The needle of Ethan’s life had finally found a groove. After several weeks in Royal, the initial static of terror had smoothed into a steady, mid-century hum. He had a routine now, one that felt more like a ceremony than a schedule.
Each morning, the sun would spill across his floorboards, beckoning him down to a kitchen that would eventually smell of percolating coffee and bacon and eggs. He’d step onto the porch to retrieve the morning paper, often lingering to trade pleasantries with a neighbor. These were simple exchanges—talk of the weather or local gossip—but they anchored him. By the time he sat down with his coffee and breakfast, Ethan’s true reality felt like a half-remembered dream.
He spent his midday hours in a state of quiet productivity. He mowed the lawn, tended to his vegetable garden, and performed his ritual check on the windmill. He found solace in his backyard shed, tinkering with tools and reading articles from a stack of Popular Science magazines.
Most surprisingly, he had returned to his violin. At first, the music was a struggle. His fingers were stiff, and the bow felt like a lead weight in his hand. The notes he produced were rusty, screeching protests that sounded out of tune with the world around him. But as the days passed, the stiffness in his arm melted away, and the melodies began to flow, smoothing out until they matched the rhythm of the town itself.
By afternoon, Ethan was the charming voice of WRYL. Ethan would walk to the radio studio and back with the easy gait of a man who belonged. He ate at the Lunch Box Cafe, engaged in philosophical bouts with Pastor Dzef, and attended services at Saint Helga’s. He was happy or so he told himself. He felt a sense of control that had eluded him in his “real” life.
But Royal had a way of reminding him he was a guest, not a native.
Every evening, the silence of the house brought the “other” reality back into focus. He would look into the corner of the dining room and see them – the backpack, the cooler, and the suitcase. They sat there like artifacts from a shipwreck. In their presence, Ethan would snap back to his true timeline, and the anxiety would bloom in his chest like a dark flower.
On his hardest days -the days when Ethan was not working, he would walk to the edge of town. He’d stare at the horizon, wondering if he could simply outrun the 1950s. But Royal was a jealous guardian. Every time he strayed too far, a neighbor or a passerby would magically appear, striking up a conversation that gently but firmly steered him back home. He was trapped in a tug-of-war between his memory of Peggy and his family, and the magnetic pull of this perfect, impossible place. At night, he felt a presence watching over him, a phantom guardian that vanished the moment he woke.
One afternoon, the Town of Royal decided it was time for Ethan to move beyond his routine.
As he walked toward the radio studio, he spotted a woman outside the Greyhound bus station, right next to the Lunch Box Cafe. She stood by a lone suitcase, her long brown hair catching the light. She looked familiar – hauntingly so. But the connection slipped through Ethan’s mind. Her face had a radiant, almost angelic glow. When she looked at Ethan and smiled, he felt mesmerized, his feet momentarily rooted to the sidewalk.
A bus pulled up, venting a cloud of diesel smoke. Passengers spilled out, and Ethan quickened his pace, desperate to reach her. But by the time the door hissed shut and the bus pulled away, the sidewalk was empty. She wasn’t on the bus, and she wasn’t on the street. She had simply vanished.
“People stay and people leave. It is all in what you believe,” a voice stated.
Ethan turned to find Pastor Dzef standing there, holding out a chocolate malt. The Pastor’s gaze was heavy with meaning as they both watched the bus disappear down the road. “What do you believe in, Ethan?”
Ethan didn’t have an answer. He offered a small smile, thanked the Pastor for the malt, and continued toward work.
As he passed Royal Park, something new caught his eye on the community bulletin board. A vibrant poster announced that Tommy Melk and the Melk Duds would be performing at the gazebo during the upcoming Royal Festival Days.
Pinned right next to it was a small, hand-written scrap of paper that seemed to vibrate with possibility. Tommy Melk was looking for a violin player.
Ethan felt the weight of the chocolate malt in one hand and the calluses on the fingers of the other. The tug of realities had just entered a new phase.
