The leaves shook restlessly.
Mae, perched carefully with her crossed arms on the back of the kitchen chair, was watching the leaves of the tall oak tree as the wind pulled-then-pushed them back and forth.
She imagined that the gods were playing a game of tug-o-war – the Greek figures she’d read about in her spare time.
Ah, what were the names again? She opened the file folder labelled “Mythology” in her brain and was horrified to discover it was empty!
Suddenly, a great, lurching moan pierced the air outside; inside, Mae’s stomach rumbled furiously.
* * *
“Lunch was delicious.”
At least, that’s what Mae told her granddaughter.
The blackened fish that had been placed on the plate before her was not at all a shocking sight, when she sat down to eat with Alice. Although Mae loved her granddaughter fiercely and believed she could do anything in the world so long as she dreamt it, there was one thing Alice had never been particularly skilled at: cooking. Not that Alice’s cooking was due to a lack of effort – she wholeheartedly invested in the idea that she was the best cook in the family next to Mae – but the girl just couldn’t cook.
Mae was sitting by the window again. She sat as she usually did, her fraying, coral skirt bunched between her legs, which were up and tucked to her right under her butt; she held a cracked tea mug from 1978 in both hands and watched as the steam reached skyward until it met her nose instead. The scent of sweet, apple chai tea filled Mae’s nostrils and, for a brief moment, seemed to overtake her senses completely.
Alice around the corner of the table, facing the window which Mae was sitting in front of. The tea mug Alice was holding had come from a yard sale in 1991. She was just about to finish gnawing off the fingernail on the index finger of her left hand when she peered up and met Mae’s large, soul-extracting brown eyes with her own.
Suddenly, Alice was aware she had started to blush.
“S-sorry, Grandma,” Alice muttered behind her left hand. Mae smiled in amusement.
“Gonna eat your whole damn hand off, child,” Mae snickered. “Don’t worry, I’m only teasin’.”
“I know, Grandma…”
“What’s gotten into you?”
Alice shifted uneasily in her chair, though it seemed (to Mae that is) she was trying to hide her discomfort. Mae was, of course, not so easily fooled.
“I can tell when you aren’t being straight with me.”
Finally, Alice sighed and locked eyes with Mae.
“We can’t stay here,” she whispered. “And I just -“
“You think I’ve gone and got too attached again, I know.”
“You always know,” Alice sighed under her breath. She peered at a clock to the right of her grandma and pretended to actually notice the time; she suddenly felt guilty about what she’d said.
“S’true,” began Mae, “I’ve seen lotta things. More than I’d care to have seen, truth. But what’s got you so frightened?”
Alice stopped looking at the clock and faced Mae. When Alice began to speak, her lips betrayed her emotions and trembled furiously – she was on the verge of tears.
“I think they’ve found us… and I think I led them here.”
* * *
“What’d you find?!”
A loud clang echoed across the valley as Jakob struck the earth with his pickaxe! He immediately fell backward.
“Well,” repeated Tribune Thoris, “what’d you find, boy?!”
As Thoris’s spittle rained down upon Jakob, something began rustling around loudly in a nearby zagway tree. Thoris quickly turned toward the disturbance.
Jakob watched in horror as the Tribune slipped a small revolver out of his inner pocket and aimed it at the tree.
“Whoever or whatever you are,” Thoris rattled, “don’t move a fucking muscle.”
Jakob conjured the image of a small squirrel jumping around excitedly among the tree branches. He almost burst out laughing at the very idea of Tribune Thoris blowing hot air at a tree-crawler; Jakob fought hard to hold himself steady and stave off the vibrations of laughter – but his laughter was due just as equally to nerves and fear as it was to any humour to be gleaned from the situation.
Suddenly, Jakob registered an expression of recognition on Thoris’s face.
“Damn Pythian,” Thoris muttered. He lowered his revolver and deftly approached the tree.
In a matter of seconds, he’d reached up into the spiny leaves of the stocky zagway and clutched a skinny brown leg which slipped and flailed helplessly from a large branch. Then, Thoris was carrying a young girl in his arms with a look of absolute misery.
There’s a regular zanni, if I ever saw one, Jakob thought.
Jakob scrambled to his feet while Thoris berated the child.
“You are lucky to be a Pythian, child,” sneered Thoris. “Though luck does not exist. I will not tolerate much more of this before I send you to someone far crueler than I have ever been!”
The child had been giggling before Thoris finished what he was saying; she – Jakob could see now that she was a girl – became sullen at his final words. She remained silent and brooding as Thoris carried her past Jakob and off to the Outpost.
Jakob stood at the edge of the ambrosia field, his pickaxe resting across the back of his shoulders, and watched as Thoris carried the girl off into the distance. Eventually, the two of them disappeared over the Aegean Ridge.
Jakob often imagined what life was like beyond the ambrosia mining camps but his imagination only ever got him so far. After all, he’d held a pickaxe in his hands since he’d been able to stand, hadn’t he? His entire life flowed through an interconnected series of mining tunnels, not in the high-ceilinged marble hallways of the gods and their prophets.
Prophets who each inhabit a different senator’s pocket. No, that was no realm for Jakob… with the serpents and tricksters, devils to match gods – and everything deadly and terrifying in between.
* * *
Alice was sobbing behind the wheel of her grandmother’s old 2025 Ford Escape. Mae was in the passenger’s seat with one hand on Alice’s shoulder, regarding her granddaughter carefully.
“We can’t die here,” Mae consoled, “we won’t.”
After a few minutes of slow breathing, Alice placed her right hand on the control panel and pressed “D”. The entire vehicle suddenly came to life, the vibrant blue and teal light pattern illuminating the inside of the cabin.
Now, Alice could see the raindrops on the windows clearly as the light reflected off them. The storm kept on outside.
“Wh-wh-where exactly am I going?” Alice inquired testily.
Mae curled up in the passenger’s seat and tucked her skirt in underneath her legs to make herself more comfortable.
“Just keep driving,” said Mae. “I’ll wake up when we’re there.”
Within seconds, Mae was quietly snoring – lost in some dream or other.
Alice gripped the wheel as tight as she could; her heart was beating five times faster than she thought possible. Nothing was certain to her but that didn’t seem to matter to her grandmother who was certain of everything…
… and, worst of all, Alice knew what that really meant: Mae knew that Alice was falling apart but did nothing to prevent it, nothing to truly soothe her granddaughter other than minor reassurances.
In the rearview mirror, Alice watched their wooden cabin become one with the storm. And then… it burst into flame!
She closed her eyes and imagined it was all a dream but when she opened them again the cabin was still a ball of fire on the darkening horizon.
And then, the light was gone and so were Alice and Mae.
TO BE CONTINUED…
thatfroninja. 