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“Shall I fulfill any desires for you—”
“Later. Sorry.” He pauses in his harried escape of me but has already opened the door to upstairs, presumedly to retire to his room. “I bought a book and could really use some me time—some alone time—to read it and decompress. Is that okay? I wish it for only a couple hours.”
“Granted. And of course. If you want anything in the meantime, you need only ask.”
It does help that Jeffrey thinks to say the words, to wish his requests of me, which makes it more of a compulsion and helps to feed my urges. I will not disturb him now until he asks it or returns downstairs. He is keeping something from me, but that is my owner’s prerogative. Given Jeffrey’s general judgment, I assume he has good reason.
I have done important work toward achieving his primary wish, things I can explain to him when he has need of me again. It is lonely with how quiet it is in the building, closed for the day. When Mattie ran it, there was no “day off” although anyone could request one or longer when needed.
Save me. I was at her beck and call and would have had it no other way, could not have had it any other way. The building was always a bustle then, full of desires and potential.
Since Jeffrey granted me autonomy, I could leave the building, and I’d still hear if he called to me, if he wished something. I do consider it and move toward the front to peer out the windows at the passing people and vehicles and life just out of reach.
Across the street, the corner of my vision catches sight of a tall, thin man wearing a suit and top hat, but when I turn my head to look at him fully, there is no one, maybe only an echo, before a passing car vanishes him completely.
I back away from the windows and decide to return to work. Whatever exists in that shop, who Jeffrey went to engage with so casually, it has desires I could never fulfill.
And I hope I am never asked to.
Chapter seven
Jeffrey
June 5, 1885
My first and former diary, as I shared in my inaugural entry of these pages, is at the bottom of the Atlantic. I tossed it there myself before my ship made port, having crossed from the supposed Old World to the New. It certainly was new to me, and I vowed then to only recount my days, as I had my wretched childhood, when there was something worthwhile to write about.
I bought this diary far sooner than expected, although worthwhile did not always mean nice or of good fortune. If I am an old woman rereading this, I hope the early days in this city are but a memory I would need this diary to even recall. If you are someone else reading this for posterity or mere curiosity, I guarantee my story gets more scintillating from here, and not in any way I ever could have predicted.
Last night, as a well-versed seamstress of still prominent youth, I was just finishing some lengthy work of hemming at trouser level for a moderately successful businessman, when he decided to shortchange me. Naturally, I made a fuss, for any self-respecting non-married woman in charge of her own financial situation deserves her fair due for services rendered. The policeman who heard me squalling disagreed, and I made haste to escape his faulty assessment of the situation.
I fled to a part of the city still being built, hoping the dirt and dishevelment of building materials would deter the policeman from pursuit. It did not, and I found myself taking refuge in what I thought was access to the sewers but that quickly became the depths of a cave system, only open to entry due to the large pits that had been dug for the laying of foundation for future businesses.
The path was too dangerous for the policeman to follow farther, though I feared I might be spending the night there if I didn’t want to run into him trudging back out the way I’d come. I hoped instead to find a way out of the caves ahead or an actual part of the sewers above with a manhole I might escape through.
I did find a hole, a walled-up part of the caves that had to have been put there by a person, and when I dug away at those stones, what I found within, chained like some Greek Titan, was worth any danger or toil I had suffered through thus far.
A wave of nausea hits me, my blood sugar having dropped, and I instantly lose focus.
Shit. What time is it?
I look for my phone, but it’s plugged into the wall to charge, so I glance at my alarm clock and—12:30pm! It’s already after lunch? I’d only now gotten to the part of the story that connects to the history I’d heard, to Mattie’s supposed tall tales she told clients and employees, of when she found Odai just like I had.
I want to keep reading, but if I do, I know I won’t want to stop, and I really need to eat something. And to rejoin Odai. It feels sort of mean again, leaving him down there to work, while I have the day off, even if all he ever asks for is whether he can fulfill something for me.
It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about him filling various things. Because I have. A lot. But even though the diary is at the good part, it’s not as if I don’t know what Mattie’s about to find down there. For now, I bookmark my spot and slip the journal beneath my pillow.
“Ah, you have returned. May I—”
“Lunch,” I say, cutting Odai off before I’ve even finished shutting the door to upstairs. “I really need lunch. Can I wish for a quick snack, so I don’t keel over before we eat something substantial? Oh my god!” A depth of guilt weighs my stomach down again, which does not feel pleasant when empty. “I forgot to ask if you needed to eat! You drank coffee yesterday. Have I been starving you—”
“Jeffrey.” Odai exits the office to meet up with me, and there is a chuckle in his voice. “All is well. I can eat, but like with sleep, it is not a necessity for me. I do enjoy it, however.”
“That still makes me feel bad!” I say with a cringe. “Because I’m guessing you haven’t been sneaking off to Cold Stone to try ice cream for the first time.”
“I have not. Although I have had ice cream before.”
“You have?”
