Saint For Rent - To Travel By Memory

By Xu Ru

Saint debates which aged Armand to confide in, when they're visited by Antonia, who Armand asks Santo about, since his aged self wasn't going to meet her til next week. (This comic is a brain-bender.) Santo was with Patrick when he'd become the 1st Cloverhouse Innkeeper in 2012. Patrick was a baby and Santo was uncertain what his next move would be, and Antonia's mother interrupts him as he was overwhelmed with emotion, hoping to find a place to stay with her daughter. So, Antonia's mother and she became the 1st 2 unofficial guests of Santo and Patrick.

Antonia has her first chat with this aged Armand, which surprises Patrick she was even aware of the time travel. Antonia had become fascinated once realizing it, and so continued to visit Santo for the last handful of years. Antonia then invites Patrick to a school reunion for when they dig up their time capsule, he looking unenthused.

Saint jokes about going with them and most likely being as embarrassing as a parent, since he could leave for not technically being Innkeeper, anymore, but handling the place for Kitty due to he agreeing like his agreeable self would. Patrick starts regretting not being around for Saint more, when he's pillow-whacked from above, seeing Kitty and younger Armand sitting on the 2nd level, he angrily leaving the room. Patrick speaks with Saint in his garden, Saint confides he's glad Patrick's decided to stay awhile what with all the traveling he'd done since he was a teenager, and it'd be nice if Pat could decide what he wanted for himself instead of making their father happy. Antonia is ready to go to the reunion later in the day and sees Kitty as a cat outside, tries to pet her and is spurned.

Kitty running away from her approaching hand, then scares the shit out of her when she sees the cat fazing in and out like Saint used to do. She explains this to him and Patrick when they walk in seeing her looking panicked. Then it dawns on Pat of the cat now being the Innkeeper and what Saint and his pop would have to say about Saint giving up his job to a feline, Saint believing it didn't need to be mentioned. Saint finds an opening to share what the Counter had told him would happen to Armand at 29, but it gets a little heated when the young Armand makes light of it.

As they continue to talk though, Armand shows how much depth he has, and Saint apologizes, getting sentimental, as he does. Eventually they take a walk on the beach and Kitty watches them from the roof. After Saint goes in, Armand has a chat with Kitty from the 2nd story as she's still on the roof.

Meanwhile at the reunion, Toni shows her journal she'd sketched when she was 5 of all the shenanigans they'd made during their time at school. They're invited to an afterparty and Pat has to deal with getting ribbed for his nickname, Patch related to his birthmark. He almost lets out with some too revealing info about his credentials when they start talking about starting college, and so Toni saves him by giving him the out to take a breath outside. Toni meets him out there where he lets off steam about not feeling like he fit in and how his gauge for whether people understood and were interested in what he knew about seemed to get lost in translation.

Despite Patrick feeling outcast, when the other classmates come out they insist on exchanging numbers and getting a group pic. Next, Toni speaks with Saint about the reunion, needing to replace her car quickly, and then segues into his earlier request of she fixing his tablet, since she'd built it, as well as the cell she used, and laptop, which are hologram high-tech.

The Travelogue involves Casimir and the Consultant, who are married and talking about a time travel project they would be attempting to conduct with mountains of research included. Something occurs where Cas is affected by a beam and his hair goes gray. The Consultant is then approached by an orb.

Another fascinating installment of Saint for Rent. It will be intriguing to see how this plays out, since the series will eventually continue with a 10th chapter. Until then, I have plenty others to occupy per, like every other webcomic site, there's plenty of links to other comics to help ease the pain of waiting.