While passing through a town, half-way to the coast nearest England, I was told to hide in the cart, and not make a sound. The jockey didn't want anyone knowing he was transporting a passenger, or there'd be extra tariffs at one of the toll-bridges. Those tariffs were meant to keep the bridges fixed, but usually went into wishing wells and the bottoms of mugs. As we crossed a particularly rickety mess of planks, I kept my mouth shut and covered myself with a spare blanket, pretending to be a lump of bundled leather. I'd plenty of practice at being unseen, thanks to my cruel, unseemly relatives back home. As one of the milk barrels turned to salted cheese right next to me, I scrunched up my face and 'blagh'd'. I'd only just gotten out of a place where I'd been forced to smell worse, every single day: the Beckenov home. Or I suppose, for me, it was only ever just a house.
When my
parents died, I was no longer allowed by The King to live by myself in
my old home. He didn't want to put me out, but he didn't exactly take me
in, either – he was still sore about his sofa. Legally, I couldn't lay
claim to my own house, nor its lawns, until I was fifteen years of age. I
was only eleven at the time. So across the village on the watery side, I
was made to keep with the Beckenovs. It was a quaint-seeming,
stone-based, birch-logged cabin of six bedrooms, nine closets, and every
other room you could think of. A kitchen, a living room, a basement
suit with its own faucet, a gaming room, and even a place just for
shelving cold food. We had a cold box made of stone, under the counter,
on a little wheeled cart – it needed to be filled with snow so the fish
inside wouldn't rot. They had an entire scullery, big as my bedroom back
home, cold as a mountain-peak in the summer thanks to a heat-vent built
up through the ground above it. It was grated finely, so nothing could
sneak in and steal their wares; save for spiders who did no harm but to
flies that wandered in. The only problem with the home was that the
landscape was utterly falling apart. The disarray came from boggy
puddles, overgrown grass, splintered staircases, falling trees, and
threateningly jagged stumps.
On the task, bravely, was The
Rationeer, The Chief, and their big white dog, Thunder. The Rationeer
was a large woman of fifty years, pale but African-faced with narrow,
kindly-seeming eyes and a curled, big-lipped smile. Her hair was grey,
but she'd been dyeing it brown again. I'd guessed her for Mayan (or
somewhere near), as well as English, French, Russian, German, Scottish,
and probably Irish. She was apparently a niece of my great grandfather,
and Egyptian as well. She was responsible for two things, actually: tax
accounts for the entire village's agriculture, and keeping the stove hot
with dinner. After that, she'd retire to bed early, and wake up fore
dawn to 'crack at' once again. She'd be wearing full makeup and a
housecoat before anyone else was even conscious, already cooking
breakfast for herself and others. The Chief was a burly but oafish old
man, with a low, low growl of a voice. But he mostly used it to tell
jokes, and comfort small children, with whom he was locally famous. He
was in his late forties, yet somehow, looked even older than his wife.
The old man was strong, but more-so of frame than of mind, and seemed to
be a mix of Scottish, New World, and possibly African-Arabian. His
brick-colored face was redder than anyone's, and usually covered in
black-grey prickled hairs, and leftover food. It was his job to purchase
groceries from the stands using his incredible wealth from his faraway
career in Arabia's oil fields – he was only ever around four times in
four years. At first, I found him funny, and sensitive – but over time, I
started to see that something disturbed was coming over him, and his
sense of humor was warping into a lack of self-control. As well, The
Rationeer was becoming less kind, less charitable, and less patient with
her own memory – forgetting more and more by the days. She wanted a
'fair share' of rent from me, but also wanted unwavering manual labor
for the grounds – the kind that grown men do for pay they can buy a
house with. And, she was beginning to drink more and more. When I caught
an eye of inn-scrips in her purse (she'd requested her keys), I
realized those drinks were being had with other men than her husband. He
as well, soft though he seemed at first, was quickly becoming an
overbearing bully, and alcohol was well in-hand on both sides if he
could help it. Though a masterful grandparent (if not a bit
over-disciplining) to any wee ones in his sight, he was no such
gentleman to anyone with curves or a blossoming scent. It was suspicion
that I felt ridiculous for, when he barged in on me getting dressed and
stood there like a town guard asking "what I was doing". I thought it
was clear as day? Then when he complained that I should change next to
him, as he forced us all to go on another monthly swimming trip at the
beach.
