It was bleeding hot when Everest stepped out of Lucerne-Alpane train station. The time was just a little past one, according to the station clock, and she was tired from the long flight and train ride.
She cursed lightly as the sun rays touched her skin, heating it up. She shielded her face with a hand and dragged her large suitcase with the other.Looking around to see people in baseball caps and sunhats, she wished she had had the foresight to get one too. Not that she was entirely at fault, it had been raining like Noah's prophecy where she came from.Now, where was that landlady woman?She squinted and looked around the dusty landscape. The front of Lucerne-Alpane train station was a dry, desert-sque piece of land, barren of vegetation and moisture. Tiny knock-up kiosks littered the area, most of them announcing their services in garish Day-Glo.None of the women she saw resembled the landlady or dressed the way she had been expecting. She had seen the woman's profile picture on the contact she had obtained from the housing website.Mrs Casss had looked to be in her fifties. A quinquagenarian. Everest hadn't been expecting to find a housing agent for Lucerne-Alpane region when she went to the housing website, so she had been surprised when the search brought up the profile of a Mrs Bonie Casss and two other male agents in Lucerne-Alpane.Mrs Casss had promised to be waiting outside the train station by two o'clock wearing a dark one-piece mumu.So where was the damn woman now? Everest wondered, slightly miffed. The hellish sun was so not for her.Despondent, she looked towards the litter of kiosks and shops. Most of them professed services like chilled drinks, rentable motorcycles and the likes.Sighing, she made for the nearest kiosk with large sunhats displayed at the front. Anytime now would be a good time for the landlady to arrive. Maybe her friend, Leesa, had been right after all, pre-booking was not such a good idea.She made a mental note to book a travel agency, so whenever she caught a travel bug again, she wouldn't have to go through any of this stress.She was almost at the hat shop, lugging her suitcase behind her when a rusty old truck came peeling towards her side.A bit startled, she jumped back. Surprisingly, no one around seemed bothered by the incident. She raised an eyebrow and looked at the vehicle that had been coming for her.The truck driver had swerved and turned the vehicle so that it was now standing nearby beside her, filmy red dust rising around its tyres.What kind of driving was that? Everest thought, irritated.She looked up to start giving the driver a piece of her mind but stopped short on seeing the woman behind the wheels beaming and waving at her."Camara?" She smiled again and nodded to herself, not even waiting for a reply. "Thought as much."The woman reached out outside the car to open the door. Then she jumped down with a thump, almost causing Everest to wince. How did she seem so agile with that weight?The woman, whom she could now clearly see to be Mrs Casss, stuck out a thick hand and inclined her head to look at her."My, you're tall, aren't you?" she said. Without waiting for Everest's reply or hand, she withdrew her hand, dusting it down her dirty-green mumu. "I'm Bonnie Casss," she announced aloud."It's nice to meet you," Everest eventually said. In just a few seconds, the woman had made her short of words. Her remark about her height had her confused on whether to bristle or preen. People hardly called her tall, she wasn't even fully five feet and eight.She watched the woman reach for her suitcase and start to drag it towards the back of her truck and went after her to retrieve her holdall from the top."You're late," she stated, put out that the lady hadn't even spoken about that."Right," agreed Bonnie Casss. "Lassie here had a dry-up again." She tapped lightly at the side of her truck and Everest realized the truck was Lassie. "Her oil tank has a little crack by the side so it always needs topping up on the move every few hours once it trickles all out."She lifted the heavy suitcase in one fluid movement and dropped it gently into the back of the truck. Everest's mouth dropped open at this. She had barely managed to drag the thing off the carousel at the airport and off the train.Bonnie Casss seemed to be a woman who was more than she looked. Everest stared down at her from her puffy tuft of mousy hair to her thick biceps and chubby fingers, down her plump frame in the mumu to her light brown moccasins. The woman couldn't be over five feet and, although she had looked to be in her fifties in the picture, she was definitely in her sixties. Sixty-four, maybe."I don't look like my profile, I know," said Bonnie Casss, giving a full-shouldered shrug. She motioned Everest forward and made towards the driver's side herself. "Ain't no apology for that though."The woman pushed herself up into her seat with the creaky door and slammed it closed. Then she peered at Everest from the side. "You coming in?"Giving herself a mental shake, Everest clambered into the truck, groaning when her thigh muscles threatened to pull. While she was on