The Infinite Sadness: Chapter Two

Eleanor de Lepaute has a sneaking suspicion her best friend is hiding something.

Jax Wolff
August 21, 2025

Chapter Two

What’s Up?

As the VW Rabbit puttered along the highway, the air inside it once again hung heavy and tense. Something happened in the back of the Red Rooster, though what, Eleanor couldn’t say. She had known Mick for, what, ten years by then? In any case, if she knew one thing about her best friend, it was that he guarded what was going on in his head like the crown guarded the kingdom’s nuclear codes. Oh, something was bothering him. That much was clear; he never could help but wear his every emotion plain as day on that angular face of his. But what, exactly, was bothering him? That question swam through the crevices of Eleanor’s brain, but . . .

She bit her tongue. Of all the mysteries in the world for her to solve, this one was the one Eleanor hesitated to solve. It wasn’t so much that Mick was a private person—they shared practically everything with each other, as far as Eleanor knew—but it was more that . . . he never liked talking about his feelings. And this hadn’t changed in the four years she had been up north in the capital, and she respected this. So she swore then she wouldn’t pry. Not unless he wanted her to. And he definitely did not.

Did he?

Nah. He didn’t.

Unless . . . !

“Hey, Eleanor?”

Eleanor tore her eyes away from the sunset-orange trees to Mick. The Rabbit sat at a stoplight, and Mick sat at attention. His index fingers tapped the steering wheel with a nervous sort of energy, and he frowned hard at the car in front of them.

“We don’t have to keep listening to this if you don’t want to,” Mick said.

A wide, fox-like smile grew on Eleanor’s face while the Backstreet Boys dove into the second verse of “Quit Playing Games (with My Heart).” This was absolutely neither of their musical tastes—it was Matthew’s, of all people’s—but Eleanor would be lying if she said she wasn’t entertained. Not as much by the music, of course. She was still mourning the loss of Kurt Cobain and still more in love with Green Day and REM than her sister’s Madonna or apparently Matthew’s Backstreet Boys. But this had a beat and admittedly half-decent vocals, and more importantly, it was bothering Mick enough to get him to talk—or at least, talk about something other than her future or the Red Rooster.

“We don’t,” Eleanor agreed, “but I’m finding this academically fascinating. They’re practically Polaroids of your family and all.” She popped open the glove box and examined the case of the Backstreet Boys tape. “Though I don’t know why Matthew would keep his tape in your car.”

“He borrows the Rabbit on my days off,” Mick explained. “He thinks it’s the only place he can listen to that tape in peace, but he has no idea I know what he does in my car at all times.”

“Ah. Sixth sense, as it were?”

“Sort of.” Mick ejected the tape and held it up between them. “He keeps forgetting to take the tape with him. It’s been here for weeks, completely untouched.”

“Oh.” Eleanor gingerly took the tape from Mick, between two fingers, as if it was bugged and broadcasting their conversation straight to Matthew. “Should I rewind it?”

Mick lifted his foot off the brake and shifted gears. “No. Let’s send him a message.”

Ah, good old Mick. Serious, except in precision strikes of mischief. Quite honestly, that was how they met, and that was why Eleanor liked him. Nobody expected the quiet, straight-As, head-down nerdy kid to pants the racist bully in front of the entire sixth grade on behalf of the new kid fresh from a private school, yet ten years later, Eleanor was both delighted and grateful that he did.

“So which one now?” Eleanor asked, digging through the glove box. “We have Bill’s Mariah Carey, we are not listening to Mylene’s Disney tape . . . ah, your Dexys, perhaps?”

“You mean Bill’s.”

Eleanor gave Mick a “sure, so you say” glance, then dug to the bottom of the Rabbit’s glove box.

“Céline Dion?”

“Marcie’s. And no.”

“Bone Thugs-n-Harmony?”

“Also Marcie’s. Maybe.”

“Really? Huh. Ah—New Kids on the Block?”

“Bill’s, but I think it’s in there because Matthew stole it ages ago. And absolutely not.”

“Fair.” Eleanor’s fingers closed around the last tape at the back of the box. “What’s this one?”

She pulled it into the sunlight and looked at its case. It was a tape with a handmade label—a mix tape? She turned it over carefully in her hands, taking in every detail. The writing on the label with Mick’s: careful, neat, small, as if it was meant to be read by his eyes and his alone. Side A contained a list of classical composers and the names of concertos and ballets. Side B, though . . .

Eleanor popped it into the deck, and the voice of Sophie B. Hawkins gently drawing out the first of ten love songs filled the Rabbit’s suddenly warm and too-small cabin. And as she did, Eleanor realized something important.

