“I was hoping I’d run into you.”
Drusilla had been waiting in Theodore Montgomery’s garden. She approached with a soft smile, almost as if apologizing.
“Miss MacAvoy,” The Sorrower greeted. “It’s good to see you in somebody else’s garden for a change.”
She laughed, a tiny but genuine little ring of a noise. “It’s good to be here,” she said, “But it’s Mrs. James now. Marc and I wed six months ago.”
“My sincerest congratulations.”
There was a brief second where each of them knew what they were supposed to be talking about, but neither had the presence of mind to think of a way to bring it up tactfully.
Drusilla volunteered anyway. “I’ve just told them I needed some air,” she said, “but really, I was hoping to see you. For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of us expected you to come in. So don’t feel as though you’re being neglectful.”
“Thank you,” The Sorrower said.
“I’m assuming Mrs. Evangelista has told you why we’re all here?”
“She seems to think you’re all ready to force me into retirement.” The Sorrower cracked a rare smile at his own little joke, an attempt to keep the atmosphere somewhat light.
“Oh, indeed,” Drusilla said. “We’re your replacements. Of course, Mrs. Evangelista confessed to me in private that she thinks Miss Sunday is next in line to be… well, to be you. Not just her, of course, Mrs. Evangelista thinks we all have the capacity. And I…” Drusilla looked down, almost in shame. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong. Did you?”
“I didn’t either,” The Sorrower admitted. “She seemed rather pleased with the idea as it was.”
“Exactly. And I felt as though telling her would spoil it, somehow.”
“Walk with me, Drusilla James. And elaborate; I want to hear it spoken aloud, so I know I am not alone in thinking it.”
The Sorrower and Drusilla James began their walk down the street. “She seems to think she’s safe in our hands, but really, she’s got it quite backwards, hasn’t she?”
“Indeed: I believe it is you who will be safe in hers.”
Nodding her agreement, Drusilla James went on to say “She’s got it backwards with the rest of us, too. Her intention was that myself, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Greeves, Miss Sunday, and the Hotelier -as you’d know her- are the ones who are now equipped to take on your mantle. But it’s always been the people around us who do what you do. All of us, invariably, learned from you because we needed something from you. But it was Marc who called for you not for himself, but for my sake, just as Mrs. Evangelista did for Theodore. And it was with Sheriff Malcolm that Asa Greeves found his true redemption; it was Sheriff Malcolm that led the two of you to meet again, is my understanding of the situation.”
“An intuitive understanding to be sure, Mrs. James. A question, if I may: The Hotelier. What is her name?”
“Her name is Eudora,” Drusilla James said with a soft smile. “And she likewise had a question she’d meant to ask you if she encountered you. I suppose I’ll have to do it on her behalf. She wants to know how you initially knew you were needed at The Hotel, as she didn’t call for you.”
“A guest of hers wrote to me,” The Sorrower said. “She knew him by his room number. She knew him as Mr. 247. His stay at The Hotel was a lengthy one; it was due to his extended stay that he first saw the troublesome pattern forming there. An extended stay, made longer due to his waiting for my return letter. He cared for The Hotelier -no, for Eudora- in some way, I think. He was unwilling to leave until he knew I would be coming to help her.”
“And the pattern still holds true,” she said, “as yet another bystander comes selflessly to the aid of another. And how does one write to The Sorrower?” Drusilla asked.
The Sorrower’s hand came to rest on the leather bag at his side. “A parting gift from The Postmaster. A letter sent with sincere intent will always find its way to me.”
“And that’s just it, isn’t it, Sorrower? Sincere intent. That’s always come selflessly from the others. Myself, Miss Sunday, Mr. Montgomery, Eudora: We’ve learned from you because we needed you. And that’s not why you do what you do; you do not share the same self-interested motivation.”
“Nor does Mrs. Evangelista,” The Sorrower said. “She does remind me of myself, in that way. Mrs. Lillian Evangelista has known no particular hardship in her life. She has a loving, attentive husband; thoughtful and well-mannered children; she has never found herself wanting in life. Mrs. Lillian Evangelista knows sympathy not because she has required it herself, and therefore learned it; it is something inherent to her. She displayed this not only when calling for me to aid Mr. Montgomery, but in the gathering of all of us here, today.”
Drusilla nodded along in full agreement. “While you’ve done a lovely job of helping us, Sorrower, and we will surely do what we can, our real hope lies in the people around us. The Sorrower is not the ill-omened tailor, or the haunted hotelier, or the lonely widower: The Sorrower is the suitor; the stranger; the sheriff; the neighbor.”
The Sorrower and Drusilla stopped at the end of the street. “They hurt for their fellow man,” The Sorrower said. “Not because they have been hurt themselves; they simply cannot stand by in the face of the world’s suffering and cruelty to others.”
