The Unlikely Assembly

Four strangers in a sterile room. One dying building. The cold math of construction meets the chaos of art.

The chair made a sound like a dying bird when she dragged it across the linoleum.

Scriiiitch.

Mara Halloway froze. Her teeth set on edge. She looked around the back room of the Melgund Community Center, waiting for someone to burst in and tell her to stop. To tell her she wasn’t authorized. To tell her to go home.

Nobody came. The hallway outside remained a vacuum of silence, broken only by the hum of the vending machine near the entrance.

Mara looked at the chair. Beige metal. Vinyl padding that had been cracked since the nineties. It was ugly. It was functional. It was the only thing in the room she could control.

She moved it again. Lifted it this time. Set it down three feet to the left.

Better.

She wiped her palms on her jeans. Clay dust usually lived in the ridges of her fingerprints, but today her hands were clean. Scrubbed raw. They felt naked. She felt naked. She was wearing a sweater she hadn’t touched in a year—a heavy wool thing that smelled faintly of cedar closet balls. It scratched at her neck.

9:02 AM.

The clock on the wall was a black plastic circle. The second hand ticked with a violent, jerky motion.

*Click. Click. Click.*

Mara checked her own watch. 8:55 AM. The wall clock was fast. Or she was early. Being early was worse. It meant time to think. Time to look at the room.

The room was a box. Cinder block walls painted a shade of yellow that suggested dehydration. The fluorescent tube overhead flickered with a persistent, mosquito-like strobe. It made the shadows in the corners jump. It made Mara’s eyes water.

She hated this room. It was where the Town Council decided which roads to patch. It was where the AA meetings happened on Tuesdays. It was a room for problems.

And she was bringing them another one.

She adjusted the circle of chairs. Four of them.

Simon. Lila. Tarek. Herself.

Four chairs. A circle. It felt like an interrogation setup. Or a séance.

She pushed them apart. Wider circle. More breathing room.

Too far. Now they’d have to shout.

She pulled them back in.

Stop it, she told herself. Just stop.

She sat in the chair facing the door. The metal was cold through her jeans. The radiator under the window clanked—a metallic, hollow banging sound, like someone hitting a pipe with a wrench. It was pumping out heat that was dry and aggressive. It sucked the moisture right out of her contacts.

Mara closed her eyes. She tried to picture the General Store.

The brick. The cast iron columns. The way the light hit the floorboards.

It didn't work.

Instead, she saw the bank balance. The red numbers. She saw the "For Sale" sign she’d have to put on her own house if this went sideways. She saw the look on Gerald Pinter’s face when she’d asked for the permit applications—that pitying, tired look.

*The widow-maker.* That’s what Simon had called it.

She opened her eyes. The room was still yellow. The light was still flickering.

Maybe they wouldn’t come.

Maybe Simon stayed in his recliner. Maybe the kids found something better to do. It was Saturday. They had lives. Screens. futures.

Relief washed over her. Cold and shameful. If they didn’t come, she could go home. She could go back to the studio. Wedge some clay. Make a bowl. Something small. Something she could finish in an hour.

Then the outer door groaned.

A blast of air hit the hallway. Even from the back room, she felt the pressure drop. The atmosphere shifted from stale heat to sharp, biting cold.

Heavy boots on tile.

*Thud. Thud. Thud.*

Slow. Deliberate.

Mara sat up straighter. Her spine cracked.

Simon Keeler appeared in the doorway.

He looked exactly like he sounded on the phone. Like a piece of weathered oak wrapped in flannel. He was wearing a Carhartt jacket that had been tan once, now stained with grease and oil to a indeterminate brown. His hat was pulled low, earflaps down.

He didn't look at her. He looked at the ceiling. Then the floor. Then the radiator.

He stepped inside. He brought the winter with him. It radiated off his jacket in waves.

"Drafty," he said.

Not hello.

"It's the vent," Mara said. Her voice sounded thin. Too high.

Simon grunted. He walked to the radiator. He kicked it. Gently. A tap with the toe of his boot.

The clanking stopped.

He turned to her. His face was a map of deep lines, scrubbed pink by the wind. His eyes were grey and hard.

"You're early," he said.

"So are you."

He looked at the chairs. The circle.

"Kumbaya?" he asked.