This was the newest of ten love songs. Hadn’t it been only a few months ago that it started cropping up on the local airwaves? Barely even old enough to have a music video, as far as Eleanor knew.

Or more importantly, Eleanor knew this was no ordinary tape. Mick had a knack he used to talk a lot more about back in high school: any song, any genre, if it could be played on a violin, Mick could figure out how to play it based on sound alone in a matter of days. So he would tape songs and play them, again and again, deconstructing and reconstructing their notes little by little until something beautiful came out of his violin. He said it wasn’t really much of a talent, that seasoned musicians did things like this all the time, but Eleanor, whose musical talents were limited to singing karaoke now and then, adored watching him do it.

Eleanor grinned into the heel of her hand as she gazed out the window. She remembered those nights—in the Martins’ backyard, in Silver River Park, in the school parking lot. Boombox on patio furniture, on picnic tables, in the trunk of the Rabbit. And Mick, violin on his shoulder, bow in his hand, fingers arched on strings, perfect accompaniment to his tapes in the boombox.

While Eleanor talked endlessly about dream schools, Mick talked now and then, shyly, about a full ride to the Royal College of Art and Music. He would study violin and poetry. Get into the Eldaven Symphony Orchestra, or maybe use the opportunity to learn to write music and songs for and with the likes of Prince. For months, he would construct these dreams carefully over crappy school lunches or peanut butter on Wonder Bread, and Eleanor would take these dreams and add them to her fantasies of sharing apartments and discovering worlds outside the boundaries of Southwind. Together, like Jerry and Elaine. Or Ross and Rachel. Or countless other neighbors or roommates for life, in any of the sitcoms they’d talk about when they weren’t talking about music or video games or the future or anything else in their small-town existences.

And then one day, Mick stopped talking about full rides and writing songs. And Eleanor went to Eldaven, and he stayed here, and at first, she didn’t think twice about this. It was his life and his choice, after all.

Yet despite that, despite his decision to stay here, despite all the years Eleanor had spent thinking he had given up on the violin . . .

Here they were. With a tape marked with Mick’s handwriting and a song less than a year old.

“We don’t have to listen to this either,” Mick said quietly.

Eleanor put her hand over the eject button to let Mick know that, yes, they did. And for a few lines of Sophie B. Hawkins—I feel so high, though I am not above the sorrow—Eleanor simply watched the world go by outside the Rabbit. Trees gave way to the large, blocky complex that had once been a pit that had once been an empty field outside of town. The world was changing around them, around Mick, and yet here they were, in a ten-year-old ghost of a machine in a town both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

“Do you still have your violin in the trunk?” Eleanor asked, against her better judgment.

Mick didn’t say a word. Really, Eleanor wasn’t expecting him to.

Instead, he made a right-hand turn up the wide drive to Huntress Woods Mall.

---

Huntress Woods Mall was on the outside a Brutalist paradise and on the inside a neon palm tree fantasy land, according to one eloquent reporter of the Southwind Chronicle when it opened four months ago. Eleanor only had vague memories of the sheep-filled pasture it had been ten years ago; it felt like it had been either a barren hole or a half-finished no-man’s-land for far longer. When the mall finally opened, half of Southwind and the surrounding towns had showed up for its opening, crowding beneath clouds of balloons and distant skylights and the yellow haze of faux street lamps along speckled floors or around extravagant fountains. Eleanor remembered the wonder: at last, a piece of cosmopolitan Eldaven, right at the edge of her home town.

Eleanor remembered that the Martins hadn’t been there. To be fair, the food court had its Sbarro, so why would they be there? Why would Mick be there? Regardless of whether or not Eleanor had tried to coax him into going with her seemingly every week since it had opened.

Well. After four months of trying her hardest to arrange any sort of hangout that lasted longer than one car ride to the Red Rooster and back, Eleanor finally succeeded in luring Mick to the mall. For work. Baby steps, she reassured herself.

The second they stepped through the glass doors, Eleanor inhaled that sweet, already musty perfume of the modern capitalist wonderland and nodded to Mick.

“Over one million square feet, with 110 stores, a movie theater, and a food court of culinary delights from all over the world.” She shifted the still-cold two-liter to her opposite arm and patted Mick on the shoulder. “Welcome to Huntress Woods Mall.”

He snorted, smirking at Eleanor. “Yeah? One hundred and ten stores? Which one’s Bard Records?”

Good old Mick. Pragmatic workaholic. Eleanor rolled her eyes.

