String

The house was old, perhaps twice as ancient as the woman who lived there. It stood precariously on a hill in full sight of miles of farmland and forest, the tallest peak in four counties with no other house in sight, balancing in a plateau of land barely wide enough to span beneath half the foundation. Miraculously, the house itself neither sagged nor cracked despite the fact that none of its four corner actually touched solid ground. Every time Renna stepped onto the narrow wooden porch, she wondered whether the structure would choose that moment to shudder and collapse into kindlewood.

Miriam Ravenoak was an old, mad woman who lived alone with two cats and a dog the size of a small horse. Renna was charged with ‘keeping an eye’ on the decrepit bag in return for the meager allowance her mother gifted her with every week, all five dollars that she was carefully and shrewdly saving beneath a loose floorboard in her bedroom; eventually she would have enough to buy a bus ticket to the city. At fifteen, it was the equivalent of gnawing on her arm in order to escape the bear trap.

Approaching the house for the third time that week, she started to climb the white, peeling steps only to stop when confronted by a canine head easily as big as her own, long jowls vibrating with a rumbled greeting. The first time she had heard Achilles growl, Renna had about peed her pants; now she knew better, hearing the thump of a whip-like tail as it wagged happily in greeting. The great dane was a monster even for its breed, standing almost to eye-to-eye with the teenager and weighing what she could only guess was close to two hundred pounds (she hoped to never find out, because the mutt would win that contest hands down), black as fresh pitch in the heat of summer. But for all that the beast looked like he should have torn her face off, Achilles would probably let her use him like a punching bag and never think the worse for it. She guessed that the effect was enough for a dog like that upon intruders.

“Ah, Renna, you’ve come just in time. I’m refreshing the wards in the house today. I’ll need a young body to clean the high places I can’t reach anymore.” Miriam was neither young nor beautiful in her age, but she stood straight as a board and had eyes that could stare through iron and make it melt. She walked with a purpose, broom in one hand and red string in the other, thrusting the latter at the girl so that Renna was forced to take the colored twine, all the while eyeing the glittering ornaments that she saw dangling through the glass of the windows. She would not enjoy this particular visit.

Miriam kept chimes, in every window, through every doorway. If there was an opening into the house, there was a chime christening the entry. Renna had once asked after the chimes, and the response had been the strangest reply she had ever received.

“To keep the Others out, of course. Can’t have such things stealing my Whelks, now can I?” She’d had to ask her mother to learn that a whelk was snail, and as far as she had seen Miriam owned nothing of the sort. When she’d questioned further the old woman had merely brushed her confusion aside with a swat of her hand, as though she were being ignorant of what was common knowledge. Renna had not asked again. Unfortunately, every few months the ‘wards’ required cleaning and rehanging.

“Today? It looks like it’s going to rain–”–there wasn’t a cloud in the sky”–we probably shouldn’t work with the windows open with a storm coming.”

“Even more reason to have them done, child. The Others love the weather, they’ll be all over the house after those rains role through. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” It was like arguing with a brick wall–the wall was going to win.

Despite a particularly disgusted sigh as she rolled up her sleeves, fifteen minutes later the teenager found herself standing on a rickety chair inside the house, fighting with the chimes above one of the windows even as she swore she felt the house tip the further to one side she leaned.

She only hoped the non-existent storm would come sooner rather than later and cut the string of obligation she found herself dangling upon, the crazy old woman her deranged puppeteer. The chimes tinkled in her hand as the first clouds rolled into view.

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~ by eeratka on February 28, 2011.