The Coffin's Occupant - Daybreak
And here is the second section of The Coffin's Occupant, coming to you nice and slow.
Awakening
Daybreak
High Noon
Evening
The Coffin's Occupant - Daybreak
The next day, Marianne ran the five miles to her home the second her work was done. Puffing and panting, she opened the door to a very loud argument.
“Madam Addison, please let me help!” Alex pleaded. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed. He was wearing one of Marianne’s father’s nightshirts, which was monstrously too big for him. Mrs. Addison wielded a soupspoon like an army commander wielding a sword.
“Go to bed! You’ll strain your heart!”
“I can’t be idle while you toil!”
“Would you rather die? Go to bed, now.” Her soupspoon was dangerously close to his chin.
“I should be dead.”
“Good evening, Mother, Alex.”
They jumped. Alex clutched his chest, and Mrs. Addison snatched the opportunity to say, “Don’t you agree with me, that he ought to go back to bed before he hurts himself?”
“No,” he muttered, but his hand started to shake.
“Yes,” Marianne answered. She marched over to him and looped his left arm around her neck.
“Stubborn…” he growled as Marianne dragged him away.
“Be quiet. You’re our guest here.”
Suddenly, his knees gave out, and he tumbled to the floor. A sort of strangled yelp escaped his throat and he started shuddering violently.
“Mum! Help! He fell!”
Her mother scurried to help them, muttering, “I knew he was too weak to leave bed.” She lifted Alex as though he was a small boy, and dropped him on the makeshift straw mattress.
“We need to keep him here. Sit on his legs if you have to! I’ll get a damp rag.”
“Stay! Stay! Stay!” Alex whimpered. Small streams of sweat slid off his forehead, visibly dampening the pillow. His eyes were locked on some invisible object high in the air before him.
Marianne and her mother sat by the bed for hours, bathing his forehead. As the quarter moon rose, it lit up his face like a death mask. The only parts of his face that had any color were his eyes, which reflected a poisonous green glow. When he started breathing normally, and the “Stay! Stay! Stay!” chant had ceased, he whispered in a strange language, and clasped both his hands over his heart, then let them fall limp. Finally, he rolled onto his side. His head lolled and his eyes blinked lethargically.
“You are too kind,” he whispered. “My debt is too great.” Marianne stretched her aching knees. “I only wished to help her make dinner,” he muttered. “I was going to cook curry.”
“You’re being reckless,” she muttered. “My father died from a weak heart as well. Insisted to go out and herd the sheep in and died out in the field.”
“Oh.” His voice caught between a moan and understanding. “I see why you would worry, but I’m not your father. I’m stronger than most.”
The wind picked up suddenly, shaking the roof. “Not at the moment. You couldn’t fight the wind and win right now.”
Alex laid back, listening to the wind howl against the rough stone walls of the cottage. “But I’m a scaredy-cat. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
The storm left the Clarford Estate with a glistening layer of snow and a frigid atmosphere to fit the funeral. That evening, Philip snagged Marianne as she passed with a fresh supply of bed linens and quilts. “How is that odd man doing?” he whispered.
“My lord…!” The words stuck in her throat.
He smiled, and crouched to look into her face a little easier. “Don’t be shy; I just want to know how that funny little man is. Has his memory returned?”
“No.” Finally a word she could pull from her throat. “And he had another heart attack last night, right when I came home.” Memories of her father blended with the memory of Alex gasping on the floor with that faraway stare, and she looked to the side, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t know if he will live.”
Hearing the catch in her voice, he cupped her hand in his. “Don’t worry. Even if he dies before his memory returns, he will have mourners there. I’ve sent off inquiries. We’ll find out who he was.” Footsteps echoed in the hall, and Philip turned away abruptly. “Thank-you,” he muttered under his breath.
“Inquiries?” Alex said, pushing his food about his plate clumsily, as though he wasn’t certain how to use a fork. “Why did he send inquiries about who I am out? Does he realize that he could find those who did this to me?”
