theisaiahmiller:
He had waited thirty four minutes to be seated this week. He could’ve gone somewhere else, literally anywhere else. The main square was full of tents and different restaurants from around town, people selling their own recipes, all kinds of food, but Isaiah was big on habits. Since he was a child, he had come to this very dinner every Sunday for late breakfast. Sometimes he was alone, some others he had Peter, and there had been a few other ‘friends’ to sit on the other side of the booth, but he had barely ever skipped a Sunday. Today, he was there alone. He had tried everything on the menu, without exaggeration, which made it really hard for him to actually chose a plate every time around, so he spent some good ten minutes with his nose stuck in the menu, trying to ignore the unusual loudness of the place, which had started to become usual after three weeks of this festival. He was left with his top three choices when a voice pierced through his concentration– Was it calling him? His name? Out the corner of his eye he saw a shadow moving across his sight, into the wall it seemed. Another voice came suddenly, something way louder, startling him as he put the menu down. “Jesus Christ, you scared me,” he said, with a hand above where his heart would be, laughing when he found a friendly face right before him. “Uhm… Thanks, thank you. God–” he chuckled, still struggling to recover his breath. “Can I just get some fresh coffee?”
It had been some time since she last saw Isaiah — which was curious, because the little piece of world that was Sallybrook was indeed little. Leila always had strange feelings towards him. In a way she always admired how he grew into the person he was, into himself. It felt unapologetic and she had apologized for too long. She also knew he meant something to Peter, something important, though they never really talked about it. It was an ornament from a past she was not a part of. None of them were free, she reckoned, but Isaiah always seem freer than all, somehow. Maybe that was why they didn’t talk anymore.
“If that’s all it takes to scare you I have bad news for you,” she teased, “it’s 10:50 and when the clock strikes 11pm the little ghosts come out to play. They get anxious when Samhain gets closer.” Her tone was satirical, but there was no joke to her words. Leila loved telling stories. Her thoughts fluctuated between what was real and what was not, and the product was a wonder: a likely piece of fantasy that no one ever knew if it was really fantasy or really likely. Not even herself. “Maybe you could teach them some moves?”
She smiled as she asked, then turned around to get him the coffee he asked for, or to dance to the old music that was playing through the speakers, or to disappear into the kitchen and never come back.
Nevermind, that was way too dramatic, even for her. Leila came back with a big mug. “Do you want anything else? There’s a cherry pie coming out of the oven right now.”
