What the air does out here
Above the Basin at Mile 106 stands one grand house, and one night a year it opens. Every window blazes, saffron works through the kitchen in quantities the county otherwise sees by the pinch, and jasmine stands in tall arrangements over vanilla, soft suede, and warm woods. In the drive, some Decembers, sits a black car the roadhouse would recognize. The house asks no questions.
Who rides with it
Once-a-year guests in their good coats. The housekeeper, who runs the county from the pantry. The driver of the black car, again. The county spends the other three hundred and sixty-four nights rehearsing not looking impressed.
Pair it at the next stop
The same car signs the register down at Agent 007, Mile 91, in a hand nobody can read, and nobody asks there either. The only other saffron on this road ships tied in muslin corners from the chest maker at Cedar and Saffron, Mile 77.