“Presented with Paradise, and you already want to leave,” she muttered, stepping ahead. “It’s by the food court. This way.”

Mick adjusted the delivery bags in his arms and followed, navigating around couples and groups of teenagers and mothers with children and more. It seemed like most of Southwind and the surrounding towns were still there, but the excitement in the air over the mall’s opening was already fading into normalcy, as if Huntress Woods Mall had always been a part of the community, not just a pasture or a pit. Still, Eleanor could sense Mick’s discomfort like it was a rock song blaring over the drone of elevator music. Yet again, Eleanor couldn’t help but find it funny that Mick struggled with subtlety with his emotions, like right then, as he frowned at crowded, brightly lit stores and rivers of traffic on escalators and pathways.

“I mean, it’s nice, I guess,” he said. And then, a little quieter: “It’s just—there’s something about this place.”

Eleanor cocked her head. “I mean . . . I suppose it’s a lot more crowded here than the strip mall. It’s bigger. These aren’t just people from Southwind.”

“I’m not talking about the crowds,” Mick replied. He hesitated, swung his head around to look at the people again. “Well, okay, maybe a little about the crowds. But something else too. I can’t put my finger on it. It feels like the air’s weird.”

“Oh, yeah. Mall smell. The ones in Eldaven smell exactly the same.” Eleanor glanced over her shoulder and jabbed a thumb at one of the stores they had just passed. “Either that, or you’re smelling the musky aroma of Abercrombie & Fitch. No escaping that one either.”

Mick cracked an uncertain grin, like he wanted to laugh but wasn’t sure he wanted to laugh.

“It’s . . . it’s not that, either.”

Eleanor’s enthusiasm wavered in her head, sliding slowly into worry. In her best attempt to ignore her own uncertainty, she clapped a hand onto Mick’s back and forced a nonchalant, upbeat grin.

“That’s because you’re working yourself to death,” she said. “When was the last time you’ve had a day off?”

“Last Thursday.”

“No, I mean really had a day off, where you weren’t holing yourself up at home or running errands for your family?”

Mick cast a glare her way but offered not a word in rebuttal.

“Tell you what,” Eleanor said. “Once we drop this delivery off, we’ll scuttle off to the pay phones and let Bill and Marcie know that you accidentally slipped—those kids around the fountain, you know—and your ankle is just all sorts of black-and-blue right now.”

At that, Mick huffed in low, badly restrained laughter. He pulled his gaze away from her, amber eyes rolling to the ceiling with a shake of his head.

“They’ll ask about the ankle when I get home, Eleanor.”

“There’s a CVS in this mall. Roll of bandages, maybe some drugstore eyeshadow to bang up a bruise . . .”

“Hey! You two!”

That last one wasn’t Mick. It was, however, a woman’s voice, booming over the din of the mall. At once, the two of them stopped in their tracks as a tall Valkyrie of a woman in a mall cop uniform barreled right at them. Eleanor hooked her free arm around Mick’s, ready to pull him away, but the mall cop’s ice-blue eyes froze her in place until, at last, she towered over them both.

“And just what are you doing with that?” She jabbed a finger at the delivery bags in Mick’s arms.

“Ah . . . d-delivery,” Mick stammered. “Bard Records.”

“Deliveries of any kind should be made through the employee entrances,” the Valkyrie snapped, “not through the public.”

“Well, all we were told was bring it to Bard Records,” Eleanor protested. Then, ignoring Mick’s hiss of “Eleanor, don’t,” she continued, “It would be nice if you posted that somewhere. You know, like the entrance?”

“Eleanor . . .” Mick hissed again, his voice a borderline whine at that point.

“Anyway, since we didn’t know, why don’t you let us off this time around, and we’ll make sure to pass word along to our customers about where to let a pair of non-employees in the next time around?” Eleanor finished.

The Valkyrie narrowed her eyes and took a step forward. “You know what I think? I think you and your boyfriend here—”she ignored the undignified, high-pitched croak the aforementioned supposed boyfriend made right then“—are about to throw a party smack in the middle of my mall. Just you and maybe . . . thirty of your friends?”

Eleanor planted her free hand onto her hip. “I think you’re wrong about several things there, officer.”

“Yeah, for one thing, they really are delivering pizzas to Bard Records.”

For the second time in ten minutes, someone else cut right into their conversation: this time, a short, dark-skinned woman with a confident grin plastered across a round face surrounded by bouncing, tawny curls. As she strode towards them, she adjusted her thick-rimmed glasses and peered up at the Valkyrie with all the balls of someone with a death wish.

“You!” the Valkyrie barked.

