”
Then he looked at me.
“Like you here,” he said. “You have a place at Rowan Hollow.”
I held the mug with both hands.
After a moment he said, “People say it wrong.”
He tipped his head a little.
“Know your place,” he said again, but differently.
Then he gave a small shrug.
“Because if you know your place, no matter where you are, you can return to it.”
The room stayed quiet after that.
He was nodding, acknowledging a conversation that wasn’t out loud.
He knew his place. By reminding me of mine, loneliness suddenly seemed ironic.
The sun had shifted by the time I noticed. My tea was gone. I had set the mug down on the papers beside me without remembering when.
Eiron stood, stretched, and scratched the side of his head with both hands.
“Know your place,” he said once more.
Then he put on his duster and went back through the kitchen.
I waited to hear him again.
When I did not, I got up and looked.
He was gone.
I wrapped my arms around myself and stood there for a moment, smiling.