Sunkissed Innsmouth
Part Thirteen
Felecia felt like a loaded pack animal. Tethered and tied up hunks of smoked and salt cured meats were secured and hung on her back, over and across her neck, even tied around her waist. Phillip was the same way and more so because he also had their blankets and other camping gear rolled up and slung over his back like a massive tarpaulin. The rain had been threatening for most of the day but finally decided to deluge as they finished packing and heading for home. The good news as Phillip put it was “we aren’t too far from home” the bad news was that “heavy rain will make every mile feel like five as the mud and the muck suck at our feet.”
The groundskeeper wasn’t wrong, the rain hit so hard it hurt and the stuff never stopped. Old, smelly oil skins were broken out of the camp gear and tied around them until they became featureless blobs with small hoods denoting where their faces should be. Felecia didn’t miss her warm and cozy room in Rotary house, she was already past those days, mostly. Times like these didn’t make her miss that place, but the circumstances did have her asking ugly and angry questions. Her father, imperfect as he was, he knew Phillip, they were friends, father knew how the people in the village toiled and suffered. Father did nothing to help them between his voyages. Father never went down to the village, to speak with or thank the people who essentially worked for him from sun up to sun down to keep his family in finery. He also left them in no better place for his passing than he did the dwindling estate of Rotary house.
Felecia became so lost in thought as she worked slowly through the mud that she forgot herself and became careless with her footing. Her left foot sank deep just behind Phillip’s last footfall that she had been following in. There was a moment of panic as she lifted herself up and nothing happened. When her leg finally did come up out of the muck there was no boot attached.
I would have kept them so as to remember my brother by.
The youth’s voice seemed to ring out in Felecia’s head as she pulled at her leg only to come up without its boot attached. Once she realized her foot was bare, she stuck her foot back into the mud and bent over, digging with her hands in an attempt to find the missing, already worn bit of leather. She got to it so busily she didn’t notice Phillip stopping ahead or coughing to sound out his presence. She didn’t even notice him as he trudged back through his old footsteps to reach her and pull at her as she fought with the mud for its dear keepsake.
“Those boots were worn through, I can make new ones out of these hides for you, leave it.”
Felecia didn’t look up or say anything until a strong hand gripped her arm.
“No.” Felecia shouted and pulled away as she kept digging. She didn’t fully understand why, the need, the anger, the anguish, not until she closed her eyes for a second and saw the haunted, constantly turned down eyes of Phillip’s boy, his second boy.
“Your boy, he said these boots were special. I need to find it!”
Felecia dug at the flooding earth and pulled away handfuls of thick, sticky earth until Phillip’s hand landed down over her arm. “My boy died the year after you father did. You can’t stoop out here and drown for the sake of the dead. Let it go.”
Those haunting, angry, down cast eyes, that slender sullen face. Felecia hated that she spent so much time thinking about the hateful youth who barely acknowledged her existence, but she did so all the same. Felecia pulled away from Phillip’s grasp and dug deeper, almost unbalancing herself and sending her and worse still the dry meat she caried down into the water and the mud. She barely managed to free the tired old boot before Phillip yanked her away from the muddy road and up the side of a rocky hill.
“I told you to leave it!”
Phillip had never shouted at Felecia before, never shown the anger towards her that he seemed so ready to offer up to his remaining son. Not until Felecia was lost in searching only to come up with a lost and largely worthless promise of old. He let go of Felecia and she landed on her oil skin protected ass in the mud. She took the time to empty the boot of mud and debris before pulling it back on, and she also took her time to steady herself while avoiding any offers from the old groundskeeper to help her up.
“Your boy loves these boots, I had to save them!” Even as Felecia shouted the words above the rain and the wind, she knew they were subjective and open to easy debate. Phillip grunted and pointed out at the muddy banks and the little rivers being made in the earth around them. “My boy demands memorabilia, I don’t. I can waste a day and make you a new pair of boots but if you die right now, half a dozen babes will starve on the tit thanks to you.”
Felecia got moving and kept out of her head as she slowly plodded along directly behind Phillip, still using his impressions as sure footing through the muck. The slow pace was maddening and the rain seemed to only ever get worse but eventually they saw a lit lamp outside of the groundskeepers house in the distance.