Chapter 2 A stormy visit
Just as Anemo Gale was about to use his newly recovered spoon to stir his artichoke tea, an unexpected sound rang out.
Bang! Bang!
Someone was pounding hard with the bronze lion-shaped knocker on the brown door.
Mistral startled on the windowsill, pricking up his black ears.
"What an unceremonious visit!" he meowed, wrinkling his nose as if he had smelled something old.
Sirocco leaped like an orange ball toward the window, knocking over a stack of envelopes on his way.
"Un-cere-mo? Is it a big bird? Does it have feathers?" he asked, trying to peer over the edge of the glass.
Aeolus, who was watching everything through his magic lens from behind a mug, hurried to explain:
"No, Sirocco. Unceremonious means something that doesn't follow the rules of politeness. Like someone knocking too loudly or showing up without a word. Like when you jump on Anemo’s belly while he’s sleeping."
Anemo Gale, clumsy as usual, tripped over his own slippers in the hallway.
"It must be the courier with my new notebooks! Or maybe a real detective who heard about my new chapter! "he shouted "Look at my enthusiasm!"
Sirocco froze by the door, looking at Aeolus with wide eyes:
"En-thu-si-asm? Is it contagious? Am I going to get sick?"
Aeolus smiled under his thin whiskers:
Enthusiasm, little one, means great joy and lots of energy for something you’re about to do. It’s like when Anemo opens the bag of your favorite treats and you start racing through the house in happiness."
Mistral snorted, grooming his fur with a posh movement:
" I’d say it’s just an excess of noise. I hope the person at the door has brave shoes, at least; otherwise, I won't allow them on my rug."
The person at the door wasn't a detective, but someone much more fearsome for Anemo Gale’s mess: his mother, Mrs. Gale. She stepped into the hall with a gentle smile, but with a gaze that immediately scanned every speck of dust on the library.
"Oh, Anemo, my dear!" she exclaimed, placing her gloves on the hall table (right over an ink stain). "I hope you’ve cleaned up and haven't let any... rodents near your manuscripts. You know well I have a terrible phobia!"
Sirocco, hidden behind the table leg, froze.
" Pho-bia ? "he meowed toward Aeolus, who had made himself tiny behind a jar. "Is it something you eat with a wooden spoon?"
Aeolus, his heart beating like a little clock, whispered from the shelter of the shadows:
" No, Sirocco. A phobia is a very, very big fear of something specific. The lady is afraid of mice... meaning me! If she sees me, she’ll scream so loud the whole neighborhood will hear her."
Mrs. Gale sat on the edge of the plush armchair, but her mind was already in the garden, at the hair salon in Littlepace, and in the pastry shop window, all at the same time.
"Anemo, my dear, the dust on these encyclopedias is a calamity! You must use cotton cloth, not wool. By the way, did you see the neighbor on Hunters Run painted her fence bubblegum pink? Horrible! And speaking of colors, the doctor’s daughter—an admirable match—always wears sky-blue. You should invite her for tea, though with the way your kitchen looks, she might think you’re hosting an archaeology exhibit... Oh, and don’t forget to water the geraniums, I heard a heatwave is coming!"
Anemo Gale nodded his head, trying to catch at least one thread from his mother’s ball of ideas. He was putting sugar in his tea but forgot to stop, staring fixedly at her hat which vibrated with every sentence.
Sirocco, hidden under the tablecloth, looked at Aeolus with eyes as big as saucers:
" Aeolus... what’s a ca-la-mi-ty? Is it an animal that eats dust? And what’s a match? Does she play ball?"
Aeolus, standing still as a sugar statue behind a porcelain teapot, whispered:
" A calamity, Sirocco, is a great misfortune, like a flood or a fire. The lady thinks the dust here is a global disaster. And an admirable match... well, it means a very suitable person someone might marry. Someone who could help Anemo stop putting salt in his coffee."
Mistral, on the other hand, basked under Mrs. Gale’s strokes, purring with studied nonchalance. He was the "Knight of the Table," the only one who seemed to understand etiquette.
