Cozy Mystery For Sleep: Briar Hollow | Chapter 10

This is a reading of 'Chapter 10: The Hinge and the Sums' from my personal story "The Last Cozy Lantern in Briar Hollow". This is just under 25 minutes of reading with no ambient sounds or music.
Story:
In the quiet village of Briar Hollow, an ordinary autumn evening takes a troubling turn when a familiar light fails to appear. As questions begin to gather around the loss of a respected villager, a careful observer starts noticing the small details others have overlooked.
Settle in for the opening chapter of a gentle, atmospheric fair-play mystery filled with lamplight, village secrets, and the slow unraveling of a carefully hidden truth.
Chapter 10 Description:
The village's careful records offer Voss a different kind of mechanism to examine. As figures are compared and questions asked, she discovers that numbers can fall out of alignment just as surely as clockwork.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Restful Journeys. I'm glad you're here. Tonight we will be continuing our story, The Last Cozy Lantern of Briar Hollow, With Chapter 10, The Hinge and the Sums. Take a moment. To make yourself comfortable. Whether you're settling in for the night or simply taking a little time for yourself, Allow the busyness of the day to gently fade away. There's nothing you need to do right now, Nowhere else you need to be. Just relax, Listen, And let the story carry you somewhere peaceful. And now, Let's return to Briar Hollow. Chapter 10. The Hinge and the Psalms. Six pence for the candles, So six pence change out of your shilling. Halloway said, Laying the coins on the counter, One at a time, As though each might bite. Her pencil lay across the ledger, Squared between them. Voss slid the packet of candles towards her satchel and left the money where it was. Mod Pinnick sent me. She said, If I want the penny counts of this village, They live with you. Mod says a great deal with a flowered spoon. Halloway pushed her spectacles up her nose by the chain. Which pennies? What the village paid toward the clock, My fee comes out of the fund, And I'd like to know what's in it. Ah! Halloway swung her ledger a little, As if it might want to hear. Well. . . I put in four shillings a quarter, Handed to Eldred at my own door, And he said thank you and went on with his poll. The bakehouse, Six pence, Because she'd had a good week. The brewer boys a penny each, And an argument about whose penny was whose. She tapped each name against the page without looking at it. The old man by the pump. A penny every round. Rain or shine. Did Eldrin write them down? Everyone in his little book with the stub of pencil. Licked it first. I watched him on my step. Halloway nudged a coin a fraction nearer. What it all came to, I couldn't tell you. People don't say totals over a counter. They say, I gave Eldred a shilling, And I say, So did I. And that's the end of it. Then nobody has a total. The doctor has, In his book he keeps on his desk. And here's what's bothering the square, Though I don't say it's true. She lowered her voice, Which for Halloway meant it carried only to the back of the shop. A good deal less is said to be in it than anybody remembers going in. The bakehouse woman is quite put out. She says she's not one to forget six pence. Have you seen the book? I have not. I sell candles. Nobody shows me a fund book. They show me their purses. The pencil began to tick on the ledger's edge. The village's word has been right about money more often than the vestry's, Mind. But I'll not pretend I've seen what I haven't. Ask me about Thread. I'm never wrong about thread. I'll save the thread for a difficult day. Vos tipped the change into her hand and weighed it. You count faster than most people read. Thirty years at the counter. You learn the weight of a penny in the dark. A bad one rings wrong. She reached under the counter for a square of brown paper. Folded it round something hard and flat, And wound string about it twice, Crosswise, With the speed of a woman who had done it ten thousand times. She took a stick of red wax from a drawer and warmed its end at the candle beside the ledger. One fat drop fell on the knot. She took a brass stamp from its hook, Pressed it down hard, And lifted it away. The shop's initials sat in the red, Sharp-edged. For the carrier, " she said. He's late again. Vos looked at the little red seal a moment longer than a seal required. You stamp everyone. Every parcel that leaves this shop, So nobody can say it wasn't me. Halloway wiped the stamp on a rag and hung it back on its hook. The vicar does the same with his letters. Church seal pressed in. The doctor, Too, On his bottles. This is a village that sets its mark on things. " Bals smiled, Pocketed the change, And slid the candle into the satchel, Where it settled between a file and the little hammer. I might go to the vestry's reading of the figures. She said. Monday Fortnite. Half the village is going, If only to see the bakehouse woman's face. The shop bell clattered behind her. The square had lost its far side to the fog. The church door was a darker patch across the cobbles, And the tower rose out of the paving and stopped somewhere above the second window. She crossed with her boots loud on the wet stone, Counting lantern post as they came up. Five, Four, Six. At