"I put fresh clothes out for you," she said.
Chuggie found the clean clothes sitting within arm's reach. Not far from them lay his old clothes. Muddy, bloody and burnt. He climbed from the tub, groaning. His muscles and bones protested as he bent to pick up the clothes. His new pants had vertical stripes of black and dark green. The shirt, once white, buttoned up the front. She'd even found him a pair of barely-worn boots.
He hadn't noticed his missing skullcap until he saw a freshly sewn replacement lying on top of a neatly folded jacket. The cap and jacket were both steel gray, apparently cut from the same material. It all fit astonishingly well, and the style suited him perfectly.
Chuggie hobbled to the water pump. As he cranked the handle, its rusty squeak burrowed into his brain with the fury of a starving brain leech. Only a trickle of water dribbled into his hand.
"I had my boys cranking that all night," Shola said just behind him. He hadn't heard her approach, and she gave him a little start. "You won't get much more than that for a while."
"You should fix it." he smiled.
"Your body sucked the water up about as fast as we could pump it."
Meeting her eyes, bright blue and white, Chuggie found himself frozen mid-pump. He forgot whatever clever thing he'd been about to say.
"You absorbed it like a sponge," she said. "Strange to witness. How do you feel?"
"Like a diamond wrapped in… bacon." Chuggie pulled his eyes off hers and looked down at his new clothes.
"Well, I have meat that's close to bacon right over here, and it's getting cold." Shola started back to the table, her blue eye looking over her shoulder at him. "Honestly, if we start salting and curing right away, there's almost enough meat here for the whole winter."
Chuggie walked just behind the witch. His head bobbed side to side as he stared at her bottom. There sure was some nice scenery up on the cliff.
Across the yard, scarecrows butchered one of the sows. Two held it upside down, while a third skinned it. Together they did a messy job, and Chuggie wondered why they didn't hang the carcass from a tree.
"Thanks for the clothes." He sat down and shielded his eyes from the morning light. "Where did you even get them?"
"My boys have salvaged a lot over the years. We saved something especially for you." Shola's eyes sparkled with merriment as she pointed to the table.
There, beside his plate, sat a glossy black fireboar tusk as long as his forearm. In an instant, he knew what to do with it. He'd carve into a tobacco pipe. That tusk would make one of the finest pipes anyone had ever seen.
When they finished eating, Chuggie rummaged in his junk bag for some old carving implements. He spent the next couple of hours fashioning a pipe from the tusk of the fireboar.
He filled and lit the pipe as soon as he was done. He puffed clouds of his own up into the atmosphere. The high, lazy clouds shuffled across the sky changing from turtles to boats to farming implements. A monster tree grasped at a screaming dragon, then both the tree and the dragon morphed into a two-headed fish. The pipe smoked like a dream.
"You look like you're having a good time," said Shola.
"Ain't had a pipe this good in ages. Have a puff." He held the pipe out to her.
He hadn't expected her to take it from him, but she did. After her third puff on the pipe, she broke into a coughing fit and shoved it back at him.
"Yes indeed," he mused, "she smokes real nice."
"Come for a walk with me," Shola said, grabbing his hand.
"All right, but I'm bringing my pipe." Chuggie let her pull him up. She could drag him anywhere, as long as he didn't have to leave his new toy behind. She sighed and led him across the garden.
On the other side, near where they'd had their first encounter, a grinning scarecrow stood at the entrance to a trail. Chuggie made a face at the scarecrow as Shola pulled him into the woods.
The trail twisted through a grove of dwarf elms. The trees spiraled out of the ground like frozen dancers with dresses made of golden leaves. Chuggie and Shola followed the path until it gave way to a clearing.
Across the clearing loomed a dark, bloated tree. Tattered, gray ropes clung to it like cobwebs.
"Blood maple," Chuggie noted. "They don't just sprout up on their own, do they?"
Shola stopped thirty paces from the tree. "That's what they used… when they first bound me here. The Stagwater torturgist tied me to that horrible tree. With my own suffering, he built my prison."
He saw the pain in her eyes and put an arm around her. The whole place held nothing but misery for her. As long as she remained, so would her anguish.
