Seeking Daylight - Season 1 - Episode 1

Seeking Daylight - Part I - Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII

An Odd Fellow

Andy had little idea where they were off to in such a hurry.

Thomas had been leading the way as if on a mission. They spent little time talking and nearly the entire day walking. They had passed through the deep city corridors, lined with tall stone and brick buildings. Then further still, past all sorts of folks who were sipping their coffees in the cafes and catching up on things, just as Grandpa Andy had hoped to do himself during his trip to visit with his son. They had no time for that now. They had more important matters to attend to. His cup of coffee would have to wait for now.

Gradually, the sun began to disappear behind the tall city buildings off in the distance, and the stone office buildings gave way to townhouses. The concrete at their feet had turned to the pebbled roads that crisscrossed through the outskirts of town, until they finally approached a small cottage-style home. The postage stamp-sized parcel where the house sat was covered in a thin layer of snow, but Andy was easily able to discern that whoever had lived here was a gardener far superior to even him.

Every square inch of the property had been filled with tilled rows and wooden pots where plants of every imaginable kind had grown until that year’s first frost. Andy recognized where elderflower, dragon’s breath, artichokes, radishes and garlic had been planted. There were bean plants too, more beans than he imagined any family of people could possibly eat in their lifetime. At the west end of the home, rows of sunflowers stood hunched and wilted from the cold. There were hazelnut, pear, crabapple and plum trees bordering the small flat-stone path too, each ushering them to the home’s perfectly square front door, painted in a shade of bright blue.

The home appeared to have been constructed from flat, stacked, river stones, though it was difficult to see much behind the thick vines that crawled their way up the walls. Just beside the door, attached to the wall, was a small brass bell that hung from a hook. Thomas grabbed for the chain that dangled from within it and gave it a stern shake, creating a piercingly high-pitched DING-DING-DING-DING-DING.

“Who’s there now, why must you bother me?” came a muffled shout through the thick shut door.

Thomas shot his father a glance as he shouted back. “It’s Tom…Witherspoon. Open the door, Morgo!”

The two of them stood there in silence for long enough that Andy thought the man yelling from behind the door must have gone off to attend to whatever he might have been doing before he and Tom had clearly bothered him. But just as Tom raised his fist to thump it against the door, there was the sound of clicks and clacks coming from the other side as the man worked through the arduous process of unlocking what must have been a half-dozen deadbolts. The door eventually creaked open, just enough of a crack that Andy could see the shadow of the man moving behind it.

“Rainin…is that you?” the voice asked cautiously.

“I go by Tom up here, Morgo, you know that. Now will you be opening the door, or shall I set up camp for the night on your doorstep?”

The door swung wide as the man took a step backward and stood with his arms stretched to his sides in a welcoming pose. He was an odd little man, not quite like anyone Andy had known. He was short, not so short that he might be considered a “little person,” but smaller than what Andy had considered to be of “normal” stature. He was of a slight build too, fragile and wiry. An older fellow, perhaps a bit younger than himself. Yet his large and bright green eyes looked like they could have belonged to a young boy. He wore a brownish corduroy overcoat that covered a crisp white shirt and the straps of his light brown overalls. The only color in the man’s outfit belonged to his pair of bright orange and well-worn shoes.