Hugh McGregor's Arc

Chapter 3 of 1

Hugh pushed the recipe book into his coat and rode back fast. He reached Cluck Nessie with time to spare. The salt line still lay thick along the door. He knelt to wipe it aside, then stopped. He needed the pan. He went in, past the warm smell of oil, to the shelf where his grandmother's cast iron always hung. The hook was empty. He checked the oven, the sink, the shelf below. Nothing. The old pan from 1900, the one she cooked in every Sunday, was gone. The thief had moved it during the break-in, and now it was lost. Hugh pulled his other pans down and set one on the burner. He mixed the warding dish from the book, bone and fat, and watched it brown. It smelled wrong. Thin. Dead. He tried a second pan, then a third. Each time the dish came out flat, no pull to it, no life. The recipe failed in anything but her iron. He wiped his hands and stared at the empty hook. Without that pan, he could draw salt lines forever and never end the thing. Outside, a chair scraped on the patio. Hugh looked through the glass. A teenager had sat down at the tartan bistro set under the parasol. Shoulder-length brown hair, a Led Zeppelin shirt, a red backpack. Wade Cooper. The boy came around with his friends most days. He never left rubbish like the others. Hugh had a soft spot for him. Hugh went out. "You're early," he said. "Waiting on the band?" "Russ and Benny," Wade said. "Benny's driving." Hugh nodded. He thought of the paperback on his kitchen table, his son's old book. The boy had loved stories like that. On impulse he went in and fetched it, then set it on the table by Wade. "You read these?" Hugh asked. Wade turned it over. "Yeah. This one's good." He looked up. "You sure?" "Keep it." Hugh sat across from him. "Strange things around town lately. Folk going missing. Scratching at the old laundromat." He watched the boy's face. "Stay out of that place." Wade went still. "My sister said something like that. About a muddy man who comes and goes." He paused. "I didn't believe her." Hugh leaned in. "Somebody got into my shop one night. Scattered feathers. Took my salt." He tapped the table. "And they took my grandmother's pan. The one that matters. I can't finish what I started without it." Wade studied him, not laughing, the way his friends might. "Where'd it go?" "Wish I knew," Hugh said. A truck roared somewhere down the road, loud and rough, drawing close. Wade's head turned toward the sound. "That's Benny," he said. Hugh stood. He had a shop to open and no pan to save it. "Mind that warning," he said, and went inside. Wade stayed at the table, the old book in his hands, and waited for his friends.