Chapter 7 – A Warm Welcome

Chapter 7 – A Warm Welcome

It was so painfully innocent, a message of what could have been concern or even a genuine reach for connection. But if only it hadn’t come from a stranger! Who was it leaving these damn messages?

Sinking down into the breakfast nook, she captured her bottom lip between her finger thumb and held it, needing something to help her think and that always helped.

She had someone in her house. Con.

Someone who hadn’t done anything to her. Pro.

Someone who she didn’t know. Con.

Someone who had actually been very helpful. Pro.

Someone who wanted to talk to her but without showing their face. Con.

Someone who left nice messages. Pro.

Someone… was creeping into houses. Con.

There was a mystery afoot. A tentative pro.

She couldn’t deny it. There were quite a few questions that she wanted to find the answers to. What an interesting story that might just make. Surely, if she was careful, she could solve it. She had read enough stories about it. Surely, she could do it!

What was she supposed to do? She just couldn’t find a way to think through this, and it was going to nag at her until she finally cracked.

That is, however, until she decided to play the person’s game.

There was small whiteboard pen attached to the fridge and on the board, she wrote.

‘Thank you for your help. Please tell me your name.’

It was polite, yet insistent.

Whoever this person was, unless they had a sudden change of mood, would hopefully answer positively.

Danni’s first thought was to get herself some tea, try her hand at making something tasty, perhaps even sit down and see if the words would flow. But there was something else playing on her mind. So many places in this village remained undiscovered, yet she didn’t have the energy to get back on the bike. She was still wearing her coat, lingering in the doorway, feeling as if she was teetering on the precipice of something. Though the heating was on, the chill from outside had settled on her like a cloak. She kept sniffling, positive that she was starting to feel the emergence of a cold.

In that moment, the quiet of the kitchen, where only the creak of the pipes under her feet, the sounds of the house settling, and her own breathing reached her ears. She centred her stance, closed her eyes behind her glasses and fell backwards into her mind.

‘So, let’s take stock. I have signed myself up to host a dinner party… No, before that. I am in a house… no, that’s not it. Tawney brought me up here. I believed that it was just a small thing, a few weeks at most but Tawney expects me to stay here for a month. Is this a bad thing?

No, it’s not. She’s paying me. I’m away from home. If I left, they would never let me hear the end of it, I’d be spending money I don’t have on a all day journey that I already took once. I’d have to explain why I want to leave. Can I face all those disappointed people?

No.

I don’t want to go home.

For the first time in her life, she could admit it. She didn’t want to go home. Like breathing new life into an old attic, filled with dust and the stink of age resting thick upon what lay inside, she had thrown open the door and let the light in. Here, she could lounge on the couch all day and not feel the prickling eyes of her mother trained on her neck like a tiger prepared to strike. If she wanted, she’d never have to leave her room, aside from food that she could make herself! There was so much she could do now!

The first thing, she settled, was she would get a proper look down at the village. Turning on her heel, she opened the door and locked it behind her, scampering down towards the garden where the Old Man Winter’s frost threatened to soak through her shoes. She scampered through the garden like a rabbit emerging from their burrow after a long hibernation, kicking the piles of snow out of her way, pressing her ear to the trees as if to catch a whisper of what messages the wind was passing to them as it coiled and rattled their many branches. The air was crisp and biting her skin but, rather than the discomfort she had felt earlier during her ride to the village, it seemed to tickle her, getting underneath her undone coat and ruffling her air with what could have been mistake for affection.

Rather than undo the gate at the end of the garden, she heaved herself over it with a grace she had not known she possessed before. There she stood, gazing down at the beautiful tableau painted before her. In the far fields, she saw dots of white and black and brown, cows no doubt, and huddles of white blurs that must have been sheep. How she wished she had a telescope or binoculars, so she might see them in better detail. Were there chickens? What about goats? Did they have sheep dogs? Maybe even a farm cat, walking tall and proud through the farmyard that it had claimed as its home and palace.

