Neid fire, p.1
Neid-Fire, page 1
Neid-Fire
Copyright © 2018 Caldon Mull
Published by Caldon Mull
at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition License Notes
Neid-Fire… is a work of fiction, any resemblance of any character to any person, alive or dead is entirely coincidental.This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Neid-Fire
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Neid-Fire
The little red car wheezed up the hill, its’ tiny three cylinder motor buzzing as Armel shifted the gears down yet again to round another sharp bend. Corentin cringed as his cousin’s beefy, sweating forearm dragged against the outside of his thigh yet again. He sighed in resignation, both of them were large young men, and the tiny car left no space for comfort on the long trip on the winding road through the forest.
Outside the open windows and beyond the range of the fully-engaged fan, the Breton forest breathed and sweltered almost as if it were a living thing intent on, and actively relishing, their mutual discomfort. Corentin squirmed as sweat trickled into the crease of his buttocks. It had been eight hours since they departed South-Hampton port on the ferry and he was past done with this leg of the trip. There seemed to be no way that he could avoid rubbing against Armel, no way telling whose sweat was which after all these hours. Corentin fiddled with the plastic vent on the dashboard, but the fan simply wasn’t going to alter his level of discomfort.
Armel had never been small-talk-chatty even as a boy, growing up on the winelands farm together. That was before the big family split, before Armel went away to the big city and before the long, cold silence between their families.
Ten years later, there was much of Armel that Corentin didn’t know at all. Their re-connection was a very recent and whirlwind event.
Corentin groaned, “Are we…”
“Don’t finish that sentence, Corentin.” Armel growled, slipping another gear to wind up a switch-back “We’ve been ‘almost there’ the last five times you’ve asked. We’re not far now, we’ll get there when we get there.”
The sun was low in the sky as they pulled up the dirt road off the pass. The forest hugged the sides of the twisting lanes so close that Corentin wound up his window to stop stray branches from swatting at him on the way past, his skin sticky where it pressed against Armel as he wiggled in his seat.
“Dude!” Armel complained as the biscuit wheels of the Citroen skidded on the pebbly surface and he fought for control of the vehicle while Corentin bobbed and twisted.
The low-eave stone building was set off the top of a small plateau, the highest point around; the cleared area around the house big enough to store farm implements. The other buildings around the farmhouse were likewise constructed of stone, topped by corrugated iron roof, some with heavy wood doors shut against the sinking sun; others had open arches of heavy stone lintel. Armel drove the car into the nearest open arch big enough.
“I can't believe this took so long.” Corentin groaned as he exited the passenger door and pressed his fists into the small of his back. “Or that France is so hot or so dry this early in the year. I'm mean, it's only Easter and it’s already over thirty degrees all day long.” He swung his arms in the gloom of the barn. The little car pinged and popped and groaned quietly as it started to cool down, its’ suspension creaking as Armel squeezed out of his seat.
“Really, Corentin?” Armel cricked his neck and looked around the shed, “We’ve been in the country for a few hours, how would you know what the place is like?” Armel grabbed his hamstrings and bent forward slowly against the cramp the little car had squeezing him into. “This gap year with you in France wasn’t my idea, and if our great-aunt Helen wasn't footing the bill for both of us, I wouldn't even be here.”
“It was my twenty-first birthday present from her.” Corentin scuffed the uneven stone floor with his sandal. It looked like the stones were fitted together like a jigsaw, rather than with mortar. He squinted at the flagstones; he wasn’t sure how anyone could do something like that. “She needed someone from the family here for this summer.” Corentin sighed, “Inventory and upkeep is what she mentioned to my Dad, and there is a village crew for the buildings but nobody on the acreage. After mom died I wasn't doing anything, and it turned out; neither were you. Helen was insistent that there were two of us, or no deal. That's pretty much all I know. So cousin, it's you and me in a creepy old farmhouse house for the next thirteen weeks. I'm sure there is much to be done, work the regular maintenance crew hasn’t touched for years.”
“Great, just great!” Armel snorted, looking out over the small cluster of stone buildings from the arch “At least there are beaches a few towns down the line, and some hiking trails through the forest. If I'm going to be a labourer for the summer, I may as well make the most of it.” He turned to look at Corentin; the frown flickered off his face almost as soon as it had settled there. “I'm sorry about your mother, Corentin. My mom tried to keep in touch with you on the farm but once she packed up and left us, everything just got worse between our families.”
“I don't blame you, Armel.” Corentin shook his head slowly, “It would have been nice to see you at her funeral, but your dad and mine will never be friends again, like when we were boys growing up together. At least you made my birthday party, I appreciated that.”
“Don’t get all soft on me.” Armel grinned, “Mine was the month before and I didn’t have one, so I crashed yours.”
Corentin smiled to himself as he pulled the bags out of the back of the hatch, Armel had always used bluster and macho like that to mask his true feelings. He really hadn’t changed at all. “I can load all the bags in one go if you can open up.”
Armel nodded and rummaged in his trammel pack for the keys that Helen had given them while they walked the paving to the Farmhouse porch. Corentin balanced the bags in the shade while Armel turned the ancient iron keyring in his huge hands. Armel squinted at the lowering sun, “Always try the biggest one first.” He turned that key in the door, and it clicked open.
“There’s no light switch.” Armel walked around the dim expanse while Corentin dumped the luggage on a big table. “Not anywhere. Corentin, do you remember Helen saying anything about a generator… or anything like that?”
“No.” Corentin moved around the stone dividers and into the kitchen, while Armel ducked back outside, “But there are lamps and lamp oil, and there’s stack of firewood by the hearth. Here’s a hand-pump for water in the kitchen basin.”
Corentin tugged dust covers from the wood-hewn furniture, hearing footfalls on the ceiling planks above him as Armel explored upstairs. He grabbed a tin cup from a kitchen shelf and pumped some water for himself after all the sheets had been folded and placed on the table next to their luggage.
Armel’s voice came through the doorway, “The steps to the second floor are out here with its own entrance. I left the key in the door. There’s bedding and linen in chests in all the rooms.” His voice sounded puzzled, “But I didn’t see any bathrooms.”
“I see it.” Corentin peered through the grimy lead-paned window at the kitchen sink “It’s out back, part of the house, but a separate entrance.”
“Who has a bathroom outside the house? You have got to be kidding me.” Armel poked his head around the open door, “Helen did say it was rustic and very old, but this is positively medieval.”
“It looks like there’s a stone tub in there as well. I guess that’s the sort of thing you would do if you didn’t want farmhands inside the house or if you wanted to press... grapes…” Corentin slid the latch open on the stable door and peeked outside in the twilight, “I’ll get some lamps going. This is all paraffin-fired stuff from the fifties, at least. We had some of this tech on the farm in Tulbagh in the outside sheds that still worked, so I know how to set this up. I haven’t seen a paraffin refrigerator anywhere else for years”
“Yeah, you can do that.” Armel leaned against the door-post, “After we left the farm, I stopped giving a damn about any rural stuff. I’m a city boy now.”
Corentin grabbed some of the closest lamps on the granite top, and a box of safety matches near them and set to lighting each one. The lamps had been filled recently, and soon the warm glow of the lamps spread through the rooms as he placed the lamps on cast iron wall hooks spread around the space.
“Corentin?” Armel turned away, his large body framed by the waning glow of the horizon, “Whatever they fought about all those years ago had nothing to do with us, right? I mean, one moment we are the ‘terrible twins’ running wild on the farm, the next moment we don’t see each other for like, years. Just cut off.”
“No, Armel.” Corentin shrugged, “I don’t know what happened between them after Grandpa died. We’re all good.”
“Okay.” Armel watched the growing dark from the doorway, “I’ve got a strange feeling about this old place, like it knows me…”
“It’s been in the family for hundreds of years, maybe longer.” Corentin hefted a paraffin keg onto the kitchen counter and primed the stove for boiling water. He squint
“Yeah, maybe that’s what it is.” Armel whispered.
Corentin decided not to pry into his thoughts and switched subjects “There are a whole lot of tins in the cupboards, I can do us dinners if you could do breakfast. Someone has left fresh eggs, tomatoes and rye bread, some milk, oats and sugar. We can stock up with more fresh stuff from the village Helen told us about at the bottom of the hill.”
“There’re a few rooms upstairs, I’ll grab one and you can choose any of the others.” Armel yawned, “If you don’t mind me eating and running, I’d like to stretch out and hit the sack.”
“Sure, I’ll close up after we’re done down here.” Corentin shrugged as he cracked a tin of salt beef, “It’s been a long day. I’ll put out the other lamps after you’re finished, we’ll each have to take one with us.”
#
Corentin woke to streaming sunlight through the open window, motes of dust danced in the beams and the smell of bacon drifted through it from downstairs. It was hot, and he was perspiring freely even though it was still early morning. Corentin slung his feet over the overstuffed mattress and shuffled to the basin that stood in the wooden frame in the corner by the window. He slipped off his sodden wife-beater, sniffed it, and tossed it into a sodden heap by a wash stand.
He poured water from the urn on the stand into the rust-flecked lemon-coloured basin and splashed his face with it and rubbed the coolness onto the back of his neck while he gathered his woolly thoughts. A plethora of scents wafted on the air from the window, paired with the faint contented buzzing of honey bees. The water itself had a perfume that Corentin couldn’t quite place. It was almost that everything was somehow strange today, heightened in the most peculiar manner.
Corentin stared at his face in the mirror and rubbed his chin, wondering if he should shave today. His sparse dirty-blond stubble looked like it would keep for a few more days, unlike the fiery protrusion of whiskers Armel sported after only a few hours on the journey. Corentin sighed to himself; it has difficult to reconcile his beard-envy based on the fact that Armel was only a month older than he was.
His stomach growled at another waft of bacon and his bladder became insistent. Corentin didn’t feel like using the chamber-pot, so resolved to get started on the morning. He tugged another almost-clean tee-shirt from out of his luggage over his head, slipped on a pair of cargo shorts before he made his way out of the room, and down the uneven stone steps towards the wash room.
“How did you sleep?” Armel was moving bacon around on the oil-stove griddle with a wooden spoon. He was wearing a light fabric drawstring pair of trunks, and a loose tie-dyed V-neck tee that reminded Corentin of flea-market stalls in Bloubosrand.
“Okay, I guess,” Armel smiled back at him, “I found tons of old coffee beans in a sack in a cupboard. It should be brewed by now. I had to use that hand-crank to ground them.”
“Sure, thanks.” Corentin nodded and sat on the low bench at the old table while Armel brought the cups and a pot over from the kitchen. “What do you want to do before all the tourists arrive for the summer at the beach towns?” He slurped from the tin cup. “They call this the ‘Brittany Riviera’, but so far all I’ve seen are mountains and forest.”
“Most likely catch some sun and swim. Other than that, I suppose we work the acreage like we’re expected to. It looks like an interesting hike in any direction, forest trails too. What about you?” Armel poured coffee and leaned his elbows on the battered wood surface.
“I’d like to go further south to see Bordeaux, some of the vines and the grapes around there. It’s about three hundred kilometres or so, it would be a shame for a want-to-be wine farmer to not see any French winelands. That’s why I thought the car was a good idea, even if it cut into our spending cash. Wow...!” Corentin spluttered, “This stuff is strong.”
“Yeah!” Armel smacked his lips and blinked at the enamelled cup. “That’s what I’m talking about! That second swallow is a kicker. I wonder how long those beans have been lying in that sack.”
“Armel, the bacon….” Corentin waved at the smoke billowing from the stove, “I think it’s burning.”
“I’ll get it…” Armel dashed to the stove to rescue the immolated rashers, “They look fine, I don’t mind extra-crispy. I did scrambled eggs earlier… well, I didn’t start making scrambled eggs, but that’s what we got now.”
“It’s okay Armel, I eat anything.” Corentin chuckled, “Thanks, I’ll get supper again tonight like we agreed.”
“You want to go to the town today? I hear there’s an old chapel on a hill somewhere, and the store Helen told us to go and introduce ourselves at.” Armel turned off the stove flame, and sauntered across the room, crunching ruined bacon as he bore a generous portion of eggs, two crisp slices of toast and the charred rashers for each of them.
Corentin attacked the food, and didn’t say anything else until his plate was clean. “Yeah, let’s do that. I should wash up first. You look over the place yet? I haven’t.” Corentin took the last sip from his mug.
“Some, I woke up real early and watched the sun rise.” Armel grinned as Corentin shivered and put the cup down, smacking his lips against the bitter brew; to continue his more leisurely meal. “The furniture is all really old, but none of it is portable or valuable. They might be hundreds of years old, but hardly antiques. They’ve all been oiled and tended to, the barn and shed rooves are all recently painted and all the stonework and retaining walls are tidy. The courtyard is weeded and swept.” Armel blinked at Corentin, “You know this doesn’t feel like a Farmhouse. Watching the sun rise this morning, it’s like you’re on top of the world. That dry-stone work where you can’t even slide a pin between the joints; the way everything leads onto something else is quite odd to me.”
“What do you mean?” Corentin asked.
“I’d expect a farm to be many different types of buildings for different things. This is like all one place with a few entrances. Some of those retaining wall stones are huge, like tons of rock.” Armel smoothed his ginger tangle thoughtfully.
“Farming has changed over time; I suppose our South African methods are relatively modern by comparison.” Corentin shrugged. “I suppose every place has its own challenges and people adapt to those. The problem in Ceres was water, labour, soil quality and bushfires. Perhaps this place needed to be something like a fort as well. I suspect that Europe, by and large is very much older than South Africa and people did things for different reasons that made sense then. Did you get an idea of what we need to do?”
“I think so.” Armel mused briefly, and then continued “The land is terraced all down the south slope, but really overgrown, and the well in the courtyard between the house and the barn is pure, sweet water. I remember that much from the farm days. The water does have a taste though, delicious. There must be an artesian action which pushes the water up the well and it seeps back through the terraces to the creek below. Whoever built this place must have thought of everything. There are copper tanks in the loft space above the bathroom with piping, it’s all self-filling and hand-pumped and everything is wood-fired… um Corentin…? Your hand is trembling, are you…?”
“I’m not doing... ” Corentin looked at his hand. The clattering had started as a small series of click-click-click noises as the knives, forks spoons and cups had jiggled and danced on the table, followed by a larger, swaying roar as the whole house creaked and groaned, the dry stone slabs of the floor bulged and ebbed. Corentin startled and fell backwards off the bench; fright took him as he felt the earth squirming under his shoulder-blades like a powerful stretching beast; sawdust streamed from the wooden floorboards of the upper story.
“Crap!” he yelped, as dust sifted into his eye.
“Corentin!” Armel called, holding on to the big table and craning his neck to see where Corentin had fallen, amidst the sound that rose from the ground. Then it was silent, as soon as it had come, only a slight hiss deep in his eardrums, lingered. “Corentin?” Armel vaulted over the table and crouched next to his cousin. “I know CPR; I learned it at the Fire Station.”
