The house drifted somewhere between nothing and being, far from the outskirts of the underworld, but not quite touching the middle one. It floated and drifted back and forth at leisure, it's plaster walls glowing golden colors from a sunset that did not in fact exist. And then, in a moment, so brief so quick one could not tell now from then, like a cloud which seemingly without movement changes from a horse to duckling into a ship, the house was steadfastly growing from a sea cliff. Salt spray coughed up by the warm sea drifted past the flung open shutters, clinging to linen curtains that was not real in any form other than that of a dream. Another breath of wind and the house moved once more to other regions of other worlds and back again. The witch, sipping ice tea in the parlor of the house, did not seem to care that each window of the stucco building looked out upon a different view.
You see she had made it that way, it bothered her none, and no one ever dared to comment on the disorder of having three different winds blowing in all at once, or the way the house creaked with a storm in one corner and swelled with humidity in another. If the house bothered her, she could change it, dreams are like that for witches.
A knock, demanding, pounded against the door. It took a moment for the witch to sort out where the door being knocked was, and then who was doing the knocking. The wails of oxen in a busy market drifted through the heavy wood, the smells of body odor and sultry fat wax perfumes snuck under the floor boards just before the sea air brushed it off.
Ah, Heliopolis, she thought. The commanding pounds continued, but being the sort who was rarely commanded she simply waited until the man in leather sandals let himself in. The shouts of languages long dead in other corners of the house came in as well.
"Shoes", she said, still not looking up from her book, though she had long since lost her place in it. The best way to deal with nobles was to put them on an equal pedestal; it unnerved them enough to mind their manners and to not tread ox dung on her Persian rugs. Never mind that she had already dreamed up a servant to clean the rugs, or she could simply dream them clean again; it was the thought really.
The now barefoot man swept into the room and had at least enough sense to wait before being addressed to take a seat. Turning one more page of the book which was in a langue she didn't know anyway for good measure, her golden eyes flickered up at the man before her.
"Oh 'phaestion, how goes it" Not well, she thought.
"Not well, it pains me to say" and truly it did. Cracks of worry had spread like roots about his face, young skin had become sallow, sweat from more than southern sun pooled above his lip. He's lost some hair, shenoted.
"A pity indeed, tell me your troubles, dear supporter."
"My troubles may be so vast I think even you could not help them."
"No such thing." A silence.
"Its him again, I can't…I'm just being eaten alive, I can't sleep, I can't…I can't even look at him anymore without this pain in my chest. I just know he's been lying to me. I know it. I see it. There is something he's not telling me, and I don't know why." By this time the barefoot man was pacing back and forth before the sweeping couch the witch lounged upon. A sigh. "I just can't stop thinking about what it might be. Is it something I said, is it the new dignitaries, but that can't be they practically worship him…I mean he's been so distant lately, and normally he seeks me for help, but never, not once. In council meetings, he is passionate, as ever he was, but you know, never, not once does he look into my eyes." Another silence falls, as the man wipes his nose with the sleeve of his tunic. Were the situation not so heavy the witch might have laughed at this undignified display. "I just need to know, what it is that is wrong." For the first time since his coming the barefoot man looked into those waiting, watching eyes. Help me, they said. It will cost you the others replied.
"Tell me what it is you want."
"I want things to go back to how they were."
"Nothing in the universe remains stagnant, try again."
"Please…make him" a look, sharp, and fiery shot from the witch's eyes, "…make me…show me what I can do." The air lifted, the forces pushing against each other subsided, and only an emptiness remained. The choice had been made, the currents pushed the witch into the flow.
She moved the foreign book and the condensing glass of tea from the low oriental table before her, opened a hidden door and drew forth a deck of cards.
"Poor thing really," spoke a voice from behind the witch's head. Once again propped up on her elegant couch, turning the pages of a book she could not read, the witch held up her glass. The voice's keeper filled it and continued on, "A pity surely, that one so young should be so distressed in love. His lover is cheating on him, but you know that, the cards knew that." No reply. The voice continued, "Shame you didn't tell him, but he didn't ask did he. The never do know how to phrase their questions do they? Always asking what they don't really want, always looking for an easy way out. As if those cards were set in stone."
