Balor doesn’t come into the greenhouse that morning. He’s
taking the whole ‘giving Casper his space’ thing more seriously than Casper had
given him credit for. At any rate, the lack of disturbances lets him rest easy
this morning and through the night. He appreciates the space. He feels more
centered for it and, after the day he had yesterday, he needs it.
He balls up his blanket, shoves it in the gap between the
seed cabinet and the greenhouse wall. If there’s anything recent experience has
taught him, it’s that this isn’t going to be his last night here; better keep a
blanket on standby for when he needs to hole up outside the house for a bit.
Plus, knowing it’s going to get dirty again the next time he uses it gives him
an excuse not to wash the damned thing, which is more than can be said about
him. He scratches at the dirt that’s slipped beneath his shirt while he was
asleep. Feels like everything could use a good rinse.
He leavers open the window to one of the bedrooms from
the outside and slips in that way. The less time he spends in the house with
Myr and the ill temper that’s taken him, the better. If memory serves right,
this is the same room he got his shirt from. Sure enough, there’s a few more
spare sets identical to the one he’s wearing, if a good deal cleaner. He grabs
one, goes out the way he came, and heads for the river for his washing up. The
water’s still freezing. The (relatively) fresh change of clothes does little to
warm him up, but at least he’s not itchy anymore. He shakes the water out of
his hair and wonders if sleeping in the dirt is going to give him fleas one of
these days. He hopes not. They were a pain and a half back when he had them in
the workhouse and he’s none too keen on having a relapse.
Clothes go up to dry and Casper wishes it was that easy
to dry off himself, but the prospect of hanging from the branches like a monkey
doesn’t seem a comfortable one. He does one last inventory check to see if he
has everything he needs. Spoon? Check. Rag? Check. Breakfast? Not yet, but he
knows where to go to get that. Back to the greenhouse he goes, then it’s high
time he looks for Balor. A through search of the grounds turns up empty; he can
only be inside.
Casper paces in front of the back door. He tells himself
that Myr’s unlikely to be up yet, that he’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t go
upstairs, that the rest of the downstairs area should be as safe as the bedroom
he snuck into. He tells himself he’ll be fine. What he tells himself and what
he feels are two entirely different things. In spite of all the best
assurances, he isn’t convinced. Come hell or high water, in he goes.
Regardless of his insecurities, absolutely nothing
happens. It’s the worst. He’s left high-strung, second guessing every step,
every turn, every move, waiting for the guillotine overhead to drop. Is Myr
waiting around the corner? Is Balor? He can’t hear anything that would suggest
so, but that means scant little in this place. He makes the rounds of the whole
floor and, finding not a soul in sight, makes for a break for the back entryway.
It’s only as he’s at the door that he finally catches a hair of Balor, the man
himself suddenly appearing in his periphery and scaring the shit out of him. As
it turns out, Balor’s been sitting peaceably at the kitchen table this whole
time. Casper’s been jumping at shadows for nothing.
Balor simply gives him a questioning look. “Feeling
apprehensive are we Casper?”
Casper shushes him loudly. He glances back towards the
stairs. No, he’s safe. “Be quiet!” He scolds in a whisper. “Do you wanna get me
caught?”
“I take it Myr’s ultimatum has unnerved you,” Balor
frowns.
You don’t say. “Who? Me? Nah. I only get people
tellin’ me they’re ‘bout to kill me every other week. Course I’m scared!”
He stalks to the table so he doesn’t have to be so loud to be heard. Doesn’t
Balor understand? Myr’s going to hear them. He’s going to get him caught.
“The real mystery here is why the bloody hell are you sittin’ here, doin’ fuck
all like you’re waitin’ to have tea with the queen!”
Balor takes the tantrum in stride. “I have had the
displeasure of being acquainted with Myr for far too many years than I care for;
if there is anything that I have come to know in that time, it is the man’s
habits and mannerisms. Furthermore, if you find yourself so concerned over
waking him, then I suggest you calm yourself as you are the loudest of the two
of us.”
“I’ll calm down when I can quit worryin’ ‘bout gettin’
strangled in my sleep by that loony!”
“Myr shall not harm you, given that you perform the role
of the subservient as need be to cater to his vanity. You have already played
your part wonderfully Casper.”
“Is that a fact?” He seethes. “’Cause it sure as hell didn’t
look like it.” Balor gestures for him to take the seat across from him. He
huffs and refuses initially until it becomes clear Balor’s not talking until he
sits. He takes the chair reluctantly. He looks like a midget on a high chair,
always so infuriatingly small compared to everyone else, even Balor.
Especially Balor.
He looks down at him as he talks. “Myr is quite
predictable in that, when faced with a potential problem, he will attempt to
intimidate as a means of managing the situation. Should he meet no resistance,
he will assume he has been successful and is nigh guaranteed to take no further
action until he feels it necessary to frighten the opposition into submission
again.” Balor takes him in, a frightened child, spiteful in all the wrong ways
for all the right reasons. “You have given him no such resistance, therefore,
as you can plainly see,” he gestures broadly to the floor above, “he has taken
no action and is quite unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future.”
The speech has done nothing to quell Casper’s temper; if
anything, it's put more fuel on the fire. “So, you’re tellin’ me you knew what was up the whole
time and you didn’t say nuthin’, let me sweat the night out, thinkin’ I was
gonna die?” The volume rises higher and higher with every word said. Myr
be damned, Casper’s going to wake the dead. “What fuckin’ part of that
is alright?”
That wiped the blank look off his face, cracked straight
through the deadpan and left a shaken core. At least he’s taking him seriously
now. “That was not my intention.”
“Then what? What was it?” Casper screams and the chair
screeches back so hard when he stands it just about falls over. “Or were you
havin’ too much fun pullin’ my strings around, playin’ me for a puppet?” He
stares Balor down, eye to eye because he has had it up to here with all these
mind games.
“Do not accuse me of toying with lives!” Balor stands too
and now they’re both yelling. Casper must have a death wish. “This is no game
and there is no other that understands this better than I.”
“Bullshit!”
Neither
of them are backing down, not when Casper’s life is on the line. It’s Myr’s
clattering upstairs as he comes to investigate that forces their ceasefire.
Casper gives Balor one last glare before he makes a break for it out the
kitchen door and into the woods beyond. Balor calls after him on his heels, then
suddenly, inexplicably drops the chase. Casper keeps on running. Runs head long
into another building that’d been swallowed up by the brush as a matter of
fact. Looks like an ideal place to hide, though it’s no longer tenable, what
with having been reduced to ruins over the course of years, like most things on
the manor grounds. Casper has no intention of following suit and becoming another
one of the broken objects that overwhelm the place like gravestones. He lingers
only as long as it takes to catch his breath and flees to town.
<== Day Ten - Midday to Night ==> Table of Contents <== Day Eleven - Afternoon ==>
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