A Strange State of Affairs Ch. 15

            She dreamt that she was running through a forest, barefoot.  Branches tore at her hair and drew lines across her bare skin.  The taste of ashes was in her mouth, and dirt clung to her legs.

            Someone was calling her name.  “Elevine!!  Elevine!!”  A man’s voice.  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. 

            “I’m here!!” she mouthed, tears streaming to the ground.  “Why can’t you hear me?”  Ashes spewed from her mouth like smoke, and she coughed.  Her eyes stung.

            The tears turned to blood.

            She found herself surrounded by a group of children, but when she reached out to them, they vanished.  Her empty womb ached, and she crumbled into ashes. 

            The man continued to call her name.  His voice echoed through the empty forest.

            Elevine woke blearily, sniffing loudly.  In the dark, she failed to realize that she had wiped her tears away with a pair of long-fingered hands.

fghfghfghfgfgfgfgfgfgfhfghfghfghfhgfhgfhgfhgfhghfghf

            “…and then he dropped me off here.  I think he took a cab back to his place,” Sherry said.  She was wearing a pair of Pona’s pajamas �" a purple silk set.  The sleeves were too long, and the pant legs were rolled up to midthigh.  The deep purple color contrasted sharply with her pale skin.

            “And you guys went to Puri?” Pona asked.  She was at the desk in her bedroom, narrow glasses on and hair in a coiled braid atop her head.  Her attire, when compared to Sherry’s, was much breezier �" a billowing, strappy top with a pair of jean shorts.

            Sherry nodded.  “We watched the moon come up.  It was beautiful…”  She sighed happily and flopped backwards onto Pona’s bed.

            Pona smiled.  “So…are you guys meeting up again?”  She waggled her eyebrow at Sherry.

            “He wants me to go with him to the show next week at the Seaside Gallery, and I think we’re meeting up the day after, too.”  Her eyes sparkled.  “I can’t wait!!”

fghfghfghfgfgfgfgfgfgfhfghfghfghfhgfhgfhgfhgfhghfghf

            Fye unlocked the door, whistling merrily.

            The house was very dark.  He called softly for El.

            When the cat did not appear, he poked his head out of the hallway and peered at her cat bed on the kitchen counter.

            Something long and slim was stretched out on the kitchen counter.  Fye could see in the dim moonlight its sides rising and falling with sleep.  He could make out a tangle of limbs and the contour of a hip.   

            Fye gasped and stumbled over a niche in the flooring in his shock.

            Huh?  El’s eyelids fluttered, and she woke after hearing the artist shuffle around in the hallway.  She started and looked up in the direction of the noise.

            As Fye watched, the figure gasped and raised its head �" it was a woman, with a dark mass of tangled hair that fell about her face.  Shrouded in darkness, the only features Fye could see were a pair of piercing black eyes that glinted at him in shock.

            Fye yelped and fumbled for a lightswitch.

            The lights clicked on, and Elevine meowed sleepily. 

            “’la?!” Fye croaked, “But what…you…t-that woman…huh?”  He ran a hand through his hair.

            Elevine meowed with confusion, then dragged herself over to the window.  After licking her paws, she lay down and went to sleep on the sill.

            Fye stumbled to his room in a daze and started getting ready for bed.