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CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

Isha Maera had been awake for hours before sunrise, busily cleaning and preparing for her husband’s return, but she had been very quiet and not roused Hugly or Truck. Instead, they were both awakened by the sound from outside: a woman angrily scolding someone.

Truck breathed a filling breath. With his brow crunched to the middle, he sat himself up in his bedding, where he had lain warmly all night along the backside of one of the home’s eight emberhearths, whose chimneys ascended in smooth stone spirals, roundabout and within the rafters above. Though dawn had begun, it was yet quite dark in this part of the broad floor of the home. Truck could see a luminary on the wall, and he shook its contents to light, finding that Isha Maera had put for him a nicely right-sized branch for a walking stick next to his cleaned and folded clothes. Beside them, he also found a newly sewn pair of fuzzy warm fur slippers to walk across the wooden floor.

Hugly, having heard the woman’s voice much closer from the outbuilding, sat up, wrapped himself in his blanket, and twisted a small, wall-affixed piece of metal. He leaned forward, so he was now able to peer through the tiny hole it was covering.

There, in the breaking light, a dozen yards away, he saw a woman and a boy standing near the home’s entry. They were accompanied by their own steamy breaths that slowly dissipated in the still, cold air.

The boy, about eight years of age, was shaking and jerking in his spine and neck as the cold was setting hold of him and clawing at his exposed bright red hands and face—undoubtedly both stinging and numb. He was uncomfortably attempting to stand in a manner that brought on the least derision. He wore home-stitched lichen boots, trousers, coat and hat that were browning with age, worn very thin, and were far too small for him.

The woman was young, at about thirty, tall, and pear-shaped. She was also wearing worn lichen overclothes, but they were fairly new and still green. She also had a field mouse cloak that started on her head, was wrapped about and tied at her neck, and left her round face breaching a furry hole. This silk lined fur cloak draped down about her and dragged the ground where it was worn and dirty. She had a large crooked crease upon her brow.

Through her teeth, she berated the boy in frustration for something he wasn’t doing in a manner she wanted. With her left hand in a woven red glove and her right in a blue one, she jerked the boy about by his collar. Roughly grabbing a half dried and frozen booger from the boy’s nose and upper lip, she poorly attempted to fling it away before she spun him to face the door. Then, she sharply pulled the two-note door ringer thrice before adjusting her sun gold and orange mixed hair about her face.

After a moment, Isha Maera opened the door. The woman began speaking something that she had, no doubt, prepared to say. Isha Maera cut her off and hurried them both past her into the passage with impatient hand waves.

Just before closing the door, she looked in his direction and sang, “Hugly, my Schmonkle… Today’s the day…”

Hugly had no idea what the word meant, but it felt good. He smiled as he donned his clothes.

Inside, the woman had bypassed the boot and coat station near the door and had made her way over to a warm hearth. She had been talking all the time in rising notes to emphasize a carefree attitude she had about the several fleeting issues she had mentioned in as many steps.

After nearly throwing off her cloak, coat, and boots, she leaned in to bake herself warm, as she now began speaking of things that other people owned, which she would very dearly like to have for herself. She stopped this briefly to curtly address her son with instructions in manners, as Isha Maera had been kneeling before him and helping with his clothes.

Restarting the sentence she was saying, Isha Maera said quietly to him, “You’ll work indoors today, Fetter. Yeah, yeah?” She crinkled her eyes and gave him a tiny reassuring head nod before patting him off into the kitchen for a wash up and to sit him near the cook stove with a biscuit and a warm cup of cream in his hands.

When she returned, the woman was still speaking. “It smells just dreamy, Isha Maera. You’re such a dreamy cook. I had to start so early and it was such a walk, so I didn’t have time to make anything. I don’t suppose you have any leftovers laying around before we get started?”

“Of course, Ginah,” replied Isha Maera, as she took up the woman’s winter clothes and walked out of sight.

More loudly so that she could be heard, Ginah began speaking again. This time, she critically shared about some other young woman who lived far off and about how she had tragically never learned to cook because her family had servants who catered to her every whim.

Just then, an upright Truck hobbled with his stick into view from the shadows, with his feet sliding beneath him. A surprised Ginah stopped mid-sentence and stared.

“Hello. I’m Truck,” he introduced himself from across the room, as she silently watched him unsteadily shuffle himself to a bench at the supper table, which was now receiving reflected sunlight from above. This was the quickest place to relieve his difficult motion, and it was also the most appropriate place, as Isha Maera came in then with a platter of food and drinks to set before him.

“I thought you’d be up soon,” she said, setting the platter down and putting her hands on her hips with a smile. “Turn yourself,” she instructed, conducting him to stretch out his legs on the bench and lean some weight onto the table with his elbow. He washed his hands in a small basin.

