Black Gold by Alexis Blakely

Author:Alexis Blakely [Blakely, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

The old woman shook her head slowly, like a mother too disappointed in her children to even scold them. She made a weird clucking sound in the back of her throat, then turned around and shut the door she’d left open in her surprise at discovering us in her living room. I couldn’t see what she was doing after she walked past, but I was pretty sure I heard the crinkle of tinfoil and the clatter of metal on ceramic. There was a sound of feet slapping and scuffing away from me, in what I thought was the direction of the kitchen, followed shortly by the soft suction of a fridge door opening then closing again. I heard her run water for nearly a minute, then there was a click I couldn’t identify. For several minutes there was almost no sound but for the occasional whisper of her feet from across the house. I thought I heard the creak of a door open at one point, and it wasn’t until I heard the sharp rumble of boiling water just before a harsh whistle that I realized what she’d been doing.

Please don’t be boiling water to torture me with, I thought frantically as the footsteps returned. I prepared myself to have scalding liquid thrown in my face, but when the old woman reappeared before me, she was holding a handmade ceramic mug with the tag from a bag of tea dangling off the side.

“What am I going to do with you two?” she asked.

I tried to answer, but of course no sound came out of my mouth. The question seemed to have been rhetorical, since the old woman didn’t stick around to wait for an answer. She blew on her tea before taking a small sip, then she set the cup down on a table and disappeared from my line of sight again. When she returned, she held a wide and shallow basin that looked like it had been hand carved from wood. The basin was filled was crystal clear water. She set it down next to her tea, and like a college student putting hands to keyboard in order to start a term paper, she dipped her fingers into the surface and began muttering to herself.

The hermitess worked for several minutes. Every once in a while she’d frown then look my way. At one point she seemed to be looking past me, then she stood up and walked around me to where Chase was most likely stuck just like I was. If he wasn’t, then he was in much worse shape than I thought. When she’d completed her inspection, she stopped in front of me, then reached out and made a gesture over my face. I felt the tension around my eyes and mouth relax, and I blinked several times even though my eyes weren’t actually irritated from being open so long.

“What are you doing here?” the old woman asked.

“That’s complicated,” I told her. It wasn’t that far off the truth.

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