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I woke still dreaming. Murmered something about cheating at chess, then fell back to sleep.
What seemed to be a few minutes later I jumped straight up in bed. There was both a swelling and a dryness in the back of my throat. My first instinct was to cough, hard. My breath stuck in my throat and tried to force its way through the walls before turning around and having me swallow it. I gasped, burped, and gasped again. There was a sudden pop in my nose and warm goey mucus flowed out.
Tok, tok, tok. There was a soft knock at my door. Nothing happened that day. I had no appetite, yet I spent most of the day on the toilet outside. Tremarch returned and still nothing much happened. He cooked me various noodle soups (entirely homemade!) while I was sick, which was only for about four days. Seems kind of pathetic that I missed my chance to go to town over that.
One rather boring afternoon, I was sulking around the living room, and the food storage door came into view. Thinking about it didn't bother me nearly as much now. I could hardly remember all that had happened, but I did remember to ask Tremarch about the loud roaring and the earthquake. After a bellowing laugh he assured me not to worry. Convincing me that the earthquake had nothing to do with the storage room, Tremarch took me down to help decide what should be cooked for supper that night. The storage room was small and dark, typical underground food storage. Or at least until Tremarch struck a match and lit up a lamp. Then, just like the rest of the house, the small storage room seemed to catch the fire and glow as if it was never shadowed, and never could be. Lined along the thin wooden shelves was a variety of preserves, jams, and aging sauces. A brittle looking wine bottle holder was behind the spaced out stairs which led down from the living room door. Boxes and barrels of vegetables, plants, roots, and mushrooms were stacked and fitted between clumps of brown paper wraps, which I presumed to be hunted meat, beneath the shelves that stretched to the end of the skinny room. I also remembered to ask about the room with all the different weapons and armor. It didn't seem to be something Tremarch was interested in, though. He was too excited about his idea to mix fried potatoes, onions and broccoli with ground beef and quickly scurried upstairs with an armful of ingrediants. Days and nights went by, my skin was almost back to its regular peach color, and I didn't feel lonely again. Although I did attempt to convince Tremarch to move back inside his house. He pondered it, but then decided it wasn't necessary. Aparently he enjoys his little shack. There were nights where I wondered whether or not I was wasting time. I could have left on my own easily at anytime. How long did I need to bother Mr. Jungor? Eventually my cramps totally subsided and I was quickly back to my old self. I was restless. Tremarch seemed to discourage me from helping around the house. He was strangely posessive of his cooking grill that went over the coals in the kitchen table. I attempted to take up carving by practicing on the bottom leg to the staircase bannister. I eventually just kicked it out from under the wooden rail. The next day there was a brand new leg to the bannister. Or deductively it was a new one. My artistic expressions weren't on this one and it seemed to be carved with a bit more skill than the other legs. It had the same rounded design,identicle tone, color, and glow as the others, but it couldn't have been the same one. Regardless, I kicked it out too, returned my carving tools to the shed and gave up for good. Later that afternoon there was another leg in the empty spot of the bannister. Tremarch was whistling as he dumbed a pile of flakey chips into the thicket behind the shed.
"Tremarch?" |
