"Greetings Misses" the man stapling the doctrine to the small town shop outside his store said nodding politely once and giving a soft smile as Ebony walked by. She was a somewhat petite girl with very curvy soft features, with a small heart shaped face. She had rosy cheeks scattered with ginger freckles and had fair beautiful skin. She walked around in bright colors splattered on her old scuffed up converse shoes with her hair in a messy bun. Today she wore some loose patchy jeans and a thick cashmere sweater with a low V neck that revealed her tank top underneath. Ebony had a small button nose and soft almost red full lips and big owl like brilliant green eyes and soft copper hair flowing down to her mid waist in beautiful curls.
She sniffed a little and wiped her nose on a crumbled tissue from her pocket, grabbed a basket from beside the store door and walked up and down the aisles. She had come up here for a brief day or two with her brother who was in a frantic frenzy trying to escape events that were mysterious to Ebony. She and her brother had never been on comfortable terms for Sam had always been forced to take care of Ebony. Her mother had long since left and her father had passed on a couple years back.
Ebony had always been a strange child, and a complete handful. She talked in an eccentric fashion if she talked at all and wasted away her afternoons in the trunk of their truck just sitting there dreaming up the sky as she splattered paint all over the bed of her truck expressing everything she knew in a mesh of colors.
Than on other days she would build a waterproof canopy over the truck that was strapped down with rope wrapping around the truck bed to keep the canopy down. The roof was elevated by tall fence posts sturdily tapped down against the walls of the truck while in the night also served as places to hang her old fashioned very hazardous lanterns.
Ebony and Sam were always on the road ever since Sam had lost their parents house and Ebony in recuperation had claimed the trunk as her second home, painted floor and all. She had shoved a pillow in there and some layers of bubble wrap with some big fluffy fleece blankets serving as sufficient bed. In the back of her trunk she also kept a mediocre sized metal cage with two tiny albino mice named Clarissa and Sweeney which she fed every afternoon and sunrise.
Sam was already in his early thirties and still lacking a woman to settle down with and a family to take care of and sometimes he found that having to take care of his sister was well beyond what he was even slightly interested in doing. Ebony was 19 and a hazard to society and needed constant watching never really capable of living on her own for the trouble she always seemed to be causing because of her mental sickness.
The thing about Ebony was that even though she talked and thought like a normal person a good chunk of the time, she sometimes suffered episodes of emotional outbursts that could elevate to such extremes the only proper way to take care of it is to sedate her. But most of the time she was normal in an eccentric sort of way.
Today they had reached Tashmore Lake to meet an old colleague of Sam's for reasons her brother had failed yet to explain. She placed a can of Spaghetti-O's in her basket and some cereal and sighed as she walked over to the counter.
The lady scanned the two items and gave the girl a strange look at her odd choice of groceries.
"Is that all you'll be taking hun?"She asked and Ebony nodded while staring awkwardly at her and grabbed her plastic bag walking out of the store leaving the exact amount in change on the counter in the shape of a question mark.
She walked out to the truck to find her brother had returned from the bank and she smiled softly. She walked lightly over to the trunk and ducked under the thick canopy and left the groceries in there and walked around over to her seat. She strapped in and slipped off her flip flops putting her feet onto the dashboard.
"Hey Ebbs" Sam said glancing at her from the corner of his eyes nervously and Ebony looked at him a flat expression consuming her face as she came to realization. She could hear the anxiety snuffing out his voice causing it to shake slightly.
"Ebbs, I'm going away for a while and it's a certain type of situation where I'm incapable of taking you with me." He eased out cautiously unknowing as to how his sister would react. Her face froze over and she quickly looked away turning her body away from him.
"Who will I be staying with?" she asked coldly and he bit his lip.
"Morton Rainey." He said feeling the strangeness of saying the man's name after some 10 years.
The rest of the ride was bitterly quiet until they pulled into Mr. Rainey's yard their wheels crunching on the gravel and ice beneath. He got out of the car and walked around the truck opening the door for her and hating how she just sat glaring at him.
"You have offended my feelings." She said bitterly and stepped out casually keeping her chin up in the air while walking up to the porch as her brother pulled out her things and her rat cages.
He rushed over to her, his boots squelching in the snow and put aside the suitcases and cage. He quickly wrapped his sister with a large quilt and pulled her hat on top of her head and held her shoulders briefly.
