Grayson Prior had never been one for fast cars. He preferred multi-seated and lumbering vehicles to others that were sleek and equipped with hellish speed. Alex was an only child, so all the extra seats Grayson used to have in his eight-seater minivan often granted more than enough space for excess hardware storage that he needed to carry to and from his shop.

It was a dismal day for Grayson when he made the sensible decision to sell his beloved minivan instead of having it transported with them. Alex had long forgotten who the new owner ended up being, but he did recall his father becoming six-thousand dollars richer, which should have been more than enough to provide the means to rent a faster car than the one they were in now.

"Go any slower, why don't you?" Alex mocked from the passenger seat. Grayson had rented a teal VW Beetle with rusted paint and an odd scent lingering inside the vehicle. "Maybe, if we're lucky, the sun will go down before we get there, and then we'll have an excuse to camp out in the middle of the road."

Grayson hardly acknowledged his son's paltry sarcasm. He was too busy scoping the rusting scenery. The even dirt path closed in by verdant plant life and derelict remnants of wooden fences, looked even more picturesque under the dulling light of the sunset.

"Camping doesn't sound half bad. We haven't done that in ages," Grayson remarked, half mocking but half sincere about the proposal as well. He and Alex had gone camping together nearly every summer up until this one, and though his son hadn't said it in earnest, Grayson thought there was a bit of hope for the old Alex to return in some regard.

"What if the movers are already there?" Alex asked, ignoring his father's attempt to revive an old memory. He'd already spent four hours cramped in a plane; he didn't want to spend another four stuck inside something infinitely smaller.

"So what if they are?" Grayson returned.

"What if they steal from us?"

Grayson snorted. "Lex, that's ridiculous. Even if that did happen, the entire town would be witnesses."

"You seriously think that a town full of people we've never met before would take our side? What if they just decide to join in?"

Grayson feigned a censorious side-glance at his son. "Didn't I warn you to lay off all that jello on the plane?"

"Dad," Alex whined.

"It was way too sweet. And just because you're not on the basketball team anymore doesn't mean you should start neglecting your health and letting yourself go."

"Dad-"

"I know if I was your age and had the body you have, basketball, or any other sport or not, I'd be treating it like a temple twenty-four seven!"

"Dad-"

"Woah, well would you look at that!"

Alex followed Grayson's lead by leaning his head forward over the car's dashboard to better see what stood up ahead through the windshield: a stone archway tangled in ivy garlands, next to it a jagged wooden picket sign with 'Riviam Point' spelled out in thin black metallic letters that were nailed on.

"This is it...the point of no return," Alex said. He stared wide-eyed at the archway as if the structure was staring right back at him.

Grayson mocked, "exciting isn't it!" He didn't acknowledge the vile look Alex was shooting him, and steered the Beetle through the arch.

The dirt path became plane cemented ground as they drove through the streets. Curved silver lamp posts lined every sidewalk where they hosted an array of vibrantly coloured buildings — some taller, some shorter, some jutting outwards from their straight line like a string of playing blocks that had been placed unevenly.

Grayson travelled further down the street making several turns, and the town's residences were at last visible. Pale-painted houses and apartment buildings of different sizes, again of a colourful variety, and Alex wondered if the faded tones here were intentional or due to time taking its own merciful toll on the town.

One final turn led the Prior men to a bleached blue house with '05' engraved on a copper disc attached to the center of the front door. The house was two stories tall and not as big-looking as their home in New Orleans was. But Alex, a bit surprised at himself, didn't mind too much at all. Unlike the old Prior home, the dwelling seemed more cordial with the lack of fencing, and even a bare blue mailbox waiting to be adorned.

Grayson pulled into the compact strip of concrete driveway, then stepped out to observe the new property. "Damn. Lovely isn't it?"

"Yeah," Alex agreed, though 'lovely' probably wasn't the exact word he would've used. "Guess we beat the movers after all."

"Oh...!" Grayson whirled around a few times, flustered. "Maybe there was some miscommunication. I'll give them a call and-"

"Front door."

The voice was geriatric yet had all the texture of sandpaper, and for a strange moment, the Prior men thought it might be coming from the cerulean-coloured home. Their heads twisted to stare at the tawny front door, until a second later when Alex noticed a crooked figure standing behind Grayson.

"Front door," the figure repeated. He was an older man with visible strands of grey throughout his messily combed, black shoulder-length mane. His own skin was as tawny as the doors of all the houses, and the house he stood nearby was an insipid shade of custard.

"Uhm...what?" Alex called over his father's shoulder. Grayson flinched and spun around again, finally laying eyes on the true source of the odd phrase.

The man hobbled forward off of the mosaic-tiled walkway that led to the custard home, and onto the primly cut grass. "In this town, we got two entrances to get here. There's the 'back door', which is the ol' nature route. That's the entrance everyone in town uses regularly. Then there's the 'front door', a, guess you could say, 'mainstream' route that leads into the city that's got real roads and signs and the whole shebang that folks not from here tend to use. Those movers you said about likely took that route. It's longer than the back door, considering there's actual traffic."

