Kat rushed out and helped me pick up the silverware while the guy remained bowed.
“Sorry, Kevin. I should have warned you. I assumed—well, everyone in town knows about Helena. Sorry.” Kat took the bin in one arm and wrapped the other around Kevin’s back and led him to the kitchen.
I wiped my hands on my jean shorts and assisted Grandma to our booth.
“Well, I never!” Grandma sat down next to me with a huff.
My mom spoke up to Grandma. “He’s new, Mother. You could have been nicer,”
“Simone, new people don’t just show up in Barton,” Grandma said. “There is a protocol. They must be vetted and introduced in a formal setting. Things are amiss. The royal guard must be notified. The princess was kind to help him, but I fear I should have already taken care of the man.”
Dad laughed. “Oh Helena, I do love you.”
“And I love you, Matthew, even if your feeble attempts at propriety are sometimes as brazen as that young man’s.” Grandma patted Dad’s hand from across the table. “Family is family. Let’s not fight,”
And our family was small. My mother and father were both only children. Grandma and Grandpa Wilson lived five hours away in Gettysburg. Most of the time it was only the four of us versus the world. I didn’t know what they were all going to do when I left for college.
Grandma turned to me. “Do you know that man? He looks too old to be from your school.”
“He is,” I agreed because if I had to guess, the man was at least twenty-five. I was about to mention it when somewhere outside came a slight buzzing like two bees flittering around a flower. Light but there. I shook my head, sure I must have imagined it.
“Let’s drop it, okay, Mother,” Mom told her. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Simone, you never worry about oddities, but you should. I will not always be here to protect you, and goodness knows my gifts, the family’s gifts, skipped you.”
Dad mouthed thank God as Kat returned carrying our breakfast tray. “Okay, that’s one stack of blueberry pancakes for our little Wavy. Egg white omelet for the beautiful Mrs. Wilson. The special for the historian. And for your highness, Confetti Ready Waffle Madness Surprise.”
Grandma’s eyes widened as she gazed at the waffles and whipped cream configured into piles like castles spires, topped with sprinkles. She smiled at Kat. “Well done. My compliments to the chef.”
“Sure, your royal highness,” Kat replied.
The sound came again, only stronger and different, like static on a radio tuned to an off station. I shook my head. It must have been my ears.
But then Kat’s hand moved to her ear. “Do any of you hear that?” The static was no longer distant, and everyone peered around for the source. A strange sensation, like déjà vu, made my skin prick.
“I hear it!” a man called from a different table.
“Oh no.” And Dad gave a groan of recognition.
“What?” I whispered.
“What is it, Matt? Is it some sort of machinery or—” Kat stopped talking mid-sentence and turned towards the door. She wasn’t the only one.
I looked around. Not one person talked. Voices fell silent, caught in an invisible spider’s web too thick and dense to penetrate. The clanking of glasses on linoleum tables and the scrape of forks on plates stopped. The only sound was the barest of breathing. The air thickened. Every face turned to the same spot: the open door.
A slight man with white hair entered the diner. He wore a full suit, dark gray with a purple lapel, his nose was high in the air, and his shoulders back. He looked powerful, and yet so very thin; a child blowing a pinwheel might have knocked him over.
Two bodyguards flanked the little man as the world held still.
Great-uncle Bollard flicked his wrists, and after another eerily silent moment, my family woke from the strange stupor, if only slightly, as he crossed the room. The rest of the diners still seemed rooted in their positions; many appeared to need a glass of water.
Dad sat, arms crossed, with a scowl of annoyance and repulsion on his face while my mom chewed her lip as if waging a mental battle over this surprise visitor.
Grandma spoke first. “Hello, Bollie.”
Great-uncle Bollard gave a slight bow to Grandma. “Helena, it has been far too long,” he said, enunciating every syllable in each word.
Mom, coming back to herself, stood up and offered her one and only uncle a hug. Bollard endured the embrace, patting Mom’s arm, and she let go. “This is such a huge surprise.”
No kidding. Great-uncle Bollard seldom visited, and when he did, he set up the occasion via messenger carrying a wax-sealed invitation to a private meal at the rented town hall. One lonely table in an empty location, painfully awkward at the best of times. She added, “It’s nice to see you.”
Great-uncle Bollard turned his gray eyes from her and fixed them upon me. “Yes, so we shall see.”
“Hi, Uncle.” Not wanting an awkward hug, I waved from my seat. “It’s good to see you.”
“Uncle, what are you doing here?” Mom asked. I was thinking the same thing, and I bet Dad was too. “Are you sick? What happened? Is everything all right?”
“Are you dying?” Dad asked a little too hopefully.
“Matthew!” Mom said as she returned to her seat.
I scooched over in the booth to make room for Uncle Bollard next to Grandma, but Bollard’s bodyguards had already gotten him a metal chair for the head of the table. They placed a white cloth down