the seventh, A cat sat, Washing itself under the glass, And did not trouble to move. She had a question for Garo that would not keep until afternoon, And the mill was at the bottom of the hill, So she took the lane. The cobbles tilted under her almost at once. Somewhere below, The stream made a steady, Small noise, With the smell of weed and mud coming up ahead of it. The surgery came at the fourth post, Brass plate polished, Blind, Drawn. No one stirred behind it. She slowed for the lantern. It stood on its iron post at the curb. A little taller than she was. In daylight it looked plainer than a lantern had any right to. The glass door was shut, And across the seam where door met frame sat a thumb of red wax. Pressed flat, The edges slightly spread. The glass was whole, No crack, No chip at the corners, Only a film of wet that had run in thin lines towards the bottom. Behind it, The wick stood black and dry in its brass collar. She bent and looked at the wax from the side. It was the same red as Holloway's, Or near it. And there the likeness stopped. Halloway's seal carried the shop's initials, Crisp as a coin. This carried nothing. It was a blunt lump with a smooth dent in the middle where a thumb had pushed it flat. Vos lifted her hands, Then put them back at her sides. The post was slick and the wax would keep without her. You have a repair coming then. She thought. And a rule to keep to. I shall ask about you. Across the lane, A hen coop leaned against a wall. And above it a child's window was shut and pale. She went on down toward the sound of the mill. The wheel found her before the mill did. A heavy rolling knock came up through the cobbles into her boot soles, And by the time the last post slid out of the fog, The sound was in the wall of the building itself. On the step, Flower lay in a soft drift, Printed with the wide, Flat tread of someone who wore the same boots to work and to dinner. She knocked twice with the flat of her knuckles. Grain, Warm dust, And a sharp edge of machine oil came out to meet her before anyone did. The door opened to Han's breath and stopped. Garrow filled the gap. Flower dried white on his forearms to the elbow, One hand on the door's edge, As though the rest of the mill might wonder out if he let it go. Mr. Garrow. I've come to ask about flour. It earned her a long look. Flower. Allara says that when you're in a mood, I'm to ask you about flour or the price of anything. I have a pie maker to keep in with. What does a sack of the fine go for? Depends who's asking. But his hand had eased on the door. Mod pays twelve and six, And complains of it, And sends me back a pie to be ashamed of. Then I'll not complain. The pie's worth it. She let him have a moment of that. And then she nodded at the bracket above her head where a lantern hung unlit. That's what I'd really like to ask about. The lamp on your own door. Every dusk he stood under it like a heron, Trimming and tutting. He said it as if it had been waiting behind his teeth. He sniffed. Not that it did any good. Lane was dark. Star. She said mildly. I'd have thought a mill door lit by its own lamp would be the brightest place on the lane. Not a glimpse to be had. Not by me, Not by the surgery. He heard himself a beat late and she watched the color begin to climb his collar. Dark as the inside of a sack the lane was, I tell you. I wrote to the vestry about it twice. Did Eldred answer? Tipped his hat and went on fussing. He shifted against the frame. Is that what you came down for, My letters? " No, Only passing. You said, Not a glimpse by the surgery. She smiled slightly. You were indoors, I think you told me. With the door shut. I only wonder. . . How you'd see it. The red came out of his collar and up his neck in one slow tide until even his ears had it. His mouth worked on something and gave it up. His hand tightened on the door's edge, And the wood creaked. Mr. Garu I'm not the vestry. I'd like to have it straight, That's all. A man hears things through a wall. He stopped. And began again, Shorter. I was home. He swung the door too. It did not slam. It came too heavily, With a scrape of wood on stone, And the bolt went across on the far side. The wheel thudded on behind the wall. Vos stood with her hand half raised. Then she put it down. The door had not closed square. Its top corner stood proud of the frame by the width of a finger, And the upper hinge had pulled out of true, So that the leaf sagged away from the jamb and left a thin black seam down one side. She put her eye close to it, Ran a fingertip along the hinge leaf, And found the pin riding high in its knuckle. The lower hinge was snug. Every opening would have ground the top one a little further round. She crouched, And the flower puffed up around her boots. From the satchel, She took the small wrench with its worn brass grip. The one she used on set screws, No bigger than a lintel, And fitted the jaws to the air beside the hinge pin, As if to measure. They would sit. A man that proud would not let a stranger mend his door. He might mend it himself, Though, If the right tool happened to be lying on his step. She tore a leaf from her pocketbook, Wrote on it with the stub of pencil, And folded it twice. Hinge is a quarter turn off. He would either use it or throw it in the stream. Either way, She had lost nothing but a