"Stay warm alright munchkin." he said and then brought her into a brotherly hug his chin having been unshaven bristling on her cheek as she stood unresponsive.
He pulled away and quickly shuffled over to the door and knocked a couple of times. He jumped from foot to foot and rubbed his hands together. He ran his hand against his neck now waiting nervously for the door to open when suddenly in one big bust it swung quickly open and Mort stood in the door holding up a crow bar of some sort.
"Oh" he said looking confused and somewhat paranoid while he nervously swung the crow bar behind his back trying to conceal it.
"Sorry, thought you were a bear mister." He said laughing nervously and looking off to the side awkwardly. Mort's eyes flew across the two and back examining them both. The girl was considerably tiny giving the impression that she could be lifted up with one hand and be smashed into something and break every bone in her body. She had big searching eyes and lovely copper hair that was almost a deep crimson color. The man next to her was a big burly type of person with an unshaven worn out features with sunken in eyes looking as if he hadn't slept a wink in days.
"Listen, My names Sam Elliot, I went to college with you, remember me" he sputtered nervously taking a step forward while Mort just shook his head a little giving a drowsy but confused look and ran his hand through his disheveled hair.
Ebony looked at him up and down and gave her brother a you've-got-to-be-kidding look. Mort's hair was all over the place in messy tendrils and he wore a tattered bathrobe and his glasses were crooked on his nose. He leaned against the door and looked at them through half cracked open eyes still apparently drowsy form sleep.
"Oh, yeah, come inside" he said and opened the door for them to enter though still at a loss at who the man was standing on his porch. Sam grabbed the bags all in his arms while Mort picked up the cage giving it a skeptical look glaring down the rats before shuddering and walking in after his two guests.
He noisily placed the cage on his coffee table and stood awkwardly staring at the two.
"Erm, take a seat"
"no actually I'd like to speak to you privately" Sam said discretely making sure his sister who was now walking around the room inspecting Mr. Rainey's possession didn't hear. She stretched on the very tips of her toes trying to get a view over a high shelf while the two men slipped away into the kitchen.
"What exactly are we talking about here?"Morton asked massaging his chin.
"Mort, my sister needs care that I can't provide. Just for a little while, I'd come back for her in January no later than September." He pleaded now in a hushed tone while Morton choked on his breath.
"September, Jesus" he hissed clutching the counter.
"No, I can't do this. I-I can't do this right now. I just don't have the space and my wife just--"
"Please Mort, Mort, Mort" he repeated desperately now and grabbed his shoulder shaking Mr. Rainey and looking him in the eyes.
"Mort I'm stuck real bad right now. Fine! I'll be back before September I'll be back as soon as I can, but right now you have to take her off my hands." Sam pleaded desperately and fidgeted slightly running his hands through his hair ruffling it up a bit.
"Morton," he said gravely.
"Morton I lost my house, that car isn't even mine Just do this for me, please, buy me some time to get a hold of the situation" He snapped under his breath and turned quickly around holding his head his back to Morton who was deeply frowning now.
"Alright. " Mort exhaled and shook his head.
"You will!" he exclaimed greatly and turned around with a large elated look on his face as he let out a small laugh. "Great!!!'
He shuddered slightly as he searched all his pockets patting his shirt until he produced an old folded sheet of paper and shakily shoved it into Mort's hands.
"That's a list of things you've got to do for her, it'll all become clear with time… and" he jerked slightly when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and bit down on his finger. He mumbled a quick yeah and snapped the phone shut.
"Uh, I've-I've got to go now, Thanks so much Mort. You won't regret this." He said pointing at Mort and looked him in the eye as he fumbled out of the room and rushed over to his sister giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before rushing out the door.
The house was quiet as Morton and Ebony stood in the room both staring at each other an awkward tension in the air.
She walked over stiffly to the couch and sat down well aware of his eyes on her. She bounced up and down checking out the springs and looked around pulling her blanket closer to her.
"It's cold" she said and Morton cocked an eyebrow before shrugging it off.
"Heaters busted." He said simply.
"It's winter, you should fix it" she retorted before casually lying down to the side.
"Yes but I've got a fire place" he said sitting down in his armchair staring at her from the bridge of his nose as she shifted around on his couch.
"It's not on" She grumbled before bitterly turning around and burying her face in the cushions letting out a shuddering breath and fell quickly asleep, while Morton was forced to sleep in his bed for the first time in months.