"Meeting," she said. "Sit down, Simon."

He didn't sit. He walked to the wall. He ran a hand over the cinder block. He was inspecting the room. Checking for cracks. Checking for structural failure. It was a reflex. He couldn't walk into a space without diagnosing it.

"These lights," he muttered. "Ballast is shot. Fire hazard."

"It's the town's building. Not ours."

"Still a hazard."

He finally sat. He didn't take off his coat. He sat with his legs wide, boots planted, hands resting on his knees. He looked like he was waiting for a bus that was already late.

The silence stretched.

Mara felt the urge to fill it. To explain. To apologize.

She swallowed the urge. She let the silence sit there, heavy and awkward.

Then the door opened again. Fast.

This time, it wasn't a thud. It was a scuffle.

Lila Moreau came in like a tornado of textiles.

She was wearing a coat that looked like it had been stitched together from three different carpets. It was oversized, chaotic, and covered in splotches of dried paint—cadmium yellow, phthalo blue. Underneath, she wore layers of black. Her boots were untied.

She was panting. Her cheeks were flushed bright red.

"Jesus," she said. She stripped off a scarf that was six feet long. "It is a violence out there. It is an actual hate crime of weather."

She looked at Mara. Then Simon.

She blinked.

"Am I late?" She checked a phone with a screen so cracked it looked like a spiderweb. "No. I'm good. The wind, though. It tried to kill me. Literally. I slipped on the sidewalk. I think I bruised my ego."

She dumped a canvas tote bag on the floor. It clanked. Glass jars. Brushes.

Simon stared at her. He looked at the paint on her coat. He looked at the untied boots. His mouth became a flat line.

Lila caught the look. She stiffened. Her chin went up.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Lila. I do the murals. You must be... not the muralist."

"Simon," Mara said, cutting in. "This is Simon Keeler."

"The builder," Lila said. She sat down, dropping into the chair hard. She crossed her legs, swinging a boot. "Mara said you built half the town."

"The standing half," Simon said.

Lila’s eyebrows went up. She smirked. A defensive, sharp little expression. "Good. I like things that stand. Gravity is a bitch."

Simon didn't smile. He looked at his watch.

"Who's the fourth?" he asked Mara.

"Tarek," Mara said. "Tarek Bouchard."

"The kid?" Simon frowned. "Bouchard's grandson?"

"Yes."

"He's twelve."

"He's sixteen," a quiet voice said.

They all turned.

Tarek was already in the room. He was standing by the door, melting into the shadows. He was slight, wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, framing a face that was watchful and guarded. He held a tablet against his chest like a shield.

Mara hadn't heard him enter. He moved like a ghost.

He walked to the last empty chair. He didn't look at them. He looked at his feet. Sneakers. Canvas. In January.

Mara felt a pang of maternal worry. *His toes must be freezing.*

He sat down. He put the tablet on his knees. He tapped the screen. It lit up his face in a cool, blue glow.

"Hi Tarek," Mara said gently.

He nodded. A micro-movement.

Now they were all there.

The circle was full.

The energy in the room was terrible. Jagged.

Simon was a stone wall. Lila was a vibrating wire. Tarek was a void.

And Mara was the one who had to make them talk.

She stood up. It felt formal. Ridiculous. She sat back down.

"Okay," she said. Her voice caught. She cleared her throat. "Okay."

She reached into her bag and pulled out the folder. The photos. The deed. The keys.

She placed the keys in the center of the circle.

The iron ring hit the floor with a heavy *clink*.

They all looked at the keys.

"The General Store," Mara said. "Main and First. It’s been empty for twelve years."

"Fourteen," Simon corrected. "closed in '11."

"Right. Fourteen."

Mara took a breath. She needed to sell this. She needed to make them see the vision. The Hub. The light.

"I bought it," she said.

Lila’s eyes widened. "You bought a building? Like... the whole thing?"

"Yes."

"Baller," Lila said.

"Foolish," Simon said.

Mara ignored them. "I didn't buy it to keep it. I bought it to open it. For us. Melgund is dying. We know it. The mill is gone. The young people leave." She glanced at Tarek. He didn't look up. "We need a reason to stay. A place to make things. Not just... sell things. Make them."

She leaned forward.

