“Yes, Aunt Elaine, you gave me this sweater. Do you remember? I was over your house two weeks ago. You knitted the sweater yourself, you told me. I really have grown to like the sweater. I wear it often. Do you remember any of this,” Lenny said, speaking slowly and enunciating each word as he would for an infant. He hated talking to his aunt this way, but the doctors advised him that she might have trouble understanding him. The doctors were still not sure what happened to her. At first, they thought she might have suffered from a stroke. But after performing tests on her brain activity, they found no evidence of a stroke. Their current theory was that she was going through some sort of nervous breakdown, brought about by stress. They hoped she would snap out of it, but without knowing the psychological cause, they were having trouble treating her. Lenny and his mother spoke with a psychologist and went through all the problems they knew about in Aunt Elaine’s life, a process that took a considerable amount of time. His aunt was involved with many charitable organizations, and she was usually a strong voice in those organizations. At times, she became involved in power struggles and ego contests, but neither Lenny nor his mother remembered any of the struggles upsetting her. She was a strong woman who enjoyed the struggles and usually ended up on top.

After releasing the sweater, his aunt folded her hands on her lap and gazed out the window, humming a song that Lenny could not quite recognize. His aunt liked music, but he had never heard her sing. She listened to classical music, and was very particular about the pieces and orchestras that she would listen to. To Lenny, it all sounded the same, but to his aunt—who Lenny learned only recently from his mother that she was classically trained as a violinist—the performance of the music was as important as the piece. Lenny was surprised to learn of her artistic skills. Lenny felt that part of the reason his aunt enjoyed his company was because he was the artist of the family. The rest of his family was moderately successful, but they were accountants, lawyers, and corporate drones. Except for him, none of them showed the least interest in any artistic pursuit. With such a pedigree, Lenny was never surprised that he ended up using his artistic talents for corporate clients.

“That’s a very pretty song, Aunt Elaine. What is it?” Lenny said.

His aunt continued humming and Lenny opened the chocolate. After his aunt refused a chocolate he offered, he tossed the chocolate into his mouth. He crunched down and found a caramel and nut center, which he chewed happily. He held the box out for Samantha and she grabbed a dark chocolate nugget.

They listened quietly while his aunt sang. Her voice was smooth and mellow, with little vibrato and a knack for finding a perfect phrase for each thought. The song she hummed was never meant to be sung. It felt like the counterpoint for an orchestral piece. It rose in volume and tempo and dropped down just as quickly. She hummed the entire piece, resting for measures, sometimes minutes at a time, only to continue when the score his aunt must have seen in his mind called for it. Toward the end, at a dramatic counterpoint to what must have been a strong and defiant melody, his aunt stood up from the bed and placed the palms of her hands on the glass. She tilted her chin up and finished the piece, rising into a falsetto to find the last notes. She let her head drop when the song finished and turned around to face Samantha and Lenny, who were watching his aunt with astonishment. Her pitch was perfect and her part, even though it was not the lead melody and probably was not even the first part for her instrument, portrayed an incredible range of emotions and feelings.

Lenny and Samantha were sure that his aunt was going to say something. She stared at them with her lips still parted from the last note, and stared at a point between Lenny, who sat on the bed, and Samantha, who stood behind the bed near the fruit basket. Neither Lenny nor Samantha moved during her performance. When a few minutes passed and it was apparent that his aunt was not going to talk, Lenny led her to the bed and she resumed her seat. She stared at the same angle out the window as before, and Lenny, bending over to place his head near hers and his eyes in the same direction, tried to identify what she was staring at. But the only thing in that direction was the calm ocean and a few breakers that moved across the horizon. His aunt’s gaze never shifted.

“Did you speak to the doctors or your mother,” Samantha said.

“I spoke to them this afternoon. The doctors don’t have anything new to report, and my mother is calling more doctors. She figures if enough doctors see my aunt, one of them will be able to fix her. I’m not as optimistic since they all know the same stuff. But it makes her happy to do something besides visit my aunt. She feels powerless otherwise,” Lenny said.

Lenny tried to figure out what caused his aunt’s ailment. He hoped that the sweater would give him insight. While he consciously accepted that there was something strange about the sweater, he still did not completely believe in its powers. He knew things that he should not have ordinarily, but some of that knowledge might have come from somewhere else. Even while he argued with himself, he knew that it was not true. The sweater did provide him with insight, somehow. He began to wonder if his aunt knew this when she gave it to him. Then he made the connection between his aunt’s condition and the sweater. It was not truth as he had learned the sweater could provide him, but it was speculation and might be worth some additional thought. He put the thought aside for the moment and tried to return to the cause of his aunt’s sickness, or, better yet, he thought, a way to make her better. But however much he tried, nothing came to his mind.

Samantha cleared her throat gently, and Lenny turned around. He took the hint. He kissed his aunt goodbye on the cheek and walked with Samantha to the door. Samantha took the chocolate box from Lenny and went to place it back into the basket. Before she got to the nightstand, she shook the box, and opened it up.