“The assistant manager you mistakenly tried to cite for trespassing and vandalism while I was opening the gate in front of Bard Records not once, not twice, but three times this month? The one and the same,” she said. “These kids are with me. Wanna leave them alone, before my boss has a word with your boss?”

The Valkyrie’s nostrils flared, and she took one long step forward and jabbed a finger at the newcomer. “All deliveries go through the employee entrance. And you’d best believe I’ll be keeping an eye on where you and these two go. Understood?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

Their savior waved a hand in the air, then motioned for Mick and Eleanor to follow. She turned on her heel and cut through the crowds, leading the two of them straight to a brightly lit store with Bard Records in neon cursive hanging over its entrance. They had only been steps away from safety when mall security descended on them. Of course.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “Completely slipped my mind to tell your folks to send you around back. But even then, I feel like Officer Ophina over there is just a little too trigger happy. It’s barely been a few months since the mall opened, and rumor’s already going around about something weird happening at night. Point is, don’t mind her.”

Eleanor’s ears perked up at something weird. True, she and Southwind had a decently amicable relationship, but even she had to admit it was often a little too boring for her liking.

“Something weird?” she asked, shortly before pointedly ignoring Mick’s silent plea to not get ideas.

“Nothing you kids have to worry about,” the woman said with another dismissive wave of her hand. “Just the usual. Screams. Stores getting ransacked. Real ghost stuff.” She half-turned to the two of them. “Adelaide, by the way. Bard Records’ best employee by day; ghost hunter by night. I take it you’re also interested in drawing back the curtain of mystery and unlocking the secrets of the universe?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said, perfectly in sync with Mick’s “no.” And still ignoring him, Eleanor marched onward: “How could a mall that’s barely a few months old be full of—what did you call it? ‘Real ghost stuff’?”

Adelaide beamed, as if Eleanor had said the secret, million-dollar word. “Well, this all is rumor, but supposedly, this place is on the crossroads between ley lines. You know what those are, right?”

As Adelaide stepped behind the counter, Eleanor shook her head and drifted forward, interest piqued at this point. She leaned into the counter and waited with bated breath for Adelaide’s next words.

The truth was, Eleanor wasn’t exactly gullible or stupid. She would read Weekly World News in the checkout lanes not so much out of the belief that there were aliens or Bigfoot wandering around Eldana but instead because, well. It was entertainment. So did she believe Adelaide? It was hard to say. Adelaide was drifting well into Weekly World News territory with the slightest mention of ley lines.

But it was a break from the mundane. Something fun and interesting. The promise of a mystery, right there in Southwind. After all, maybe she was wrong about the noises being ghosts, but maybe she was right about the noises existing at all. And it would be worth it to learn just a touch more, right?

Or at least, even if more information wasn’t worth egging Adelaide on, the sight of Mick casting his eyes to the ceiling in a silent prayer for strength certainly was.

“Think of them as roads from one magical place to the next,” Adelaide explained, completely ignoring Mick. “By themselves, they’re spots on the planet absolutely humming with magical energy. Where they cross, though? Those are places of particular magical importance. Things happen where ley lines meet. Things beyond our understanding.”

“Like what?” Eleanor asked.

“Like the thinning of the veil between our world and the world beyond,” Adelaide replied, her voice lowering into a deep, husky whisper. “Spirits crossing over. Strange forces reaching from their dimension into ours.” Adelaide fanned her hands out. “Ghost stuff.”

“Okay!” Mick said, placing the delivery bags between Eleanor and Adelaide. “Four large Hawaiian pizzas and a two-liter of Pepsi. That’ll be 220 krone, plus tip.”

Adelaide pulled away from Eleanor and screwed her face up into a confused scowl. “Did you guys raise your prices again?”

Mick closed his eyes and sighed. “Competitive market.”

“Highway robbery is what that is,” Adelaide replied. “But fine. Your pizza’s still better than the crap they make at the Pizza Hut, never mind the Sbarro’s. Stay here for a sec. I just need to get the money from my boss. Hey, Kaedra! Keep an eye on the store?”

Adelaide trotted off to the back of the store before Mick, Eleanor, or whoever Kaedra was could respond. In the absence of their customer, Eleanor gave Mick a quick glance, followed by a cock of her head.

“No,” Mick said flatly.

“What?” Eleanor sauntered towards the new releases. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you’re thinking, and no,” Mick replied. “We are not going to investigate the mall at night.”

Eleanor picked at one of the tapes on the shelf in front of her. “You know, you could do with some excitement in your life.”

“Like ghosts? Eleanor, there’s no such things as ghosts.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Then why so quick to shoot down our new ghost-hunting friend?”

