The Wandering Frank & Mary: Entry III - Drowse - Part 3
Warily, Frank and Mary trekked through the forest, several paces behind Kalina, who traveled gracefully, avoiding every questing branch and tearing bramble. Frank and Mary were not as graceful. They came upon her cabin,
built of old stone and weathered wood. Twig fences formed a vague half-circle on the front wall. A conservative herd of three goats ambled absently about the yard, chewing on everything they could, grass, flowers, fencing, even the old stones of the cabin’s foundation. Light smoke drifted from two chimneys, one sitting crookedly on the roof of the cabin, the second jutting from out the back of a little clay oven that stood a few feet from the front door. The light smoke shown golden in the warm light of dawn. The air smelt of apple pie and something savory underneath. It looked as though it was a scene taken directly from an illustrated Brothers Grimm.
Frank and Mary couldn’t stop their mouths from watering, their stomachs from growling, nor their feet from moving. Everything felt foggy. Kalina smiled all too sweetly, the corners of her eyes crinkling. A little brown crow sat atop the peak of the cabin, screaming its little head off, only gaining a quick, narrow glance from Kalina. It was as if the two couldn’t process anything outside of their feet moving toward the front door. A goat tore a piece of Frank’s pant leg, chewing boredly. Their eyes drooped drowsily, their bodies dragged lightly behind the woman. She pushed inside, the wooden door creaked. There were an unnecessary number of blankets and cushions clustered on the floor. They looked used and well-slept in.
Kalina placed a tin plate of apple pie in front of each of them, on a little stump of a table. A low flame curled from the fireplace, nearly done with its meal of twigs. “Oh, one moment, krasotki. The fire’s almost out. Enjoy the pie!” She clasped her hands together. Her posture seemed a bit straighter than it did naught but several minutes ago and her hair had gained some brown streaks. The door clattered behind her. Frank sunk into his pie, the apples pooling around his face, sticking into his beard, like flies in amber.
“Frank?” Mary blinked heavily, shaking his arm. She felt as though her bones were replaced with lead. “Hey—” she yawned, crumpling off of the chair softly into the furs, “What’s...?”
Kalina pushed through the door, skirting the two, tossing a bundle of twigs into the little fireplace, the flames jumping hungrily. “Get some rest, little one.” Her voice was thick as honey. Her wrinkles were now shallower and her hair had more brown than gray.
“How’re…?” She sank into the blankets, eyes drooping shut.
The Wandering Frank & Mary: Entry III - Drowse - Part 2
The gray of that odd in between that rests uncomfortably after night has finished, but just before the day has begun, was emphasized by a mist of dew clouding and blurring the trees, massing them into
looming figures barely visible through the gray. Frank rummaged through the truck’s bed, his beard still speckled with soot, despite his efforts. He shifted around the assortment of loose boxes, random clothes, freshly bought junk, and what appeared to be a complete, intact chicken skeleton, its eyeless sockets watched him balefully. He shook his head, how did they accrue this much garbage in such a short amount of time. It only had crates and jugs of moonshine before. He felt his chest clench at the thought of those old moonshiners. Most of them now…
Mary coughed and spat through the engine smoke, her hangover forgotten as soon as her hands became busy with machinery, “Anything at all?”
“Not even a wrench.” He called back, rubbing his face, smearing some of the left over soot into a smeary raccoon mask, “Unless you need a chicken ribcage.”
She seemed to seriously ponder this for a moment, scratching black lines onto her skin. Shaking her head, “It’d snap before I could do anything useful.”
“Did you find the problem, at least?” He looked like a shoddy thief with his soot mask, stealing ill-fitting pinstripe clothing.
“Yeah,” the hood slammed down and clicked into place, a thin line of smoke still oozed out, “the engine is full of bullet holes. Hell, everything that’d make this thing run is full of bullet holes. I’m surprised we got anywhere at all.” She wiped her hands on the navy vest, already stained beyond repair, her face still coated in a thin, gritty layer of soot. “Did you find anything else we could use?” She eyed the chicken skeleton, perched atop a peak of a clothing mountain, all of which were new, obviously bought with the mobsters’ money.
“At least a change of clothes, sadly no food. Not even alcohol. Also, an oddly high number of furniture limbs?” He picked up the claw-footed leg of some sort of study chair, perhaps a loveseat.
Mary’s eyebrows scrunched, unearthing white lines in the soot. “Is that all?”
“I think—Hey, wait a minute.” A thumb-sized notch caught his eye. It was far too worn to have been a gunshot, as the fresh bullet holes were torn and splintered. He placed his thumb in the board and pulled upward. It gave easily and revealed a small space within the bed, about the size of a little breadbox.
He pulled out a wad of bills, the face of William McKinley staring sternly back at him. He handed Mary the wad, plunging his arm searchingly into the hole. She flipped through the money, her eyes wide and jaw slack.
“How—How many are there?”
He fished out two more wads of similar size, all with McKinley’s face on them, and nothing else except a single dollar. “That’s a lot of money.” He breathed.
“An understatement.” She rested the wads on the clothing pile, to be guarded by the skeletal poultry.
“With this we could book anything we needed to get to Washington!” Frank paced excitedly, combing his fingers through his beard, streaking the soot, changing the blond to more of a dirty straw.
Mary quashed her excitement, “It’s not ours, Hell, it wasn’t really theirs. It probably wasn’t even the mobsters’ to begin with. Can we—Should we even use it?”
He scratched his beard, relaxing his brow, “I—”
“Oh, did your truck break down, krasotki?” A woman, somewhere between her late fifties, early seventies, greeted them through the gray mist. Clad in a patchwork of furs, with odd bits of bone and jewelry dangling from her clothes and hair, a gnarled hand lifted in greeting. The bulk of her furs emphasized the hunching of her back, making her look like a bear or a troll, in silhouette. Her eyes were a strikingly bright and young blue, beaming in a very amiable way.
Mary stuffed the money into her shirt, “How long have you been there?”
“Oh please,” she gestured with gnarled fingers, “I don’t need money, krasota.” Her weight shifted between her feet, the bulk of her furs swaying, her smile sugary in its sweetness, “I’m Kalina, do you two like pie?”
A little brown crow screeched angrily above the woman’s head.
As Qortly floated lower, some became concerned that it might collide with a window or a power line, for Qortly seemed not to be deliberate about its direction, always staring forward. It was not uncommon for a child to sit outside with a butterfly net, waiting to be the one to catch Qortly. Late at night, parents were known to free their somnolent children's hands of nets and move them up to bed.
One afternoon, a little boy on a porch with a net raised high above his head captured Qortly from the air and snuck it upstairs into his room. He hid Qortly in a cardboard box in the closet and went to sleep excited.