“You ate them all?” Samantha said.

“That’s not possible. Didn’t you eat one or two?” Lenny said. He didn’t remember eating the chocolates, and he did not feel full, something he would expect to feel if he had finished off an entire box of chocolates.

“No, I just had one. You’ve been a hungry boy lately. While I always told you that I wanted to fatten you up, there are limits. As soon as you have to drive around the supermarket in a cart, I’m shipping you off,” Samantha said.

“I didn’t realize I ate so many. I must have been hungrier than I thought,” Lenny said. His hands were covered with chocolate. “I’ll bring Aunt Elaine some more chocolate tomorrow. Maybe she’ll eat some then,” Lenny said.

“Maybe,” Samantha said. She led him out of his aunt’s room.

Yeanda woke early in the morning, feeling more refreshed than she had in as long as she could remember. Her last few months in her last village had been taxing. Having seen the destruction of the village, she spent most of her time helping the mayor and the villagers plan for the eventuality. She sent for some gold to be transported to the new village location, and felt that it would have arrived. That thought helped alleviate some of the guilt. She knew that the attackers from the last village were seeking her out. She still did not know who they were, only that they were tracking her for the past three years. Not knowing who they were or what they wanted troubled Yeanda. She could guess that they were after her abilities, but she did not know how they discovered her or why they were so desperate to find her.

There was a soft knock on the door. “Storied-Knee, please come in. I didn’t mean for you to get up so early on my behalf,” Yeanda said.

“I wake early most mornings, wise woman. I have readied the bath and some fruit. If you would follow me,” Storied-Knee said.

Yeanda followed Storied-Knee from the third-floor room at the inn she was staying to the bath house, a few houses away. Yeanda munched on an apple that he provided her, and she stretched out her back, trying to work out some kinks that sleeping on the ground had worked in over the past couple of weeks.

“How long have you lived in this village—if you don’t mind me asking—Storied-Knee?” Yeanda said.

“I have lived here my entire life, wise woman. My family has deep roots in these parts and I would not dishonor them by leaving this land untended or this village unprotected,” Storied-Knee said.

“So you are a warrior,” Yeanda said.

“Yes, wise woman. I do my best to protect this village from the outsiders. It has been many years since the king’s men have patrolled these parts, and my blade has been a substitute for the services they once provided,” Storied-Knee said.

Yeanda was surprised by Storied-Knee. She would not have taken him for a warrior. While he carried a machete in a leather sheath on his belt, he was a small man, wearing layers of clothing that appeared more like rags than proper clothing. The clothing was all brown and moved as one mass, a moment or two behind Storied-Knee’s own body movements. The shifting mass of clothing and spread-legged gate made Storied-Knee appear slow and uncoordinated. That Tomlin had offered his services to Yeanda made her think that he was a pressed serving man. That he might be more than a simple serving man charmed Yeanda more than she expected.

“Tell me about your people, Storied-Knee,” Yeanda said.

“It is a long, sad story, wise woman, and I am a warrior, not a wise man. Perhaps I will have that opportunity another time, after you have soaked and visited the village. There are many people who are anxious to see you,” Storied-Knee said.

Yeanda sighed and opened the door into the bathhouse, allowing a cloud of steam to escape through the door. Storied-Knee handed her a towel and a bar of raw soap before he closed the door behind her. The bath house was a simple wooden cabin with a stone enclave filled with water in the center of the room. The room was dark with small edges of light entering through the tightly tied logs. Light sand covered the floor and the air smelled fresh and wet. Two glowing stones stood on both sides of the bath. Only the bottoms of the stones were submerged. Yeanda stripped and stepped into the bath. The water splashed over the heated stones and steamed. Yeanda could feel the heat of the stones from in the water. They must have used a heavy, metallic stone for it to hold its heat as long as it did. Yeanda allowed the warm water to engulf her. She decided to soak for a while before cleaning off with the soap. She would save the painful scraping for later, after her muscles were more relaxed.

As Yeanda soaked, she let her mind drift freely. She had been the hare in the chase for too long. She made the decision to become the hunter. She would find who it was that was hunting her and put a stop to it. She knew where to start: Tomlin. Yeanda knew that he was somehow involved. She had seen him once before, in her last village. She had forgotten about his village, but he had come a few months before she discovered that the village was to be ransacked. He had posed as a merchant dealing in corns and roots, but he never offered any of his vegetables for sale. She let her mind float in the hot water and she saw Tomlin again in her mind. What fates brought her to this village, she did not know. But she knew it was her opportunity to find safety again and remove a threat.

She needed to understand the village, and she needed an ally. Whatever was going to happen, she would better prepared and this time she would not run.

Word count: 2,153

Words left: 30,081

Caffeination: 1.5 Vanilla Cokes

Feeling: like I got 2k words. Not happy--but what is happiness? I'm a bit depressed (not about writing), but hoping that going to the gym tonight will help get me out of this one day funk.