From where he stood, leaning against the counter, thumb and index finger against his lips, he narrowed his eyes right back at her. “Because there might not be such thing as ghosts, but there is such a thing as a random guy with a knife. I’d rather die of old age than stabbed in a mall, thanks.”

Eleanor scoffed. “As if that would happen. Nothing ever happens here.”

“Yet.”

With a noncommittal shrug, Eleanor turned back to the tapes and ran her fingers over their labels. Overhead, the speaker system of Bard Records continued playing a mix of pop songs, easing from TLC to 4 Non Blondes. Twenty-five years, and my life is still tryin’ to get up that great big hill of hope for a destination. Old already but still catchy. Eleanor bobbed her head to the music as she pulled out a copy of No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom.

She hadn’t expected Mick to be on board with something as drastic as investigating the mall at night, and frankly, she wasn’t interested in that either. Not really. After all, she knew better than to believe some weird conspiracy theorist she just met, and anyway, Adelaide was far more interested in going on about ley lines than telling her anything about what was going on in Huntress Woods Mall at night.

But . . . excitement. The promise of doing something exciting. Together. Wasn’t that what Eleanor wanted all along? Wasn’t that why she wasn’t ready to pack up and leave Southwind by herself? And Adelaide hadn’t said a thing about what was going on in Huntress Woods Mall at night, and what better way to dip their toes into something exciting than a good old-fashioned investigation?

Wouldn’t it be grand if she could just get Mick to take one tiny little risk? Give him a taste of something bigger than the same old song and dance at the Red Rooster? Make him want something more than Southwind again?

All so he’d finally say yes to Eldaven?

A tape appeared in front of her face.

“Side two. Song two. Just in case you need help figuring out what to say.”

Eleanor looked up to see a woman with flawless, deep brown skin standing next to her, studying her with a serenity in eyes the color of starry midnight. The woman tilted her head, and her halo of short, black coils caressed her heart-shaped face. Bright pink lips parted, and a flash of perfect, white teeth appeared before Eleanor, like a crescent moon against the night sky.

“Trust me,” the woman said, her voice smooth as silk.

Eleanor felt her face burn. She shifted her eyes to Mick, who was still where she left him, still looking at her, but this time, she was caught off-guard by his expression. Hard. Stern. The sort of serious look she would normally see on his face when he was busy herding Matthew or staring down Bill in one of his moods. And just like that, the spell the woman had over Eleanor dissipated, and Eleanor couldn’t help but stare back at Mick curiously.

And then, something drew his attention away from her. Or, more accurately, someone: a heavy-set figure with a messy mop of bleach-white hair, dressed in a satiny black and pink bowling shirt. They twirled a large, ring-covered hand beside their round face as their gray eyes sparkled . . . at the pizza.

Eleanor could never decide whether or not Alistair Merriweather, owner of Bard Records, was a person of good taste and fashion sense. They were a character, that was for sure.

“Red Rooster Pizza! What a sight for sore eyes,” they said. “Two hundred twenty krone, plus tip, was it?”

“Yes, sir.” Mick pulled away from the counter and adjusted the empty delivery bags on his arm. “Two twenty, plus tip.”

Alistair quirked an eyebrow and dug into their pocket. “Not a sir. And raised your prices, I see.” They flipped open a battered wallet and thumbed through the bills inside.

Beside them, Adelaide motioned wildly to Mick but kept her incredulous eyes on her boss. “That’s what I said!”

“Sorry,” Mick said through a thoroughly apologetic smile. “And competitive market.”

“The Pizza Hut. I know. But fine, your pizza’s worth it.” They pulled several bills out of the fold and passed them to Mick, just before turning their head Eleanor’s way. “Oh! Miss de Lepaute! I hadn’t realized you were here too.”

Sure they didn’t. Eleanor raised an eyebrow as she stepped to the counter; Alistair always seemed to know exactly who was in their store at all times. Or at least, in the time she knew them, they always seemed to be in the front of the store only when she or another customer needed them and never a moment longer.

And that was before Adelaide started working there. Which now that she thought about it . . .

“And I hadn’t realized you’d hired anyone,” she said, “let alone two people.”

Mick flashed her a concerned look. “You two know each other?”

“Sure.” Alistair shrugged casually. “She comes in every other week.”

Eleanor offered Mick her own wry smirk. “Which you would know about if we ever hung out together.”

At once, Alistair held up their hands, palms towards the both of them. “Before the two of you get into marital troubles—”

“Whoa! Hey!” Mick squeaked.

