Had a temper.
Made reckless choices.
Told terrible jokes.
Loved Sky fiercely.
Tried to become her guardian.
Failed.
Kept trying.
Died before he could finish.
He became human.
That helped more than sainthood.
One autumn evening, almost ten years after Sky first entered the garage, Gregory sat beside the space heater in the same corner where he had once read invoices.
He was seventy-four.
Slower.
White-bearded.
Still stubborn.
Sky arrived from her studio carrying a helmet.
“Got something.”
Gregory looked up.
“What?”
She placed the helmet on his table.
Matte black.
Simple.
One design on the side.
Not jawbone.
Not serpent.
A small road disappearing toward mountains beneath a narrow line of stars.
Gregory turned it.
“Pretty.”
“Pretty?”
“Do artists hate that word?”
“Yes.”
“Then pretty.”
Sky rolled her eyes.
He looked underneath.
A tiny black scale had been painted near the rim.
Gregory stopped.
“Haven’t seen that in a while.”
“I know.”
“Why now?”
Sky sat opposite him.
“Ten years.”
“Since?”
“The garage.”
Gregory nodded.
He looked toward the wall.
The original napkin remained framed.
“Ten years.”
“Feels weird.”
“Everything feels weird when you get old.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled.
Gregory looked at the helmet again.
“You know what Hollow would say?”
“What?”
“He’d charge you for using his scale.”
Sky laughed.
Then quieted.
“Do you think he knew?”
“Knew what?”
“That I’d actually come here.”
Gregory looked toward the doors.
The same doors.
Replaced hinges.
New paint.
Same location.
“I think he hoped.”
Sky nodded.
“I almost didn’t.”
“Come in?”
“Yes.”
“What stopped you?”
She thought back.
Fourteen.
Cold.
Hungry.
Backpack too heavy.
Iron Jaws sign above the door.
Men laughing inside.
“I had twelve dollars.”
Gregory waited.
“And nowhere else to go.”
He shook his head.
“That’s not what stopped you.”
“What did?”
“You had the napkin.”
Sky looked at the framed drawing.
Maybe he was right.
Not because the emblem had magic.
Because it was proof that somewhere in the world, there had once been a man who told her:
If you ever get stuck, find Gregory Moss.
Find Iron Jaws.
Tell them Hollow sent you.
Luther had not predicted everything.
He had not predicted his own death.
The failed custody case.
Briar County House.
Michael Ventry.
The bus stations.
The garage.
But he had left one direction behind.
A name.
A place.
An emblem.
Enough for a fourteen-year-old girl to walk through a door.
Gregory handed the helmet back.