" Meow..." Mistral said, looking at Anemo with pity, as if confirming that the lady's son was indeed a lost cause.
Sirocco thought hard:
" Aeolus... but what is non-cha-lance? Mistral looks like he swallowed a cloud of fluff.
Aeolus: " Nonchalance means acting with an elegant indifference, as if nothing could disturb you. As if the house were collapsing, but you’re too busy grooming your whiskers to notice."
Mrs. Gale rose from the armchair with a sudden movement, as if pushed by an invisible spring. She took out her gold-rimmed glasses and a silk handkerchief that smelled of lemon. She began to wipe them meticulously, staring at the shelf where Anemo kept his thick dictionaries.
" Anemo, my dear, these volumes are an horror! "she cried, approaching dangerously close to where Aeolus had left his magic lens in plain sight. "This dust is an impurity attacking my lungs! And by the way, did you hear the pharmacist’s granddaughter got engaged? Such a methodical girl, she even arranges her spices in alphabetical order!"
Sirocco, his claws dug into the rug from nerves, whispered to Aeolus:
"Aeolus... what’s an hor-ror? Is it a dragon that eats books? And what’s me-thod-i-cal? Does she play with blocks?"
Aeolus, pressed against the brick wall behind an encyclopedia, was trembling slightly:
"An horror, Sirocco, is something terrible, ugly, or very bad. And being methodical means doing things with great care and order, exactly how Anemo’s mother is wiping my shelf right now... Oh, no! She’s getting close to the lens!"
Mistral, seeing that his "reign" at the tea table was threatened by a possible mouse hunt, decided to intervene with a master maneuver. He leaped from the chair right into Mrs. Gale’s path, rolling over and meowing with a voice so high and innocent that the lady stopped in her tracks.
"Oh, Mistral, you’re such a little narcissist! "Mrs. Gale exclaimed, stopping with her dust cloth just inches from Aeolus’s hideout. You want all my attention, don't you?"
She set the handkerchief aside and began scratching the black cat behind the ears. Mistral closed his eyes, purring with a nonchalance that made him look like a king on a brick throne.
But we know Mistral didn’t just want strokes; he wanted to stop the lady before she discovered the little mouse’s magic lens.
Sirocco, claws still in the brown rug, whispered to Aeolus:
"Aeolus... what’s a nar-cis-sist? Is it a garden flower? Does Mistral smell like flowers now?"
Aeolus, wiping sweat from his forehead with a trembling paw, replied:"
A narcissist, Sirocco, is someone who thinks they are the most beautiful in the world and wants everyone else to look only at them. The lady thinks Mistral loves her, but he’s just pretending to save us... and to be petted, of course."
Mrs. Gale turned abruptly toward her son, who was trying to hide an old pizza box under a stack of newspapers:
"And by the way, Anemo, I heard some spicy gossip at the pastry shop! They say a thief has appeared on Hunters Run who only steals... gardening gloves! What an absurdity, isn't it?"
Sirocco pricked up his ears:
"Aeolus... what’s gos-sip? Is it something stolen from the garden? And what’s an ab-sur-di-ty? Is it a big thief?"
Aeolus: " Gossip, little one, is a story about other people, usually told behind their backs, which may or may not be true. And an absurdity is something that makes no sense, something completely foolish. Like if someone stole left-handed gloves and left the right-handed ones."
Anemo Gale dropped the wooden spoon into his tea mug.
"The glove thief? he shouted. But that’s exactly what I needed for my chapter!"
Anemo Gale slammed the tea mug on the table, splashing a few drops onto his mother’s impeccable tablecloth. His eyes lit up with a strange light. Without another word, he rushed to the typewriter and began hitting the keys with dizzying speed.
Tap-tap-tap-clank!
" Anemo? My dear, but I was just telling you about the pharmacist’s granddaughter and about..."
But her son no longer heard her. He was already far away in his mind, chasing an invisible thief. He was in a state of total isolation.
Sirocco, frightened by the clatter of the keys, huddled by the table leg.