vacation, she might as well put some exercises learnt into good use.The car engine sputtered to life and soon they were on their way down the dry, dusty road."Seeing as you wanted a secluded house, I was able to shortlist it to two. The first is downtown, near the town's hustle and bustle, but it is surrounded by a few abandoned houses, which makes it quiet on a normal day."The woman took one hand off the wheel to dig around in the large gear stick hole and finally came up with a silver thermos.The woman offered it to her, eyes still on the road. "Negus?"Everest subtly looked down at the gear hole filled with unidentifiable bric-a-brac. She repressed a shudder. "No, thank you.""Oh well." Bonnie Casss took the other hand off the wheel to Everest's utmost alarm. But it was only for a second as she deftly twisted the cap of the thermos open and the hand was back on the wheel. She hoisted the bottle high and took a deep drink.Ripe scents of lemon and nutmeg suffused the inside of the car for a moment before it sailed away into the passing wind. Everest's stomach contracted short of a rumble. She hadn't had a meal since the light breakfast of chocolate Rice Krispies at her apartment.She had purchased a box of saltwater taffy at the duty-free but she couldn't recall if she had stashed it in the holdall sitting on her lap or the suitcase in the back of the truck."The second house is on the other end of town," the ample landlady continued, now guiding the wheel with both hands and a vacuum flask. "On Coven's Lane. Of course, it's more secluded than what you might wish for but you might just love it if absolute quiet is what you're looking for. A house in the middle of somewhere's nowhere."Everest piqued at that. "Oh." A house in the middle of nowhere, that sounded divine. She could just imagine herself alfresco having a great feast on a weaved mat with nature and calm in audience."There's a big ranch downhill, but it's so far away it couldn't possibly be a bother. Oh, and the rancher lives two houses down," she added. "There are just three houses on that lane, the rancher is on one, mine is on the other and the house in-between has been sitting empty for years. Used to be a mill or manufactory of some kind.""I think I'd like that," Everest said dreamily. A rancher and his house couldn't possibly pose any problems, could it?"Mhmm," the woman hummed in reply, turning the truck down a sharp curve on the road.They had been coasting by open field plantations and farms but had now come unto civilization. The orange dirt roads gave way to dark tarmac and the greenery was replaced with buildings and cars. And the noise. Clearly, they were in town now.She watched as people milled and bustled about the town. It was way different yet so similar to the city. Minus the highrises and skyscrapers.They passed by restaurants, gated office buildings and computer villages as Bonnie Casss briefed her about the small town of Lucerne-Alpane. A valley land and the third largest town in the county. Population of roughly three thousand eight hundred people. Three elementary schools, two high schools, a polytechnic, college of education and a few other educational establishments. Famous for the occupation of animal husbandry with the largest animal farm being the ranch down her rent house side. It also boasted of interestin
A few hours later found Everest Camara standing back to admire her handiwork in the bedroom. She had just unpacked and put away the last item in her suitcase.The bedroom was wallpapered in a designy warm blue that reminded Everest of a calm sea in a feel-good fairy tale novel.To her pleasure, the queen-sized bed was four-poster and had curtains, a tester, and a colourful hand-woven quilt rug at the foot. It has always been a childhood fantasy of hers to sleep in a four-poster bed, like all those storybook princesses. She had laid the clean bed sheet and spread she had found folded on top of the bare bed and was delighted that the colours matched those in her fantasy.There was even a huge chandelier shaped like a reindeer's complex horns. Or was it an antler? Or a moose? Anyhoo. It hung just ahead of the bed and Everest knew if she angled the curtains, she'd be able to see it while on the bed. The closet was also large, almost walk-in size and the ornate drawers were beautiful. Ther
Everest didn't expect the trek from her picket gate to the rancher's own to be so long. She had trekked just a few feet along the road before coming across the abandoned house beside hers. She could barely see the house except for the top of its old shingled roof and three bucket chimneys jutting out at different angles. Tall, wispy perennial grass sprang high in dense masses all over the property, covering the whole house up behind it.The house must have been about two stories though, for the roof looked way taller than hers.After spaning the overgrown expanse, she didn't come upon the rancher's residence at once. Rather, the road took a gentle dip downhill and then she could see a white picket fence stretch on and on for a distance. Kissing the fence was a wide expanse of freshly mown grass.The piece of grassland stretched on and on for a range, rising and dropping in match to the topography. Then Everest could see a tall two-storey in the distance. Two chimneys stuck out of its
