Dessert plates were cleared, the last of the wine poured. The break room felt comfortably insulated now, as though the world outside had agreed to wait its turn. The light beyond the windows hadn’t shifted much at all.
Olivia noticed.
“…Is it just me,” she asked, “or has it been the same time for a while now?”
Charles smiled. “Not just you.”
Miss LaDonna inclined her head. “Time here is… cooperative. When something important is happening, it waits.”
“That’s reassuring,” Olivia said. “And unsettling.”
“Most useful things are,” Charles replied.
She opened her notebook again, flipping to the first page of densely packed notes.
“All right,” she said. “From the top. The Procedures manual mentions spectral visitors. What does that mean?”
“Ghosts,” Charles said promptly.
Olivia blinked. “…Just. Ghosts.”
“Yes,” he said. “Though that’s a very lazy umbrella term. Some are dead people. Some are memories that forgot they weren’t real. Some are echoes left behind by places that mattered too much.”
“And if one comes to the front desk?”
“You offer tea,” Miss LaDonna said. “If they can’t hold the cup, you write that down.”
Olivia nodded and scribbled.
“Next. Time-displaced deliveries. It says to log them even if they arrive before they’re sent.”
“Especially then,” Charles said.
“…Why?”
“Because if you don’t,” he said gently, “someone later will insist they never arrived at all.”
She stared at him for a long moment.
“That feels like something I should be more worried about.”
“You’ll acclimate,” Miss LaDonna said kindly.
Olivia turned another page. “You keep using the word mundane. Not human.”
Charles leaned back slightly. “Because ‘human’ isn’t precise.”
Miss LaDonna nodded. “Some humans aren’t mundane. Some mundane beings aren’t human.”
“So mundane means…?”
“Bound to the ordinary world,” Charles said. “Linear time. Finite lives. Cause before effect. Gravity that behaves.”
“And you,” Olivia said quietly, looking at him now. “You’re not mundane.”
“No,” Charles agreed.
She hesitated, then asked the question she’d been circling all evening.
“What are you?”
Charles smiled — not evasive, not amused. Simply patient.
“I’m of the Fae,” he said. “But I am not Fae.”
Olivia frowned. “I don’t—”
“I’m a goblin,” he clarified.
She blinked. “Goblins are… short. Green. Knobby.”
Charles chuckled. “Some are.”
Miss LaDonna smiled into her glass.
“There are more varieties of goblin,” Charles continued, “than there are breeds of dogs. Or cats. Or humans, for that matter. The stories you were taught picked one or two and called it sufficient.”
“So the ears,” Olivia said slowly. “And the eyes. And the feet.”
“Family traits,” Charles said lightly.
“And what kind of goblin are you?”
“By birth?” He tilted his head. “A Tinker Goblin.”
She perked up. “Like mechanics?”
“Like problem-solvers,” he said. “Builders. Fixers. Makers of things that shouldn’t work but do.”
“And now?”
Charles’s smile softened. “Now I run a television station.”
Miss LaDonna reached over and rested her hand over his briefly. “He chose a different path long ago.”
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Olivia let that settle, then turned to Miss LaDonna.
“And you?”
Miss LaDonna met her gaze calmly. “Human. Or I was.”
Charles nodded. “She stopped aging about three hundred years ago. Around the time we met.”
Olivia inhaled sharply. “Three hundred—”
“—and change,” Miss LaDonna said dryly. “I was meant to die.”
“The Salem trials,” Olivia said slowly.
“Yes,” Miss LaDonna replied. “Not witches. Not really. Politics. Property. Fear. Convenient lies.”
“You were accused,” Olivia whispered.
“Yes.”
“And Charles…”
“…borrowed me,” Charles said. “In a ridiculous car.”
“A car?” Olivia echoed.
“Wheels. Engine. Very loud,” Miss LaDonna said. “No one knew what it was yet. They assumed it was the devil.”
“To be fair,” Charles added, “it did belch smoke.”
Olivia laughed, breathless, then steadied herself.
“The Signal,” she said. “Everyone keeps mentioning it. Bernard did. You both have. What is it?”
Charles and Miss LaDonna exchanged a look.
Miss LaDonna nodded for him to answer.
“The Signal isn’t a voice,” Charles said. “It’s a resonance. A pull.”
“With what?” Olivia asked.
“With possibility,” he said. “It permeates everything. Most people never hear it. Some hear it once and ignore it. Some spend their lives trying to drown it out.”
