Lauren--Part Fifty

Splog # 183

Fifty

 Lauren put her hand on the stone to see if she would feel any heat. The rock felt pretty much like any other rock she had ever touched and she shrugged and returned her attention to washing the mud off her feet and legs. She paid more attention to her legs figuring that her feet would pretty much clean themselves in the running water. She cupped water in her hands and poured it over her legs. This made the dried mud gooey and she quickly found that cleaning herself off wasn't going to be exactly quick and easy. She decided she needed something she could fill with water so she could pour and wash and rinse all at the same time. Mae might have something in the packs on her horse. She turned towards the top of the gully and was surprised to find Mae standing just where she'd left her when she came down to the stream. The horse had moved away a little and was cropping grass, but Mae seemed to be frozen in place just where they had last exchanged a few words. Lauren called her name to get her attention but there was no response. She wondered if something was wrong and the next thing she knew Austin had run up the incline and was standing before Mae barking. He jumped up a bit in front of her and she moved her head and looked at him.

 "What's the matter, Austin?"

 "You were in a trance or something," Lauren called from below. "Do you have something I can use to pour water over my legs? I'm not getting much done with just my hands."

 Before Lauren finished speaking Mae was moving to the horse. Lauren swished her feet around while she was waiting. Then she took off her remaining sandal and gave in a washing in the stream. She held it up and shook it to get the water off.

 "I'll wait until we find a more hospitable place before I clean up, thank you." Mae was laughing as she spoke. Lauren had scattered water all around while removing the excess from her sandal and there were liquid drops covering Mae's face and clothes.

 "Oops," Lauren said with chagrin.

 Mae just laughed and handed her a somewhat battered metal pot. "That's great," Lauren said. "Thanks." And she began scooping up water and pouring it down her legs, at the same time wiping the mud off with her other hand. Mae stood gazing into the water and Lauren began chattering as she washed.

 "It's so nice to get this mud off. It was starting to itch something awful. I guess I'll have to leave my shorts for now. It might not be too comfortable, if I get them all wet. My sandal's all clean, although just one sandal isn't going to be much help. I wonder where I can get something around here for my foot. My other foot. Or maybe feet would be better. Having two different kinds of shoes might be - I don't know. I guess I'll just have to go barefoot for a while and be careful." Lauren was now cleaning off the bottom of the cloak and trying not to get the whole thing wet. She looked up to ask Mae a question about the quickest way to get the cloak to dry and found that she had moved off a few yards down the stream and was once again lost in a reverie. This time staring at the water. Lauren wrung out the wet part of the cloak as best she could and then spread it on some stones away from the water. She moved over to Mae hoping that there was nothing wrong. When she was by her side, Mae's arm raised a little and her finger pointed to something in the stream. Lauren tried to follow the direction indicated and found herself looking at a glow beneath the water. Before she could get any idea of exactly what it was, Mae's arm pointed farther downstream to another glow and then Lauren's eyes continued farther on her own and she could see glowing spots at irregular intervals as far downstream as her vision reached. After a moment, she looked at Mae, whose arm had returned to her side but who still seemed lost deep inside herself. Lauren waded to where Mae had first pointed and tried to pinpoint what in the water was creating the glow. But the closer she looked, the less she could make sense of what she was seeing. The glow wasn't on the bottom of the stream and it wasn't floating on the top. It was suspended in between the surface and the bed. But there was nothing there! The glow seemed to be a part of the water. But it wasn't moving with the water. It just hung there while water moved by above, below and on both sides. Lauren reached her hand out to touch the place and when she did the glow transferred to her hand. She jerked her hand out of the water and held it up to her face. Mae snapped from her trance and rushed to Lauren to see if she was hurt. They both looked incredulously at her hand which seemed to have a brilliant light embedded in the palm. Mae held Lauren's hand and rubbed her thumb over the palm. She turned it over and there seemed to be a faint light shining on the back of the hand also. Mae looked to the place where the glow had been in the water, but there remained no sign of it.

 "It doesn't hurt, does it?" she asked Lauren.

 "No, but - " Lauren didn't know if this was a bad thing that had happened to her. Austin came running over to where she was holding her hand up and, placing his forelegs on her thighs so he could reach it, started licking her hand. Lauren let him continue because she didn't know what else to do.