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“I’m afraid not, sir, the Helmet of Darce Vaden is still not for sale.”
It’s the fifth time she receives that call this month. Rey has lost count of how many times she’s answered all year this question to the same man.
The recurring scene follows a pattern: he’d ask for the helmet, offer a ridiculous amount of money in exchange for it, she’d decline, and the conversation would come to a close. The mold comes again to a full circle with his next call, and so it goes.
Today is no different —except doubt dances with her.
Rey hangs up, and looks around. The only disruption to the silence in her shop is the echo of her last words over the phone. The rows of shelves subtract what little light comes from the display window; all the tattered books, dresses of deceased actresses, and old paintings of forests with lakes that fill them wait in the shadows for a new owner.
It is the prelude that the symphony of her near future has started to play.
How is she going to afford to pay rent, with hardly anyone to come by her shop?
Had the man on the phone offered the preposterous sum of money for any other item, she wouldn’t have thought it twice. But that object is more important to her than any money they could give her.
It doesn’t matter; ploughing through the day is a matter of one certainty and one simple hope. Certainty that things are going to get better, and hope that one day they will come and find her.
* * *
Rain pelts down the street, colliding with rooftops and umbrellas held by people who hurry past streetlamps and parked cars. Metal clicks against metal when Rey locks the mahogany door of her shop before heading home.
Her only customer for the day had been an elderly woman with an uncommonly kind smile, who Rey is sure stops by out of compassion.
Her future is looking really dim, but there is something else aside from rain that disturbs that trail of thoughts.
The silhouette of a man.
He stands impassive against the wind, red hair strangely unaltered against the fierce winds of winter, back leaned on the brick wall that supports the street.
Their eyes meet for one long second before hers flicker away.
Rey quickens her pace back to her flat.
She’s certain she’s seen that face. Several times before.
* * *
Every time she cleans an object, Rey loses herself in the history behind it. How she wishes they could talk, to keep her company while the hours in her shop tick by.
Bells chime to announce an opened door. Rey leaves the violin she has been dusting off, and hurries towards the entrance, heart skipping a beat because hardly anyone ever comes in at this late time of day, and this could be the day she has been waiting for her entire life.
Her expectations are shattered when she discovers it is not a father or mother the one waiting at the counter, but a tall man with long, dark hair, and a scar that cuts across his right cheek up to his brow that reminds of angry ghosts. His crow black, notch-lapel cotton jacket stands out in the alabaster lighting of the room and the faded silver of her artifacts, and his irises are pure darkness scratching at doors in the night.
“Finally, we meet.”
The engine of a Cadillac hums softly in the background, counterpoint to the visitor’s smokey voice. Outside her shop, the red-haired man Rey recognizes from weeks before sits patiently in the car.
“I was curious about you. The girl who wanted the Helmet of Darce Vaden far more than what it’s worth.”
Jigsaw pieces in Rey’s mind start to click together. Even if his voice isn’t the one she’s heard over the phone, it is clear that he stands at the epicenter of every call.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“I’ve said it ten thousand times already: that item is not for sale.”
“What a peculiar way to call yourself. There must be an easier way to address you.”
“Rey. My name is Rey” she answers dryly, crossing arms over her chest.
“Rey…”
The word is no more than a whisper, but it reverberates across every corner of her shop. His stare is penetrating, and the hairs in the back of her neck curl, because he is looking for answers to questions Rey isn’t allowed to.
“Rey, this helmet belonged to my grandfather. I’m not leaving this shop without it.”
“Over my dead body, stranger.”
His expression changes —for no reason Rey can fathom. He loses years off his age after his features shift from conviction to bewilderment.
It takes him a little time to recover.
“…You don’t know who I am.” He pauses. “You really don’t know who I am.”
Before she has time to ask him what he means by that his hand points past the rows of shelves, at the spot in the display window where the jagged helmet lies.
“Do you even have any idea of what that object represents?”
Of course she does. It’s the last remaining piece of a costume worn by a character called Darce Vaden, from the famous 1970s hit movie ‘War of the Planets’.
“Most of the props from that movie” she says “were burnt down during the Big Fire of 1977, while they were filming the sequel that never got to be. It killed 32 people, including the actor behind this mask. This is why the piece is so deteriorated.” The thought lingers for some time before her gaze flickers away from the object. “Now, please leave my shop if the helmet is the only thing you came here for.”
“Rey, my grandfather died wearing that helmet. I’m not leaving this shop without it.”
A lightbulb goes off at the end of the shop, eclipsing a half of his face. For a moment, the young man in a cotton jacket is but a lost child in a sea of people. Rey learns to take pity on him, because she is no stranger to that emotion.
This why she needs that object more than he will ever know.
“Then I guess you’ll have to fight me for it” Rey answers.
“Fair enough, then fight I shall.”
He draws near until the counter is the sole thing that keeps distance between them. Gloved hands rest on wood, and he bends until she sees the embers that glisten in his eyes. “I have a few theories as to why you don’t want to sell it. Money isn’t an incentive, so it is --no doubt-- of unquestionable value to you. A sentimental gift perhaps. A goodbye gift.”
Rey’s posture stiffens, her muscles turn rigid. Stop, she wants to cry, but she is unable to make a sound.
“If it means so much to you, why display it with no intention of selling? You could be bragging, of course, but you don’t strike me as the type to brag. So I am left with one last hypothesis.”
