A Name to Call Her By
I looked down at the cup the woman had pointed at.
After she said she had no money, I had braced for her to explain her circumstances or ask me to bring the room rate down. What came back instead was a job inquiry. I, who had spent yesterday hunting through help-wanted ads, was now weighing whether I was even allowed to hire someone.
The promotion had come far too fast. I hadn't even laid eyes on my own wages yet.
"I'll ask about that as well. That said, even if I approve, the owner can still turn her down."
"Mm."
"If that happens, we'll have to find another way."
The moment my explanation ended, the woman nodded and picked up her empty cup.
"Where do I wash this?"
"I hadn't quite meant that as an instruction to start working just yet."
The hand holding the cup stopped. I glanced back toward the kitchen. A half-prepped onion sat on the cutting board, and the shopping list I'd spread out that morning, along with the goods themselves, still covered the table.
It wasn't work I couldn't do alone. It was simply that doing all of it myself would push lunch preparation back a little further.
"If you'd like to help, could you start by clearing the table? Put the paper and the goods on the counter, then wipe it down. You'll be joining me for lunch as well."
"Wipe it, and I get food?"
"Yes. The matter of the room will have to be asked about separately, but treating you to a meal in return for helping with my work is something I can manage."
The woman set down her cup and rose. She steadied the chair with one hand so it wouldn't scrape backward, then drew her long legs out from beside the table. I showed her where to wash up and fetched a clean rag, then returned to the kitchen.
A little later, Ara's voice drifted in from the dining room.
"That one goes over there. Grain put it there."
She seemed to be talking about the paper I'd spread out. When I glanced over, Ara was pointing at the counter while the woman began moving things off the paper, starting with the packet of salt.
Conversation between them seemed easier than when they'd first met. At the very least, as long as there were things to move and a clear spot to put them, there was no need to agonize over greetings.
I drizzled a little oil into the pot and added the onions. Sautéed the way I'd been told at the market, they gave off a different aroma than when I'd dropped them straight into water. But if I stood there merely smelling them, they'd burn, so I hurried my spatula along.
After pouring in the water and adding the meat and vegetables, I stepped out into the dining room to find the woman wiping the edge of the table. Her long hair was gathered in front of one shoulder, held there with her hand.
"Shall I bring you a cord for it? Holding it like that must be uncomfortable."
"You have one?"
"I have a spare."
When I brought a cord from my room, she set down the rag and tied her hair loosely back. Then she looked down at her freed hand once before returning to the table.
"This is easier."
"For work, you need only tie it so that it won't come loose."
I had been explaining what I'd done yesterday morning. Counting by experience on the job, I was her senior by exactly one day.
The three of us ate lunch at the same table.
The newly arrived woman chose the end seat she'd occupied earlier, and Ara sat down beside me. I set out the soup and handed around the bread. I'd used only a little of the dried herbs for fear the flavor would be too strong, but the broth carried a scent that hadn't been there yesterday.
Ara took the first spoonful and studied the inside of her bowl.
"You put something extra in."
"I asked around at the market and bought it. Is that strange?"
"No. But the meat's still tough."
Apparently that part couldn't be solved with a handful of herbs. I chewed through my own portion and nodded. Making food taste better and making it easier to chew were, it seemed, separate lessons.
Across the table, a spoon was moving at a steady rhythm. The woman ate her potatoes, drank her broth, then tore the bread into little pieces. Getting no particular reaction, I asked first.
"How do you find it?"
"It's warm."
It was a merit impossible to dispute.
"And nothing that doesn't suit your palate?"
"No."
She answered, then dipped her bread again. Ara glanced my way, the corner of her mouth tilting up slightly.
"What a relief."
"I think so as well."
No guest was praising the food, but no guest was pushing their bowl away, either. By that measure, today's lunch counted as a success.
After the meal, I said I would go see the owner. Ara immediately looked out the window, and I added that I would scan the road for anything strange before setting out.
"This time I'm only going as far as the owner's house. I'll keep the door locked until I return, so there's no need to open it for anyone."
"I'll be upstairs."
Ara replied as she gathered the empty dishes. I also let the woman across the table know that she was welcome to wait in the dining room.
"What if the owner says no?"
"I'll come back and tell you."
She studied my face for a moment, then nodded. I took out the notice I'd posted on the door and spread it open once more. Barely two days into the job, and "away from my post" seemed to be getting more use than "open for business."
The owner was at the address he'd given me.
When he opened the door and saw me, his eyebrows lifted a little. Catching sight of the key ring in my hand, his gaze dipped briefly downward.
"What brings you here?"
"I've come to ask you something."
I explained that I had found someone to help with the cleaning and the meal preparation. I told him first about how going upstairs to tend the guest rooms meant leaving the lower floor unattended, and how I had to lock the door whenever I went out to shop.
The owner offered me a chair just inside the door and asked:
"Getting some guests, are you?"
"One is staying with us. She extended her stay again today as well."
"One guest, and you're already short-handed?"
"I can manage alone for now. What I mean is that it will be difficult once the guests increase."
That was the moment when the answer could have come back that hiring someone was fine. Before he could open his mouth, I added my terms.
"She's someone who needs room and board at the moment. If I place the cleaning and the dishes in her hands, could you let her use one of the empty rooms?"
The owner leaned back against his chair.
"Someone you know?"
"I met her for the first time today."
