emptymouthpiece

Sun Kissed Innsmouth

Part Sixty Seven

The old woman didn’t stop and grunt out some gruff or dismissive reply. The old woman didn’t even slow down. Her careful yet steady steps continued as she used her gnarled walking stick to choose a level path through the meadow.

Felecia walked through the doorway of the abandoned house and onto the lawn, the chicken that had been following her since she arrived at the property clucked and ducked beneath the corral, following along as she chose to step away from the abandoned house.

The stupid bird distracted her, wasting her time and forcing her to stop instead of keeping pace with the old woman who moved with surprising grace and speed once the clearest path was chosen through the meadow. “No. Go back. Go away you dumb bird.”

The chicken didn’t slow or stop either. The bird didn’t look up at Felecia as she attempted to shoo it away, the chicken only ran up within pecking distance of her muddy boots and began to peck absently at the ground nearby.

The old woman still didn’t stop, or slow, but she spoke loudly over her shoulder, disturbing the general quiet of the night. “I call that one Natty. I named her after my mother because she has more heart than sense.”

Felecia heard the words without really acknowledging them, she kept her attention on the chicken for a few moments and then switched her attention and noticed the old woman was still walking away from her briskly.

“Wait!”

That same petulant, expecting call came flowing out. Phillip had stopped for it though, three times over. When Felecia relied on it most though, the word didn’t seem to do much at all. The next play was crying but Felecia felt too old for that.

The words came out then, the ones Felecia had let build and dam up in her throat. “My Nana threw me out and the people in the village tried to kill me. You look just like her, I have to know, are you a Conway, like me? Please, can’t you just stop and talk to me?”

The old woman didn’t stop, she didn’t even slow, her gnarled stick kept sweeping along the path ahead as her feet padded through the grassy meadow as she spoke, “No.”

Felecia stopped following for a moment and felt more defeated than ever before. Her grandmother didn’t want her, her mother denied her, the villagers turned out to be a sour mess of thieves and villains, and suddenly she found herself in the presence of her Nana’s doppelganger and the creature was refusing every polite request for simple discourse.

“Why?”

The question came out just as loud and confident as her oft lamented call to wait and it seemed just as feeble and without function until the old woman stopped halfway between her place out in the meadow and the woods that waited beyond.

The old woman called out without turning or looking around, “Someone knock you up?”

Felecia didn’t consider the question much. She didn’t sit on it or think about the why’s of such a question. “No. I’m thirteen years old.”

“You’re fine then. No worries for you. Too young and naïve for real worry.” The old woman spoke loudly and started back on her path to the woods.

Felecia nearly howled and sent the chicken next to her scrambling back to the corral. “I’m not fine. I’m hungry and out here on my own. I’m a damned outcast, from my people, from the people around me, from everyone overall. I’m a murderess. I’ve killed, twice over. I’ve killed to survive and then again for the sake of my anger.”

The old woman didn’t turn around but she did stop altogether and seemed to hold her directional lantern to the side, illuminating farther fields of flowery meadows to the south.

“Is that all?”

The question sounded like a damning prospect. The old woman’s substantial if not colloquial speech served only to stoke the righteous anger that Felecia felt in her heart.