Narcos…
She disappeared into the cabin and I turned back to fishing. I was having no luck, and a handful of hours later, she reappeared, wearing a baker’s apron over her dress and carrying a basket.
“Where the hell you find that?” I asked.
She smiled impishly and held a finger up.
“The loft?”
She nodded.
“I really need to sort through a bunch of that shit and take a load to the dump, but as long as you keep finding useful shit, I can hold off.”
She pointed at me and raised and lowered a hand. I frowned at first but then caught on.
“You found clothes that might fit me?”
She nodded and I nodded back. She put her hands together like she was praying and laid her cheek against them.
“You put them on my bed?”
She nodded.
“Good deal.”
She looked at my rod and cocked her head.
“Nothing sizeable enough to eat, at least not yet. Where are you going?”
She pointed across the river to the woods.
“Be careful. Don’t get lost.”
She rolled her eyes, then put two fingers in her mouth and let off one of the most ear-splitting whistles I’d ever heard. I grimaced and nodded.
“Point made. You get into trouble, you do that.”
She smirked, smug, and skipped along the edge of the river up the way to where it was shallower. I went back to fishing but kept an eye on her, as much as I could until she blended into the wood so seamlessly I couldn’t make her out anymore.
She’d smelled of citronella when she’d come near and I had to guess she’d made her candles, which was a good thing. Despite the screens going up, we were still getting bitten. Not as much as we could have been without the screens, but yeah.
I managed to catch two sizable trout back to back in the next forty-five minutes or so and was grateful for it. I knew I had to hit town for those fuses, but I just didn’t feel like going today.
She reemerged from the woods with more of those leek-looking things peeking over the edge of her basket and picked her way along the river’s edge back to the shallows. She came back my way on our side of the river as I was emptying the guts of the second trout into the water to be swept downriver. She made a face and I chuckled.
“What’d you find?” I asked.
She smiled big and held up her basket. She brought it over and set it on the ground next to me, crouching beside me.
“Leeks that aren’t leeks, is that garlic?” She nodded, and I kept on with the inventory. “Poisonous mushrooms.”
She rolled her eyes and punched me lightly in the shoulder.
“Ow! Hey!” It didn’t hurt at all, I just wanted her to feel better.
She laughed and shook her head, then moved the leeks aside and brought out the real prize.
“Holy shit, how’d you get that?”
She wrinkled her nose impishly and shook her head but the pint-sized Mason jar she held up was chock full of honey and even had a chunk of the comb in it. I shook my head and grasped her wrist gently, inspecting her arm. She took it back and waved a hand back and forth.
She shrugged and moved her hair aside, there was a welt on the side of her neck and I sucked in a breath between my teeth.
“Good thing you aren’t allergic.”
She rolled her eyes and gave me a look that was clearly ‘Really, dude?’
“Right, like you would go reaching into wild bee hives if you were allergic.”
She nodded her head once, a haughty expression on her face, like ‘Precisely’. I smiled and shook my head.
“You’re full of surprises, Everleigh. I really wish we’d met under different circumstances.”
Her smile faded, and my own heart felt heavy in my chest as she stood up abruptly. She nodded her head ‘Me too’ and turned, ghosting up the path to the cabin steps. I sighed and finished my task at hand so I could follow her.
She’d been productive. Candles in every conceivable type of container were lined up outside on the porch railing, from old soup cans to Mason jars of every size; I think she’d even filled an old metal coffee can, using three wicks for that one. She’d probably made enough citronella candles to last the rest of the summer season and then some. The air on the back porch was already heavy with the candle’s perfume as they worked on setting up in the muggy and oppressive afternoon heat.
I went into the kitchen with the fish and over to the old cutting board next to the sink. She was at the sink, rinsing her finds from the woods, and washing the leek-looking vegetables and the garlic thoroughly.
“Fish is probably going to taste better,” I said.
She gave a brave smile and made a filleting motion with the edge of her hand.
“Can I fillet them?”
She nodded and I nodded back.
“Yeah, not a problem.”
I got to work on that while she tore sheets off a roll of aluminum foil she’d found in here somewhere.
We worked in our usual silence and I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She seemed almost content, moving around the small kitchen, like having the simple task of making something ‒ a meal, or candles ‒ or even just hooking this place up with a facelift was doing her soul some good.
She’d been a bit of a gypsy, a wanderer, when I’d met her running with the Knights of Crescentia, and I could recall that when we were out camping, she’d pretty much been happiest, but what I really think she craved was putting down some roots somewhere, making a space her own and staying for a while. I also got the impression she wanted to do it anywhere but where she’d originally come from, though I had no idea where that was. At least, not yet.
She put together foil packets of fish and vegetables and I asked her, “You want me to get a campfire going for those? Seems like a better bet than making it any more miserable in here by turning on the oven.”
She thought about it a minute and finally nodded.
“Cool, I’ve got it from here, then. You want to set the table?”