“—to answer your query, Miss de Lepaute, no, I have only one employee,” Alistair continued. “Albeit one who apparently likes pawning duties off on the other regulars.”

Adelaide returned Alistair’s exasperated glare with a deadpan one of her own. “What? You can trust Kaedra! And if you didn’t want me ‘pawning duties off,’ you’d hire more staff. Or stay out front a little more.”

Taking her cue, the midnight-eyed goddess strode towards the exit, trailing strawberry-scented perfume and the sound of light laughter as she walked. She raised a perfectly manicured hand to the group and waved with a wink.

“As much as I would love to stay and watch,” she said, “I’m afraid Alphin is waiting. So nothing today, but I’ll see you same time tomorrow, you two.”

And with that, she walked out. The crowds before Bard Records parted, and she strode elegantly to a kiosk just outside, where a tall, dark-skinned man in a sharp, navy-blue suit waited for her. Kaedra drifted to his side and let him wrap an arm around her waist, and Eleanor watched them, transfixed by their perfection, until they stepped out of sight.

It was strange, really. Those two seemed almost ethereal, almost too perfect, yet that wasn’t what Eleanor felt, watching them.

It was . . . not exactly jealousy at the thought of the man’s arm around Kaedra’s waist. It was . . . yearning, maybe? A want for the same thing, yet not with him and not with her. Just . . . at all.

“So.” Mick’s voice drew her attention back to the present. “Just the two of you and all these pizzas?”

Alistair regarded him with narrow eyes and a warning smirk. “Keep judging, and I’ll ask for a part of that tip back. But yes. It’s gonna be a long day for us. Inventory and all.” Their eyes slid Eleanor’s way—or, more accurately, towards her hands. “What’s that, Ellie?”

Eleanor shook her head to dispel the rest of her stupor and peered down at the tape that she was still clutching to her chest. “Oh! I forgot I was holding this. It’s . . . she gave it to me.”

“Kaedra? Let’s see.” Alistair held out their hand and let Eleanor place the tape in their palm. They glanced down at it with all the discernment of an appraiser peering at antique jewelry. “Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill.”

“You know, Kaedra’s got a knack for knowing exactly what tape a customer would love,” Adelaide said. “It’s like she’s psychic or something.”

Alistair scrunched up their nose and shook their head. “She’s not really psychic.”

Still, Eleanor held onto Adelaide’s words with a flicker of curiosity. “She told me to listen to a specific song. Side two, song two.”

“Side two, song two?” Alistair flipped the tape over and read off the label. “Ah. ‘Head Over Feet.’”

Adelaide leaned over Alistair’s arm to read the label herself. “Ohhh. I had a feeling about you two.”

The second she said it, Mick flicked his eyes from Adelaide to Alistair and back nervously. “Feeling? What-what sort of feeling?”

Adelaide smirked and jabbed a finger at the tape. “‘Head Over Feet’ is a love song.”

“A-a love song?” Mick cleared his throat. “Listen, you’ve got the wrong idea—”

“Come to think of it . . .” Alistair lowered the tape to the counter and lifted their chin at Mick. “Is this the Monsieur Martin you’ve been telling me about all summer?”

“Telling—” Mick whirled to face Eleanor. “Why were you telling him about me?!”

Eleanor shrugged guiltily. “I kept saying my best friend who likes music would love this store, but he’s never off?”

“That’s about it,” Alistair agreed.

Adelaide reached over to pick the tape up and wave it in front of Eleanor. “So want the love song a psychic told you you should listen to?”

Before she could answer, Mick reached over and pushed the tape back down to the counter. “We’re just friends. Eleanor, ready?”

She didn’t have a chance to respond. Mick hurried her out of the store without so much as a goodbye.

---

By the time they made their way to the food court—at Eleanor’s insistence, on the idea that Mick needed a break—Eleanor had just about stopped laughing over the whole ordeal in Bard Records. Yet even straight on through the whole process of ordering drinks for the both of them, Eleanor still had a smile on her face at the thought of how flustered Mick had been.

“It’s not that funny,” Mick said, as if he knew without looking at her why she was smiling.

“Oh, but it is,” Eleanor said. “You get riled up too easily, and it’s cute. Besides, we both know we’re just friends. Not that you’re unattractive or anything—if we survived the end of the world, and it was up to us repopulate, you know . . .”

“I literally don’t know how to take that.”

Eleanor bobbed her drink at him. “As a very platonic compliment.”

Mick smirked. “Okay. Then thank you.”