“Most likely. Perhaps he wants to bring them to justice,” Marianne suggested.
Alex laughed. “I doubt he would do so much for an Indian such as me. Even the generous doctor thought me low.” He attempted to spear the resisting potato on his plate, but it broke in two. “These people, they must be very dangerous. One shouldn’t try to bring them close.” The potato slid off his plate in a final desperate attempt at escape. “Are you certain that this vegetable has no occupants?”
Mrs. Addison huffed. “It was boiled. Any worms hiding in there would be cooked and mushy by now.”
“Hmm…” he purred, staring at the offending tuber. It still steamed merrily. Like a panther from the jungles of his homeland, he crouched behind his plate, glaring. So quickly that Marianne barely saw his hands, he scooped the little potato up. “Aï!” he yelped. His fingers and cheeks colored like tomatoes. “It hath a secret weapon. It is too hot to touch by hand!”
“See!” Marianne laughed. “No worms alive in there.”
Alex licked his fingers. “Not much of anything alive in there, or on its surface. But you see my point, correct?”
Uninterrupted, he continued. “The people who did this to me are like a potato too hot to hold. No matter how you try to sneak about it, when you touch it, the potato burns your fingers.”
“Or you could use a fork,” said Mrs. Addison.
“Clumsy implement. Why did the French ever invent it?” Alex popped the potato in his mouth, and blew air through his teeth to cool it. “We have no fork for this potato of a problem.”
“You could ask him to call the search off,” Marianne suggested. “That’s a fork, isn’t it?”
“And it wasn’t even invented by the French.” The green beans met a gruesome fate, skewered on his trident. “If it’s not much trouble, could you take me tomorrow?”
Mrs. Addison snatched the fork from his hands he jabbed it at his plate, chasing one of the smooth beans around its circumference. “No. You’re too ill.”
“But madam-”
“I said, ‘No!’” The fork trident pointed to his chest. He eyed it for a moment, then fell back in his chair. He bowed his head.
“If you wish it so.”
The next morning, Marianne woke to the scent of a feast. She wandered into the kitchen, still in her nightgown. “Mum, what-” She stopped.
Alex was dressed in her father’s clothes, which ballooned around his body comically as he stirred something in the frying pan. His hair had been brushed and braided into a very thick, stiff braid that quivered as he moved.
“Good morning, dear.” Her mother sat at the table, scowling. “I couldn’t stop him.”
He cackled. “And I am making curry, though it isn’t proper curry; you don’t have the right spices.”
“Alex, do you have your memory back?” Marianne seated herself at the table. “How do you remember the spices?”
The ring of platters hitting the counter drowned her out, and Alex started humming loudly, apparently not having heard her.
“Bon appétit!” he shouted, delivering the platters to the table with flourish. “This is payment for taking me to meet Lord Philip Clarford.”
Her jaw unhinged itself and struck the table.
“Close your mouth, dear,” her mother muttered. “He begged me this morning, so I told him if he managed to cook breakfast without collapsing I’d let him go.”
“And,” he added, “I am quite healthy today.” He thumped his chest as he sat down, but winced.
“Still have bruises there?” Mrs. Addison’s eyes narrowed.
Shrugging, he picked up his spoon, and they dug in. Alex had used all of the normal ingredients, but she had never tasted a soup with this much flavor before. All her life, food was something to give energy, to fill her stomach and move on to the next task. This gave her the strange sensation that her tongue was thinking. From the comfortable silence that had fallen over the table, she guessed that her mother was discovering the same thing. The rest of the meal passed quietly; their mouths too busy with the food to be bothered with talking.
As Alex finally gathered the platters, Mrs. Addison grabbed his arm and pulled him down to inspect his face while he balanced the dirty dishes. “He looks far too pale.”
“Madam,” he whispered, “have I faltered once during this meal?”
She released him, sighing. “I guess not. You may go.” As he stepped lightly away, she added, “But you must ride there on Old Brianna!”