wrench, And she had another at the yen. She laid the wrench squarely on the stone, With the note tucked under its head, So the draught off the water could not take it. She did not knock again. She shouldered the satchel and started up the lane. She spent the rest of the day in the tower with a pencil and a measuring tape, And slept at the inn, And rose before the kitchen fire was lit. Next morning, She came down Mill Lane again, With the tower's dust still in her hair. The mill door stood wide and it hung square in its frame, The top hinge flush with the bottom one. The wrench lay where she left it, Parallel to the edge of the step, Its head toward the lane. Of her note, There was no sound. Sign. The steel had been wiped and oiled, And the smell of it came up sharp over the grain dust. She did not touch it. Garo stood at his bench with his broad back to her, A small file in his fist, Bent over a cracked pawl from the sack moist, Clamped in the vice. The wheel went on behind the wall, Lighter than the day before. A board lay dropped across the race outside the window, And the water ran thin along it. Mourning, " said Vos. Garo did not look up. He drew the file along the work twice, Blew the filings away, And drew it again. He did not tell her to go. She stepped over the seal. Flower lay on the flagstones in a pale skin and took the print of her boots. At the far end of the bench, There was a clear patch of plank scarred with old rings from cups and tins. She unbuckled the satchel and set down a brass wheel wrapped in its cloth. Garo's file stopped. He looked at the wheel, Then at the vice, Then at the gap between them. That's not for a meal. It's for a tower. The ends table is all Maud's pastry. She waited, One hand flat beside the cloth. I can take it up the hill if you'd sooner. He did not say sooner. With the side of his forearm he pushed a pair of pliers, A tin of rivets, And a kindle stub along the bench, And slid his own work, Clamp and all, A good two feet toward the wall. The near half of the bench lay bare. Vos made no remarks. She drew the stool out with her foot, Laid out her brush, A pot of spirit, And a rag, And began. The old oil had set to a brown varnish between the teeth. She worked the brush into each gap, Wiped, And turned the wheel, A tooth to the next, Counting under her breath. Beside her, The file went on. Now and then, Garo set it down to hold his piece to the window and squinted along it. And once he reached across for the rag she had finished with. She passed him a clean one. He wiped his hands and he came back folded. At the fourteenth tooth, She stopped, Held the wheel up and sighted along the rim. One tooth was worn finer than its neighbors by no more than a hair. She ran the tip of her tweezers down its flank and the next, And felt the difference with the steel as well as the eye. Garo glanced at the gear sidelong, Then at her. Where? " said Vos without being asked. Forty years of the same pull. It's one of three small things. There's a pigeon straw across the escapement, And a dry arbor, And this. None of them would stop a clock. Together, They costed a quarter of an hour. She took up the brush again. That's the way with most failures, I find. Nobody takes the whole sum at once. They take a little off each column. Hmm, " said Garo. When the wheel was clean, She dried it and laid it on the cloth. Beside her, Garo set down the file, Wiped his palms on his apron, And went out. She heard his boots stop on the step. A moment later he came back in with her wrench held loosely in his hand, The head dark with oil. He did not offer it to her. He set it on the bench an inch from her satchel buckle and returned to his vice. Said Vos. Garo grunted. She picked up the wrench and ran the jaw out to its full width and back, Twice. The screw went home without a catch. A bead of oil stood in the thread. That's a better job than I gave it, " she said. It was sticking, He said to the iron. Since March. Thank you for the half of your bench. Wasn't loaned. He had gone back to his work, Shoulders squared to the vice, And he did not turn as she crossed the floor. The door opened on its mended hinge. When she let go of the edge, It swung back a few inches and stayed where it was, Which was more than she had expected of anything in that building. The wheel hummed behind her for twenty paces and dropped under the wall's shoulder. She kept to the crown of the lane. Tool knocked on Tool inside the satchel with a small, Steady tick. A man who was indoors with the door shut. She thought. Can tell you the color of the dark. She went over the morning as she walked. One piece at a time, The way she would lay out a movement on a clock. Not a glimpse by the surgery, He had said. Nobody learns that through a wall. A man learns it by standing in it. So he had been out of his house that night and had passed the surgery. And had looked at the lamp. But when, And why, And whom he had passed, She could not have said. It sat in her mind like a good part in the wrong box. That concludes Chapter 10, The Hinge and the Sums, From the story The Last Cozy Lantern of Briar Hollow. I thank you so very much for continuing to listen to this story. I hope you find it relaxing, Calming and that you may have possibly fallen asleep.

Reviews

Strange little town 🤔😒. Thank you for reading (and writing!) ✍️