And that was that, and that was all that moment had to be, and Eleanor couldn’t help think it was nice. Lifting her gaze to the upper levels, Eleanor thought about how this was it: exactly what she had been hoping for all summer. Just her, Mick, and the mall. And sure, they would have to leave at some point—a few more minutes, in fact, at Mick’s insistence. But right then, at the very least, they weren’t on a delivery. Mick wasn’t a delivery boy beholden to his family. He was just him, the Mick who always made her feel comfortable in her own skin, with her own name.

But just as quickly as that warm thought entered her mind, it faded, giving way to the understanding that this moment was just an oasis in a sea of . . . everything else that was their existence. Tomorrow, Mick would go back to delivering pizzas, Eleanor would go back to wiling away her time at home, and it would be another week before they spoke again, if Eleanor was lucky.

And that bothered her.

“Mick,” she said, frowning into her drink, “can we talk about something that’s been on my mind all afternoon?”

His response was immediate. “Of course. Y’know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want his expression to talk her out of speaking her mind. She had to know. “I wanted to say that exact line to you.”

“Me?”

She exhaled slowly. Say it. Just say it. “I don’t know. Maybe it started before this. You’ve been really hard to reach since I moved back home.”

“I-I know.” From the way his voice sounded, she could tell he wasn’t looking at her anymore. “It’s the restaurant.”

“And I know,” she replied. The two of them slowed their steady lap around the food court, and she ventured a look at her best friend. “It’s easier to ambush you on your shift than it is to hang out with you on your days off. Which you rarely have.”

Mick’s shoulders sank. “You know they need me there.”

“You’re cheap labor, and you’ll do anything most employees don’t want to do.” Eleanor’s eyes rolled to the skylights above them. “I know. You’ve told me. But . . . I’m worried about you.”

At once, Mick flinched and swung his head up to face her. “Oh geez. Eleanor, you don’t have to do that.”

“I mean, they’re not overworking you, are they?”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Then what happened at the Red Rooster?”

Mick blinked. This was, somehow, not the line of questioning he was expecting. “Huh?”

And now, Eleanor had the courage to look him in the eye. “When we left, just before coming here. Something happened in the kitchen, didn’t it? You’ve been on edge ever since. Like something’s bothering you.”

Her words hung between them for a long while, wrapped in the chatter of hundreds of people and the distant drone of Muzak. She wasn’t expecting an answer; normally, Mick wouldn’t respond to something like that. And indeed, for a long while, he said nothing, instead staring intently at the floor as he took a long sip from his Orange Julius.

But it was the expression on his face that intrigued her. A quiet, contemplative look, as if he was struggling to put together words of his own, just like she had been a moment ago.

“Eleanor,” he said after what felt like forever, “I’m going to ask you something, but I need you to know I’m just asking. I’m not judging or anything.”

“Okay? What?”

His amber eyes slid to hers again. “Why did you turn down Etienne’s offer?”

That question struck her in her sternum, and she felt her breath catch in her throat. Her ears rang, stinging for a full minute after Mick’s last syllable, and when she opened her mouth, only one question spilled out, in a voice just barely audible over the noise around them.

“How do you know about that?”

It was a genuine question, but Eleanor couldn’t mask how hurt she was. She wasn’t like that—someone who went around and hid what she thought, like Etienne or Astrid. And anyway, to hear that question from Mick of all people, after hearing it so many times from Astrid (scolding), her father (exasperated), and her mother (softly, pleading) . . . it hurt. Simple as.

After all, she hoped Mick was the one person she wouldn’t have to think about her future with. The only person with whom she could just be herself, right there in the moment.

And for the record, no, she didn’t have an answer to that question. When Etienne told her she practically had a position at the Royal Archives, pending her “yes,” she should have been excited. She should have been elated. She should have felt like she had swallowed the sun. Four years—no, far, far longer than that—had led up to that moment: the one where she would be admitted into the hallowed halls of the Royal Archives, taking her place among the finest scholars and historians in the kingdom.

But something in her recoiled, and it recoiled hard. It was the same feeling she got when she had received the four other job offers, and it was the same feeling she got when she stood shoulder to shoulder with her fellow graduates. There was something in Southwind. Something important, that she knew she would miss so much the pain of possibly leaving that one thing behind dwarfed the joy and pride she should have felt from each new opportunity.

And at first, she couldn’t name that something. But when she moved back, when the summer drifted past her, when calls would be answered with “sorry—I’m working today,” she started to figure it out.

She and Mick had spent all of middle school and high school and even summer breaks and winter visits practically inseparable. And now . . .

