It’s the smell I notice first. A mustiness offset by a bitter edge of copper. It coils through my mouth and nose, filling my chest.
The man is watching. He’s small, with sharp, goblin-like features, and bright eyes. He’s wearing an odd mixture of patterns and textures—a satin vest with a coil of material at his throat. Not quite a cravat. For some reason, I can’t decide what colors he’s wearing. They seem to blend and swirl, giving impressions of purple and red, but my eyes can’t focus properly. The lighting is unusual in this shop, and the orange puddles from lamps cast shadows in unexpected places. A headache tugs at the back of my eyes.
“Good evening, sir,” I begin.
The man twitches a smile at the edges of his mouth, his fingers steepled on the glass of the counter between us as if he’s about to perform a magic trick. There’s nothing up my sleeve.
I’m about to show him the letter when I spot something, and my stomach lurches.
“That photograph,” I say suddenly, indicating behind him. “Is it a famous portrait? I feel as if I’ve seen it before.”
“Before, ma’am?” His voice is quiet. The diplomatic hush of a doctor or, in his case, a pawnbroker.
I am transfixed by the photograph on the wall behind him. It looks both old and new, and the woman in the picture is staring, wide-eyed, stuck there like a butterfly. I can almost see her lips twitching. Let me out.
“I beg your pardon?” the man says.
“I didn’t say anything.”
My voice is shaking, but the man remains calm. He must be used to odd behavior in here. Desperation and ruin. Heartbreak and hope.
I focus on him, willing myself not to look at the woman in the photo, even though I feel she is looking at me. So familiar. I’m not sure why it bothers me so much.
“I’ve come to claim something back,” I say. “I think there’s something here belonging to me, but I’m not sure.”
“Do you have a receipt?”
There’s something on his face I don’t like. A knowing. I draw my coat around me, suddenly cold. My stomach hurts. “You need to turn your heating on, sir.” My words puncture the air between us, startling me, and I’m embarrassed by my outburst.
“You said that last time.” His smile creeps wider.
The smell of dust is choking me, and for a moment I can’t catch my breath. The shop is small, but it’s piled high with surrendered belongings, and they loom above me. It’s suffocating.
A baby’s cot catches my eye, and I am overcome with sadness. What manner of parent brought a cot to this godforsaken shop? Did their baby die, or were they so desperate they had to choose between their child’s sleep or food?
I focus once more on the man, whose grin remains in place throughout my silence.
“I’ve never been here before.” I say it as much to myself as to him. Fumbling for the letter in my pocket, I drop it on the counter to avoid touching his hand. “Here.” I point at the picture on the letter. “This is your establishment, isn’t it?”
He barely looks at it before handing it back to me. “That’s not a receipt.”
“Did you read it?”
“I know what it is, and I know what it isn’t.”
“It’s a thank-you letter.” I’ve folded and unfolded it countless times, but the writing has not faded. I’ve memorized every loop of every letter. At the top is a crude line-drawing of the shop, with its faded Pawnbroker sign. Underneath it simply reads, “Thank you for your donation.”
“Exactly,” he says. He dips his head, a mock bow. “Not a sale. Not that for which a refund may be applicable. A donation. Thank you.”
“What donation? I’ve never been here before.”
“But you must have.” He says it kindly, so softly. “After all, the letter is the proof.”
I stare at it, checking again that it is definitely a picture of this shop. But there is no mistake. As I peer closer at the drawing, I see more detail than I have ever noticed before. The windows are piled high with goods. It’s impossible—it must be a coincidence as the stock must always change, but the shop window in the drawing even shows a baby’s cot, just like the one here.
It’s almost as if I am falling into the picture. There is a shopkeeper in the drawing. I can just make him out through the window, and the faintest outline of a woman who looks like me. The letter falls from my hand, and I lean heavily on the counter. I try to steady my breathing.
“I need your help.” My voice has taken a pleading tone, and I know he hears it. He likes it, I think. My fingers bite into the counter as if it were a lifeboat. I can’t let go. My head is fuzzy.
“I think I must be suffering some sort of amnesia,” I say. “All I know is that I have this letter, and everything else is a blur. I’ve been walking the streets for hours, trying to find your shop. I thought you might tell me what I sold and return it to me. It might help me remember. I think something is wrong with me—maybe I’m not well.”
The woman in the picture is saying something. I can see her lips moving as I talk. It almost looks as if she is mouthing along to what I say. I must have a head injury. I must be seeing things.
The man follows my gaze to the picture behind him. “Would you like a closer look?” He takes it off the wall, and I am immediately certain I don’t want it anywhere near me. A bellow of horror that starts deep inside of me belches out in his face. I am horrified by the sound—guttural and deafening. I clamp my hands to my mouth, but he doesn’t flinch.
He holds it up beside my head. “Not your best angle, but I only had one shot.”
“Get it away! Get it away!” I scramble backwards, falling, scuttling like a crab away from it. I can feel it pulsing, like it wants to fill me up.