“Have you met Ginah?” she asked, waving her over to sit and eat.

Ginah had been very attentively watching how the two of them interacted. She corrected her seated posture by arching her back and lifting her chin. Deliberately drawing a broad smile across her face, she ceremoniously and unnaturally stood and walked herself over to the table. With the wood of the bench creaking beneath her, she tried to sit delicately down, across from Truck. She had been looking at his face and presenting hers to him the whole time. Sitting erectly, she pulled her straggly hair behind her ears with the very tips of her fingers. Her smile never wavered.

“Very nice to meet you,” she said in practiced politeness.

Isha Maera transferred the last of the tray items to the table, and Ginah oddly turned her fixed smiling face toward her, nodded slightly, and then spoke oddly casual, “I had no idea that you had… a visitor.” The statement implied Ginah’s desire to know more, and it also mildly implied an accusation that Isha Maera was relating to someone other than her husband.

“Thank you, sis,” Truck said, fully understanding the situation and personality that was unfolding before him. “Considering Foster’s return, it would be most appropriate to have nine lights up high today. Don’t you think?” he said this, while raising his hands and then bowing his head to begin a fervent short prayer of thanks. Isha Maera bowed her head, and Ginah did the same, assessing all the while.

Humming in gaiety back to the kitchen, Isha Maera found Hugly and Fetter giggling quietly together at their white cream mustaches, while making a crumby mess around them as they washed down a good part of a golden dozen hot biscuits.

“Tsk, tsk. More messes…” she gently scolded, before sending Fetter off to wipe wood structures free of dust from high in the room and Hugly to affect a hand full of outside chores.

Returning to the table, she found Ginah nonchalantly probing Truck of his status in life, pretending she was not interested in eating everything before her. Isha Maera began listing the menial cleaning duties she wanted Ginah to set out straight away to do. Ginah pretended not to be embarrassed. Excusing herself, she reappeared later with her hair drawn back and one of Isha Maera’s aprons on. She busily hummed and la-la’ed some notes, while adjusting things in the room and sneaking peeks at whether Truck was noticing her.

He wasn’t. Truck was now immersed in the table covering of books and papers that Isha Maera brought to him from his effects, which was much easier because she had adjusted the ceiling reflector to fully light the whole house with bright sunlight that rayed in places through much of the rafters, beams, and posts. He had arrayed his study implements and accouterments before him.

At some point, Ginah stopped her exhausting work and came over to attempt a show of admiration. Picking up a small, decorative, brass paperweight, she examined it and said, “This is very pretty… It looks expensive. You must’ve got this from a Bone,” she suggested in flattery, as she leaned, profiling her torso.

Truck glanced up over his wire spectacles to say, “Yes, from my grandfather,” before looking back to the table busily.

With the day moving slowly for Isha Maera, by noon, she had walked outside and checked the road seven times for Foster’s approach. At one point, hearing noise outside, she hurried to find that Gainer, a neighbor friend of Foster, had come to welcome him home. As the sun had dipped its fall day angle toward the horizon, the mid-aged farmer, notable for his large paunch and a caterpillar of a mustache came over with the very young wife that he was raising, and a fresh berry pie he had taught her to make. Under his arm was a small cask of ale that he was hoping to pop in celebration.

The young and unsure woman with a pale face, surrounded by her cropped red hair, stood looking at her husband, until he kindly instructed her, “Go on. Give it to her.”

“Congratulation,” she said, nervously singular, as she handed the pie to Isha Maera and quickly returned to her husband’s side.

“It smells divine, Dot. Thank you,” Isha Maera said, putting her nose to it. “We’re gonna have to do some cooking together,” she suggested reassuringly.

The young wife shyly smiled with delight, holding on to her husband’s arm.

Seeing that Isha Maera was still in waiting, Gainer set the cask in a shaded spot on the broad stoop. “Well, we’ve got winter prep to do. Send Hug-me when Foster arrives,” he jested. “I’ve got lots to tell him when he’s ready.”

“Of course, there’s plenty of time. He doesn’t go back until late winter. Make sure you come back to me Dot, so we can practice our braids too.”

The day rolled on, and as a measure to keep her sanity, Isha Maera promised herself that she would no longer go out to the road—although she had found herself doing so again several times anyway.

As evening set in, she paid Ginah for the day and sent her and Fetter home, with instructions to return the next morning. After supper, she sat in a chair on the porch and sipped tea. Truck hobbled his way out to her and sat down.

“Looks like he’s running a little late,” he noted.

“Nothing to worry about. A little patience is in order,” she said, applying some wisdom.

“Father was weeks late coming back from the Fairness Troubles. Turns out the refugees had clogged the roads and the inns. Mother never blinked an eye,” he reminded her.

“It’s alright, Truck. When you meet him, you’ll understand what a great man he is.” She was sure and proud.

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