The thing was, she knew what Mick would say. Go anyway. We can call. We can write. A million things that added up to don’t worry about me. But that wasn’t the point. Or not the point of her staying in Southwind, anyway. It was, on the other hand, the point behind why she and Mick had been locked in this stupid stalemate of not talking about the elephant in the room for the entirety of summer.

And right about then, Eleanor realized Mick was looking at her. She thought he might be studying her, but when she glanced his way, his face told another story.

See, oftentimes, Mick wore his heart on his sleeve. When he was uncomfortable, certainly. But also any time he realized he had messed up. And boy, did he realize now. His lips parted slightly around a silent apology, his eyebrows knitted together, and his body stood straight and stiff as he waited for a verbal gut-punch. And Eleanor felt guilty, like she just got caught sneaking back in after a night of drinking moonshine in the woods. She felt like she was sixteen and in trouble, and she couldn’t figure out if she hated it.

“I mean. I did.” She played with her straw. “It just didn’t seem like the right time when he offered.”

Mick opened his mouth, and for a split second, it looked like all the guilt on his face had vanished. But then, he pulled his eyes away from hers and drew his lips around his own straw.

“Right,” he said, straw between his teeth. “I get that.”

She wished he had said literally anything else.

“Anyway, should we head back? Marcie’s probably waiting for us,” she asked.

Mick lifted his eyes to her again. “You don’t want to stay here?”

“You’re not staying, are you?”

Mick gave her an apologetic look, but this time, it was sheepish, not like he had accidentally shot her dog in front of her. “I can’t.”

“Then do you want me to stay here?”

At that, he set his jaw, eyebrows raised. He looked . . . not hurt, exactly, but . . .

Afraid? Afraid.

And then casual, with a self-assured grin.

“I mean, if you want to. I don’t want to bore you,” he said. “But personally? It’s nice having you around.”

Nice. Well, that was better than nothing. Eleanor drew her shoulders up and toyed with her straw. “I’d be bored here without someone to hang out with. Running afoul of that mall cop just isn’t fun without you around.”

Mick snickered. “Really hope you wouldn’t ‘run afoul of that mall cop’ if I left you alone.”

She grinned at him, then took pleasure in the wince he offered in return. “Be honest with me, Mick, my starlet,” she said. “If it was your day off—a real day off, during which you had all the time in the world to spend doing whatever you wanted—would you enjoy this mall a little more?”

“No.”

They stopped. Somehow, they’d made it back to Bard Records—or, more accurately, a kiosk just in front of it. Eleanor wandered closer, to a display of incense sticks jutting out of its side like spines out of a porcupine’s back.

“Really?” she asked. “Not even if you were with me?”

Her eyes landed on the merchandise. Metal palms of destiny, tiny crystal balls, shrink-wrapped boxes of tarot cards, a jade statue of a Chinese dragon that held between its claws pendants on delicate chains. It was all kitsch, but Eleanor smiled at the kiosk’s showiness.

Next to her, Mick cleared his throat. “I mean—that’s not a fair question. I could be in the dumpster behind Denny’s, and I’d enjoy it more with you than without you.”

Eleanor arched an eyebrow at him. “You certainly have a way with words, Monsieur Martin.”

As he turned beet red, someone wedged themselves between Eleanor and the kiosk. Looking down, she found a short—man? woman? person—dressed in what appeared to be a too-large brown-and-green parka and a red witch’s hat. Virtually nothing of the actual person was visible between these two garments, and their face was almost entirely obscured by a pair of overly large coke-bottle glasses, through which Eleanor could just barely make out the blurry image of two small, dark eyes. These eyes peered up not at Eleanor but . . . at Mick.

“Ah, interested in this specimen, perhaps?” the figure asked.

Their voice was barely a scratchy whisper yet somehow still audible over the din of the mall. As they spoke, they stretched a yellow-gloved hand up to let one of the pendants rest on their claw-like fingers: a round, gold pendant with one iridescent jewel in its center, winking like an eye in the mall’s artificial lights.

“This is a unique item of great power,” the shopkeeper said. “It can grant its bearer their deepest desires. Anything your heart yearns for can be yours . . .” They jut a hand towards Mick. “Just 220 krone.”

Mick nodded vaguely, then hooked an arm around Eleanor’s. “No thanks. Eleanor?”

He wheeled her around and started leading her away from the kiosk, and Eleanor curled her lips together and willed herself not to burst out laughing.

Behind them, the kiosk’s shopkeeper shouted, “But sir! Your destiny is calling!”

“Tell it to leave a message!” Mick shouted back. Then, to Eleanor, he sighed. “And you wonder why I think this place is weird.”

The Infinite Sadness: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

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