Porchwood Hollow

Archive Mouse and the Suitcase

A Story from Porchwood Hollow

For most of its life, the suitcase had been for leaving.

It had waited beside doors.

It had ridden beneath seats and bumped along roads.

It had been carried through rain, set down on unfamiliar floors, opened in strange rooms, closed again, and

carried somewhere else.

Its corners were worn brown from traveling.

Its brass clasps were scratched.

Old labels clung to its sides, although some of the names had faded so badly that even Archive Mouse could

no longer read them.

Then one evening, the suitcase arrived at Porchwood Hollow.

And for the first time in a very long while –

nobody packed it again.

* * *

Archive Mouse and Minette had emptied nearly everything onto the porch.

The Master Ledger was stacked carefully beside six folded maps.

Three quills rested beside the ink.

Minette’s pressed flowers were tucked safely beneath her music locket.

Her spyglass sat on the porch rail.

The emergency cheddar had been accounted for.

And the scones –

well.

There were still too many scones.

Archive Mouse looked at the empty suitcase.

“Excellent.”

Minette looked at the empty suitcase.

“Perfect.”

Archive Mouse nodded.

“At last, proper storage.”

Minette nodded.

“At last, a bedroom.”

Archive Mouse turned.

“A what?”

“A bedroom.”

“It is a suitcase.”

“Yes.”

“Suitcases are luggage.”

“Yes.”

“One does not live in luggage.”

Minette looked into the suitcase.

“Why not?”

“Because -”

Archive Mouse stopped.

This was an irritating sort of question.

It had an obvious answer right up until someone asked it.

“Because it is luggage,” he finished.

Minette climbed inside.

“Not anymore.”

Archive Mouse stared at her.

Minette smiled.

That should have warned him.

* * *

By morning, there was a curtain.

Archive Mouse did not know where Minette had found the curtain.

He suspected this was the sort of information Minette considered unnecessary to document.

The curtain divided one end of the suitcase into a small sleeping nook.

By afternoon, a folded handkerchief had become a rug.

A wooden spool had become a table.

Two matchboxes had become drawers.

And one of Archive Mouse’s carefully folded maps had nearly become wallpaper before he intervened.

“That is a regional survey.”

“It has lovely trees.”

“It has coordinates.”

“They’re lovely coordinates.”

The map survived.

Barely.

* * *

Archive Mouse resisted the suitcase for two entire days.

On the third day, he installed a shelf.

It was, he explained, not evidence that he approved of living in luggage.

The shelf was simply necessary because Minette had placed three pressed flowers on top of the Master

Ledger.

“They were flattening.”

“It is a historical document.”

“They are historical flowers.”

“They are Tuesday’s flowers.”

“Tuesday is history.”

Archive Mouse opened his mouth.

Closed it.

And built another shelf.

* * *

The suitcase changed quickly after that.

Archive Mouse installed narrow shelves along one side for books and ledgers.

Each shelf had a tiny handwritten label.

MAPS

FIELD NOTES

CORRESPONDENCE

OBJECTS AWAITING CLASSIFICATION

Minette added one beneath them.

THINGS WE LIKE

Archive Mouse removed it.

Minette put it back.

Archive Mouse removed it again.

The following morning, it had been written directly onto the wood.

Archive Mouse left it there.

On Minette’s side, pressed flowers appeared along the wall.

Her dusk-colored ribbon hung from a tiny brass hook.

The music locket had a place beside the bed.

Postcards and scraps from their travels were pinned inside the suitcase lid.

A tiny lamp stood between their two sides.

And somehow, despite Archive Mouse’s repeated objections, there was always a plate of something baked

sitting on the spool table.

“This shelf is for archival materials.”

“The scones are temporary.”

“They have been temporary for four days.”

“They’re very patient.”

Archive Mouse moved the scones.

Then ate one.

* * *

There was one problem.

The suitcase still looked like something waiting to leave.

Its handle remained folded against the side.

Its old travel labels covered the outside.

The clasps still clicked shut.

One evening, Archive Mouse noticed Minette sitting quietly at the entrance.

She was running one paw over an old label.

“What does this one say?” she asked.

Archive Mouse adjusted his spectacles.

He knew the label.

They had passed through that place a long time ago.

He read the faded name aloud.

Minette nodded.

“And this one?”

He read that one, too.

They went around the suitcase together.

Some labels reminded them of good places.

Some reminded them of difficult ones.

A few had faded so badly that all that remained was a color or a single letter.

Finally Minette touched the newest empty space on the suitcase.

“There isn’t one for here.”

Archive Mouse looked around.

At the porch.

At the trees.

At the path he had already mapped.

At the flowers nobody remembered planting.

At the Hollow that had somehow become theirs before either of them had officially decided anything.

“No,” he said.

“There isn’t.”

* * *

The next morning, Minette woke to the scratching of Archive Mouse’s quill.

He was sitting at the spool table with a small rectangle of paper.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

Archive Mouse was extremely poor at doing nothing.

Minette sat beside him.

On the paper, in his smallest and neatest handwriting, he had written:

PORCHWOOD HOLLOW

Underneath:

ARRIVED:

He had written the date.

Then there was another line.

DEPARTED:

It was blank.

Minette looked at it.

Archive Mouse looked at it.

Neither said anything for a moment.

Then Minette reached for the ink.

Very carefully, she drew one small line through DEPARTED.

Archive Mouse watched her.

“That is not standard archival procedure.”

“I know.”

He considered correcting it.

He did not.

Together they carried the new label outside.

Archive Mouse applied exactly the correct amount of paste.

Minette added slightly more after he wasn’t looking.

They pressed the label onto the suitcase.

Among all the faded names of places they had left was one new name.

The place they hadn’t.

* * *

That evening, Archive Mouse made an entry in the Master Ledger.

The traveling suitcase has been repurposed as a permanent residential and archival structure.

He stopped.

Minette leaned over his shoulder.

“That’s terrible.”

“It is accurate.”

“It sounds like we live in a filing cabinet.”

“It contains several filing compartments.”

Minette gave him a look.

Archive Mouse sighed.

He dipped his quill again.

Beneath the official entry he added:

It is our home.

Minette smiled.

From inside the suitcase came the warm glow of their little lamp.

There were books on the shelves.

Pressed flowers on the walls.

A music locket beside the bed.

A piece of emergency cheddar exactly where Archive Mouse had left it.

And, on a shelf clearly labeled FIELD NOTES, three fresh scones.

Archive Mouse noticed them.

Of course he noticed them.

He was an archivist.

He noticed everything.

He simply decided not to record it.

Because the suitcase had carried their belongings for many miles.

It had carried maps and memories.

Flowers and letters.

Things worth keeping.

But Porchwood Hollow gave the old suitcase something it had never carried before.