Chapter Text
"Look, I don't want to buy a coffee," says Ethan, trying very hard to be polite. "I'm just looking for my daughter! She's only three years old—I know she wandered in here!"
The sign outside had described the business as a café-bookshop, but the reality within is stretching Ethan's understanding of the term. This place seems less café or even bookshop, and more some sort of multi-story pseudo-Victorian library, with odd corners in which some rotund gentleman lurking behind a counter will attempt to sell you caffeinated beverages.
The gentleman in question gives Ethan a greasy smile. "Sounds to me like you want to speak to Manager Miranda," he suggests.
"Manager... okay," Ethan echoes. "Can you tell me where I'd find..."
"But she's very hard to get hold of this time of day. Unless you're prepared to make your case to Ms. Dimitrescu as to why Manager Miranda ought to be disturbed. And between you and me, Ms. Dimitrescu can be a little... domineering, shall we say?"
Ethan experiences a sinking feeling. "She wouldn't be the, uh, the tall lady with the, uh..." Adjectives capable of doing justice to the experience he had at the counter have abandoned Ethan altogether. "I think we've already met."
Ethan has barely made it two paces into the shop before he's being accosted by a voice that comes at him from nowhere.
"Well, hel-lo there, mister!" it croons, in the sort of tones which might, in some jurisdictions, be enough to have a business legally classified as an 18+ only venue. "I can just tell you're going to be one—tough—customer!"
Ethan very nearly walks into a book display. The source of the voice seems to be a pale young woman in an uncomfortably low-cut black lace top, leaning over the counter by the entrance. In addition to the black lace, she's wearing a grin that suggests she's heard the term 'suggestive' and has decided it's for cowards. This is all the more distressing, because to Ethan's eye, she doesn't look a day over 15 years old. Ethan's brain short-circuits in self-defence.
"Um. What?" he mutters, trying very hard to regain his balance without completely overturning the precariously-stacked pile of books in front of him.
"Not sure what you're looking for?" says the young woman, which is rendered only more distressing by the fact her lips don't seem to be moving. Worse still, the voice doesn't even seem to be coming from the right direction. "Don't worry. Whatever it is you're... aha, interested in, I'm sure we can find you juuuuust the thing!"
To his horror, Ethan realises his mistake: there's two of them. The second worryingly-young goth girl is coming at him from his left, sashaying towards him with a swing to her hips that would make Jessica Rabbit proud. Worse, this one isn't safely trapped behind a counter.
Ethan begins backing away. He also starts reflexively trying to explain himself at speed. "I'm not... I was just... I'm just looking for my daughter!" he splutters, holding up his hands. "She got away from me, I'm sure she went this way, I..."
"Ooooooh," croons a third voice, coming at Ethan from behind this time. Ethan spins on his axis to see yet another black-lace-clad teenager advancing on him and—worse still—cutting off his exit. "Looking for your little girl?" Twirling her hair around her fingers, she lets out a playful giggle.
"Yes!" Ethan splutters, hoping he's finally getting through. "She's only-"
"You know, I could call you 'Daddy'," finishes the girl, smiling wickedly as she slinks towards him. "But I warn you, I've been a very bad girl."
Ethan can feel his tenuous grasp on reality beginning to slip. Complete strangers just don't hit on Ethan this way—that's been a reliable constant for all thirty-something years of his mild-mannered life. What in heaven's name is even going on here? As the happily-married father of a missing three-year-old daughter, it is very, very important to Ethan's peace of mind to know that girls closer to her age than his own do not hit on adult men, let alone men whose only crime is having stumbled into a bookshop off the street. He feels like he's accidently walked into the obscene sexual fantasy of someone whose browser history might be of great interest to the FBI. Could a man be arrested just for being involved in this conversation? It feels dangerously possible.
The only possible response is yet more spluttering. "What? No! She's not... I really am looking for my daughter, she's only three years old, I..."
"Is there a problem here?" interjects yet another voice, in imperious but refreshingly non-teenage tones.
Ethan spins on his axis yet again, and looks up (and up) at the single tallest woman he's ever seen in his life.
She is, in fact, so tall it takes Ethan a moment to locate her at all, eyes scanning uselessly through all the altitudes at which one would usually find other human faces before it ever occurs to him to look that far up. She's not wearing black lace, at least (one wonders if there's enough black lace in all the world to outfit this woman)—instead sporting a long white dress, a rather severe hairstyle, and a haughty expression that promises that height is the least of the matter. Even were Ethan to miraculously grow a full six extra feet in the next ten minutes, she would still be looking down on him in every way that counts. This is a woman who could look down upon the international space station.
The whole effect makes Ethan feel not merely ten inches tall, but five years old again as well, peering up into the face of the irate schoolmistress who is certain you've done something wrong, even if she's not quite sure what it is yet. A real part of Ethan persists in its relief at her appearance: thank god, finally, a grown-up! But it's warring for ground against instincts promising him that if she catches so much as a whiff of what was just happening here, she's not only going to be furious, she'll be sure it's all Ethan's fault.
"Oh, no problem," trills one of the girls, "we were just-"
"I was just looking for my daughter!" Ethan squeaks, cutting her off as quickly as possible. "She's only three years old, I lost track of her outside, but I'm sure I saw her wander in here—I'm so sorry for the trouble, I just need to find her, and..."
