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The menorah was silver, with a round, engraved base, scrollwork branches, and candle wells made to look like pots of oil. It was clearly quite old, but had been polished to a mirror shine. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but it was already set with candles for the fourth night of Hanukkah. It was also the last thing Crystal had expected to see in the window of the Dead Boy Detective Agency.
Crystal had meant to be home by sunset to light her own menorah, but the interview they’d gone out for had taken longer than she’d expected. Charles and Edwin had gone ahead to the office by mirror to take care of something, and they were acting cagey enough that she had half expected to find them in flagrante on the desk or something similarly scandalous. The menorah, however, stopped her in her tracks.
“Charles, you didn’t have to get me a menorah for the office,” Crystal said, catching Charles’s pleased grin. “If I’d known you were OK with it, I’d have brought my own so I don’t have to keep running home so early.”
Instead of responding, Charles just turned his grin on Edwin, who looked stunned, but managed to collect himself enough to speak. “As much as Charles would like you to feel at home here,” Edwin said carefully, taking a book of matches from his pocket, “the menorah is mine. It closely resembles one my family lit when I was alive.”
“It was a lucky find, too,” Charles said from his perch on the edge of the desk. “Made in 1910 and everything. It’d been sitting in a charity shop for ages gathering dust till we came through looking for some cursed thing someone donated by mistake. Edwin said we didn’t have to, but I couldn’t leave it, what with the history.”
“Regardless,” Edwin said with a dismissive wave of his hand and a small smile tugging at his lips, “it is nearly sunset. You are welcome to say the prayers with me if you would like, Crystal, since we are keeping you from lighting your own.”
Crystal felt herself smile as she said, “I would like that, actually.”