CHAPTER 2: A Stormy Visit
Just as Anemo Gale was about to use his freshly recovered spoon to stir his artichoke tea, an unexpected sound erupted.
Bang! Bang!
Someone was pounding hard with the bronze lion-shaped knocker on the door of number 49, Ether Drive.
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 ancient.
Sirocco leaped like an orange ball toward the window, knocking over a stack of envelopes on his way.
“Un-cere-mono? Is it a big bird? Does it have feathers?” he asked, trying to peer over the edge of the glass.
Aeolus, 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. In other words, someone who arrives without giving a sign beforehand. Like when you pounce on Anemo’s stomach while he’s asleep.”
Anemo Gale, clumsy as usual, tripped over his own slippers in the hallway.
“It must be the courier with my new notebooks! Or perhaps a real detective who heard about my new chapter!” he shouted with enthusiasm.
Sirocco froze by the door, looking at Aeolus with wide eyes:
“En-thu-si-asm? Is it contagious? Will I get sick?”
Aeolus smiled under his thin whiskers:
“Enthusiasm, little one, means a very great joy and a lot of energy for something you are about to do. It’s like when Anemo opens the bag of your favorite treats.”
The person at the door was not a detective, but someone much more fearsome for Anemo’s clutter: his mother, Mrs. Aura Gale. She entered the hall with a gentle smile but a gaze that immediately scanned every speck of dust.
“Oh, Anemo, my dear!” she exclaimed, placing her gloves on the hallway table right over an ink stain. “I hope you’ve cleaned up and haven’t let any... rodents near your manuscripts. You know very well I have a terrible phobia!”
Sirocco, hidden behind the table leg, froze.
“Pho-bi-a?” he meowed toward Aeolus. “Is it something you eat with a wooden spoon?”
Aeolus whispered:
“No, Sirocco. A phobia is a very, very great fear. The lady is afraid of mice... meaning, me!”
Mrs. Aura sat on the edge of the plush armchair, but her mind was already in ten places at once.
“Anemo, my dear, the dust on these encyclopedias is a calamity! You must use cotton cloth. By the way, did you see that the neighbor at number 12 painted her fence bubble-gum pink? Orrible! And speaking of oddities, have you heard what’s happening in the neighborhood? The lady at number 50 had her yellow salt shaker vanish right off the garden table! And poor Noel is fit to be tied; he says he can't find his amber pipe that he’d left to air out on the windowsill. Even my yellow gardening gloves have disappeared! Someone is stealing everything that shines—it’s an absurdity!”
Anemo Gale nodded his head, trying to catch at least one thread from his mother’s ball of ideas.
“Perhaps it’s a color thief, Mother,” he muttered, putting sugar in his tea without stopping.
“And speaking of which,” Mrs. Gale continued, “the doctor’s daughter—an admirable match, mind you—always wears sky-blue. You should invite her for tea, though with the
way your kitchen looks, she might think you’re hosting an archaeological exhibition... Oh, and don't forget to water the geraniums!”
Sirocco looked at Aeolus with eyes like saucers:
“Aeolus... what is a cal-am-i-ty? And what is a match?”
Aeolus whispered:
“A calamity, Sirocco, is a great misfortune. And an admirable match means a very suitable person that someone could marry. Someone to help Anemo stop putting salt in his coffee.”
Mistral indulged under Mrs. Aura’s petting, purring with a studied nonchalance.
“Meow...” he said, looking at Anemo with pity, as if confirming that the lady’s son was a lost cause.
Aeolus explained: “Nonchalance means behaving with an elegant indifference, as if nothing could disturb you.”
Mrs. Aura Gale rose suddenly, taking out her gold-rimmed glasses.
“Anemo, my dear, these volumes are a horror! This dust is an impurity attacking my lungs! And by the way, have you heard that the pharmacist’s granddaughter got engaged? Such a methodical girl, she even arranges her spices in alphabetical order!”
Aeolus trembled: “A horror, Sirocco, is something dreadful. And being methodical means doing things with great care, exactly how Madam Mother is wiping my shelf right now... Oh, no! She’s getting close to the lens!”
Mistral intervened quickly, jumping into the lady's path.
“Oh, Mistral, you are such a little narcissist!” Mrs. Aura exclaimed, stopping with her dust cloth just inches away from Aeolus. “You want all my attention, don’t you?”
Aeolus explained: “A narcissist is someone who thinks they are the most beautiful in the world. She thinks Mistral loves her, but he’s just pretending to save us.”
Anemo Gale dropped the wooden spoon into his tea.
“The thief of yellow objects?” he shouted. “The salt shaker, the pipe, the gloves... But that’s exactly what I needed!”
Without another word, Anemo rushed to his typewriter. Tac-tac-tac-clack!
“Anemo? My dear, but I was just telling you about the pharmacist’s granddaughter and how to clean rust spots off a door handle!” Aura Gale cried, raising an eyebrow.
But her son no longer heard her. He was in a state of total isolation.
“Aeolus... where did Anemo go?” Sirocco asked, frightened.
“No, Sirocco. Anemo is in a state of isolation. He has separated himself from everything, as if he were alone on an island. He has completely forgotten we still need dinner.”
Mistral, offended, sat with his back turned, with an indifference worthy of a prince.
“Well, I cannot fight all your imaginary characters!” Aura Gale said. “I’ll leave the package of pies here, though the ants will probably eat them. Ignore me completely! What ingratitude!”
Finally, Aura left the house with an imperial air. In the living room, only the ticking of the pendulum remained. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Aeolus... why does it do that? Is it a golden finger telling us 'no-no-no'?”
“No, Sirocco. The pendulum measures time. And those hands tell us that Anemo is far too absent to notice your kibble. To be absent means your body is here, but your mind has left for the street in the story.”
Mistral pounded his tail against the radiator:
“Inacceptable! A knight like me cannot wait for a writer suffering from temporary amnesia!”
Sirocco looked at the pies left by Mrs. Aura.
“Aeolus... if he is ab-sent, does that mean the pies belong to no one? Can we... investigate them a little? Can we?”
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