"You know, I think someone did try telling me about that earlier," Grayson said, continuing the conversation as if he was familiar with the man. "The woman at the car rental shop we were at recommended taking the 'scenic route' into this town. It made me wonder how many other routes existed that led here, but she distracted me with her products," he gestured loosely but with a tinge of admiration at the teal buggy in-between him and Alex, "and I ended up forgetting to ask about it."

The man gave a brisk head nod to concur as he regarded the vehicle from where he stood. "Understandable. That's a good-looking Beetle you got there."

"That's what I-"

"So who are you?" Alex cut in. Grayson shot him a scathing look, to which Alex shrugged his apology.

The man addressed it before Grayson could, "name's Martin, Martin Singh. Looks like we'll be neighbours." He made an effete gesture at the custard-coloured house and shuffled a few steps closer to the Prior men. His content gaze didn't add up with the impudent question Alex had aimed at him, and Alex thought he must've not heard entirely, albeit he didn't look that old.

Grayson threw on a timorous smile. "It's nice to meet you, Martin. I'm Grayson Prior, that's my son, Alex over there. Sorry about him by the way. He's been having a rough couple of months."

"Ain't no-thang about it," Martin coolly assured. Both Grayson and Alex hadn't noticed it initially, but it was distinguishable now; Martin's low and syllabic rhythm, Indian accent, hardly there yet hard to miss. He moved several more steps so that he now stood on the same bumpy concrete driveway of the blue home. "A lot of the young folk 'round here got an edge on 'em. Quite used to it by now."

It wasn't exactly because of guilt that Alex stepped around the buggy and came to stand next to Grayson with an apology gnawing at his lips, but he figured he owed the man — Martin — one anyway.

"I'm sorry," Alex intoned. He entwined his hands together behind his back to try and conceal his heightened impatience, as well as a flimsy attempt to reinforce his repentance, but he failed at keeping them that way when Grayson gave a stark swat to his lower back.

"Sorry for what?" Grayson added.

Alex withheld an eye roll. "For speaking to you rudely. It's true I haven't been having the best of days lately, but that's not an excuse to be an assh-" Grayson cleared his throat. "I mean, impolite."

"Nah, nah," Martin said. He held his hands up momentarily as if he was signalling his lack of threat to a hostile shooter. "It's fine and all, really. You watch, after a few weeks of us living side-by-side, you getting to know me, you'll see I'm not so civil-sounding all the time either."

That encouraged a genuine chuckle from Grayson and an honest grin from Alex, who truly was beginning to feel guilt from his earlier discourtesy.

"Could I also ask you about something, um, Mr. Singh?" Alex cut in, his impatience swelling.

Martin shrugged. "Shoot."

"Do you know anyone in this town named Carsyn Mitchell? She's-"

"Oh! Carsyn?" Martin's eyes went wide. "Carsyn, huh? You-how do you know her?"

"Oh, well..." Alex rubbed a palm over the back of his neck as he averted his gaze. He couldn't meet eyes with Martin, and it wasn't any less awkward with his father. He hadn't even told Grayson about this yet. "I heard her name somewhere — in the city, a while after we got off the plane. Something about a girl with a 'short fuse' and a 'short fist'? I was curious to meet her."

Martin considered him for a moment, the edges of his face contorting into solemnity, but a slanted smile soon broke out. "Sounds about right! Young Mitchell, she's a tough one." He turned and pointed a finger at a garden bridge dyed in vermillion laying over a narrow riverbed. "She's likely working a shift in the cafe — Halcyon it's called. It's just a little past the bridge there, past all those dwellings you're gonna see. Shop won't be open much longer. You can't miss it — it's coloured like an apricot, and a sign made of marigold."

Alex didn't know what an apricot was, but he was at least familiar with marigold colouring. "Thank you." He nodded his gratitude to Martin, then smiled as he started towards the vermillion-dyed bridge.

"H-hey, we still have to move in, Lex!" Grayson called after him.

Alex didn't stop, but turned back part way to Grayson. "You go in first. Get the movers to help when they show. I'll unpack tomorrow." He craned his body back forward, stuffed his hands inside the pockets of his jeans, and picked up a jog as he drew closer to the bridge. He didn't want to give his father a chance to ask why he wanted to meet this girl.

"Those youth, huh?" Martin snickered. "Can't live with 'em, can't live without them-"

"Can't move into a new house with them either, apparently," Grayson remarked, half joking, half exhausted by his own kin.

Martin laughed. "Come on, boy, I'll help ya out. I may not look it, but I've got the strength of a leaf-cutter ant."

"Well," Grayson chuckled, "if I'm a boy then you're an old man."

Alex didn't glance back again even as heard the bout of jolly laughter erupting from both his father, and their new neighbour.