" Aeolus... where did Anemo go? He’s still here, but his eyes are somewhere else! Is it dangerous? Is it a writing disease?"
Aeolus, watching from above as the black letters settled on the white paper, whispered to the ginger kitten:
"No, Sirocco. Anemo is in a state of isolation. That means he has separated himself from everything around him, as if he were alone on an island. He no longer hears the highway, he no longer hears his mother, and unfortunately for us, he has completely forgotten that he still needs dinner."
Mistral, offended that the petting had stopped abruptly because Anemo was making noise with the typewriter, sat with his back to them, with a studied indifference worthy of a prince. Mistral was furious that some lead letters were more important than his velvety fur.
Sirocco blinked rapidly, trying to understand:
"Aeolus... what is the lady doing?"
Mrs. Gale tightened her grip on her handbag and raised her head to adopt a dignified posture.
"Well, I cannot fight all your imaginary characters; I have a soul too, Anemo!" she said, straightening her back." I’ll leave the package of pies here, though the ants will probably eat them by the time my son wakes from his daydreaming. What a bizarre situation!"
Sirocco pricked up his ears at the word "pies":
"Aeolus, I hope she’s leaving," Sirocco whispered.
Mrs. Gale clutched her purse to her chest once more and looked toward the ceiling, as if all her good deeds were written there.
" Fine, Anemo! Keep pounding those cold keys! "she said, raising her voice over the noise of the typewriter." Ignore me completely, as if I didn't walk all this way, braving that wind that messed up my entire hairstyle! Who brought you your favorite pie? Who made sure you had ironed shirts when you were in school? Who read to you every night? Me! But you are so indifferent, as if I were a mere shadow passing through the living room! What ingratitude!"
Anemo Gale didn’t flinch. His fingers flew across the keyboard, while in his mind, the glove thief was just jumping over a brick fence.
Sirocco, with his ears flattened from all the noise, looked at Aeolus:
"Aeolus... is she leaving?"
Aeolus, standing motionless behind a vase, whispered:
"Be patient, shhh!"
Finally, Mrs. Gale left the writer's house, maintaining her imperial air, as if Hera herself had left Olympus to visit her ungrateful son and was now ready to return to her heavenly palaces.
In the brown brick living room, the sound of the typewriter keys intertwined with the steady ticking of the pendulum on the wall. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Sirocco, the ginger kitten, sat motionless in front of it, his head swaying left and right, fascinated by the bronze tongue that moved incessantly.
"Aeolus... why does it do that? he asked in a small voice. Is it playing with us? Is it a golden finger telling us 'no-no-no'?"
Aeolus stepped bravely from behind the vase, now that Mrs. Gale had left, leaving behind only the scent of lavender and the door ajar. He adjusted his stolen glasses and looked at the clock face.
"No, Sirocco. The pendulum measures time. And if you look closely, the hands on the dial are telling us something very important: lunchtime is approaching. But I fear Anemo is far too absent to notice that your kibble hasn't appeared in the bowl yet."
Sirocco stopped swaying his head and looked toward the writing desk, where Anemo was typing at a frightening speed.
—"Ab-sent?" he meowed sadly. "How do you mean absent when he’s right there on the chair?"
Aeolus: "Being absent, little one, means your body is in one place, but your mind is gone somewhere else. It's as if Anemo has moved entirely onto the street in his story, Hunters Run, and forgotten that here, on Ether Drive, our tummies have started singing from hunger."
Mistral, who was sitting on the windowsill looking with disdain at the open door, meowed with a hungry arrogance.
"Inacceptable!" he said, thumping his black tail against the radiator. A knight like me cannot wait for a writer suffering from temporary amnesia!"
Sirocco pricked up his ears:
"Aeolus... What is am-ne-sia? Is Mistral sick with something serious?"
"Anemo has lunchtime amnesia right now: he forgot we exist."
Sirocco looked at the open door, then at the package of pies left by Mrs. Gale on the table.
"Aeolus... if he is ab-sent, does that mean the pies belong to nobody? Can we... investigate them a little, just a very little bit? Can we?"
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