"He already knew," she sighed, turning another illegible page, "he just won't admit it. Doesn't care though, he won't do anything." She shut the book.
"Like I mentioned, a pity. To put up with all that, he was such nice boy, but to love someone so frivolous, a shame, a crying shame."
"He loves him greatly," raising the cool glass to her forehead with another onset of ocean heat from the left front window, "but loves himself minutely."
Outside one window the sea rumbled. Outside another a flock of birdlike beings swished their Jurassic wings. "Will you be leaving soon?"
"Not yet, I need to rest a while. Thank you Tibs." The empty glass was held out to him.
"My pleasure, mistress" It passed from hands kept smooth and strong to nimble claws, and hairy palms. The creature which walked from the parlor down into the kitchen grew in size to hold his pewter tray, diminished once more as it was relieved of the load. "What so intrigues you Nimuai?" The tiny child he addressed did not stop her staring at the old willow from behind the pained window of the kitchen.
Someone is coming she thought. Nimuai was a dream like Master Tibs and the house which was nowhere and everywhere all at once. If the tree in the yard rustled with a new wind, the witch would hear about it soon. In the great room there were sounds of creaking springs and a heavy object being slid into a shelf. Padded foot steps lead to the swishing of a shawl, a few more steps and the squeaking of steps grew fainter and fainter. Who ever they are, Nimuai thought, they will have to wait. No one ever followed the witch up the stairs. Only Master Tibs knew where it lead, and he and the witch never spoke of it. All Nimuai could distinguish of it was that when she went up she always walked back down. But of course the upstairs was a dream like the rest of the house, like the servants inside, and sometimes even the guests like that barefoot man who visited today. He was dreaming, Nimuai knew, and all of them were part of his dream.
She went back to peeling the potatoes in the sink. Then again, she mused, he was also part of theirs.
The once again tiny, hairy man leaned against the casement, watching the willow blow back and forth. The windows had all been fastened, doors locked, shutters latched. The round wards glowed from their strings above the garden, giving off a picture of delicate paper lanterns. The witch had gone back upstairs. Nimuai had rolled out her bed before the coals of the kitchen stove. The house slept. Every petal in the garden should be still by now, he thought.
The snooze of the tiny bronze girl sung to the dance of the salamanders shifting about in the fireplaces. From an indistinguishable part of the house was the tick of a clock. Clocks were of no use to people here. Time existed in this world less than it did anyplace else the witch might be, if that is one could say it existed anywhere at all. Things happened when they did, and most things happened all at once. Master Tibs understood enough of the upstairs world where his mistress went to know its inhabitance usually preferred to think of events happening linearly, one after another. Ridicules of course but the middle world never was much for sense anyway. No, no, he chuckled, they like logic much more than sense.
Yet he knew that at a certain tick his mistress always left. She wound the unseen clock and let it tick until the moment came to act. How silly that she who would not bow to a commander of great armies would bow to the tick of "time". A creature of the middle world though she may be, one might expect more of a witch.
Still the sounds from the girl, and the fire, and the unknown clock were usual for these passings. The wind in the willow tree however, bothered him. There was a shadow under it. Not negative, not positive, just a shadow. As he leaned and watched, like a forming cloud, it took the shape of a man, then a tree, then a goat, then a person blowing on pipes, beckoning the wind. How did a faun get in? the furry servant wondered.
AN: so I know it has been a long time, and truth be told I mostly gave up on this story, however your wonderful, pleadingly sweat reviews compelled me to return. So what was up with this chapter? No idea, but I suppose it will make sense to us all later. I'm curious what you all thought of this bit, could you follow it, did it make you think, notice any of the folklore in it, who got the upstairs piece? Oh by the way first person to guess who the barefoot man is gets a prize. Oh, and my well seems a little dry at the moment, so if you have any ideas or scenes you'd like to see through it into my pot, please.