"What are you thinking?"Mentor's eyebrows puckered in a frown. He stopped staring into space to glance at the guy on the other side of the table. "Sorry?"Fabian stopped wiping at the table with a rag and flicked his long black hair out of his face. "What you thinking, boss man?""Hmmm," Mentor said absent-mindedly, shrugging. "Nothing much."It was Fabian's turn to hum in disbelief. But the guy didn't want to push it. So he went back to wiping at the table. "As I was saying, she said I had to get my ass home by twelve on weekends. Like, who does that? Is she seriously going to stay up all night waiting for me?"Mentor's mouth bent in a smug smile. "Dude, given your indiscriminately wild nature, I'd say your mother being autocracy is the best for you."The guy smiled, dropping the rag on the table. "Not you too, boss. Come on, she's making it hell for me."Mentor picked his own rag to give the table one last wipe. "I have a feeling she's going to stop doing that the day you start sho
Mentor was already settled in bed. He picked up his phone from the nightstand and found Shilla's number.After three rings, the call was picked. A baby voice came over the line."Heyyo?"His eyebrow quirked and he smiled. That had to be Dexter, his two-year-old nephew. "Hi, Dexter. It's Uncle Mentor. Can you give the phone to your mommy?""I don't have a uncle," the boy protested rather loudly.A chuckle broke from his lips. "Yes, you do, sonny. I'm Mommy's brother."The boy didn't reply to this and all Mentor heard was heavy breathing on the line. He started to wonder if he should cut the call or try calling his brother-in-law and he settled for the former, the latter being something he didn't look forward to doing.As luck would have it, Shilla's voice came in the background. He heard her asking her son who he was speaking to. The boy blew a loud raspberry and giggled, and then Shilla's voice was speaking on the phone."Oh my God, Mentor. Sorry about that." She chuckled. "I can har
If this wasn't pure bliss then Everest didn't know what it was. Lounging in a cold and calm lake on a cool night, all alone and with nothing to disturb you.Despite the frigid cold in the air, the pale white full moon shone down in all its glory. Its multiple bursts of reflections on the repose lake shimmered and sparkled like a thousand white jewels on the sleeping water.Although it was yet to rain for the season, the fresh, earthy scent that came with rain permeated the air like an air freshener. Everest could see the bright, translucent beads of moisture that the early late-night dew had formed on the blades of grass about the lake.Daring to explore beyond her backyard had been worth it after all. The landlady hadn't mentioned anything about a lake being on her property, so when she had found it in all of its restful glory, she had been astonished.It turned out the picturesque prairie that stretched on at the back of her house had an ending after all. She had just finished her s
The next two days were pretty uneventful for Everest. She spent time setting up her small rented house properly and of course, keeping up with her friends online.She had been wanting to go into town to check out stuff but had been putting it off to enjoy a few days of quiet she had come here for. Opening the pantry and finding it full of all of a bag of chips and pretty much nothing else had done it for her. She had had no choice but to go into town today.She walked down the piazza and broke into a small laugh on seeing the bustle before her.Finally! It seemed like she had found her way to the market successfully. She dropped into the nearest canopied seat at an open shop to the side and stuffed the map back into her tote bag to wipe the film of perspiration from her hot brow, breathing heavily. The real reason she had been postponing going into town was the absence of transportation. The distance from her side of the town to the umbra was a huge fucking stretch that couldn't be
Mentor Gayle Calloway had never found himself so worked up like this before. Well, at least, not in the past four years. The most he had done was get angry at some occurrence on the ranch or get worried.But the way his heart palpitated so fast like the workings of a water turbine, and the way the thing called fear clutched his whole being in a vice-like grip, it all sprung a new one on him.And that it was all happening because of his new neighbour was something that scared him the most. Akin to the emotions of a prepubescent school boy getting a first glance from his crush.When the subject of his unwonted feelings smiled his way, Mentor could have sworn his heart had done a rolling somersault in his chest of its own accord. Was it because of the way that elegant smile showed the slight dimple on her left cheek and lit up the room? Or the way that same glow of a smile seemed to affect all the males around her, dazzling them into a frozen audience?"Hi," she said softly. He struggle