"You want to take on someone you met today?"
He'd met me for the first time only yesterday, too.
But I kept that to myself. Instead, I described how she had handled the tasks I'd entrusted to her before lunch. She hadn't abandoned anything halfway, and she asked whenever there was something she didn't know. I couldn't quite claim to have watched her for a long time, though.
"I'll handle the accounts and attending to the guests myself. You're welcome to decide after having her work alongside me for a few days first."
The owner drummed his fingers on the armrest. While he was thinking, I brought up what I'd heard at the market.
"Also, there's a rumor going around about a tall woman coming and going from the inn. Were you aware of it?"
The fingers stopped.
"I heard it."
"Shouldn't you have mentioned that to me as well?"
"There are plenty of tales about people seeing things at night. I never saw anything myself, so I didn't know how much I ought to tell you..."
"Has anyone ever quit the job because of that rumor?"
The owner didn't answer right away. After a pause, he nodded.
"There has been."
"Then it was information that anyone coming to work here needed to have."
I smoothed out the hands I'd folded in my lap. It would have been easy to call it my own fault for not asking when I was hired — except that nowhere in the help-wanted ad was there so much as a word about seeking someone who could endure ghost stories.
The owner let out a short sigh.
"That much I should have told you myself. So — are you quitting as well?"
"No. That woman is waiting in the dining room as we speak."
He looked at me.
"What?"
"She came because she needs a room. The worker I mentioned is her."
The owner went without speaking for a while. When he asked whether her hair was white, I said it was; when he asked whether anything had happened to me, I said we had wiped tables together and shared a meal.
The more I explained, the stranger his expression became.
When I finished, I waited. All I had seen was what had happened in the dining room today. I couldn't vouch for anything beyond that — but neither could I say she had done something she hadn't.
"Are you sure you'll be all right working alongside her?"
"For now, I intend to try. But if there is something I don't know, please tell me now."
The owner thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"All I know is that people got frightened and left. I have never once heard of anyone being hurt."
He glanced once at the keys I'd brought, then went on.
"...Try it for a week first."
Only after a long pause did the owner speak again.
"I'll give you one empty room and her meals, and in the meantime we'll see whether the work gets done. If I decide she can keep at it, we'll discuss wages then."
"Understood. If she accepts those terms as well, that is how we'll proceed."
I took out a sheet of paper and wrote down the trial period and the duties. When I held it out, the owner made much the same expression as yesterday — but this time, too, he signed it.
Before I went back, the owner asked for that woman's name.
I looked down at the blank space at the top of the paper.
That, too, would have to be settled.
When I opened the inn's door, the woman lifted her head from the table.
Her seat was where it had been, but the dishes that had stood before her were gone. Washed dishes sat upside down on the shelf by the kitchen entrance, and in her hand she held the cord I'd lent her for her hair.
"I'm back. You waited, I see."
The woman started to rise, then stopped to look at the paper I held out. Sitting down across from her, I explained the terms I'd settled with the owner: for one week she would take charge of the cleaning and the dishes, and in exchange she would receive a room and meals.
"Give it a try, and if anything troubles you, tell me. We can decide then whether you'll keep working here."
"Sleeping here again tonight?"
"Yes. We'll have to find you a room. The bed may well be too short."
Her eyes went to the stairs. A moment later she looked back down at the paper and nodded, slowly.
"I'll do it."
I reached for my pen and stopped. The blank I'd left in front of the owner was still empty. I couldn't keep calling her "excuse me," and being the first to call her "the tall one" felt as though the rudeness would be mine.
"Is there a name you'd like to be called, by any chance?"
The woman looked at me.
"If you have one in mind, I'll write that down."
"No."
"Then may I think of one? If we are to work together, I need a name to call you by."
She didn't answer right away. Setting down the cord in her hand, she pushed the paper a little toward me.
"You pick."
With the request actually resting in my lap, I couldn't simply lift the pen. The weight of it was different when I merely thought about naming her than when she entrusted it to me. This would be the name she would answer to from now on — hardly the occasion for some odd label chosen for a quick laugh.
I rolled a few sounds around in my head, then raised my gaze.
"How about Farin?"
Crimson eyes came to rest on me.
"Farin."
"Yes. If it doesn't please you, I'll think of other names as well."
Her lips moved slightly, repeating the sound. Her answer came more slowly than it had when I'd explained the boarding terms earlier. I set the pen down beside the paper and waited.
Ara, coming down the stairs, stopped a few steps away. She didn't ask what we were discussing.
"I'll take that one."
I nodded and wrote the name into the blank. Below it ran the days she would work and the duties she would take on. When I turned the paper around to show her, her long fingers stopped just short of the letters.
"This is my name?"
"Yes. Miss Farin."
The fingers fell away from the paper. She looked at my face, then lowered her gaze to the name again.
"Just call me Farin."
"Is that how you would prefer to be called?"
"Yeah."
I hesitated a moment, then nodded. If that was what she wanted, there was no need to insist on some other form of address.
"Understood, Farin. Then shall we go find you a room first?"
Just as I moved to rise, a hand touched the end of my sleeve.
It didn't pull. Two fingers were simply holding the fabric, lightly. Thinking she might have something more to say, I sat back down.
Farin wasn't looking at the stairs. Her eyes had left the letters on the paper as well; she was simply watching me, as though waiting for me to open my mouth.
"Say it once more."