The Sorrower cast a long glance backward at the house in the distance. In the garden gate, a figure stood, silhouetted by the light pouring through the open front door, behind which a small crowd had gathered. The figure in the garden raised a hand in greeting, a simple gesture. Then they all turned, and went back inside.
“Can I ask, Sorrower, what you will do?” Drusilla asked quietly.
“On the one hand, Mrs. James, I do believe I could join my associates, the ones who came before me. The Lamplighter, The Postmaster, and The Joyous.”
“And on the other?”
The Sorrower looked down. He was silent, until Drusilla took his hand. “On the other, that option is only possible for me because I have taught you all to hurt the same way I do. Some of you have learned it due to the necessity of your circumstances; some of you have hurt selflessly, and learned from me how to do with it what I do with my own ache. Even after I stop existing as I do now and start existing as the others like me do, there will still be suffering and Sorrow in this world. You all hurt for your fellow man, and I have only burdened you with the responsibility that your pain brings you.” He offered a sigh out to the cold night, and The Sorrower repeated “I have taught you all to hurt as I do. I hope, one day, you can all forgive me.”
Drusilla squeezed his hand tightly. She said nothing for a long while, until thunder lit up the sky. Drusilla James quipped “It seems as though it might rain.”
“Perhaps,” The Sorrower said. “But there is something else Mrs. Lillian Evangelista doesn’t know.”
“Are you inclined to share?”
“When I was first called to this street, it was due to the thunder trapped inside Mr. Montgomery’s attic. I instructed him to find not only a nettle, but also the companionship of his neighbor. In truth, she was the key ingredient to his recovery. Her and the hawthorne tree in her front garden.”
“The hawthorne, if I recall, offering protection from the storm?”
“Indeed, though I think it more accurate to say Mrs. Lillian Evangelista offers such protection to those around her, and unconsciously chose her flora to match.”
Thunder pealed yet again through the air. Drusilla opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, considering thoughtfully as she peered upwards. “I was going to remark that despite Mrs. Lillian Evangelista and her hawthorne tree, a storm seems to be brewing nonetheless. But would I be wrong to surmise, Sorrower, that there will always be another storm, because what else would one need protection from?”
“In truth, Mrs. James, I’d also hoped to share this conversation with you: It was my hope that your intuitive understanding of your own situation on our first meeting would afford you useful insights into the matter presently at hand. And I must say, Mrs. James, you have not disappointed.”
“Sorrower, I must ask,” she said. “You, and the others like you… what are you?”
The Sorrower thought for a long while how best to say it. “There is a benevolence to the universe, Drusilla James. We were, and always will be, a part of that benevolence. The Hotelier, Eudora, and the ancestors from whom she inherited the family business, are just more proof of it: Death is the source of all Sorrow, and yet after death, there was always a helping hand waiting behind a tidy desk in The Hotel lobby to guide you through.”
“So what will happen to you now?” Drusilla asked. “When you stop existing as you do, and start existing as the others do now?”
“It won’t be an end and a new beginning, if that’s what you’re envisioning. It is merely a change in state; a threshold to cross, like passing from one room to the next.”
The Sorrower reached into his leather bag, and he removed a vial of golden dust, neatly stoppered with a cork. He handed it out, and Drusilla took it with unashamed wonder. “Gathered like pollen off the flowers in Mrs. Evangelista’s garden,” The Sorrower said, “the first time I came to meet her.”
“What is it?”
“Her Good Intentions,” he answered. “They will aid you well. As will she.”
He then removed the bag from his shoulder, holding it tightly just for a second before offering it out as well. “I imagine that this, too, will be useful.”
Drusilla laughed gently, and held up a hand in polite refusal. “I don’t believe so, Sorrower. Mrs. Evangelista does have one definitive advantage over you, if I may be so bold, which is to say she has a mailing address. I expect anyone who needs Mrs. Lillian Evangelista will always be able to reach her at Number Twenty-Six, Pleasant Crest Lane.”
The Sorrower bowed his head in concession to the fact. The bag found its place over his shoulder once again.
Drusilla clutched the vial of Good Intentions with both hands and took a small step back, to get a better look at her companion. The sound of hoofbeats gently echoed toward them as a carriage rolled down the street. “Is this goodbye, Sorrower?”
“It is, in a way,” he said. “But as long as humanity aches for humanity, there will always be a Sorrower.”
The Coachmaster drew to a stop at the end of the street.
Drusilla James stood on the tips of her toes, reaching up to place a kiss on The Sorrower’s cheek.
She turned around.
The coach pulled away, and the hoofbeats vanished quickly as though carried away on the breeze.
Drusilla James walked back inside.
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