Scryer's Gulch

Episode 6: One-Way Cat Fight

You know, I'm getting too old and crotchety to tell stories like this. I might be back, but I don't feel like saying much today. I don't feel so good.

*

While Misi stood on the windowsill at Hopewell's worrying about Annabelle, she herself was still visiting students. She'd met Jamie Runnels and the Prake twins, and the two children of L.L. Lockson, publisher of the Voice of the Gulch. Now she walked back up the boardwalk toward the great mansion on the hill to acquaint herself with Lily Bonham.

Just past Prake's Hardware, her detector bracelet buzzed and pricked at her wrist. She returned to the store, masking her excitement as she pretended to windowshop; the sensation faded. She strolled back up the street until the pricking became nearly unbearable: it came from the ethergraph office.

The door swung open and Simon Prake came barreling out, just avoiding a collision. "Oh--! Miss Duniway, please forgive me! I'm terribly sorry, I'm--I have an urgent ethergram to deliver to Mr Bonham."

"I'm calling on the Bonhams myself, Mr Prake," she smiled up at him.

"Please, then," he said, "let me escort you."

She took his proffered arm, and they walked toward the Bonham mansion. Such a pretty young man; she always had a soft spot for the boyish ones. If Simon were the source of the disturbance, charm or no she'd have to take him in, but the thought saddened her.

"What business brings you to Jed Bonham, if I may ask?" said Simon.

"You sound like Sheriff Runnels," she said. "He's always asking me questions like that!"

"I'm sorry--that was impertinent, wasn't it?"

"You're forgiven," Annabelle laughed. "I'm not calling on Mr Bonham. I hope to meet his daughter, Lily, and her mother."

"Bonham's wife, you mean," said Simon, his lips thinning. "Mrs Bonham isn't much of a mother to Lily. Lily's my sister Amelia's best friend, and my own mother tries...but I shouldn't gossip."

"I'm beginning to wonder about you, Mr Prake," Annabelle teased. "Impertinent questions, gossip. Is the ethergraph business so very slow?"

"Not at all," he grinned. "It's a very exciting business. Most days I have plenty to do, and then on the few days when I'm not as busy, I have my own projects to work on."

"Oh?" she prompted. She knew very well he was more than just an ethergraph operator; he was a highly skilled engineer, but she wouldn't let that knowledge slip.

"You see, I'm working on this new way of encoding hermetauxite for use in ethergraphy--I'm so very close! If I can just--"

He stopped abruptly, and Annabelle followed his icy gaze. There in the middle of the boardwalk before the Hotel LeFay stood Tony Bonham, coatless but otherwise elegant, a small diamond winking from his silk cravat. Tony gave Annabelle a very civil bow, but all he gave Simon was the briefest of nods. "Do you have an ethergram for me, Prake?" he said.

"It's for a Bonham, but not for you," snapped Simon.

Tony ignored him. "Miss Duniway, I haven't seen you since your arrival. I hope the town agrees with you? This business at the school hasn't troubled you too much, I hope?"

"Oh, no, not at all, Mr Bonham. Teachers are accustomed to resistance from their pupils, of all kinds. Were I to let a few misspelled words bother me, I'd have quit the profession before I began it!"

"And your accommodations? The Hotel LeFay's offer of lodgings still stands, miss."

"You're very kind," she said, watching Simon's darkening face out of the corner of her eye, "but I'm well-established at Hopewell's. Perhaps I might ask the parents to add a little room onto the schoolhouse for me."