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Mayor Winston Chisel slurps up another forkful of moo goo gai pan, leans back in the plastic-covered booth, and dabs at his mouth with his napkin. The silence stretches out to a length just past comfortable, but Janet doesn't bother to fill it. Instead, she takes another sip from her cup of now-lukewarm tea and regards him with the carefully-neutral-yet-hopefully-intimidating expression that she's kept honed since inventing it and practicing it in front of a mirror for days back when she was a teenager in the Lost Hour.
They're at the Dragon of the Black Pool Chinese Restaurant, home of Janet's favorite egg rolls, and—according to Marshall Teller, at least—"the type of fortune cookies you can only find in Eerie." Janet's tried arguing that the uncanny accuracy Marshall attributes to the fortunes they've received here over the years is only due to their deliberate vagueness, but Marshall is Marshall and refuses to be dissuaded from any piece of evidence he thinks he's found for Eerie's weirdness.
Besides, it's hard to argue anything involving the future with someone who you first met in a Daylight Savings Time-related alternate dimension as both a boy your own age and possibly also as a very old milkman.
Janet doesn't care whether or not Eerie's only decent Chinese restaurant is weird. She cares that it serves good, reasonably priced food and that—for the purposes of this conversation, at least—it's neutral territory. Which is why Janet agreed to meeting Chisel here.
They've got the place to themselves, except for the staff, but Chisel keeps glancing around like he expects to see Marshall and Simon jump out from from where they're lurking behind one of the potted plants, a move that Janet herself wouldn't necessarily put past them if she hadn't already gotten them to explicitly promise not to.
As it is, she's confident that they're still waiting with Melanie in the unmarked van down the block.
Chisel takes another one of those furtive looks around and then turns back to Janet with a smile that's only insincere enough to make her skin crawl a little. "Where were we?" he asks, even as he picks up his giant binder and runs his finger down the current page. They're finally getting toward the end, which is a relief. "Ah, yes. Economic Threats and Concerns, section A, subsection B.1: Things, Incorporated. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, one of Eerie's major employers for the past few decades. They've brought a good deal of money and growth to the city. However, they've also been the source of...let's just say, occasional mischief, mayhem, and highly innovative civic property damage. The law, unfortunately, can't always keep up with the progress of technology."
"I'm aware," says Janet, who, due to her brief stint on the city council, is already a survivor of multiple legislative battles regarding restrictions on the use of experimental technology within the Eerie city limits. Theirs is the only town in Indiana that now has an invisibility device registration ordinance and an extensive permitting process for the possession of disintegration rays. Not to mention all those laws banning experiments involving artificial banana flavoring and/or the city water supply.
"It can be a delicate balance," Chisel continues as though Janet hasn't spoken. "We certainly don't want to stifle the creativity of any of our resident scientists or re-launch any discussions about the relocation of anyone's headquarters to Indianapolis, but at the same time, there are matters of public safety to consider—"
"I can handle Things, Incorporated," Janet interrupts. She doesn't add My father-in-law is the current Vice President for Research, but she doesn't have to. Chisel seems to read it in the slight arch of her eyebrow. A flicker of annoyance passes across his face, but it's gone almost before Janet can register it.
"Of course," he continues smoothly. "In that case, I think we can move on to section B, Eerie's Harvest King."
"No," says Janet. It comes out sharper and more intense than she means it to, and even as Chisel scowls, she notes the small gleam of triumph in his eyes.
"Seasonal traditions are an important source of civic pride, Ms. Donner," he tells her. "Not to mention revenue."
"We've been over this." Janet leans back in the booth and crosses her arms. "I'm willing to reinstate the Harvest Festival, sure, but no more lottery. No more werewolf."
Chisel gives her a pitying look. "Now, you and I both know there are no such thing as werewolves."
"Do we?"
"The Eerie Wolf—wolf, not werewolf—was always more of a legend, anyway. A local piece of folklore. No more real than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny."
"Is it?" says Janet, trying not to bring to mind any of Marshall's and Simon's wackier theories involving Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. "Then if it doesn't exist, there's no reason to send anybody out to look for it, is there?"
Chisel shakes his head. "It's a harmless tradition. Besides, when you consider the farm vote, and the benefits of thirteen years of good luck and low taxes—"
"No," Janet repeats firmly. "The Donner administration is not going to be responsible for any citizen of Eerie being eaten."
"Ms. Donner, there's no proof that any Harvest King in the history of Eerie has even been—"
"I'm not having my citizens disappearing under mysterious circumstances, either," say Janet. "Or taking an involuntary one-way trip to Spain. Not a single one of them. Not if I can help it."
It's the reason she's here, after all.
Chisel holds up both hands as if in surrender. "Fair enough," he says. "You and I have both debated the good of the one versus the good of the many enough times that we each know where the other stands. Besides, it's entirely possible that your...associates have tainted the memories of that particular tradition beyond all recognition anyway."
