is actually there, even though it shouldn’t be.
“Good,” says Mrs. Benjamin’s voice somewhere. “Very good…”
Mona is trying to work all this out when she sees there is something slight and insubstantial about the ashtray on the table. It too has turned a little translucent, and she can see light filtering through it. And then the ashtray begins to shudder, like a strobe light, and it starts to disappear…
Mona gasps. “No!” cries Mrs. Benjamin, but it is too late. Whatever was floating out of the dining room plummets to the ground, then vanishes without a sound. Immediately things revert back to how they were: there is only one ashtray, sitting on the coffee table, and the rest of the house is opaque and hard and real again.
“What was that?” asks Mona. She hastily puts the mirrors back in their case. “What the hell kind of magic trick was that?”
But Mrs. Benjamin seems even more disturbed than Mona. Her face is gray as she stares at the ashtray on the table. Finally she clears her throat and says, “Perhaps I was wrong, my girl. Perhaps you do belong here in Wink after all.”
“What do you mean?” asks Mona.
Before Mrs. Benjamin can answer there is a knock at the front door. Both of them jump a little, and Mrs. Benjamin stares at the door, not comprehending. “Oh,” she says when the knock sounds again. “I suppose I ought to answer that…” She stands up and hobbles to the door.
As she does, Mona looks back down at the mirrors in the case. There does not seem to be anything strange or extraordinary about them now; they are merely two small mirrors, each reflecting the ceiling. But still she shivers a little.
She hears the door open. Mrs. Benjamin says, “Oh,” again, though this time she sounds far less pleased.
“Hello, Myrtle,” says a man’s voice softly. “I—”
“Oh, hello, Eustace,” says Mrs. Benjamin, quickly and loudly. “Please do come in. I have company.” She stands aside, and Mona sees it is the little old man who sold her her mattress, Mr. Macey. But he is not flirty or wry this time, but terribly grave.
“Company?” he asks.
“Yes,” says Mrs. Benjamin. She ushers him inside. “This is Miss Bright. She’s new in town. Miss Bright, this is Eustace Macey. He works at the general store.”
“We’ve met,” says Mona.
“Oh, I’m so glad. What brings you here, Eustace? I was just showing Miss Bright a little magic trick of mine.”
“I came to discuss something with you,” says Mr. Macey. He does not even look at Mona. “Alone.”
“Would it be possible to discuss this later, Eustace?”
“No,” he says. “No, it wouldn’t, Myrtle.”
Mrs. Benjamin eyes him angrily and looks back at Mona. “Are you sure, Eustace?” she asks, her voice brimming with false politeness.
He nods.
“It can’t wait at all?”
He shakes his head, expression unchanging. Mrs. Benjamin is smiling so hard Mona is worried her cheeks will crack. “Fine,” she says through gritted teeth. “Mona, could you please excuse us for a moment? I know… weren’t you interested in getting some of my tea?”
Mona was most fucking certainly not interested in getting any of Mrs. Benjamin’s tea, but the old woman is in such a fearsome mood that she doesn’t object.
“Excellent!” says Mrs. Benjamin. “My tea rack is in the kitchen. Feel free to help yourself to anything you’d like.”
Mona thanks her and withdraws to the kitchen as Mrs. Benjamin and Mr. Macey begin bickering in hushed tones. She wonders if she’s just been made privy to a lovers’ tiff (an idea that disgusts her) before she remembers the awkward way Mrs. Benjamin greeted Mr. Macey at the door, as if she wanted to stop him from talking as fast as possible. She wonders why this could be until she comes to Mrs. Benjamin’s tea rack, which, she discovers, is not a tea rack but a tea vault, an entire room with walls covered in shelves of little tins and vials and glass containers. Each has been carefully labeled: she sees one section of rooibos tea (of the lemon-and-honeybush variety), then several containers of oolong, white, and green tea leaves (each label paired with a Latin name for a different type of camellia, which Mona guesses is in the tea), then several pots of something called “brick tea,” and then there’s a section whose labels are all in Asian-looking writing.
It’s the section after this one that really catches her eye. These are the glass vials and beakers with old, yellowed labels, and what they