She sniffed back tears and cleared her throat.
"When they finally stopped coming, I made my first scarecrow. I thought he could chop the tree down, but he fell to pieces. They all do, as soon as they swing the ax." She stepped away from Chuggie and took a few more steps toward the blood maple. "I tried to set it on fire more than once, but I get sick if I get too close. See that black thing hanging up there at the top?"
"I do," said Chuggie. He walked to the tree and looked up into the branches.
"It's an old oleostex eye," she said. "It's what keeps me bound here."
"Looks rotten." He gave the tree a kick.
"This is why I need the goat-face purse," Shola said. "Come, this isn't what I brought you back here to see."
She led him further on, beyond the clearing. The came to a stand of birch trees, bone white against the ocean blue sky. At their feet, wispy grass of green and gold swayed lazily in the breeze.
They sat in the grass a little ways apart, looking at anything but each other.
He knew he had to free her. Had to take her with him far away from this place. Had to tell her how important she was to him, but he couldn't think of how to begin.
Shola took a breath, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again as she looked away. She crawled to him and kissed him softly on the cheek. She lingered for a moment, and he inhaled her scent, all flowers and campfire smoke. She looked into his eyes, sighed, and put her mouth on his.
There, in the wide open field with the swaying golden grass and the deep, deep, blue of the sky, she pushed him onto his back. Slowly, with mouthwatering grace, she danced. Her buckskin dress began to slip. She raised one arm over her head, and when she brought it back down, it slid a little more. Then the other arm. The top eased down over her breasts, leaving them covered only by her long black hair. It inched down her hips, about to fall to the ground.
Chuggie swallowed hard.
Inch by inch, Shola danced dreamily out of her clothes. In doing so, she barely took her eyes off his. His wide gaze, however, skated up and down her ever-nudening body. His white-knuckled fists held tight to the grass.
The skirt slid to Shola's feet, and she kicked it away without taking her eyes off him.
For the first time, Chuggie noticed the black tattoo on her hip. When she noticed him staring she turned away.
"Wait, what was that?" he asked.
The hurt returned to Shola's eyes. Any second she'd break into tears. Chuggie mentally kicked himself for blowing it. Her clothes should be going back on in five… four… three….
But Shola neither cried nor dressed. Instead, she turned her hip back, so he could see and slowly pulled her hand away. There Chuggie saw a faded black spider, symmetrical in design and blurry on the edges. All fine detail had long since faded away.
Her slow dance resumed. Chuggie's head spun as he tried and failed to form a rational thought.
Above Shola, clouds like silver ships sailed the sea of the sky. It could have been his intoxicated imagination, but he swore the clouds danced along with her. The way she moved her hands over her body made it difficult for him to confirm the phenomenon.
He needed to say something. He reached into the depths of his mind for poetry, for words of passion and longing. He opened his mouth to release the words.
"Someday I'll name a boat after you." Embarrassed, he added, "Someday… I'll name a boat Shola."
She smiled and gestured that he didn't need to speak anymore. Humming a tune he knew from somewhere, she lowered herself to him. They made love in the tall grass for hours.
Fey Voletta wore her hood so its shadow hid all but her lips. Her robe closed tight around her, showing only her hands. Today, she even wore clothes beneath the robe, something she hated to do.
The weekly meetings Haste insisted she attend so she could deliver her reports on criminal activity demanded such wardrobe choices. His unabashed leering made her sick. He licked his lips constantly while eye-groping her. There was absolutely no reason she had to attend these meetings, except that Haste was a disgusting old letch. She could only grit her teeth as she pondered the hundreds of different ways she could kill him.
Entering Haste's office made her sicker still. It stunk of old tobacco, long-forgotten liquor spills, and the sweat of a fat man. The animals on the wall were supposed to be intimidating trophies, but she found them comical. She'd seen enough in her short time in Stagwater to know they were nothing more than 'average' specimens.
"Ah, Fey Voletta," Haste said, raising an arm in welcome. The fat jiggled like half-congealed gravy. "You're looking lovely as ever, my dear. Won't you have a seat?"