Still tingling and warm from the meal, Marianne bridled a fat, brown mare. She was an old carriage horse that had been retired from the Clarford stables, and given to Mrs. Addison out of empathy. When Alex approached to climb on Old Brianna, the mare snorted loudly and laid her ears back, making it clear that she didn’t want him a step closer. It wasn’t until she had sniffed his hands and his chest for a few minutes before she let Alex climb on.
“She’s normally tamer than that,” Marianne assured Alex as he cautiously climbed onto Old Brianna’s back.
“I don’t doubt,” he muttered and nervously patted Old Brianna’s neck.
The morning was already quite late by the time they reached the Clarford Estate, and a crowd of curious servants greeted Alex, and praised him for his ability to stand on two feet. While Alex slogged through the crowd, Marianne slipped up to Lord Philip Clarford’s library, where he was working.
“Excuse me, my Lord,” she whispered.
He looked up suddenly, as though he hadn’t expected anyone to be in the room. “What is it, Marianne?”
“Alex is here to see you.”
“Why didn’t you let the butler deal with that?”
She shook her head urgently. “He wants you to stop searching.”
Lord Clarford threw his head back and laughed. “That man is on his deathbed! I spoke with the doctor; he didn’t think that Alex would live any longer than a fortnight. Anyways he’s lost his memory-”
“I think he remembers everything now,” Marianne interrupted.
“What makes you think that?”
“He knew how to make an Indian soup called curry, and he is so frightened of what the people who put him into the coffin could do to us that he came here to ask you to stop the search.”
“Too true.” Lord Clarford leapt from his chair, and Marianne spun around in surprise. Alex was leaning against the library door, rubbing his chest. “I remember something. Torment worse than death.” He slid to the ground gasping. “I want to repay... your kindness by... not bringing that... fate to you.” His voice vanished into weak gasps; his chest rising and falling with the same frantic pace that Marianne remembered from the first day that she had known him.
“But it’s too late,” Lord Clarford whispered. “The letters are already sent.”
So, what do you think?
Awakening
Daybreak
High Noon
Evening
The Coffin's Occupant - Daybreak
The next day, Marianne ran the five miles to her home the second her work was done. Puffing and panting, she opened the door to a very loud argument.
“Madam Addison, please let me help!” Alex pleaded. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed. He was wearing one of Marianne’s father’s nightshirts, which was monstrously too big for him. Mrs. Addison wielded a soupspoon like an army commander wielding a sword.
“Go to bed! You’ll strain your heart!”
“I can’t be idle while you toil!”
“Would you rather die? Go to bed, now.” Her soupspoon was dangerously close to his chin.
“I should be dead.”
“Good evening, Mother, Alex.”
They jumped. Alex clutched his chest, and Mrs. Addison snatched the opportunity to say, “Don’t you agree with me, that he ought to go back to bed before he hurts himself?”
“No,” he muttered, but his hand started to shake.
“Yes,” Marianne answered. She marched over to him and looped his left arm around her neck.
“Stubborn…” he growled as Marianne dragged him away.
“Be quiet. You’re our guest here.”
Suddenly, his knees gave out, and he tumbled to the floor. A sort of strangled yelp escaped his throat and he started shuddering violently.
“Mum! Help! He fell!”
Her mother scurried to help them, muttering, “I knew he was too weak to leave bed.” She lifted Alex as though he was a small boy, and dropped him on the makeshift straw mattress.
“We need to keep him here. Sit on his legs if you have to! I’ll get a damp rag.”
“Stay! Stay! Stay!” Alex whimpered. Small streams of sweat slid off his forehead, visibly dampening the pillow. His eyes were locked on some invisible object high in the air before him.
Marianne and her mother sat by the bed for hours, bathing his forehead. As the quarter moon rose, it lit up his face like a death mask. The only parts of his face that had any color were his eyes, which reflected a poisonous green glow. When he started breathing normally, and the “Stay! Stay! Stay!” chant had ceased, he whispered in a strange language, and clasped both his hands over his heart, then let them fall limp. Finally, he rolled onto his side. His head lolled and his eyes blinked lethargically.