He doesn't say Marshall's name. Or Simon's. But he doesn't have to.
Another silence, this one long enough for their waiter to appear and take Janet's empty plate. He leaves a doggie bag for Chisel's leftovers and a tray bearing two fortune cookies and a receipt for the check Janet has already taken care of.
Janet grabs the receipt and studiously ignores the cookies. She's got enough future to worry about without having to consider what a randomly picked baked good may or may not have to say to her.
She tries not to think about the last time she was here, crammed not into this very booth, but one just like it near the front of the restaurant, sitting between Syndi and Melanie Monroe, with Marshall and Simon across from them, ignoring everyone else in favor of a deep discussion of the results of their latest paranormal investigation.
The memory comes to her anyway.
She remembers cracking open her fortune cookie at the end of dinner and unfolding the slip of paper hidden inside. She remembers the message written there in small red letters:
You will change the world.
It's only a coincidence that the last day she was here was the day she'd decided to run for mayor against a 30-year incumbent. Not because the fortune cookie inspired her or anything. And not because it was predicting her future, either, no matter what Marshall thinks. Fortune cookies don't mean anything and Janet Donner is through with attributing anything that happens to her to forces of Eerie weirdness beyond her control.
She'll make her own future, thank you very much.
When she looks up again, Chisel is watching her with an odd expression. He looks good for his age, Janet thinks. She doesn't buy Marshall and Simon's theory that Chisel's immortal, or the equally bizarre one that the reason he looks so well-preserved is that he's been sealing himself in a particular brand of kitchenware that somehow impedes his aging process, but she has to admit he doesn't look much older than he did back when she was a kid. She suspects he's had work done, but hasn't been able to prove it.
So, yeah, he looks good. But he also looks tired.
Chisel sets the binder aside and reaches across the table. Janet tries not to flinch visibly as his hand moves entirely too close to the borders of her personal space. He's not reaching for her, though, she realizes almost too late. He merely selects a fortune cookie from the tray, leans back, and cracks it open.
Whatever's written on the paper inside elicits a small smile that's equally as wistful as it is sinister. He doesn't show his fortune to Janet and she doesn't ask. He carefully tucks the slip of paper into a coat pocket, leaves both halves of the cookie uneaten on the table, and reaches for the binder again.
"I love this town," he says. "I love these people. Always have. Everything I've done, I've done out of love."
Honesty isn't Chisel's strong suit. He's a politician and possibly the slimiest one Janet has had the misfortune to know personally, so she knows better than to fully trust anything that comes out of his mouth. Still, she can't help but think that in this one instance, he's being completely sincere.
"So do I," she tells him, exchanging a truth for a truth. "I love this town, too."
She hasn't always loved Eerie, or at least she hasn't always realized it, but she's loved it for a least most of her life. Ever since the day she woke up in the Lost Hour to find Eerie missing. She fell in love with Eerie even more a year later, after Marshall helped her get home. Because that's what Eerie is to her, forever and always: Home.
"I know," says Chisel. "And that's why, if I had to lose an election to someone eventually, I'm glad it was to you. That's why, despite our disagreements, it's important for me to pass on everything you'll need to know before I retire."
He doesn't say that he'll be passing on everything he knows, Janet notes, but it isn't like she was expecting that.
She knows how dangerous Eerie can be. She knows Marshall and Simon are right about a lot of things and Eerie's not quite like other towns, but still, she loves it. Enough to come back here after college. Enough to start her political career here. Enough to do whatever she can to protect everyone in town to the best of her ability. To make sure that what happened to her as a kid never happens to anyone else.
To become the newly elected Mayor Janet Donner.
And that means she needs to learn all that soon-to-be former Mayor Chisel is willing to share.
Hence, this meeting.
Chisel opens his mouth to say something else, but before he can, Janet holds up a finger.
She takes the remain cookie from the tray, breaks it open, and slowly savors both halves before she brings herself to look at the paper inside.
She almost laughs when she sees it.
You will change the world.
It's the same stupid fortune. Well, almost.
There's something else written underneath this time:
You might not live to regret it.
There's more than one way to interpret that, but Janet doesn't have time to figure out what her dessert might be trying to tell her. Fortune cookies don't mean anything, after all, no matter what Marshall thinks. She tucks the paper into her purse along with the receipt, then turns back to Chisel. "Okay," she says, "Lay it on me. What's next in the Eerie Economic Threats and Concerns section?"
Chisel turns back to his binder, frowns slightly, and turns the page. "Oh, yes," he says. "Section C, subsection A.1 through Section F, subsection J.5 concern certain activities of the individual calling himself Dash X."
Janet sighs.
Of course they do.
She signals to the waiter to re-open their tab and bring her something stronger than tea.