Feelings
Did you ever have a feeling that, no matter how good things seem to be, everything’s about to turn to shit? Our protagonist lives with that constant knowledge. Things started off pretty bad for him and only continued in that vein, a chain of misfortune and karmic justice interspersed with periods of seeming normality. Almost as soon as life seems to have reached a plateau, he begins to look ahead to the potential for disaster on the horizon. Welcome to Pitch Springs.
Chapter 4: Life in Pitch Springs
My father went to war (“What war?” I recall innocently asking the day he told us of his plans. “Whichever one will have me,” he replied and laughed grimly) and left us in the care of a governess.
His governess, it turned out. Her name was Mrs Blanintzi (although, strangely enough, I never heard a single word nor saw hide nor hair of a Mr Blanintzi.) She was a tiny woman who had used to be very tall indeed, or, at least so my father told my sister and me. Of course, it occurred to me that he had used to think her tall because when he knew her, he was a wee lad, himself. Still there was no denying that her stature seemed to be affected by her extreme age. When first I was introduced to her I cringed a little and fell back before her. She had reminded me of the evil sorceress, Valenna Gretzi from the Tale of the Dead Count. I never totally overcame that first impression though our governess was far from evil. Admittedly, I could not call her kind-hearted either. Her defining characteristic was her sternness. She balanced my sister’s stupidly happy nature by never smiling, at least never in my presence. This may have had more to do with a dentally challenged nature, I realise now, but at the time I imagined it was due to a strict seriousness which I appreciated and even admired. I would not like to give the impression that Mrs Blanintzi was anything other than devoted to her young charges, however. Unsmiling and hard though she might have been, Mrs Blanintzi’s only concern was the welfare of my sister and me. She cooked and cleaned for us, mended our clothes and trained us to fend for ourselves as much as possible. Meanwhile she tried to procure for me a suitable education and, for my sister, a suitable suitor.
Now, by this time in my life I was aware of what had happened to our farm life and why and who was responsible: me. I do not think that my family had guessed it or at least not all of it. My father felt it, though, of that I am sure. His feelings never steered him wrong, not until the end, at least. He used to often tell us of feelings he’d had which had saved his life.
A true story (as opposed to the likes of the Man who Stared at Sheep and the Tale of the Dead Count) that he once told us illustrated the value he placed on his “feelings.” He had been in the top field watching Greysteel chew on the long-grown grass under the great old chestnut tree near the edge of his land. The weather was fine and warm and my father was sitting in the shade of the tree himself when this occurred. The scene seemed so tranquil, he said, that he even began to drift off as his trusty steed ate his fill in the shade beside him. There was no cause for unease, my father told us, and yet as he lay there, back to chestnut, his stomach fluttered and he awoke wholly from his doze. He looked around, sniffed the air and held his breath to listen for danger. He heard, smelled and saw nothing, but the “feeling” grew worse until he felt so uneasy that he gathered Greysteel’s bridle in his hand and led him down towards the farmhouse. The feeling, he said, grew still worse until he felt close to nauseous so he mounted the horse bareback and galloped all the way to the house. He locked Greysteel in the stable and went into the house himself, urging my mother to do the same (this was before either Primula or I were born.) Ten minutes after he had done this the stampede came upon the Sharpetzi farm. A herd of four hundred wild buffalo destroyed the top field in a sea of flesh. Many of the sheep were killed and many more scattered, fences were torn away as if made of paper and many of the farm’s outbuildings needed repairs afterwards.
So, you can easily see, it stood to reason that he would have felt something about my hand in our fate, in the disaster and disappointment of our lives. He must have had a feeling about my curse. Perhaps it even drove him away to his unspecified war, leaving my sister and me in our new home in Pitch Springs.
Our new home was a townhouse that slotted between a shoemaker’s and a pie-shop. The house appeared to have been built later than these two businesses, filling the gap between them perfectly. Perhaps once it had been a darkened alleyway where unknown rascals picked pockets and murderers garrotted their victims. Such thoughts often passed through my mind as a boy growing into a young man in that house. I learned much later and rather disappointingly that there had never been an alleyway in that spot and that before our house was balanced perfectly between shoes and pies a small garden had stood in that place, brightening the otherwise dull square on which it stood. The square was called Saint Frackas’ Square. Saint Frackas is the patron saint, rather fittingly, of all soldiers and warriors, which is why my father bought the house where he did. He was not an especially religious man but he treasured his own well cultivated beliefs and superstitions.
