Story part 5 – The New Locale

Benjamin left the Greasy Butcher’s behind and, with the key in hand, made his way to the address scribbled down in his notepad. His employers left him a precise set of instructions regarding which building to turn after and which way to go, though he wouldn’t have disdained a large and richly detailed map of the city.

His new place was well situated. The streets to the west would take him to the butcher’s shop, the opposite direction led towards the main square just at the city gate, and as far as he could orient himself, to the south was the well and the local doctor’s practice. The road north, deeper into the city, undoubtedly led to the Last Remedy, one of the more recognizable inns around, as where else his future neighbors would be heading at this hour? A visit to the inn was not a bad idea, but such pleasure had to wait.

For the first time since crossing the gate, Benjamin felt that he had arrived at his destination. Finally!

He didn’t expect anything exciting and didn’t witness anything of such nature. Just an ordinary, gray building made in the architecture of the city, with its first floor stretching over the street, supported by wooden beams. The house was dreadfully dull, decorated only by a raven which perched on the upper windowsill as soon as Benjamin walked up to the door. Those were somewhat drab too, though with a functioning lock, and opened to a hallway leading to several chambers. It looked like he would be able to spend the nights here, cook something, and run his workshop. It was already a lot. It was already a home.

He carefully placed his suitcase on the table.

“Well, darling dear, we had some adventures along the way, but here we are at last. Slickhaven! Do you like it here? Oh! I see that the IBA has taken care of the glass,” he said excitedly, inspecting the contents of the crates he found upstairs. “Let’s see, racks, vials, pots, albums. Not bad, is it?”

No one answered.

“Well, hardly ideal conditions by our standards, but it will have to suffice. We start here, but where we will end up is entirely up to us! Actually, let me outline my plans for the foreseeable future.”

No one objected.

“Step one, I have to eat something. No great scientific achievements was made on an empty stomach.” He reached for some dry, leftover cookies from the trip. “At least, that’s what I think. Step two, we establish a lab here. The vials go… on the shelf, fair enough, that’s step three, and cutters go in the drawer. Herbarium here. Encyclopedia Botanica, ooph, all eight volumes, go here. Step four…”

Shelves, drawers, window sills, a desk, and the majority of usable flat surfaces were quickly transformed into a real botanist workshop. Well, of course it lacked a proper greenhouse, but you can’t have everything. Benjamin hesitated for a moment about what to do with the overgrown lemon from the doctor: should it go to the kitchen pantry or become the first object to be studied? He decided that visual inspection should precede empirical study, and so the fruit ended up on a glass dish.

“…step twenty-one and final: solving the mystery of Slickhaven’s flora, gaining fame, and an imperial grant? Ah, the autobiography, I almost forgot!” He laughed and chewed the last cookie. “But perhaps I’m looking too far ahead, while I should focus on the important things.”

No one interrupted nor echoed him. The only company he had was the raven sitting outside the window, but the bird was not Benjamin’s intended audience. The botanist carefully removed the last bundle from his bag. While the books were tied with a simple strap, and sets of cutters and knives simply rolled neatly together, the last part of his life and possessions was meticulously packed, secured, and wrapped in cotton wool and soft wads of cloth.

“You, darling dear, I leave here, in a place of honor.” He spread her out in the exact middle of the desk. “If we are to solve this mystery, you will have to show me things that probably no man in this city has ever seen.”

The raven listening to these confessions might have expected that Benjamin had brought with him some posh lady for company, but it was nothing of the sort. It was an astonishing feat of engineering from the capital: glass lens arranged in a tube in such a way that the things observed through them appeared larger, a sort of a magnifying glass. But when a magnifying glass enlarged the image threefold, his companion in life and science allowed him to see things up to ten times bigger in size.

For Benjamin’s love was science, and his lady was a microscope.