Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 180
In the end it was easy, if not awfully exploitative. Felecia watched from afar until she noticed Phillip moving about the house and the porch especially. If he was up and about, he was likely more lucid, and more lucid meant more sane. Would Taryn dare to cause a scene in front of dearPa?
Felecia arrived in the late morning carrying nearly a dozen eggs, a mason jar of goats milk, and a basket full of sweet potatoes and cabbages from her fields.
Phillip answered the door to his hovel and shrugged at the apparition waiting for him before turning back to the burning coals in the hearth. Life had gotten even more grim for them since she was last there. The interior was just as empty, just as bleak, and somehow even filthier than before. The old groundskeeper slumped into the old rocking chair and ignored Felecia as she came in and left the bounty of offerings in the small kitchen.
“You died. You should go soon, before they find you.”
Those were the only words Phillip managed while she was there and Felecia couldn’t really argue them, not even if she had wanted to.
Taryn didn’t come in until supper time and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Felecia there preparing what dinner could be made from the ingredients she had brought.
They all ate well and drank the rankest of brews made from grain alcohol mixed with fish scales, bitter berries, and mint.
Felecia didn’t find the courage she needed while they ate without words, nor did she muster it while she cleaned up and Taryn did his best to put Phillip to bed even though the old ruin refused to leave his place in the rocking chair by the fire.
They were out on the porch and Taryn was rolling a cigarette and had it lit before Felecia found the nerve.
“I am so, so so…”
Taryn ejected a plume of yellow smoke and bit into her words. “Save it.”
No down cast, hang dog looks, no invisible spots on the ground needing to be yearned for. Taryn spat the words and continued to smoke until Felecia tried again.
“I was scared to death of myself, of what had happened to me, and what I had done. You didn’t deserve any of what I said that night. You were only ever kind and I repaid that kindness with cruelty. I really do owe you an apology.”
Taryn looked to be truly considering what was said as he smoked until he nearly burned his knuckles before extinguishing the smoke. “Village got sorted. You look well, that’s what matters. Glad you figured it out.”
Felecia shook her head and nearly sobbed, “I’m not well, not at all. I messed up every opportunity ever given me. My Father, Bartholomew, Phillip, the people who took a chance on me in the village, Jacqueline. All I am, all I’ve ever been is a nuisance at best or a supposed means to an end, and an ugly one at that.”
Taryn didn’t shrug or start looking for some invisible spot on the ground, he didn’t look disinterested or vague like he was trying to keep up with a conversation that was beyond his understanding. The youth nodded in the direction of Rotary house and started rolling a second cigarette made mostly from corn silk.
“Tell me about the big house? We don’t see the lights up there no more.”
Felecia never spoke of the night she came upon her sainted Nana out there on the gazebo overlooking the cliff. Talking about that night seemed profane, still. As if remembering it alone much less talking about it might some how make it real once and for all, or worse, less real for all she had been through and seen.
“That place is empty. I know that I’m the last Conway.”
Saying those words made Felecia feel haunted and more alone than ever before. A sudden need to cover herself and keep warm overtook Felecia and she pulled her coat closed. Before her cruel outburst there might have been a time that such a showing would have elicited Taryn going to some heroic length to bring a blanket to her or start a fire but that time was past.
Taryn motioned to the hill and the bit of roof leering over the trees that could be seen between the groundskeepers shack and the Big House. “If the big house is empty. Like for real, empty; we should just take it then.”
Felecia could see how that thought might appeal to someone like Taryn. Everyone in the village grew up in the shadow of the mansion, imagining how magnificent and easy life must have been for the well-dressed folks who lived there. Taryn’s own childhood had been a miserable drudgery punctuated only by tragedy. Surely life on the hill must have been better?
Felecia didn’t have the courage or the heart to once again abuse the youth of his easy supposition. There were plenty of current realities to be made aware of. Not the least of which was the state of the place at present.
“You saw that barn last year when we tracked Phillip down. The whole place is rotten and already sagging into the earth, the mansion has nearly thirty rooms all told and none of it has seen upkeep since I was forced out. No, that place is a graveyard.”
Taryn smoked some more and pondered as he stared at the peak of the roof just above the trees. At last, he spoke his mind, “Sagging and moldy is still dry and more secure than this place.”
Felecia couldn’t argue that sentiment so she nodded and motioned at the bit of roof that could be seen from where they stood on the porch. “You and Phillip could settle the first floor. Be sure to watch the staircase though, it wasn’t sturdy even during the best of times.”
Taryn walked over to Felecia and shrugged in the direction of the hovel, “You ever hear of Pa being warm to new ideas?”
Felecia was thankful for the moment given, a moment to smile, a moment to find mirth in all the muck. A genuine moment to share with the youth since she had so cruelly turned him away.
“No, I don’t imagine Phillip would give up that rocking chair, unless you moved it over there and then yeah, he’d rather sit on the floor.”
Taryn took a drag and casually offered the cigarillo over to Felecia. The habit overall seemed awful, it looked and smelled bad and once Felecia took the thing and took a drag she could confirm that it tasted awful as well. Yet there was no doubt that the tobacco did something rather significantly to the senses once inhaled.
“Naw, Pa wouldn’t move even if you set that place on fire.”
Taryn spoke and nodded at his own knowledge while Felecia smoked until she offered the cigarillo back to him. “I bet the place would go up like dry kindling now.”
Felecia recoiled as if from instinct and was careful to not be so obvious as to offend the youth. He didn’t know, he couldn’t. He would and could never know. The monster in the waves was dead, truly and forever gone and he was just some young man making an obvious deduction of what to do with derelict property. He was not, in anyway a controlled character in the monsters ugly play, merely a machination in its awful designs.
Felecia’s eyes closed and she could still hear little Kat’s howls of agony from her awful dream of old. No one would be crying if the Big House caught alight then, no one at all would care if it burned down to the last scrap of wood that night, yet Felecia still jumped, and still felt scared and anxious and yes, angry at the suggestion.