Turning away from this, she squinted, trying to glimpse the train station where she had been dropped off yesterday morning or the café that had welcomed her so. But the city was only a blur, impossible to tell the various buildings apart from one another. Without being able to focus on anything there, she settled down in the grass, soaking both of her trouser legs without heed nor care. From there, she settled to watching over the town. She could see Joey from here, his form moving in and out from under the awning to hand various goods over to the many customers coming and going from his shop. The butcher and the farmer must have retreated to their own homes or businesses, as she couldn’t see them anywhere and she imagined that they would have been hard to miss.

So… who were these other people?

Slowly, her mind began to tick over. Focusing on one woman, as she preferred to include female heroines, wrapped in what appeared to be a thick overcoat, Danni wondered what her story could possibly be. Was she married? Where did she live? Was she allergic to anything? Days like this, she almost wished that she could be a ghost to float over crowds and watch them properly. What kinds of stories could she find if she were able to drift through walls and peer through closed windows? Pulling her notebook from her bag, she started to scribble as fast as her hands would allow.

IDEA

· Female protagonist – age 20? 25?

· Brown hair? Blue eyes? Dyed? Maybe born blonde?

· Story…

Here, she tapped her pen upon the page. She had a figure, something that the story could happen around but… she needed a story. A hook. An idea! Something… but what?

Her stomach gurgled loudly and she flushed pink in a way that had nothing to do with the wind still beating against her cheeks. Picking herself up, she hastened back towards the house, going through the gate now that she was unfortunately without the joy-induced adrenaline that had launched her before. In the house, she was warm again and able to get her grass stained and soaked trousers into the wash, pulling on a pair of black jeans instead. Putting together a simple ham and cheese sandwich browned on the stove until the room was filled with the smell of cooking meat and the cheese stretched when she broke the sandwich into pieces.

Now that she thought of it, she pondered what more she could do in this great cavernous kitchen. She had never tried to make soup of any kind, but a rich tomato soup would go wonderfully with these sandwiches… especially if she wanted to make more. There was a blender… she had plenty of ingredients… did she have a recipe? There must be one. Disappearing upstairs, she came back with her tablet in hand and sat it propped up against the wall near to the stove.

Following the recipe carefully, she melted butter in a pot, added an onion she sliced into pieces as small as she could manage with her amateur skills, crushed and sliced garlic, throwing that in as well and the smell that followed made her eyelids flutter. Still feeling a little nervous, she silently thanked Tawney for asking Joey to drop off so many cans of tomatoes. Every time she even glanced at the knife, she was positive she would slip and take a finger off but as she poured in the stock and cream, a wave of confidence flowed over her.

Waiting for it to simmer, keeping the flame low so it wouldn’t boil over, she perused recipes for kinds of sandwiches she could make on the stove.

“A Cuban sandwich… mustard… ham… cheese… pickles… Do I even have pickles? Do I even like pickles?” Talking to oneself might be a sign of madness, but it gave voice to the many thoughts running through her head.

A quick investigation of the fridge revealed no pickles but then she settled on some jam. Wasn’t there a sandwich that used that? Something that you had to fry? She’d never tried that before… perhaps that was trying to dive in at the deep end whilst only being able to doggy paddle?

She had only just gotten the confidence to cook regular ham and cheese on the stove… maybe she was aiming too high too quickly? Maybe, if she tried this again, she could try and make something extra then. She made up another pair of ham and cheese toasties, pausing only to pour the mix from the pot into the blender and mix until it was that cheerful orange colour again. Sprinkling in some salt and a crack of pepper, she poured the whole thing in a bowl and took it, sandwiches and all, over to the table. She still had yet to conceive of a solid idea for any kind of story, but for once she didn’t mind this. Instead, she settled herself down in the comfort of the kitchen and ate, dipping her sandwiches into the warm soup and taking bites from them until all that remained in the bowl was what few streaks of drying soup still clung to the sides.

