The Starless Sea

Is this real?

He writes. It sounds too vague but he sends it anyway.

The dumbwaiter dings a moment later and inside along with another card there is a mug with a curl of steam rising from it and a plate covered with a silver dome.

Zachary reads the note.

Of course it is real, Mr. Rawlins. We hope you feel better soon.

The mug is filled with warm coconut milk with turmeric and black pepper and honey.

Beneath the silver dome there are six small, perfectly frosted cupcakes.

Thank you, Kitchen.

Zachary writes.

He takes his mug and his cupcakes and sits in front of the fire again.

The cat stretches and comes to sit with him, sniffing at the cupcakes and licking frosting from his fingertips.

Zachary doesn’t remember falling asleep. He wakes curled up in front of the dying fire on a pile of pillows, the Persian cat nestled into his arm. He doesn’t know what time it is. What is time, anyway?

“What is time, anyway?” Zachary asks the cat.

The cat yawns.

The dumbwaiter dings, the light on the wall glowing, and Zachary can’t remember it dinging on its own before.

Good morning, Mr. Rawlins.

The note inside reads.

We hope you slept well.

There is a pot of coffee and a rolled omelet and two toasted slices of sourdough bread and a ceramic jar of butter drizzled with honey and dusted with salt and a basket filled with mandarin oranges.

Zachary starts to write a thank-you but inscribes a different sentiment instead.

I love you, Kitchen.

He doesn’t expect a reply but there is another chime.

Thank you, Mr. Rawlins. We are quite fond of you as well.

Zachary eats his breakfast (he shares the omelet with the cat, forgetting the rule about feeding the cats and having already broken it with buttercream frosting the night before) and thinks, his head clearer than it had been.

“If you were a man lost in time where would you be?” Zachary asks the cat.

The cat stares at him.

All you need to know has been given to you.

“Oh, right,” Zachary says as the realization dawns. He sorts through the books near the fireplace to find the one that Rhyme gave him and flips to the page where he left off. He takes the book to the desk and moves a lamp so he can see better and the cat sits in his lap, purring. Zachary peels and eats a mandarin orange in small segments of sunshine as he reads.

He reads and frowns and r

eads more and then he turns a page and there is nothing else. The rest of the pages are blank. The story, history, whatever it is, stops mid-book.