"Oh, I see," pronounces the tall woman, in faintly acid tones. Just looking up at her is making Ethan's neck ache. Does she have stilts hidden under that dress somewhere? Has Ethan unwittingly wandered into some sort of side-show event?
But she's still talking: "Just three years old? Looking for your daughter, are you?"
"Yes, I..." Ethan tries.
"DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A DAYCARE TO YOU?" roars the woman, with a fury Ethan cannot imagine he's earned.
"What? No, of course not, I..."
"I know your type," she declares, in a voice so scathing it could just about take the skin off the end of your nose. "Just because we have a children's section, he thinks this is a place he can leave a child—unattended!"
"Oh, god no, I never..." Where is this madwoman getting these ideas? Is leaving three-year-olds in public bookstores the sort of thing people do? (Oh god, are the jailbait trio what happens to children whose fathers lose them in public?)
"Or perhaps he's confused our fine establishment with some sort of public facility?" she goes on, oblivious to all attempts to redirect the conversation. "Where books are simply given away to whatever rabble happens by? Where children too young to be trusted in breeches can be abandoned, until their absent mothers and fathers deign to come back for them?" The woman draws herself to her full height—a terrifying statement to apply to someone who was surely tall enough to begin with. "As if we purveyors of the finest literature have nothing better to do than lower ourselves to the level of unpaid help! Keeping your worthless spawn from putting their sticky little fingers all over our good books, and wailing when we rap them over the knuckles and take their toys away! IS THAT WHAT THIS IS TO YOU?"
It takes Ethan several windblasted seconds to realise that he is, at last, being solicited for comment. Oh fuck, he'd better make this good.
"Look, I-I really think there's been some misunderstanding here," he manages, stammering a little. "I swear I never meant to let Rose get away from me—my wife, she collapsed, just across the street—they took her away in an ambulance! And when I looked around..."
"And I suppose she just slipped away from you, did she?" thunders the woman, righteousness undimmed. "She just happened to wander into our shop, of her own accord, while YOU went about your business for an hour or two elsewhere? You yourself having never once patronised this establishment for so much as a junior latte?"
For Ethan—a near compulsive-apologiser at the best of times—it's sinking in that nothing he says in his own defense at this point is going to make a lick of difference. It's beginning to dawn on him that what he's met here may just be the ultimate Karen, to whom all other Karens can only aspire—and somehow, she actually works in retail.
"Why, I suppose you'd have me believe you've never loitered by a magazine stand reading without the least intent of spending money? You think I can't identify a guilty conscience when I see one?!"
There's only one other option left: pragmatic cowardice. Ethan turns tail and flees. And since the cooing triplets are still effectively blocking the way back out onto the street, the only other route leads deeper into the shop.
That's fine. These people can wail and flirt with him all they like; that woman may almost have some awful gem of a point about his guilty conscience, but Ethan's not leaving here without Rose.
"Oh, THAT'S RIGHT," he hears her holler after him. "RUN! Run while you still can! And don't you even THINK about coming back this way again WITHOUT BUYING SOMETHING!"
"...I don't think I made a very good first impression," Ethan admits to the man behind the coffee stand.
"I wouldn't blame yourself, not many do," says the man, kindly. "Well, not to worry—there are always other avenues where you could direct your inquiries."
"Such as?"
"You might want to try Donna to begin with. She runs Storytime Corner. Plenty down there that might attract the attention of a little girl like your Rose. But I should warn you, Donna herself can be a little... eccentric."
"Okay," says Ethan, already concerned. If Donna is 'a little eccentric' in the same way that Ms. Dimitrescu was 'a little domineering', he's in for a real time. He's also not sure he remembers telling this man Rose's name.
"You could also speak to Moreau, our janitor," suggests the man. "Though he can be a little difficult himself."
"Another 'eccentric'?"
"I'd tend to call him morose, if you'll pardon the pun," says the man, who obviously enjoyed making that pun a great deal. "But there isn't a hiding place in the whole shop that he doesn't know."
"Right," says Ethan, wondering if he should be writing this down. "Anyone else?"
"I suppose there's also Heisenberg—our head of security. If Rose has been caught on camera anywhere in the building, he's the man who'll know."
That makes Ethan perk up. "Really? Sounds like he's the first person I should talk to."
"You'd think so. But he's not the easiest to get in to see. Absolutely the best at what he does, but as for the man himself, well, he can be..."
"Difficult?" Ethan guesses.
"I'd have said 'madder than a sack full of weasels'. Between you and me, I'd try Donna first. You'll find her down that way. Take a left at the encyclopedias, and keep going until you see the décor change." The man points a stubby arm away down the lines of bookshelves.
"Alright," says Ethan, "Thank you. Um. I don't think I got your name."
"Call me the Duke," says the coffee man. "Best of luck, Mr. Winters! Are you sure I can't convince you to take one of our best cappuccinos along for the journey? On the house!" He proffers a paper cup.
Ethan takes it, and thanks him again, misgivings aside. This isn't remotely the moment to enjoy a cup of coffee, and it's hard to shake the fear that accidentally leaving a half-finished coffee cup on a bookshelf somewhere might be enough to summon the wrath of Ms. Dimitrescu down on his head again. But the Duke has been the only remotely helpful figure he's met in this mad place, and it seems rude to turn him down.
The contents of the cup prove to be some of the best coffee Ethan's ever tasted, which is somehow just insulting under the circumstances.