My sister; you might be wondering by now what had happened to her. Nothing, is the answer. Not a thing happened in my sister’s life. Even before moving to Pitch Springs she seemed to lead an incredibly dull existence. She would wake each morning, prepare a meagre breakfast for herself and then leave the house, off to work for Grey Greta, the washer woman who so feared the wrath of my father (It had always been common practice in our region to prefix a person’s name with their most noticeable physical characteristic: there was Tall Merchyn, Stick-skinny Glyndi, Elephant-ears Tomanz and Eyebrows Maryk (that last one is me. I have been afflicted with more than one curse and the eyebrows which move about my forehead of their own volition are the second most terrible of them.) Her employer, as I believe I have already illustrated, treated Primula abominably; beating her when she was unhappy with the standard of her work or if she was tardy, calling her names (she called her “Miss Flimula” which apparently filled Grey Greta with vicious mirth and left her employee baffled but unaccountably insulted) and worked her like a mule twelve to sixteen hours each day. Despite all of this, Primula remained irrepressibly cheery. She was pretty, everyone said so, and she had an exceptionally fine set of teeth which she delighted in displaying as often and for as long as possible. This penchant for smiling often led her to look rather stupid. Once, in the farm days, when the Meat Man came to the house, my father invited him in. When he was left alone with just us children in the parlour he began to regale us with what passed for funny slaughterhouse anecdotes. I was only five years old at the time and I knew enough to laugh at all the right junctures and ask questions in the right places (I was an unusually bright and well-mannered child, it’s true.) Meanwhile, Primmy sat there smiling the same blank-faced smile. Even after the Meat Man had asked her a pointed question about her preference for liver or tongue. I saved her bacon by answering the query myself, indicating my personal preference for kidney which sent him into gales of laughter. I remember watching the Meat Man leave our house that evening shaking his head and chuckling to himself and repeating “Kidney! Hah! Kidney!”
I envied Primula. No matter what the World and events conspired to inflict upon her, from my mother’s murder at my infant hands to the twice-weekly thrashings from the bully who employed her, her chin never slumped and she never, ever cried. I never saw her cry at least, so I assume she didn’t. She clearly took after my good father very strongly (apart from the smarts, my father was an uneducated but very intelligent man.) But I knew where she drew her unmitigated happiness from and it was from a mean place inside her heart. She would forever be smugly certain that, no matter what she did or how bad things seemingly got, she would never have to live with the burden of being a Mother-Killer. I often spotted her watching me and smiling her stupid, wide-mouthed smile like the wood-carving of an ass and then suddenly looking away and becoming occupied by an invisible stain on her dress or a non-existent cobweb when she became aware that I knew she was looking at me.
When we moved to town things did become a little easier for Primula. Her place of work was much closer so she no longer had to wake before the break of dawn. Also, she began to meet other people her own age and her prettiness was admired the town over. My sister was five years my elder. (My own birth was a mistake in more ways than one: my parents had never been expecting another child when I came along; Mother had been very ill for several years previous to my birth and the wise-woman I mentioned earlier, Old Aggie, told her she’d never live to see another child. She was, of course correct but not in the way my parents expected.) She was beginning to attract male attention. One day in spring when I was nine or ten years of age, while Primula was in the square outside our house talking with the other adolescent girls and grinning her inane grin at the group of boys on the other side of the square, our governess, Mrs Blanintzi, told me, “Your father only wants a good man for young Miss Sharpetzi (she was referring to my sister), a good match.” This was the first I had heard of this, in fact I had never heard my father express any wishes about either of us except that we be looked after and that I gain some degree of education (I shall come to that presently (are these constant parenthetical interruptions becoming distracting? They seem to be the only way I can convey these interesting but narratively unnecessary tidbits so I believe I will continue to use them where I deem it fitting.)) Indeed, I doubt very much that Primula, herself, was any more aware of our father’s plans for her than I had been. I decided to keep the knowledge to myself. It made me feel good to know this thing when she did not. It was petty, I am aware of this, and yet I will not deny it. After Mrs Blanintzi told me of the marital designs my father was formulating for my sister I began to watch more closely the behaviour both of our governess and of Primula and how the actions of the younger frustrated and annoyed the older repeatedly.
This became important later in the relationship I had with Primula. Up until that point I had almost no relationship with her. I was probably the only thing in this dreadful world which could dampen her otherwise unflappable happiness so she avoided me as much as possible. I still rose early because it was necessary for me to do so, meanwhile Primmy slept late; I returned home early while she worked as late as possible; on our free days she would dance about the town with her gaggle of friends from morning, late into the evening. Meanwhile I stayed at home and studied even though that’s what I did most of the week anyway.
Still, one day I discovered something that she wanted more than anything else and told her I could help her get it. This is how I was to do it.
To be continued…
The Dice Pool 