She hadn’t realised just how hungry she had been but after all the excitement of the day, she supposed she could be forgiven. Not wanting to go outside again, she spent a good long time after cleaning up her meal pondering what else she could do. The trouble with being so efficient in the morning was that eventually you ran out of things to do. That left her with a considerable amount of free time on her hands. Sure, she could spend it trying to write but… maybe… now that she had so many hours to use up, there was something that she had wanted to do for so long.

When she had been living at home, she had always been made to feel an immense guilt over spending any time in the shower. If she spent longer under the water than the time it would take to give her body a once over with the sponge and to work shampoo and conditioner through her hair, she was bound to hear her mother or father banging on the door, chiding her fiercely for ‘wasting’ water. It seemed that they counted each second she spent in the bathroom from the moment the door closed to when it opened again and considered that time wholly wasted.

As such, she had never been able to enjoy a proper soak in the bath. Just her, water hot enough to blister and her thoughts.

Maybe… this time… she could be a little daring.

Ensuring that there was enough heat to spare, she filled the bath and collected one of the many fluffy white towels from the airing cupboard, removed her clothes and feeling like an Egyptian Queen, sank up to her chin into the water. Steam rose in tendrils all around her, sweat almost immediately broke out over her forehead and she let her imagination run wild.

She was not in a bath. She was… so many things.

A spirit of the wild rivers. A queen luxuriating in her private baths. The sinking body of the beautiful Ophelia… so many books, so many characters and they all lived within her. Was she the infamous Blood countess or perhaps she was in a Roman bath, each tile underfoot blazing to the touch. Maybe with some perfume added to the water, she would be transported to a Turkish harem of perfume and gauzy silks. What would it be like to stand under that rain shower head? Next time, she would scrub herself down completely before sinking down into a bath. Maybe… her stomach was filled with a buzzing excitement like a hive of bees being shaken around. She could even do that tomorrow… She still did not know what it was that was keeping the house warm, but if it kept the water at this temperature, and if she were still full of delicious food, she would be content.

Sucking in a deep breath, she sank underneath the surface, letting the water envelope completely. It was nothing like she had ever experienced before. She felt weightless, the water cleansing her of worry and the cold, her short hair somehow feeling miles long as she ran her hands through it. Now she was no longer floating but swimming. In that moment, she was every little girl who’d ever had these thoughts, of becoming a mermaid under the water, kicking their legs together in lieu of fins, holding their breath until spots danced in front of their eyes. In her mind, she danced amongst the coral and schools of fish were her friends, a million miles below the world of man.

When storms tossed the sea, she would take shelter at the bottom where it was safe, flitting through forests of seaweed, fleeing from vicious sharks. Only when the air began to choke her, did she break the surface of the water, coughing and red faced. She could scarcely see through the water in her eyes, already fogged from being without her glasses but the memory of that fantasy, so vivid in her head remained. There was nothing that could take it from her.

It seemed to grow slowly in the back of her mind, like a flower that you see every day but never pay attention to. Even as she dried herself, wrapped her hair in a clumsy turban and took her clothes from the floor, the idea was growing slow. First a character, then another, a place, a world for them to live in. A villain, an obstacle, a question that needed to be answered. Her glasses brought the world back into sharp relief, her hairdryer sounded more like a jet engine in the quiet of the house, but her thoughts were louder.

Forgetting her clothes completely, she sat before her laptop, letting her fingers fly across the keyboard. The idea turned concentrated, lines turning to paragraphs, page after page of her thoughts spilling out. It was paint, ink, charcoal, blood, sweat and tears and together, it became a new world, deep under the sea.

All this time, she had known that there was a tale she was meant to tell. It was more than a feeling, more than a want. It was her deepest hearts desire.

Maybe, somehow, this could be her story.