Grayling Junction - Chapter Nine

The Family Morrow

Virtually since the town began the Morrow house has been much more than a simple wooden building bound together with rusting rivets, tangled vegetation and crowned with a stoic roof of local tin. This is the House of Wants and the sole responsibility for keeping house now lies with Lalo Morrow. In return the house has looked after Lalo his father and his grandfather who, like the rapidly flourishing Echinopsis pachanoi, have thrived in the cool confines, flowering in the twilight hours, growing tall by the call of the moonlight and needing no more sustenance than the roots of home.

Lalo – a name of Spanish origin that means he who brings prosperity or luck – is the eldest of three. His younger sister Maya lives beyond the cresting span of an ocean, with her three children and a small husband with round glasses. They enjoy an ordered life that has been patiently arranged layer upon layer like a Russian doll. His younger brother Tio – having briefly tasted the lurid lights and swarming streets of Randall City – chose to join an eldritch monastery a world away. The monastery, a collection of hushed wooden buildings, is flanked on every side by a craggy rocks and clings to a plateau crowning a series of Tibetan mountains.
Lalo receives occasional letters from both siblings. It is generally accepted however, that the distance between them will prevent them from ever meeting in person again. Sometimes Lalo reads the handwritten letters to Freyja. He replies within a month or so of receiving them but finds little has occurred between his previous letter and the next.

Born under a Pisces sky, Lalo was an intuitive, sensitive child who found happiness in books, water and trees. Fortunate enough to have loving parents, his development lacked any definite tragedy.
His maternal grandfather, whom latterly he was growing to resemble, had told him as a young child – peering through the customary jade green cloud of pipe smoke that swirled around him and his favourite chair like a mystery – that “the Morrows tended to avoid the wrath of the deities”, owing to their honourable work in keeping house.

Grandfather Lalo Xavier Fortuna Morrow was a man who had seen a great many adventures – enough for a story all of his own – long before he drifted into the town of Grayling Junction. He immediately settled himself into the house as though it had always been his and within a few days murmurs broke loose through the dusty streets like mice. People formed in tight huddles, raising eyebrows and throwing hasty glances toward the Morrow building. When Grandfather Morrow walked through town faces twitched within the shadows behind windows.
They watched with a seesaw combination of fascination and apprehension for here was a man without history; a man who could make magic happen. If that wasn’t enough, his controversy eagerly extended to drinking in the day, sporting a silver hoop earring and cavorting – loudly and enthusiastically – with a succession of olive-skinned women whenever the fancy took him.
Rumours spread like damp within the walls of the houses in town, exploding across the confines of the saloon bar that stood on a scrap of land bordering the river – land that nowadays houses a far less exciting plastic extrusions manufacturer.

Having opened his house to one and all, propping the door wide with an Indian ceramic elephant of reduced scale, old man Morrow had settled behind his counter and idly smoked his pipe.
At first people had gathered at a distance outside open-mouthed.
From their reaction it was as though a steam train had fallen from the sky.
One after the other they had shuffled neared to the open door, bickering over who would be first to step inside. When someone had braved the steps and walked inside they had made an amazing discovery:
Though the actual exchange has been lost to the clutches of history, it undoubtedly began with Grandfather Morrow asking the man what his heart desired. Payment would have been arranged and returning the following day somewhat bewildered, the man would have collected a sleek, black stallion of a height far above the tallest man in the town. Others had followed and within the shedding of a few weeks everyone in Grayling had been to visit the Morrow house.
Suddenly the women of the town paraded themselves along the street wrapped in luxurious finery, many brought low under the weight of fresh gold trimming. The men sported silver daggers, helmets and ostentatious boots of the softest leather. Families now shunned walking anywhere and the streets quickly jammed with fancy carriages pulled by splendid horses. Whole weekends passed behind closed doors as the residents hurled themselves at immense banquets.
It seemed, that satisfaction (or perhaps avarice) had arrived in Grayling.

Following many years of providing the people of Grayling and beyond with that which they desired, Grandfather Morrow had passed on one afternoon. With him went secrets, unanswered questions and the truth behind the origins of the house and its power to provide.
Shortly before passing Grandfather Morrow had been entertaining a five-year old Lalo with fantastical – and it might be said generously exaggerated – glimpses of the Grayling of yesteryear. Without warning, a backlog of coughing had agitated the green fog around him and with a sudden smile he had slumped backward into the chair. His gaze had passed over Lalo's shoulder, his face radiant with the unaffected joy of one witnessing the return of a missing lover. Then, with a sigh he had allowed his head to sag backwards against the cushion as his eyes closed for the final time. He was 113.
Lalo's parents, a diminutive couple who communicated in a private dialect of arcane whispers and gentle smiles, were next to move on.
Having each enjoyed ninety-one years of largely untroubled content they were folded delicately back into the earth from whence they came. One followed within a day of the other, guaranteeing that their funeral both continued and concluded their habit of sharing all events, minor and major.
As a handful of dry, red earth scattered noisily across matching mahogany Lalo had thought, just for a moment, that he had seen his grandfather beyond the cemetery wall.
He had turned and left his parents to a quiet interment, with that Lalo was a man alone in the world.

Lalo makes his way around the counter toward the one of the windows overlooking the street. Carefully he forces a slight opening in the blind. His fingers quiver as he peers through the gap. After the half-light of the reception area the raw sunlight causes him to momentarily screw his eyes into a squint, before scanning the street from left to right. Nothing. He strains to look further along the street. He is looking for a black, unmarked van that has been parked near the front of his house on and off for three weeks. Like his father before him it falls to Lalo to protect the house.
Across the road Lalo can see three fine friends sat on their bench enjoying the morning. Tam Flint takes the lion's share of the seat, wooden planks bowing beneath as the slight figures of Ron and No-Shoes hunch forwards, No-Shoes glancing toward the Morrow house. A smile crosses Lalo's face, quickly replaced by a sudden shudder as he imagines a day when he looks out of the window and sees only an empty bench.