third chapter

The sun was dipping now, falling to the west and making short shadows along the path. Elie made her strides wider, her breath coming in short gasps, pulling at the back of her throat, which was dry.

She was so thirsty.

The burning, coal-black glare of the spindle woman remained in her thoughts, as did that rasping voice. A faint tang of musk remained in her nostrils. Elie's stomach fought and turned and her heart pummeled like a startled bird.

She was rattled.

That strange woman had to be mistaken. Elie knew nothing.

But the gray man was still here. Was that him? The amateur musician? Dirty, with poorly-fitted clothes and a badly tuned instrument. Unsure, clumsy fingers. A face which could not settle on a single expression. Elie could not remember what he looked like, and the more she thought, the more the gray man was starting to appear.

Overwhelming.

She was being stifled.

Elie had first thought of the gray man a week ago. He had started to walk through her thoughts, as men, amongst others, often did. She would be sitting in the shade, cradling a cup of cold tea, and he would come. Another spirit; fluid, silent and fragile. He could appear as solid as a block of ice, only to be smashed into pieces by the slightest noise, which would come flying out of nowhere; a wayward stone, shattering glass.

He was raindrops. Collectively, a puddle. Separately, nothing more than vapour.

He had been closing in for some time.

Now he was here.

Elie was so thirsty. For every large stride she took, she could drink an entire glass of water. Although the sun was completing its arc, slipping lower to the West, it was still warm.

Her palms were moist and slippery. She clenched her fists, and opened her hands, feeling hot air run through sticky fingers.

Almost home.

It had been barely ten minutes since she had left the patch of shade, but she could have been dragging her feet for hours. She was awake, stirred from an exhausting dream, with the covers far too thick and heavy. All night, sweating, turning. Drained.

Had the spidery woman really been there?

The woman could have been a black ash smudge on the horizon; a messy thumbprint of ink.

She was real enough; Elie knew that much.

But what of the gray man? Who was the fool?

Elie spotted the pale blue and yellow awnings of her home; they appeared more faded than usual, but maybe the milky, watered down afternoon light was to blame.

There was a truck parked outside. Probably a delivery; Elie didn't care. She ran past, kicking the back gate so it swung inwards, making a tinny sound as it slapped the low garden fence. The door was open; she dived into the dark cave of the kitchen. The peculiar smell of years of cooking was a familiar embrace as she reached for a half-full bottle and gulped luke warm water. It was the best tasting water; it washed the dust from her mouth, filled her throat and replaced strange aftertaste with nothing. Delicious nothing.

The water was lukewarm, but to Elie it felt like a melted glacier. It was probably a few days old, and carried the stale bitterness of cooked meals; an odd mixture of spices, vegetables and meat, which had settled on the surface and infused, like tea. It washed away the sticky phlegm lodged in Elie's throat.

She downed the rest of the bottle and peered around, noting the half-full pot on the stove, and two bowls, empty but tarred with the remains of mushy, green pea soup. There were lines, left where the spoon had failed to scrape, drying, stuck like strips of mould.

Busy?

The air was growing warm, and the empty glass bottle, still clenched tightly in Elie's hand, slipped a little. She realised her hand was slimy with sweat from being clasped tightly; a mini-greenhouse.

She couldn't breathe. Smoke was filling the kitchen, slipping underneath the door, through a centimetre high opening, and drifting up, carrying the intoxicating smell of old, burning wood. The heat was worst at her feet, and it slid up her legs, rising in an even, steady march, wrapping around her ankles. Elie was being roasted.

She gasped, making her way to the door, staring at the brass knob, which was asking for her hand. The smoke swirled around her, and tears formed, slicing her vision and replacing it with double lenses. Still the brass knob gleamed, and Elie staggered forward, arm outstretched. The smoke was everywhere; she felt as if she was breathing in dust from a sanded block of wood. It flew down her nasal passages and stuck there, forming a sludge, with cruel disregard for the water she had gulped.

Dust was in her ears, her eyes, lodging in microscopic pores of skin. She was surrounded, trapped, couldn't move. The heat blasted her face and she could feel the skin recoil and draw back from her nose, cheeks and lips, in horror.

She was going to die.

The brass doorknob had turned a dirty shade of amber; heat had shot through from the other side and infused it with a glow. Energy transmitted, absorbed. It seemed bigger now, as if the molecules had fed and expanded.

The knob turned, the door swung open.

"Elie! Where have you been?"

"Ah…" The flames, the heat, the smoke, were sucked back in an instant and the glass bottle slipped an inch. Elie caught the end of its narrow neck.

The kitchen was cool, damp, dark. Her aunt was standing in the doorway, a crisp navy and white-striped apron folded neatly and battened down across a broad waist.

"What's wrong?" Barbara's neck was adorned with a metre of tape. Elie could not imagine it any other way.

"Just one of those things," Elie gasped, dragging a thin, wooden stool across the floor, planting her palms and leaning, else she would topple over. "It's nearly gone."

The last tendril of smoke shimmered and vanished.

"Again?" Barbara's powder stained lips creased and tightened. Grey irises firmed and fixed in a disapproving stare. Elie was reminded of the sterile click of her dressmaker's shears. "Well, it's gone now, isn't it?"

"Pretty much."

"And you're not doing anything else?"

"No."

"Then you can help me with a delivery."

"Okay, just give me a minute." Elie felt like a villain, worse than Jack, the rascal from Blue Cat. In her favourite scene he had swallowed half an ounce of white and slept with a couple of men and women. In a crazy kind of way. Or at least he thought he had.

Just as she was least expecting it, the gray man appeared at the edge of her thought, half hidden in a narrow alley, a tendril of white smoke escaping from his indistinct lips.

Enough with the smoke already!

Maybe the gray man was like Jack. Maybe he was Jack, nothing more.

"All right now?"

Barbara would not leave her, and Elie had no fight. In the next room, she knew there would be rolls and rolls of heavy cloth, some delicate, some coarse, and half of it costing her dinner for a month. That was per metre, of course.

Reams to be measured, cut, sewn. Rolls to be sorted, stacked, stored away. If they didn't sell within the month, Barbara would find a better place for them. She would find a place for anything, as long as it would sell.

"Where's mum?" Elie wondered if Barbara had gotten help today.

"She can't work today."

"Oh." There was nothing to say to that. Elie lifted her palms off the stool and followed Barbara, shoulders rounded. Exhaustion was the killer in her momentary defeat.

That and the man smoking in the corner of her mind. Distracted, Elie could do nothing but nod. Perhaps the gray man would come and burn the house down.