A Peaceful Dwelling

You crouch and peer at the brass letter slot.

"Ha!"

The door swings open before the word finishes leaving you.

Aunt Edith is sitting on the harbour wall in a deck chair she has clearly brought from the attic, squinting at you exactly the way she squints in photographs, as if she suspects you of something.

"Neither," you say.

The market runs the length of the harbour front and, as far as you can tell, the length of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

The door behind the lamp is small and green, with a brass letter slot and no handle, no keyhole, no hinges you can find.

Edith nods, unsurprised.

On the harbour wall, in the best of the sunlight, sits a thin grey cat with his tail wrapped around his feet, radiating the serenity of a creature who has never once been lost, thank you, and resents the implication.

The lamp room is round, glass-walled, and impossibly cozy.