Page 35 of The Little Shop of Curiosities, The Music Box Part 2

What was he doing? It’s pretty obvious to me that something led him up there, but why the third floor? Why that wall?

“Stop thinking so hard, Sam. I can smell the burning,” Harrison mutters, and I glance over to the passenger seat of my car. He’s curled up with the seat belt in place, still wearing that ridiculous fluffy coat, and he’s right, it does clash with his hair. Makes him look like a traffic cone. Not that I’m going to tell him that.

I lean forward to turn up the heat and aim the air vents in his direction, then start the engine and pull out of the parking space.

“Stop fussing,” he mumbles. “I’m fine. I’m not as cold as I was. You don’t need to make the temperature in here sub-tropical.”

“You scared me, Prickles,” I tell him quietly.

He’s quiet for several long moments. “I know,” he finally says. “Scared me too.”

“Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

From the corner of my eye, I see him shake his head.

“Jesus, Prickles,” I breathe. “Why were you standing at that wall? If something led you there, what was the purpose?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he murmurs. “It’s not that I can’t remember exactly. It’s…” He shakes his head again. “It’s like trying to remember a fading dream, all fragmented and hazy.”

“Well, what parts do you remember?”

“Being in the room with all of you when you found the cupboard, then something started whispering to me.”

“Whispering?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what it was saying, I just remember moving. It was like a compulsion. There was somewhere I needed to go, I recall feeling that keenly.”

“But you don’t know where that was?”

“No, I…” He pauses, and my eyes flick towards him. He’s frowning with his I’m figuring something out face.

“What?”

“The wall I was standing in front of,” he muses. “The house was divided at some time, wasn’t it?”

“Are you thinking that third-floor corridor once ran the length of the entire property?”

“Exactly. If that corridor originally led to the other side of the house, maybe whatever it was I was trying to reach is behind that wall.”

“And you really have no clue what it might be?”

I pull up in the parking space behind his building and switch off the car, then turn to him.

“Not even an inkling.” He chews his plump bottom lip.

I reach over and tug it gently free, then run the pad of my thumb over it and watch the heat flare in his blue eyes.

“Come on.” I smile. “Let’s get you inside and into something comfortable.”

“And here I was thinking you’d rather get me out of my clothes entirely.”

My smile widens. “Prickles, there’s never a day I don’t want that.”

He opens the door and climbs out before I can swing around and do it for him, so I lock the car and follow him to the back door, then inside and up to his flat.

As soon as he’s inside the living space, he strips off the garish vintage coat and folds it neatly. Well, as neat as he can, considering it’s like a brightly coloured shag carpet. Then he takes off his shoes and lines them up uniformly by the door.

Hopelessly charmed by his idiosyncrasies, I do the same with my own shoes, hanging my coat up on a nearby hook. Order in his world gives my Prickles comfort, especially after events like those of today.