"A makerspace. Studios upstairs. Gallery downstairs. A kiln room. A wood shop. A digital lab."

She looked at Simon. "It has good bones."

Simon leaned forward too. But not to agree. To attack.

He pointed a thick finger at the keys.

"It has rot," he said.

His voice was flat. Factual.

"I walked past it this morning. You know what I saw? I saw a roofline that dips three inches in the center. You know what that means?"

Mara hesitated. "The snow load—"

"It means the trusses are compromised," Simon snapped. "It means the king post is likely cracked. Water damage. That’s not a fix. That’s a rebuild."

He started counting on his fingers.

"One: Wiring. It's knob and tube. Uninsurable. You have to gut it. Two: Plumbing. Pipes froze a decade ago. Split copper everywhere in the walls. Three: The brick. The mortar is turning to sand. You touch it, it crumbles. Re-pointing that façade takes three months and fifty grand."

He sat back. Crossed his arms.

"It’s a corpse, Mara. You bought a corpse."

The room went silent. The fluorescent light buzzed louder. *Zzzzt. Zzzzt.*

Mara felt her stomach drop. He was right. Logistically, he was right.

Then Lila laughed.

It wasn't a happy laugh. It was sharp.

"God, you're fun," she said to Simon. "Do you do parties?"

Simon narrowed his eyes. "I do math. Math doesn't care about your feelings."

"It's not about math," Lila said. She stood up. She couldn't sit still. She paced a small circle behind her chair. "It's about the texture. The rot is the point. It's history. You want to sanitize it? Make it look like a dentist's office?"

"I want it to not fall on my head," Simon said.

"It's soulful," Lila argued. She waved her hands. "The peeling paint? The layers? That's the narrative. If we gut it, we kill the ghost. We need to work *with* the decay."

"You can't work with dry rot, girl," Simon growled. "It spreads. It's cancer."

"Don't call me girl."

"Then don't talk nonsense."

"It's not nonsense! It's aesthetic integrity!"

"Aesthetic integrity doesn't keep the rain out!"

They were shouting now.

The sound bounced off the cinder blocks. It was awful.

Mara felt panic rising in her throat. This was a disaster. The Builder and the Artist. Oil and water. Utility versus Validation.

"Stop," Mara said.

They didn't hear her.

"You want to live in a ruin," Simon accused.

"I want to feel something!" Lila shot back.

"Stop!" Mara yelled.

They stopped. They looked at her.

Mara was trembling. Just a little.

"We aren't fighting about the paint," she said. "We haven't even gone inside."

"Don't need to," Simon muttered. "I know what's in there. Rats and debt."

"Just..." Mara rubbed her temples. The headache was blooming behind her eyes. "Just listen."

She looked at Tarek.

He hadn't moved. He hadn't spoken. He was just watching them. His eyes darting from Simon to Lila. Recording the data.

"Tarek?" Mara asked. "Do you... do you have anything to add?"

The boy looked up.

He didn't speak.

Instead, he leaned forward. He placed the tablet on the floor. Right next to the keys.

He tapped the screen three times. Swipe. Pinch. Tap.

"Look," he whispered.

The screen was bright.

Simon looked down. Lila stopped pacing and leaned over.

On the screen, a 3D wireframe model rotated slowly in a black void.

It was the General Store.

But not the ruin. It was a ghost of the structure. glowing blue lines.

Tarek had scanned it. somehow. From the outside? From photos?

He tapped a button. The walls dissolved.

Now it was just the skeleton. The beams. The joists. The cast iron columns.

Simon’s eyes changed. The grumpiness vanished, replaced by a sudden, intense focus. He leaned closer, his face inches from the screen.

"That's the framing?" he asked.

Tarek nodded. "Lidar scan. From the street. And the county archives."

Simon traced a line on the screen with a calloused finger. He didn't touch the glass, just hovered over it.

"Post and beam," Simon murmured. "Look at that span. They don't mill timber like that anymore. That's old growth pine."

He wasn't seeing rot anymore. He was seeing geometry. He was seeing the load path. The logic of the building.

"Toggle the skin," Tarek said softy.

He tapped the screen.

A texture map overlaid the wireframe. The brick. The peeling paint. The faded sign.

Lila let out a breath. "Oh."

She dropped to her knees. Ignored the dirty floor. She looked at the screen.

