Breaking the Fog by C C Mitchell

Author:C C Mitchell [Mitchell, C C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-29T22:00:00+00:00

The sun rose with an ominous red glow, haloing the spears of the trees in the west, dark sentries that guarded the backside of our town. The smell of sulfurous minerals and fires hung on the air that blew down from the north. I wrinkled my nose and hugged my threadbare shawl closer to my body. That mine would be the death of this place, no matter what the officials and merchants said.

I trudged down the excuse of a dirt road, mud sucking at my boots. The track was a cesspool waiting to be acknowledged. My bare foot squelched into the muck. I grimaced before even looking down. A few feet behind me, my half-submerged boot perkily poked out of the slime. Swearing, I pivoted on my one booted foot and yanked my other boot from the muck’s grasp while keeping my balance with the bucket of water in my other hand. I would have to walk the rest of the way home with one boot on. I didn’t dare put my rancid foot back in the other one.

My foot was disgusting, and my thin sock was ruined by the time the trees loomed over me. Our house was the closest to the edge of the forest to the west, and didn’t warm up nearly enough to be livable, even with a fire blazing. The winter had been more awful than usual, and its icy tendrils clung possessively in the shadows of the trees.

I paused outside to wash my foot with some of the water from the bucket I carried and then went into the shack. The plank door screeched as I shut it behind me, and I placed the bucket of water just inside the doorway. Embers glowed feebly in the fire pit to my right and a groan came from the bedrolls to my left.

“Good morning, Father,” I said loudly as I went to the fire pit and tossed some evergreen needles on the embers.

Another groan drifted across the hut.

“It is past dawn, and that means you should be at the mine.” It was a waste of breath to inform him.

Some incoherent syllables bobbed through the air in reply.

I coaxed the fire back to life with needles from the trees and then tossed a few pieces of wood on top. I strolled across the hut to where my father lay sprawled on his stomach, retrieving the bucket of water on the way. I stood over him a moment, nudging his water skin that laid just beyond his fingertips with my toe. I tried calling to him a few more times. He didn’t respond so I tipped the bucket over his head. He leaped up with a yell and I backed up against the wall to avoid getting a tooth knocked loose.

“Curse you, girl! Haven’t I told you not to wake me like that?” he hollered at me after wiping the water from his eyes.

“Yes, you have, quite clearly, but how else am I supposed to rouse you when you go to sleep every night in a drunken stupor?” I yelled back at him.

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