He lit a cigar, as he always did when she met with him. Apparently, he thought it impressed her, but his cigar sucking made her think he secretly wanted to wrap his lips around some guy's cock. The thought of Haste with a penis in his mouth made her laugh at first. Now his cigar, his mock cock, made her want to puke herself inside out.
"Fellas like that, don't they?" she asked as she tossed the folder with the criminal reports in his direction.
Haste's smile vanished. His lips unwrapped from the cigar, and he asked, "What?"
"Smoking cigars," she said as she took a seat. "Fellas like smoking cigars."
"Hmm," he said. "Apologies, my dear. You've just caught me about to eat lunch. I hope you don't mind, but I prefer to eat before it gets cold."
He placed his cigar in the ashtray, leaving it to burn slowly on its own. A covered silver platter sat on the desk in front of him. He removed the lid and sniffed at the billow of steam that mushroomed out. He waved the vapor away, revealing a whole fish.
"Caught fresh this morning," he told her. "If I'd known you'd be here, I'd have ordered the same for you."
She narrowed her eyes. He knew damn well when she'd be coming. He was the one who scheduled the meeting. Watching him lick his fat lips, she wanted nothing more than to slash him to ribbons.
The fish raised and splayed a fin. Its mouth gasped for water that wasn't there.
"You're eating it alive?" she asked.
"Fresh." He whiffed more of the fish-steam. "The chef scales it, cuts some ribbing down the side, and seasons it. It's truly scrumptious. You'll have to try it sometime."
"So you skin, slice it, and dump salt in its wounds?" she asked with a voice full of disdain.
"Yes, and then we eat it." He smiled as if pleased by his own refined tastes.
"Did you want to discuss the reports? Or have I been summoned so I could watch you eat a live fish?" She hoped he'd spill his guts quickly so she could leave.
"What's Non up to these days? I rarely see him anymore," Haste said with a sneaky oily-looking smile that said he was trying to evade her question.
"Non? He's around." She'd have to change tactics to get information out of this fat fuck. Non would owe her after this — owe her big.
Fey Voletta stood and walked around the desk.
Haste didn't look up from his meal.
She allowed herself a shudder before she sat on the arm of Haste's chair.
Finally, he turned. He licked his lips frantically, bits of fish stuck to his tongue. A dopey grin spread over his face as she began rubbing the back of his neck. She didn't know if it was the fish, his breath, or his body odor, but some foul smell assaulted her nose. Hidden in shadow, her left eye twitched. She leaned close.
"You have a lot of tension in your neck. Under a lot of stress?" Her voice purred, but her mouth frowned.
"An ounce of gold weighs a ton when you make it into a crown," said Haste. He shoveled his mouth full of fish.
"I'm listening." She leaned a little closer.
Haste chewed like a starving man, making grotesque, wet sounds and breathing through his nose.
Fey Voletta imagined smashing his face into the platter, mashing it into the gasping fish. Instead, she kneaded the muscles beneath the fat of his shoulders. She couldn't feel any muscles, knotted or otherwise. She only felt fat.
Haste groaned. "Oh, it's nothing really."
She tried not to think about the erection Haste more than likely hid under the folds of his belly. She closed her eyes to ensure that she didn't accidentally catch a peek.
"Come on," she coaxed. "I can see something is bothering you. It's my job to help where I can."
She imagined the sound his nose would make as she smashed it against the silver platter.
"Some drifter dared to threaten our security," Haste said through another mouthful of stinking fish. "But I made sure that was taken care of." He puffed out his chest like he'd just been awarded a medal.
"Of course you did," she cooed. "And you didn't even need the Steel Jacks' help, did you?" Maybe someday she'd poison his fish. Only, she decided, if she could find a suitably horrific poison.
"I didn't." Haste beamed.
"Who is he?" Fey Voletta held her hands still hovering over Haste's shoulders.
"Don't stop." Haste pleaded.
"Tell me about the drifter."
"Some fellow wearing a chain. Ahh that's the way." Haste sighed as Fey Voletta resumed her massaging.
"And…"
"Fellow with a chain and five horns on his head." Haste leaned his head down, so she could massage him better. Apparently, he'd forgotten the now-dead fish.
"He's a troublemaker?" She made her voice velvety smooth. "The drifter?"