"The light," she said. "Look how it hits the upper windows."

"North facing," Tarek said. "Consistent lumens. Good for painting."

Lila looked at Tarek. A flash of respect. "Exactly. It's a cathedral."

"It's a box," Simon corrected. But his tone was different. softer. He pointed to the back wall. "If you shore up this bearing wall here... you could open up that span."

"And put the mural there," Lila said, pointing to the same spot. "A twenty-foot canvas."

They were looking at the same wall.

Simon saw a load-bearing challenge. Lila saw a surface.

But for the first time, they were looking at the same thing.

The blue light from the tablet reflected in their eyes. It washed out the sickly yellow of the room. It made them look like a team.

Mara let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

The digital bridge.

Tarek had built it without saying a word.

Simon looked up at Mara.

"The scan is clean," he said. Grudgingly. "But a scan isn't reality. I need to see the wood. I need to poke it."

"I want to smell it," Lila said. "I need the vibe check."

Mara picked up the keys. The metal was warm from the floor.

"Then let's go," she said.

***

The parking lot was a shock.

After the stuffy, overheated confinement of the back room, the outside world felt like a slap in the face.

The wind was screaming across the asphalt. It whipped snow into horizontal streaks. The sky was a flat, bruised purple—low and heavy.

Lila gasped as the cold hit her. She wrapped the giant scarf around her face until only her eyes were visible.

"Hypothermia is not an aesthetic," she muffled.

Tarek pulled his hood tighter. He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He looked like he wanted to dissolve into the snow.

"Main and First," Mara shouted over the wind. "Meet you there?"

"I'm walking," Lila yelled back. "I need the cardio to warm up my frozen soul."

She started marching toward the street, boots crunching on the salt and ice.

Tarek hesitated. He looked at Mara, then at Lila's retreating back.

He gave a small wave. A twitch of the hand. Then he turned and followed Lila, keeping a safe distance, his head down against the gale.

Mara watched them go. The Artist and the Innovator. Walking into the grey.

She turned to her car. A ten-year-old Subaru with a dent in the rear bumper.

She fumbled for her keys. Her fingers were already numb.

A shadow fell over her hand.

She looked up.

Simon was standing there. He was too close.

He wasn't looking at the building anymore. He was looking at her.

The streetlights had just flickered on—the early winter twilight coming down fast. The red glow of her taillights reflected on the snow, casting a bloody wash over his boots.

"Mara," he said.

His voice was low. Under the wind.

"Yeah?"

He stepped closer. He looked tired. The excitement of the wireframe was gone.

"I'm serious," he said. "About the widow-maker."

"I know, Simon. It's expensive."

"It's not the money."

He looked toward the street where the others had disappeared.

"Buildings like that... they fight back. You start pulling at threads, the whole thing comes down. You break a leg. You breathe in black mold. You fall through a floor."

He looked back at her. His eyes were sad.

"You aren't young, Mara. Neither am I. This isn't a hobby. It's a grind. It will hurt."

Mara shivered. The cold was seeping through her coat.

"I know," she said.

"Do you?" He challenged. "You're looking for a legacy. I get that. But dead is dead. Don't kill yourself trying to prove you're still here."

It was cruel. It was true.

Mara felt the sting of it.

She opened her car door. The interior light came on—a weak, yellow dome.

"If I don't do it," she said, looking at him, "I'm dead anyway. I'm just waiting for the date."

Simon stared at her. He saw the stubborn set of her jaw. The fear behind it.

He sighed. A puff of white steam in the red light.

"Fine," he said. "I'll bring the crowbar."

"Why?"

"Door's probably stuck. Humidity swells the jambs."

He turned and walked toward his truck. A massive, rusted Ford that looked like a tank.

Mara got into her car. She slammed the door.

The silence was instant.

She gripped the steering wheel. Her hands were shaking. Not from the cold.

From the hunger.

She was terrified. She was overwhelmed. She had no money and a team that hated each other.

But Simon was bringing a crowbar.

She put the car in gear.

The tires spun for a second on the ice, whining, before they caught traction.

She drove out of the lot, leaving the sterile safety of the Community Center behind, heading toward the ruin.

Behind her, in the rearview mirror, she saw Simon's headlights flare to life—two bright eyes in the gathering dark.