"I won't waste this hot day on you, struggling to get nude in a bush," he growled.
But I was determined not to let his previous interruption be rewarded.
When I did return, I didn't feel like getting soaked in the salt,
knowing it would dry my hair somethin' awful.
But he said, "I didn't bring everyone all the way out here just for you to not even swim."
I didn't understand what the difference was, but he apparently felt it
was a matter of life and death. So he forced my head under the water, in
front of everyone else. I was so angry, I splashed him in the face, and
he roared and splashed me back twice as much. To the rest of the
family, it looked like good fun. They didn't see the rage in his eyes,
wishing he could do worse.
He failed to relent, after that. I
thought at first he was simply distracted, and that I'd accidentally
made some kind of suggestive remark. To be fair, a lot of my jokes were
innuendos! And his as well, which he said he was above but then sunk
back down to, anyway. Comedic distance made it easier to stay in the
same house. But I slowly saw he was much like The Knight – stricken with
men just as equally as women, if not perhaps even more than I could
relate to. He demanded I walk to the market with him for groceries, but
made certain to stop by his favourite pub: The Two-Leaf Clover. I
assumed the joke was that, if a four-leaf was lucky, a two-leaf was the
opposite. That didn't help the pit growing in my stomach, being shoved
through the doors. I felt unlucky just for having arrived. The bardance
there was a song called "I Fancy Thy Hinded Cleft", a gawk-ear he knew
all the words to. Then, he joked that I had quite the 'cleft' myself. I
paid no mind to that, thought he was simply deriding. But as he drank,
he began eyeing me up for my sleeker sides, and his stare was like a
cold, indifferent spotlight moving across a body – it made one shiver
sickly to be seen. Yet the women in town found him cute, for his
'protectorate' act, to which I was his apparent prop. I tried to avoid
him for the months when he was home, shedding toenail clippings and food
wrappers on the expensive sofas he liked to brag about having purchased
himself. Unfortunately, he did not take my curtness nor absence for a
message, and on long carriage rides for food and landscaping supplies,
he would often spread his legs and let all his ghoulish musk spill out –
like he was doing some kind of natural favor to the world around him.
The folks called it 'man-spreading', and when I told The Rater about it,
she said it was simply something men did, and couldn't help. I'd be
forced to cover my mouth, and look to the right of me to avoid him. He
wouldn't let me climb into the back, said it "unevened the weight" and
made the journey longer. I thought he was full of shit, and he probably
was, but his yelling was loud enough to scare a mountain. Once again, he
jimmied his legs a bit, apparently trying to draw attention to them. It
made me frown, and I jumped off the cart to walk the rest of the way
home. So he stopped the cart, shouted at me with his usual crack and
boom, and told me I'd starve if I didn't get back in. I sighed. And when
I did climb back into the cart, he immediately did the stupid thing
with his legs again. I didn't understand until the next time he did
this, what it was: a silent suggestion that I give him what the adults
of Fogborn jokingly called "road head". It never happened, and
thankfully, he never forced the issue. He probably knew if I disagreed,
and if I told his wife what he'd done, he'd be paying for lodging
elsewhere for the rest of his days ashore – he was only daring far
enough that he could claim plausible deniability. I imagine, if he'd
tried to take something out, that armor would be gone. His harassment
was endangering to a twelve-year-old, for one thing, and insulting to
one whom The Mentor had already raised to know better. Looking the other
way for so long, I'd put a sore spot in my neck just trying to shrink
away. I was appalled, and scared for my life. He'd already threatened to
abandon me on a strange road if I'd ever crossed him, and I managed my
pulse on a tight-rope so as not to give away my fear. I didn't want him
knowing I'd figured him out, but at the same time, couldn't figure out
what the hell else had to be going through his blunt fucking skull. That
he would let his lap brew for an actual child, he must have been born
in the pits of an outhouse. Whatever made the plague miss him, something
else had definitely found him – somewhere in his head, and down below. A
look of anger and dejection shot across his face, and without
provocation, he called me a "snobby prick". I'd said not a word to him
prior, nor since, for the entire trip. I didn't dare open my mouth, and
let my dried saliva seal it shut.
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