SSCS 02: Installment 16 of 32
How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
This is Installment 16 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
Previously…
The roses glowed at her prettily as she got back to her shaky feet again, heart pounding in her ears.
And the kraken, as far as she could tell, was simply delighted.
Installment 16: 20.0409
…How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
***
A good bit too long later, Mina finally reached the top of the spire stair and paused to lean heavily against one of the boulders, and to unclench her jaw. The kraken had not made another appearance since she was about mid-way up the climb, and Mina was beginning to suspect that getting too far above the ocean it had begun to get bored with her. Better bored than angry, of course. But it was just a theory, and her back and the top of her head still had the itching feeling that it was going to come dropping down on her again suddenly, that maybe it had been waiting and waiting in the hopes that it might just spook her enough to make her fall right off the spire. Well, that would be one way to finish things off.
But it didn’t drop down, and Mina was halfway across to the kitchen gate before she even saw another thing move. It was Hedwin, of course, slouching next to the gate with a broom in one hand, not really doing anything with it so much as using it to poke at something near the fence line. When he finally looked up at her, Mina saw that the whole of his cheeks were a sullen piss color and he didn’t smile in greeting, just scowled. “What took you so long?” he snapped. “We found the last of the pigs ages ago, and since then she’s been having me scrubbing up shit.”
By this point, Mina’s hand was throbbing enough she didn’t feel like sparing the energy to bicker back at him. Instead she just made her own scowl and shouldered past him, through the gate and on to the kitchen with its basin and where she could finally drop the basket of hell’s cursed oyster bells! Once she did and had poured out a measure of water to start to clean herself off in, she was taken over by a terrible, great sneeze and realized she’d had snot caked all down her face, too. Inside the kitchen, the smell of the oyster bells was even thicker – a scent that started off sort of dusty sweet but had sharp, prickling notes to it the longer you smelled it. During the climb up she just hadn’t had anything to spare to be stopping and snuffling and fiddling with her face, had just let the snot run down.
Now, fortunately, there was a remedy for this problem, which was even and in fact the thing she was supposed to be doing next with the stupid flowers. Gran-Tom might say to save half out to run tomorrow’s tincture tomorrow, but hang that! Pulling down the big, copper bucket from where it hung next to the fire, Mina upended the whole basket into it. Hand still bloody, she uncorked the tea-oil jar and poured a good coating all over the top. Then she snatched down the bucket lid and clamped it on tight. There were other things she was supposed to do next, but they could wait until the air cleared up a bit and she could breathe again.
Not that she was going to be allowed to breathe in peace. Not today.
“Would you help with it when you’re done with that?” The light dimmed as Hedwin scuffled in through the kitchen doorway. He smelled bad – like pig shit – but it was almost refreshing just to be smelling something different.
“Why should I help with what?” There was too much crustiness to wash off to bother with looking up. And besides, even if she’d been in a good mood Mina would have said Hedwin was acting particularly whiny today.
“I don’t want to keep scrubbing. My arms hurt.”
This time Mina did look up, the words ‘oh, grow a bit of fucking stomach’ poised on her lips. But Hedwin wasn’t even looking at her. He was eyeing the tea bucket like he was working up the nerve for something unthinkable, and where his cheeks had been piss yellow before now they showed splotchy bruises of red. That would have thrown Mina off if she’d grown up further inland, but she knew enough sea folk to see when one was nothing short of terrified.