The Key

EPILOGUE

The sun began to rise over Ruin, casting the deep, dark shadow of the Citadel across the tables and chairs that were steadily spreading out from the cafes and restaurants lining the embankment. The tourists hadn’t arrived yet, but the bell in the public church was tolling, meaning the portcullises at the foot of the hill would now be raised and the pilgrims and sightseers were on their way.

Yunus clattered the last fold-out chair down on to the broad flagstones and resisted the urge to collapse on to it. He was sweating, despite the chilled morning air, and every muscle in his body ached. He’d been holding down two jobs for over a month now, salting away what cash he could to pay for his place at Gaziantep Universitesi, starting in September. He figured a solid summer season would pay for a big chunk of next year, provided he didn’t lose any more days to explosions or earthquakes or any of the other crazy stuff that had recently shut down the old town and kept paying customers away. At least the closures had given him a chance to catch up on lost sleep, so he supposed they hadn’t been all bad.

Stifling a yawn, he headed back inside the cafe where Auntie Elmas was pouring cardamom pods and coffee beans into the grinder.

‘You look tired,’ she said, her eyes still sharp in her weathered walnut face.

‘I’ll be OK — just need some coffee.’

He reached for one of the khave glasses stacked on the countertop, misjudged it and sent it tumbling to the wooden floor. It bounced and rolled away, miraculously not shattering.

‘Go lie down before you break something,’ she hissed, looking over her shoulder to check none of the other staff was listening. ‘I give you a shout when we get busy.’

Yunus began to protest, but thought better of it. Auntie Elmas wasn’t the sort of person whose mind was easily changed and right now he didn’t have the energy. Maybe a quick power nap was what he needed. He picked up the glass, placed it on the counter and ducked through the streamer curtain leading to the stairs up to his illegal lodgings.

It had been Auntie Elmas’s suggestion that he stay here after he had landed a job on one of the night clean-up crews. She clocked him out on the cafe staff sheet and his shift boss clocked him in so, on paper at least, he left the old town every night at the end of his shift and came back again in the morning. In truth he hadn’t set foot outside the old town for nearly a month now, even during the evacuations. He got meals as part of his cafe wage and there was a washroom on the first floor for all his other needs. It was perfect and saved him a fortune in travel. He also took pleasure in the notion that, apart from the monks of the mountain, he was possibly the first person to live here in over a hundred and fifty years. At the university he was going to study history and tourism, so things like that appealed to him.

Yunus reached the attic room at the top of the building and collapsed on the bedroll hidden behind a wall of cardboard boxes. His room was an eight feet square cell filled mostly with non-perishable cafe supplies. Above him was a skylight the size of a paperback that let in negligible amounts of air and light but also afforded a view of the Citadel, if he stood on tiptoe. Sometimes, in the dead of night, if the wind was in the right direction he could smell smoke coming from the mountain and hear sounds of life from inside. He liked that too, it made him feel part of something ancient and mysterious — though lately the noises he’d heard had been unsettling. They had sounded like tormented moans and wails of pain. He hadn’t liked that, all alone in the dark of the deserted old town.

Closing his eyes, Yunus tried to rest. It felt hotter than usual in the room. He generally slept between two and six, the coolest time of day, and the rest of the time he was working. He wondered how hot it would get in the height of summer. He could always move out if it got unbearable, or try sleeping on one of the lower floors. Until then, he’d stick it out and get some earplugs to block out the strange sounds in the night.

He breathed in the dusty smell of the ancient building mingling with aromas of food drifting up the stairs from the cafe. He could smell coffee being roasted and the scent of fresh oranges being squeezed, so strong it was as if they were in the room with him — which was impossible, because Auntie Elmas didn’t sell fresh orange juice in her cafe.

It must be coming from somewhere else, carried on the breeze through the tiny crack of the skylight; maybe it was coming from the Citadel…