Casper has to stop moping at some point. The dirt on his clothes and skin give him incentives to act by making him itch. Serves him right for sleeping on the ground. He tuts, shakes a billowing dirt cloud out of his blanket, and adds laundry and a bath to his list of things to do. He’ll pop inside the house to grab fresh set of whatever looks like it fits to change into after he’s cleaned up. Walking around, sopping wet all day wasn't fun. The prospect of stumbling headlong into Myr isn’t appealing either, but he should be fine so long as he’s quiet. He can do quiet. It won’t be any different than any other house job he’s done. He’ll get in, he’ll grab stuff, he’ll get out. Easy.
He psyches himself up the whole way to the back door and still he hesitates on the threshold. Does he need that change of clothes that bad? What if Myr’s stirring inside? He’s up at this time of day, isn’t he? Casper swallows around the tight lump in his throat. Deep breaths. He can do this.
He drops the blanket. The door quietly eases open. He listens. There’s a slow shuffle from somewhere above him. Good. Myr can stay up there and out of his hair while he looks around. Casper slips inside and slinks towards the bedroom he stayed in during his first night. The floor hums groggily underfoot, not loudly, thank goodness, but still unnerving. It’s a constant reminder of the risk he’s running.
All the doors are swung out into the halls, into their rooms. They hint at Balor’s thorough search late last night. Casper would’ve been found if he stayed. That’s another thing he owes the big guy, he sighs.
He creeps into his old room, desiccated and bare from yesterday's blanket raid. The window’s untouched since he pried it open, which explains the draft he was feeling around his ears last night. Apparently Balor didn’t bother to close it. No matter. It gives him a handy emergency exit, should the need arise.
He rummages around in each chest of drawers, tossing out whatever doesn’t fit his needs, flinging the bloomers away with particular revulsion. You know, he’d be more likely to find not-ladies clothes in places other than in with the former (deceased) maid’s belongings. No sooner than the thought occurs to him, he moves on to the other chests. Sadly, their contents are similar as the first's, the only differences being size and cut. The stockings are nice, he admits that much, but it’s not what he’s looking.
He has better luck in the next room. In the first chest alone, he finds a few different men’s shirts in fair, if musty, condition. They’re so big he'll be swimming in them if he puts them on, but that's nothing a belt and a little sleeve rolling can’t fix. He digs some more. In the bottom drawer, there’s trousers with a waist so large he can wrap double around himself and the accompanying belt doesn’t have enough holes to cinch down to his size. Whoever owned these clothes must’ve been fat as a whale. He takes the shirt and searches the other chests. There has to be something that’ll fit him somewhere in here. He finds a belt he can use and trousers that are far too long for him, but the waist has a manageable width. It’ll do.
He wraps the trousers in the shirt like a dumpling and ties it all together with the belt. The resulting product is a compact, easy to carry package that he can run with under one arm. He has what he came for. He’s good to go. He shimmies backwards out the window (Ow! Goddamn splinters.) and books it to the back of the house.
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? Myr was too busy doing whatever the hell it is he does upstairs to notice. Nobody will suspect a thing. There’s no trace he was ever there to begin with… Except he left underwear laying about helter skelter in that one room. Idiot.
Casper distractedly runs a hand through his hair. Going back to clean up isn’t worth the risk of discovery. Calm down and think about it logically. The mess only says someone was there at some point in time, not who was there or when. Myr doesn’t know where he’s been most the time and he’s not a good tracker either. Balor’s the one who’s keeping tabs on him, but he's not too inclined to tattle unless he absolutely has to. If the big guy's willing to let a bit of stolen silverware slide, he probably wouldn't care about a bit of underwear in places they shouldn't be, right? And, if worst comes to worst and Myr catches him to asks him directly, he'll say Balor did it.