“Not everyone likes their own souls,” he comments. “From the outside, you can see them more clearly than ever.”
Impossible. Fantastical. But the truth of it feels undeniable.
“Why would I have given my soul to you?”
“Maybe you needed a favor. Someone to be saved. Someone to not be saved. I always try to help those who donate to my shop.”
“Did I save someone?” I whisper. I watch the picture mouth the words, and I know the answer from her face. The woman in that picture did not save anyone.
There is a flash of images, so fast I almost can’t see them. A man—my husband? A woman—his mistress? Shock on her face; a knife in her chest. She is screaming.
“Did I kill someone?”
“Sometimes people want to get away with murder.” He shrugs. “I don’t judge.”
“This can’t have been what I wanted,” I cry. “You must have tricked me. You took it out—you can put it back.”
As I say it, I am struck by the conviction that if whatever inhabits the portrait was a part of me, I don’t want it back. I don’t want her near me. But I can’t bear this feeling that I have been hollowed out. I’m empty.
“And all of this?” I wave at the belongings—the baby’s cot. “What are they? Is that a baby’s soul? Did the baby donate that to you?”
The man chuckles, a benign gleam in his eye, as if indulging a child telling a joke. “No, ma’am,” he says, finally. “These are all things that you brought here.”
I look again at the furniture stacked up in the window. A plush, mustard-colored chair, a bookcase, an outdoor set with a faded umbrella. There’s a set of dolls, a vanity, and a frame containing what I can now see is a university certificate, bearing my husband’s surname but an unfamiliar female first name.
“I don’t recognize any of this.”
“That’s because the people who would own it can no longer do so.” He sighs. “Such clutter, but it must go somewhere.” He nods at the cot. “A baby who was never born has no need of a bed, or a doll, or even a degree. A woman who did not get to finish her life will not buy that chair or that garden table. Everything must go somewhere.”
“A baby—”
“You didn’t know, of course. How could you? They didn’t even know themselves. Would it have prevented you? Or would it have hastened your actions, perhaps?” He brushed an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. “It doesn’t matter.”
It’s so icy that my breath is misting up the whole shop. The pain in my head and my stomach have increased to the point where I can barely think. I feel as if a hole has been drilled through me, scooping out my ability to make sense of what is happening. All that’s left is fragments. Pulp.
“I do enjoy our chats.” He gives a wide smile that shows all his teeth. “You must visit again. I will be closing soon.”
Sudden tears come to my eyes. “I don’t know where to go.”
It’s true. I cannot think where I live, or who I could turn to. I don’t even know my own name.
“It is unfortunate you died so soon after making your donation. Perhaps you could have learned to live without a soul, but we would have met, eventually.” He says it like that should bring me comfort.
I’m about to tell him he’s wrong—I’m alive! I didn’t die! But another image flashes through my mind—my husband, grabbing the knife from my hand, a look of understanding and grief. Darkness.
“Did she come to see you too? Does everyone come here when they die?”
“This display is only for you, ma’am,” the man says, as if bestowing a great honor. “I’m sure you must appreciate that we value customer confidentiality in a business such as this.”
“But you haven’t helped me! I didn’t get away with anything because he killed me straight away! That means you took my donation and gave me nothing!” The portrait behind him is mouthing the words. She is enraged.
“I suppose I could return it.” The man reaches towards the portrait, laughing as I cower from it. “I didn’t think so.” He returns to his steeple-fingered posture, observing me from across the counter. I remain a few steps back from him, although I’m not sure what I am trying to save myself from now.
“You’ll want her someday,” the man says, either to me or the portrait—I’m not sure which. “You’ll beg to have her back. Maybe, if you’re a good customer, I will let you.”
He didn’t move it, but I suddenly feel as if the portrait is closer to me. She is mimicking my expressions, breathing when I breathe, and her face is moving towards mine. She is a monster. She is terrifying.
My legs feel as if I am in a nightmare, and they won’t work properly. I stagger to the exit, wrenching the door open.
“See you again soon, ma’am,” the man calls, softly, as I fall onto the street.
The pavement is cool and solid, and I feel as if I have just woken up. I am confused. I don’t know why I am here. My head hurts and I wonder if I’ve had an accident and lost consciousness in the street. I walk, but I don’t know where I’m going.
There is a piece of folded up paper in my hand. It says, “Thank you for your donation.” I don’t know where it came from, but there is a drawing of a pawnbroker’s shop at the top of the page, and maybe if I go there, I’ll remember something. I walk for hours, up and down empty roads, and then I see it—a little shop, glowing orange lights out into the darkness, piled up with nonsense in the windows. There appears to be a man behind the counter.
With relief, I enter. The shop is unusually cold, and I pull my coat around me. An odd scent of dust and metal fills the air. The shopkeeper is strangely dressed and looks at me as though waiting for me to speak.
“Good evening, sir,” I begin.
