Ursula Pflug - Seeds and Other Stories

Rachel woke an hour after she’d gone to bed, her body vibrating like a tuning fork.

Three twenty a.m. What else could it be?

She opened her computer. Might as well grind away at her story for a while. Three twenty almost always meant not getting back to sleep at least for a couple of hours.

Turn the internet off, she told herself. If you piss away the night on “research,” Youtube and Twitter, you won’t get your shitty story finished. In addition, you will miss the information oozing through the portal. Right now. As we speak. So shut the fuck up, shut the computer, pay attention.

She had first felt the portal on the stairs, its presence making her skin prickle and her mind light up with some kind of caffeine much better than caffeine. It had taken Rachel most of her life to understand that she really could feel the presence of portals and sometimes even stick her head through them. She might have crow’s feet and be afraid she’d lost her flow as a writer but being able to unequivocally identify portals was a fairly snazzy trade.

Portals were usually formed because of the confluence of various geophysical factors combining. Here, Rachel wagered, it was the high mineral content. People came to this area from all over the world to hack smoky quartz and tourmaline out of the road cuts every summer; they stumbled over big amethyst geodes just going for a stroll in the woods. There were stores and festivals catering to the phenomenon. Little did the crystal-crazed know what was actually going on around here; so few of the people who claimed to be “sensitives” ever actually were.

When Rachel next woke up it was daybreak. Was it late enough to go to the upstairs kitchen and make coffee? She was afraid of waking the young Norwegians who stayed in the top floor dorm. Like a lot of northern Europeans who were a little obsessed with the Canadian wilderness, they had come to hike in Algonquin Park. The hotel was close to the eastern gate and a good starting point.

It was good to put down her bag. The walk from the corner to the hotel was less than a mile but it was hot. It was called the coastal highway but Esme hadn’t actually seen the sea except briefly though the trees early in the morning.

The lobby was empty but there was a round silver bell on the desk. Esme pushed the button and waited, popping a mint from the pink cut-glass candy dish into her mouth. She immediately wished she hadn’t; the mints were unwrapped, slightly dusty and sticky.

A wide curved staircase swept up to the right. Against the walls philodendrons in big pots struggled in the low light that snuck in from the windows, still shuttered to ward off the afternoon heat. Most of the woodwork was painted bright red, peeling in places. The floors were cracked black and white linoleum tile, real linoleum too from the looks of things, made out of linseed oil and not petroleum.

Margit came out from the door behind the desk, which led to a small suite she shared with her husband and their daughter. “Welcome!” she beamed. “It has been so long!”

“Yes.” Esme peered. Could Margit really remember her? It seemed unlikely. Ten years were after all ten years. And she had been little more than a child when she had stayed here before. Maybe Margit was mistaking her for someone else.

“I’m Esme.”

“Of course you are Esme. Who else would you be? Esme Templetree.”

“Thank you, Margit. I didn’t know if you’d still be here and I didn’t know whether you’d remember me. You look amazing.” Margit did look good. She was short and rotund, and only a little more of the second than before. Her hair still framed her pleasing face in thick dark waves.

“Oh, shush. None of us are young anymore,” Margit said. “Except you and my daughter, of course.”

“And how is your husband?” Esme remembered the dinner parties, the acidic white wine from Dream that her aunt had given up after it made her vomit twice in a row.

“John is passed on several years now. I don’t know if you remember he was ill.”

“I’m so sorry to hear, Margit. John was always kind to us.”

“And our daughter—she went away.” Esme didn’t ask in case it was something bad. “Annielle is still here though. She looks so good for her age.”

“I was afraid to ask. Of course it is my aunt I came to see. I just came to the hotel first, because I wasn’t sure.”

“She doesn’t live here. We haven’t been much in touch in a long time, not because I didn’t want to be.”

Esme nodded, and again she didn’t ask. “I thought maybe I could stay a week, go back with the next bus. The driver doesn’t go to Dream anymore. Could I hire a taxi? Some local man with a truck?”

Margit beamed. “Local woman. Jeannie goes to pick up fish and she’s friendly.”

“Do I know her?”

So few people lived at the bottom of the peninsula and of those who did, many, like Margit, never left. When you knew everyone it was hard to go to a place where you didn’t. Hard to go to a city. Some of the young of course wanted nothing more than to run, but others—it was as if the sand itself was sticky.

“We can talk about all of this tomorrow. First I will show you to your room. You would like your old room, yes?”

“My old room?”

“You and Annielle’s old room. The big one at the back.”

Their room had overlooked a field full of salt grass in which a few old ribby horses munched. A corner room, with shabby furniture and tall windows on two walls, their opened shutters filling the room with light. Strange that Esme had forgotten and Margit had remembered.

“I’ll help you with your bag.” Margit came out from behind the desk and with a sprightly step lifted the bag.

“When does the dining room open?” Esme looked at her watch. She’d had to find one in a drawer.

“I’m sorry. My daughter had so many plans to reopen it, hire local chefs, source local food. That’s why Jeannie started bringing the fish, but now it’s mostly just us who eats it.”

Us? Who lived in the hotel other than Margit? In the town? It seemed even more de-populated than the last time. “What do I do about dinner?” she asked.

“Sometimes I cook, but not tonight. There’s a good soup place down the street.” Margit hefted the floral bag and edged it up the stairs, setting it down and resting a moment every few steps. Esme felt guilty but didn’t intervene. The walk from the corner in the scorching heat had exhausted her.

A woman passed them, heading down. She carried a laptop under her arm and gave Margit only the palest of nods. She barely glanced at Esme.

“Who is that?” Esme whispered.

“She’s staying across the hall from you. She’s not from here.”

“Who even is? It’s a hotel.”

“I rent a few rooms on a monthly basis. But I meant she’s staying in the other hotel.”

“Oh?” Esme asked.

“The hotel is a node. People from another dimension can stay here. What I mean is. The hotel exists in two dimensions at once, and in the other one it’s called The Red Arcade.”

They had reached the landing. “My across-the-hall-neighbour, does she have a name?”

“It’s Rachel. I don’t know her last name. And I can’t check the register. She’s booked into The Red Arcade, but she can use this hotel too. Sometimes she breakfasts with us.”

“Wow,” Esme said. “What a good deal.”

“Yes,” Margit said. “Two hotels for the price of one. It’s part of why people come here. The ones who can stand it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It makes some people a little nauseous.”

“Ah. Like altitude sickness or seasickness.”