Paper Confines

xv. To Be Loved or Not

PAPER CONFINES.
15. / To Be Loved or Not

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       Hogsmeade's streets were slicked with rain, scattered with sweet wrappers and hard on Nadya's sore feet, but she was happy to be here with company for once. Colette was tearing through a bag of toffees from Honeydukes, turning her nose up at the liquorice ones and proclaiming such a flavour should never have been made. Nadya, in turn, ate one just to be contrarian and hated them the same.

"I told you," Colette said, turning the doorknob to The Three Broomsticks.

"They're not that bad," Nadya answered, her hair tucked messily into a white cloche hat Colette insisted she wore in the cold.

"If you must disagree about everything, yes."

They entered the pub and closed the wind behind them, the old door rattling as the cold air struck the hot. Colette crouched in her heels to avoid hitting her head on the slanted beams stretched across the ceiling. Lights were strung along them, gleaming orange and violet for Halloween tomorrow. The windows were foggy with steam where the varied clientele cupped their hot drinks with both hands and dug into oversized plates teeming with food. As usual, the crowd in a magical pub was varied.

A man at the nearest table was as tall as a decent tree, skin a greyish hue, and made the candelabra above rattle and swing as he stood to get another drink. His friend was every bit as eccentric, dressed in a silken brocade and a green velvet cloak and twin cufflinks that glittered when he took a sip of his mead. His ears were shaped into slender tines like an elf from one of Banks' retellings of her father's bestiary. Not many lingered in little towns like Hogsmeade, but Nadya was fascinated by the aggregation nonetheless, and grateful she had her own sylphlike companion to stand tall at her side.

Nadya and Colette were seated by a barmaid with hair shorn to her ears, strong forearms peeking out from a men's button-down shirt, sundry rings pierced through the soft points of her nose and ears and—as she smiled, her tongue—and most shockingly, a well-worn face that seemed unbothered by how she drew attention. And she must have drawn attention. There was even a scar threaded through her brow, like the one on Nadya's father's mouth from his time captaining the SS Loyalty, twin to the golden stitching on his epaulets. They both seemed to wear them like badges of honour.

Nadya took off her hat and shook her hair loose, watching as the barmaid returned to the counter and shot an order at a man tending tumblers of whiskey and ice.

She had never seen a woman who looked like that.

Nadya sunk hazily into the banquette beside Colette and nearly fell onto her lap, her eyes elsewhere. She was almost overwhelmed by the desire to run up to the woman, like little children did to any sort of person they'd never seen before, with wide-eyed curiosity, and ask her every question as it struck without thought of offence. Do your parents know your hair is that short? Do they mind? (Of course not, Nadya answered herself, she must be in her forties and doesn't ask permission for haircuts.) I admire the nose, but why is there a jewel in your tongue? Has anyone ever told you it's unladylike to dress that way, and if so, what's your preferred method of punching?

"Ow!" Colette cried.

Nadya shuffled away frantically, instead taking the seat across the table—the croaking treen chairs that nobody liked. "Sorry," she mumbled, "sorry."