She nodded and I put the plate with the foil packets in the fridge and went downstairs. It didn’t take me any time at all to build a cook fire in the river-stone fire pit off the back porch. By the time it was going and I headed back upstairs for the fish, she had the table set and was sitting at one of the empty seats, fiddling with an old radio she’d found somewhere, probably another treasure from the loft. There was just so much shit up there. I’d honestly been amazed that she’d been able to find anything up there, let alone a whole bed. The loft was jam-packed with boxes full of shit.
“Need help with that?” I asked and she shook her head, eyeing the plate of foil packets in my hands. I smiled and asked, “Hungry?”
She nodded emphatically and I chuckled.
“Okay, food first, and if you haven’t got it by the time I get back in the house, I’ll have a look at it while we eat.”
She nodded, absorbed in trying to make the old radio work and I went down and cooked up our food. When I got back upstairs, she still hadn’t gotten it and was looking at the old electronic mutinously.
I laughed and said, “Here, dish up and let me have a run at it.”
It was old. As in, ‘had a tape deck’ old, so, probably the eighties? I fiddled with it and found that it plugged into the wall, but it also took nine-volt batteries. I wondered if that might be the problem, but didn’t think it could be. That would be weird… unless the cord or the plug itself was bad.
I thought we had some around here in a junk drawer in the kitchen; we tried to keep batteries on hand, always. I went in the kitchen and looked and found the two the radio wanted, both different brands, but a battery was a battery. I didn’t think it mattered much.
I flattened the frayed ribbon and stuck the batteries in. It didn’t have the back plate to secure them anymore, but I didn’t think that mattered too much, either. The light in the old-fashioned dial lit up and I edged up the volume to static.
Everleigh perked up and I twisted it until some synth-pop bullshit came crackling out of the speaker. She scowled and I kept going. Country came through next, and she grimaced. I smiled and kept going. Classic rock came next and she nodded, eyeing me speculatively.
“I can live with it.”
She made the horns and head-banged for a second and pointed at me.
“Am I more heavy and death metal?” I asked.
She nodded and I shook my head.
“The real me likes all kinds of music. Classic rock is good. Some of the new stuff isn’t bad. What about you?
She shrugged and kind of left off, pushing a plate of food at me. The leek-like vegetable had a sort of onion flavor to it and was pretty good with the mushrooms and garlic. The fish turned out good and both of us cleared our plates in record time.
She brought over bread and the fresh honey she’d gathered, and slathered a piece with it for dessert. It actually hit the spot.
We both sat back in our seats, satisfied, and she pointed at the radio.
I nodded.
“Sure, I’ll listen to whatever you’d like.”
I was surprised when she turned it to the AM stations and twisted the knob through news reports, landing on the Golden Oldies station. You know, shit from the 1940’s and ‘50’s.
“You like old-school old-school stuff, huh?”
She smiled, that secret little Mona Lisa smile of hers and nodded softly and I figured there had to be some nostalgia to it somewhere. I nodded and got up, thinking it must be a grandparent somewhere. She got up, too, clearing dishes, and I stretched with a gusty sigh.
“These the clothes you found up there?” I asked, rifling through what was on the bed.
She came around the kitchen’s corner and nodded.
“Cool, some serious Farmer Bob shit,” I said, holding up a pair of overalls. “But some of it should work. At least until Driller can bring his ass out here.”
She peeked back around the corner and turned her head.
“When will that be?” I asked.
She nodded.
“No fucking idea, but hopefully sooner, rather than later. I’m running out of cash and I’m going to need some if I plan on hauling any of this shit out of here.”
She heaved a sigh and eyed the loft, then looked to the floor.
“Yeah, I feel you. Believe me.”
She held up her apron and made a scrubbing motion against her lap.
“You want to do laundry?”
She nodded.
I nodded and said, “Sure, we can do that. I suppose that’s your way of saying hurry my ass up and get a clothesline up for drying.”
She smiled sweetly, wrinkled her nose impishly and nodded. I laughed.
“I’ll go see what I’ve got, but it’s starting to get dark, so I may not get it up tonight.”
She nodded and I went down to the garage.
There were two ‘T’ shaped posts planted at one end of the yard, sturdy, but there wasn’t any line strung between them to hang anything on. I found some eye hooks still in their packaging and big spool of paracord that almost matched the dress she was wearing in color. I went out and tried twisting one of the eye hooks into the wood and found it was harder than it looked. I didn’t have a cordless drill with the right kind of bit, but I did have a pair of channel locks to grip it with and spare my fingers. It would work, but it would be slow going.
I worked on it until the light failed enough I couldn’t keep it up but I’d gone back and forth between the two posts and had it halfway done, enough that I should be able to string some to give her a fair start while I worked the rest in.
When I went upstairs, I found her lounging on her bed, showered and clean, wearing her nightgown, her dress folded neatly on her apple crate shelf and the apron she’d found somewhere hanging from a rusty nail by the back door.
“Look at you go,” I said.
She smiled over the top of a book she’d found, reading it by lantern light. I didn’t quite know how she did it.
“I’m going to grab a shower and hit the hay,” I told her and she nodded.
“Night, Everleigh.”
She waved at me, her eyes still on her book and I chuckled.
Best I was going to get.