“Please don’t—” she warns. Yet, there is nothing that can stop him; he is a prophet with a revelation —a caged lion set loose.
“Rey, you want someone to know you’re here. That’s why you won’t give it away.”
A rough coldness hits at her very core, and she has to move away from him, seeking safety in the distance that keeps them apart —as if that could remedy the fact that her deepest weakness now abided by his rules.
“Who are you?” She asks, her voice shaky and with disbelief, because he has read through her like she were an open book, and he had made it look so easy.
He laughs, and it’s a pulsing sound that accentuates every shadow of her shop.
“My name is Kylo. Kylo Ren.”
The sneer that spreads across his face, the lifted shoulders and unclenched fists, all add up to the portrait of someone who has defeated an intangible foe. His silhouette turns a blur of black as he spins around to leave the shop.
But this conversation isn’t over.
Not yet.
“I have something for you too, Kylo.”
Kylo stops. His head turns, his brow furrows, and the light that creeps through the entrance steals the ghosts off his pretentious scar.
“I may not know who you are, but your grandfather… He may have been a brilliant actor —but he was a terrible human being.”
Kylo’s fists clench. When he speaks, his voice is so sharp Rey can tell she has struck a nerve.
“And your point is?”
“There is always more than one way to achieve something, if what you are really after is the symbol of his name carved in History.”
The crippled lightbulb starts to flicker on and off, and its sprouts of radiance highlight the look of extreme disapproval on Kylo Ren’s face. His eyes narrow and, for a moment, as he stares at her, there is silence. Rey still fears that, if he holds his gaze much longer, he may pry into her soul long enough to find something else that haunts her.
But he doesn’t. He straightens up. Balled fists uncurl and his hand goes to the inner pocket of his jacket. It draws out a piece of blank paper with a pen, on which he scribbles something before handing it over to her.
“I have made up my mind” he tells her. “Here’s my number. Call me when you finally find what you have been looking for and that helmet is of no use to you any more.”
His hand is on the door when he pauses, and turns around one last time.
“But Rey, don’t fool yourself. It’s been too long. Whoever you are waiting for, they’re not coming.”
Bells chime to announce Kylo Ren’s departure (as if she isn’t seeing him leave her shop) and when the engine of a Cadillac dissolves into the silence that reigned moments before, Rey starts to fight off the tears that have build up in her eyes.
* * *
The first rays of sun touch the pavement, and magnolias on trees have already started to bloom when Rey sees, for the first time, the latest poster of the franchise film The Knights.
There he is, in all splendor and glory; strands of black hair brushing the fabric of a resplendent silver cape; scar exposed and gaze hardened, fixed on the road ahead of her.
For a moment she thinks of texting him. It comes close; Rey pulls out her phone, searches for his name in her contacts and the keyboard instantly flashes up on her screen. Everything is set and ready.
But what does she say? What can she say? It has been so long, and she is only the girl who has something he is after. Might be after: how could she know for certain? His red-haired assistant no longer calls, and the sort of quietude she had once hoped for at work now cuts through her like a thrown dagger against her chest.
I still think of our conversation. I still think of you, is what she wants to tell him, but she is aware of how vulnerable it sounds. It is a weakness she cannot afford to have —because the answer she receives might crumble her iron fortress, and she would no doubt fall to the ground with it.
He is a celebrity, after all. And she is just that girl from the antique shop.
* * *
Winter is just round the corner, carrying along a cold that permeates through skin to bone. A layer of snow falls to maple floor when Hux pulls open the door of the antique shop, heading out into the street.
In his hands he carries a parcel containing the battered helmet and a small message. It’s Rey’s own way of saying farewell, because she can’t bring herself to call him, and it feels safer to seek out his assistant’s number from her call archives instead.
The message is just three words.
I stopped waiting.
-Rey.
* * *
It’s almost Christmastime and Rey is hanging ornaments on the walls that splatter her shop with festive tones of golds and daring reds.
Business is going surprisingly well, with an increase in the quality of antiques she is able to raise and the number of regulars who buy.
Bells chime and she expects to see Poe, Finn or Rose, smiling up at her from the entrance --so, at the sight of Kylo Ren, she bends to grasp the ladder she is standing on with a tight grip, in fear of falling from the shock.
There he is, exactly as she remembers him. The cotton of his obsidian, knee-length coat billows in the penumbra as he approaches the counter. Without a word, he places the Helmet of Darce Vaden on it, so pristine and untouched that one would have serious doubts as to whether it had ever left her showcase.
“I have followed your advice” he tells her, and Rey would be lying if she said she didn’t know what he was talking about. After all this time, the memory preservers, like a song you can’t shake off.
“You can keep the helmet. It’s all yours” he insists.
“I told you, I stopped waiting. You can do whatever you want with it; I don’t need it any more.”
He laughs, but this time, it is different. This time, it spreads across the room and entangles itself in the tinsels of the walls and the ribbons of her shelves, sparkling with the light and playing with the snow.
“You’re not so different, you and I.”
Rey snorts. “Oh, please. You are nothing like me.”
A corner of Kylo’s lips tugs up towards a close half grin. There is silence again, and it stretches until it freezes time, and the tick tock of the grandfather clock ceases to sound.
He is the first to cut through it.
“Do you have any plans for Christmas?”
Rey smiles back. It is a smile that touches her eyes, and her soul, and fills the entire room with a light she didn’t know existed.