dead grass
Katerina remembers:
Those had been the early days, the first year she had lived on her own. In late summer the evening would come with fireflies and cooler air, and she would be able to move; little exertion could defeat her, but she would light citronella candles for the windowsills, and walk sometimes barefoot on the dead grass and hot stones to the well to draw water.
Paint peeled from the walls, and the grey wood of the veranda was so very similar in shade to the stone outside. She had taken to leaving open the door to the veranda, slatted wood that same grey, dim light fading door and verandah to one block of colourlessness. He would come then, or not; she never learned when to expect him, except that he would always arrive on the days that had been particularly bad, when the colours slipped away and she could barely move from the heat. He would slip in, and she would look up to see him sitting cross-legged on the floor, or standing in the kitchen with a bemused look, studying the spice rack, or the herbs dried useless and desiccated, thanks to her inattention. Burnt by the sun and faded like an old photograph.
They would not talk as she worked.
Change came slowly in the mountains, but no-one had ever seen a summer like that one. And in the evening when even the moon was swallowed by the smoke from the slowly smouldering fields, the fire thief would come slipping into her front room and sit a while as she carved countless thousands of beads from bone.
Then one evening she finished and the next day there was a new taste on the wind and it blew from the southwest; autumn was on the way. And he never came in through the slatted door again, though the scent of citronella lingered well into April.
Those had been the early days, the first year she had lived on her own. In late summer the evening would come with fireflies and cooler air, and she would be able to move; little exertion could defeat her, but she would light citronella candles for the windowsills, and walk sometimes barefoot on the dead grass and hot stones to the well to draw water.
Paint peeled from the walls, and the grey wood of the veranda was so very similar in shade to the stone outside. She had taken to leaving open the door to the veranda, slatted wood that same grey, dim light fading door and verandah to one block of colourlessness. He would come then, or not; she never learned when to expect him, except that he would always arrive on the days that had been particularly bad, when the colours slipped away and she could barely move from the heat. He would slip in, and she would look up to see him sitting cross-legged on the floor, or standing in the kitchen with a bemused look, studying the spice rack, or the herbs dried useless and desiccated, thanks to her inattention. Burnt by the sun and faded like an old photograph.
They would not talk as she worked.
Change came slowly in the mountains, but no-one had ever seen a summer like that one. And in the evening when even the moon was swallowed by the smoke from the slowly smouldering fields, the fire thief would come slipping into her front room and sit a while as she carved countless thousands of beads from bone.
Then one evening she finished and the next day there was a new taste on the wind and it blew from the southwest; autumn was on the way. And he never came in through the slatted door again, though the scent of citronella lingered well into April.