“And some follow it,” Miss LaDonna said softly.
Olivia swallowed. “It’s why I found the ad.”
“Yes,” Charles said. “And why it had your name.”
“That feels manipulative.”
“It can be,” he admitted. “But it never lies. It guides people toward where they are needed. Where they will be safer. More themselves.”
“And the Courts?” Olivia asked. “You mentioned them.”
“Summer and Winter,” Charles said. “Not governments. More like philosophies with teeth. Growth and rest. Heat and preservation.”
“And OtherWorlds?” She gestured around them. “This place?”
“A refuge,” Miss LaDonna said. “For stories that were never allowed to finish. For people who didn’t fit where they were born.”
Olivia closed her notebook slowly.
“So… I’m not imagining any of this.”
“No,” Charles said warmly.
“And you’re not wearing costumes.”
“No,” Miss LaDonna agreed.
“And the world is much bigger and stranger than I was taught.”
Charles lifted his glass slightly. “Always has been.”
Silence settled — not awkward, but full.
Olivia exhaled, long and steady.
“…Okay,” she said. “I think I can work with that.”
Charles beamed.
“That,” he said, “is exactly why the Signal called you.”
The clocks resumed their quiet ticking, satisfied.
And somewhere deep in the Station, something old and vast shifted — not in warning, but in welcome.
Eventually, even wonder has to rest.
Dinner stretched pleasantly long, plates cleared and refilled with conversation instead of food, until at last the day began to gently insist on its end. Chairs were pushed back, lights softened.
Miss LaDonna stood first, smoothing her sleeves. “Good night, Olivia.”
“Good night,” Olivia replied, meaning it deeply.
Miss LaDonna paused, then added, “If you need anything during the night, just call out. Bernard will hear you through the vents.”
Olivia blinked. “He’s… listening?”
Bernard’s voice drifted faintly from somewhere overhead, polite and reassuring.
“Not intentionally, Miss Olivia. But I do know when I am called. And I answer right away.”
“That’s… actually comforting,” Olivia said.
Charles gathered his coat, already half vanishing into its impossible depths. “One more practical note,” he said lightly. “The front doors unlock at nine a.m. sharp. You’ll want to be at the desk before then.”
She nodded, committing it to memory.
“And breakfast,” he added, wagging a finger gently, “is always available from seven onward.”
Her stomach approved immediately.
Goodnights were exchanged, warm and unhurried, and Olivia made her way upstairs, the quiet of the station settling around her like a held breath.
Inside her apartment, she changed for bed, still humming faintly with the day’s revelations. As she brushed her teeth, she remembered Charles’s offhand comment.
Did you check your kitchenette?
Curiosity tugged at her.
She padded out, opening cabinets, the bread box, the fridge—
—and laughed softly in disbelief.
Her favorites. All of them.
The bread she preferred. The snacks she always reached for. Even the cereal — her cereal — the Australian brand she’d eaten as a child and hadn’t seen in years.
The apartment knew her.
No — the station knew her.
That thought followed her to bed.
She climbed into the oversized sleigh bed, sinking into crisp sheets and deep, welcoming pillows. The mattress cradled her perfectly. She stared at the ceiling, smiling despite herself.
But sleep wouldn’t come.
Her mind spun with images — goblins and ghosts, Florins and florid embroidery, lemon tarts and impossible coats. Excitement buzzed too loudly in her veins.
After a while, she tried something.
Quietly, almost shyly, she whispered, “Bernard… are you listening?”
There was a soft pause.
Then, from the vent high on the wall, a voice answered, gentle as a shared secret.
“Yes, Miss Olivia. But only when you need me. Is there something I can help with?”
She swallowed. “I… can’t sleep. Too much excitement.”
“Ah,” Bernard said kindly. “That is quite common.”
There was a faint hum, like breath being drawn somewhere vast and careful.
“I believe I know something that may help,” he continued.
And then he began to sing.
Softly. Reverently.
An Aboriginal lullaby Olivia hadn’t heard since she was very small — one her mother had sung once, years ago, before the world became busy and sharp and complicated. The melody wrapped around her like memory itself, gentle and sure.
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, happy and unguarded.
Her breathing slowed.
Her thoughts loosened.
And before the song ended, her eyelids drooped, the station holding her safely as sleep finally claimed her.
Deep. Dreamless. Whole.
The Signal, patient and satisfied, let her rest.