Having straightened out his story and a fresh(ish) set of clothes in hand, Casper makes his way to the river for yet another ice cold bath. The water hasn't gotten any warmer since two days ago and dousing himself in it hasn't gotten any more pleasant. He grits his teeth and bears it. If he thought the bath was bad, he quickly discovers doing laundry is worse. His clothes were easy enough to do. It’s the blanket that’s the bulk of his problems; the damn thing becomes unreasonably unwieldy when waterlogged and the sluggish current constantly threatens to carry it off. Enough is enough. He's gotten as much filth out as he cares to. Time to wring it out and lug it onto shore to dry.
Dragging the blanket out of the water without getting it dirty again is harder than washing it was. Don't even ask how he managed to get the thing draped over that tree branch to dry. Casper has no idea how he managed that particular miracle.
He gets dressed and spends the rest of the evening flopped onto his back in the tall grass, sunning himself to warm up. His hands are sore and pruney from wringing cold water out of the blanket’s fleece cloth. If he'd known laundering it would be such a pain in the rear, he'd have never dragged it with him into the glasshouse. He sighs and flops an arm over his eyes. What a pain indeed.
The hanging laundry drips rhythmically in a soothing tempo. The birds in the canopy above start to sing again now that Casper’s no longer scaring them off with his splashes and swearing. The river gurgles and hums as it bumps along the streambed. It’s the perfect musical accompaniment for a calm spring day and Casper is soon catching up on sleep lost to Myr’s reenactment of Things That Go Bump in the Night. He wakes only when the light begins to change to the darker oranges of the coming sunset. It’s time to go home.
He stretches and checks his drying clothes. The trousers need more time, but his shirt might be okay. He’ll leave them out overnight anyways. As for the blanket, Casper can tell at a glance that it’s not going to finish drying any time soon. At least it’s not dripping anymore.
He fishes out his spoon out of the pocket of his old trousers only to find a shocking absence of pockets in his new, comically oversized pants. He frowns. No leg wear worth their salt would be missing pockets. He feels around the inside of the waistline to check if they aren’t hidden in the lining somewhere. No luck. Pockets or no, his lucky silver spoon isn’t about to be left behind. Casper worries at one of the holes in his belt until he can thread the handle through and the spoon’s nicely stuck in place. Casper fiddles with his belt and tucks out his shirt a bit until his treasure is concealed to his satisfaction. This arrangement works nicely. Considering he still has some more empty belt holes, he could use this trick to squirrel away other things without worrying about them falling out. He brainstorms the possibilities as he heads back to the house. If he knew how useful a belt could be (for things besides hitting people), he’d have stolen one sooner.
Balor’s waiting for him in the backyard, bird hanging limp in hand. He was about to go looking for him in a few minutes if he didn’t show up.
Casper freezes half way across the lawn. “Am I in trouble?”
Balor gives him a strange look that vanishes a second later. “Ah, no Casper, not to my knowledge.”
Good to know, but Casper’s not yet reassured. He scans the upstairs windows. “The drunk still in there?”
“No, he left some time ago to attend to arrangements in town.”
“You know when he’ll get back?”
“No. I am afraid I do not.” Even coming from Balor, the words sound frigid.
Casper turns his attention back to the man; his body language reads stiffly. He’s bothered about something. “He givin’ you a hard time too?”
Balor snorts and the tension eases off of him. “One might phrase it in such a way, yes.” He shakes his head. “It matters not. Myr shall be as he always has been.”
“Fuckin’ nasty.”
And that’s all it takes to send Balor into deep, full bellied laughter. “Never, and I do mean never, let Myr hear you say such a thing Casper,” he wheezes after the impromptu laughing fit. “I am afraid he would have me skin you for such an insult.”
How cheery. “Don’t have to tell me twice. Far as he’ll know, I’m the simpleton who don’t know how to talk.”
“That may well be for the best.”
Balor leads the way into the house and they sink into silence.
“One question for you, Casper: Wherever did you get those clothes?”
Whoops.
END OF DAY SEVEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment