By the Pricking of my Thumbs

Posted on Sat 19th May, 2018 @ 1:55am by Purulence Addams
Edited on on Sat 19th May, 2018 @ 7:52am

732 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Addams House, Deck 1554

T'was gloaming, and a warm breeze blew through the Queen Anne Villas on deck 1554. Dirty leaves sailed along the cobblestone street, luffing up and falling for a moment before catching the wind again and going on their way. At the end of the street, a dilapidated house stood behind a wrought iron fence, its bushes untended and grown wild. A dead, barren tree stood in the yard, its branches full of a conspiracy of ravens, debating the topic of the evening hotly before suddenly taking wing as one and flying away in all directions.

A woman stood outside the gate. She was aged beyond reckoning, a crone, a hag. She had all the wrong curves in all the wrong places, and leaned heavily upon a cane. Her hair was white, very slightly curly, somewhat tangled. Her eyes, deep within their nest of wrinkles, were rheumy, and one of them seemed to have an untreated cataract while the other was so dark it was impossible to tell iris from pupil. Carrying her carpetbag (black, with a motif of tessellated skulls in white), she waited for the gate to open.

When it did, she murmured in a voice as quiet and dry as time itself, "Thank you," and made her way up the walk. Slowly, laboriously, ponderously, she climbed the stairs and stood before the door. She examined the stained glass and smiled fondly. "Ah," she said. "Wendelin. You always did like the part where you walked naked out of the fire." She chuckled and pulled the bell-knob, setting off a two-note sound like a fog horn.

Upstairs, in the room she had turned into a temporary art studio, Purulence twitched at the sound of the doorbell. She rolled her eyes at the line of black paint that now had a squiggle in it and scraped it off the canvas with her palette knife. She wiped excess paint from her brush and dipped it into a small jar of turpentine to soak. Who in the world was coming to visit Chlamydia here at this time of day? She headed downstairs and opened the door.

Purulence blinked at the elderly woman, who appeared to have undergone no medical procedures to alleviate the aging process--unusual in this day and age. "Hello, Ma'am," she said, noting the skulls embroidered on her handbag. Was she a relative? Because no one but an Addams would walk around with accessories like that.

Ischemia had been almost on her way out, heading over to the real estate office again. Her search for a home away from home might be coming to an end at last. As she came down the stairs, she looked at the very elderly woman beyond her sister. Then she looked again. She hadn't seen the woman since she was ... six? Purulence wouldn't remember at all. There was something distinctive about her that was unmistakable, though.

"Arrière grand-mère? That is you, isn't it?" she asked dubiously.

Purulence gasped and shot a startled look at the old woman and at Ischemia, then back at their guest. "Grandmère?"

"I hope so; I'm wearing her underwear." The old woman laughed dryly and then coughed. "Come, mes petits chéris, let me look at you." She stepped in, dropping her carpetbag beside the door, and examined them with her good eye. "Purulence, you take after your father, you lucky girl. And Ischemia, how many hearts have you broken this year? Where is Chlamydia?"

Ischemia merely rolled her eyes. This was unmistakably the senior Addams family female.

"She's at work," Purulence said. "Why don't you come in, and we'll get you some tea?" She bent down to pick up the carpetbag. "Will you be staying for a while? Shall I put this in a bedroom?"

"Good, good, I need to talk to you about her." She shuffled toward the parlor, her cane clicking against the wooden floor. "Tea would be lovely. And yes, dear; I shall be staying until the wind changes."

Purulence looked a question at Ischemia and then went to the stairs. Wind?

Her sister shrugged. Who ever knew what their maybe-grandmother meant? "Now that sounds familiar," Schemy said, as Purulence headed up the stairs with the bag. "Tea coming up shortly. Italian Blood Orange or French Lemon Ginger?"

The old woman cackled. "You need to ask, dearie?"

As one, the three Addams women announced, "Blood!"

 

RSS Feed