Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 115
It was dark but that didn’t mean much, once the sun cleared its zenith and began heading west it would soon vanish behind the western side of the big house and then into the dense woods to the west. The grounds could look like twilight at six p.m. or even four closest to winter. The family, well, mother and Nana now, had their dinner in the main dining room at six sharp every day. The live-in help had there’s around seven both in and around the kitchen, even outside on the lawn when the weather was warm enough. People would be cleaning and going about their nightly chores at the back of the house until eight or nine. The house wouldn’t be truly quiet until ten and even then, there would be the tell-tale lamp lights in Nana’s and mother’s rooms until eleven or midnight. Some of the house hold staff would keep candles burning into the wee hours.
Felecia stared at the seams around the cellar door and saw no flashes of candle or electric light. Something told her she hadn’t passed out half standing for that long. Opening the cellar doors and walking out into the open air would be dangerous now, she knew. Someone from the house would see her, probably Elle or her daughter, God forbid Rachel even.
Felecia looked down in the dark and tried to pat some of the filth off her arms before she collected her bow and made sure she could reach her arrows easily. Someone would see her, someone would make one of the younger girls run down to the village, the new groundskeeper would be put to task in driving off the outcast. Maybe once and for all this time.
The cellar doors opened with a significant amount of creaking and reluctance due to rusty hinges that just barely continued to do their part. Felecia was trying to open both doors quietly until she could get clear and let one of the doors close before she finished walking up the stairs but the still wet and moss-covered wood slipped from her hand and the left-hand cellar door slapped back into place with a wet thud.
There was light, more of it than Felecia had planned for or could imagine. She wasn’t even sure what time of year it was anymore. There was heavy rain, as heavy as she ever marched through, was it fall then, or a wet spring? The entire house staff seemed to be laying out on blankets on the damp grass or seated at a long bench just beyond the kitchen door. Not only were the lights from the kitchen on, shining through the windows, but there a dozen lanterns left out on the table and near the blankets.
The staff were settled into their meal for the night and Felecia saw every one of them there. Elle and Katerina were sitting at one end of the table next to Josephine and some poor girl who must have been a more recent hire from the village. The girl had the same wide, wet eyes, black hair, and the same flat cheeks and jowls of most of the fishy looking villagers. Beyond them sat some of the other maids and house staff that Felecia had known her entire life by their first names only. Sitting out on the blankets were most of the younger folk. The girls from the village no doubt hired for the season or the year to work the gardens, milk the goats, collect the chickens eggs. Rachel was among that handful of girls, looking radiant and fuller of frame.
Felecia felt fine and justified suffering the looks of judgement and wide-eyed shock she received from the rest of the cowards and the willing underlings. She didn’t bother to pull at her drab clothing or her filth coated poncho while the dull multitude yawned their mouths wide open, not until Felecia saw Rachel and her immediate entourage.
The once gangly older girl seemed ready to hold some unsettled court among the lesser girls around her who still dug at roots, milked reluctant goats, and dug through yellow eggs for winners. The princess unseated herself thoroughly by being the first to stand and begin running for the safety of the house. Rachel never did recognize Felecia, not looking like that anyway. She saw the filthy wretch with the bow and arrow and ran for safety, nearly trampling Kat and making a tea kettle howl all the while.