“You are too kind,” he whispered. “My debt is too great.” Marianne stretched her aching knees. “I only wished to help her make dinner,” he muttered. “I was going to cook curry.”
“You’re being reckless,” she muttered. “My father died from a weak heart as well. Insisted to go out and herd the sheep in and died out in the field.”
“Oh.” His voice caught between a moan and understanding. “I see why you would worry, but I’m not your father. I’m stronger than most.”
The wind picked up suddenly, shaking the roof. “Not at the moment. You couldn’t fight the wind and win right now.”
Alex laid back, listening to the wind howl against the rough stone walls of the cottage. “But I’m a scaredy-cat. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
The storm left the Clarford Estate with a glistening layer of snow and a frigid atmosphere to fit the funeral. That evening, Philip snagged Marianne as she passed with a fresh supply of bed linens and quilts. “How is that odd man doing?” he whispered.
“My lord…!” The words stuck in her throat.
He smiled, and crouched to look into her face a little easier. “Don’t be shy; I just want to know how that funny little man is. Has his memory returned?”
“No.” Finally a word she could pull from her throat. “And he had another heart attack last night, right when I came home.” Memories of her father blended with the memory of Alex gasping on the floor with that faraway stare, and she looked to the side, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t know if he will live.”
Hearing the catch in her voice, he cupped her hand in his. “Don’t worry. Even if he dies before his memory returns, he will have mourners there. I’ve sent off inquiries. We’ll find out who he was.” Footsteps echoed in the hall, and Philip turned away abruptly. “Thank-you,” he muttered under his breath.
“Inquiries?” Alex said, pushing his food about his plate clumsily, as though he wasn’t certain how to use a fork. “Why did he send inquiries about who I am out? Does he realize that he could find those who did this to me?”
“Most likely. Perhaps he wants to bring them to justice,” Marianne suggested.
Alex laughed. “I doubt he would do so much for an Indian such as me. Even the generous doctor thought me low.” He attempted to spear the resisting potato on his plate, but it broke in two. “These people, they must be very dangerous. One shouldn’t try to bring them close.” The potato slid off his plate in a final desperate attempt at escape. “Are you certain that this vegetable has no occupants?”
Mrs. Addison huffed. “It was boiled. Any worms hiding in there would be cooked and mushy by now.”
“Hmm…” he purred, staring at the offending tuber. It still steamed merrily. Like a panther from the jungles of his homeland, he crouched behind his plate, glaring. So quickly that Marianne barely saw his hands, he scooped the little potato up. “Aï!” he yelped. His fingers and cheeks colored like tomatoes. “It hath a secret weapon. It is too hot to touch by hand!”
“See!” Marianne laughed. “No worms alive in there.”
Alex licked his fingers. “Not much of anything alive in there, or on its surface. But you see my point, correct?”
Uninterrupted, he continued. “The people who did this to me are like a potato too hot to hold. No matter how you try to sneak about it, when you touch it, the potato burns your fingers.”
“Or you could use a fork,” said Mrs. Addison.
“Clumsy implement. Why did the French ever invent it?” Alex popped the potato in his mouth, and blew air through his teeth to cool it. “We have no fork for this potato of a problem.”
“You could ask him to call the search off,” Marianne suggested. “That’s a fork, isn’t it?”
“And it wasn’t even invented by the French.” The green beans met a gruesome fate, skewered on his trident. “If it’s not much trouble, could you take me tomorrow?”
Mrs. Addison snatched the fork from his hands he jabbed it at his plate, chasing one of the smooth beans around its circumference. “No. You’re too ill.”
“But madam-”
“I said, ‘No!’” The fork trident pointed to his chest. He eyed it for a moment, then fell back in his chair. He bowed his head.
“If you wish it so.”
The next morning, Marianne woke to the scent of a feast. She wandered into the kitchen, still in her nightgown. “Mum, what-” She stopped.
Alex was dressed in her father’s clothes, which ballooned around his body comically as he stirred something in the frying pan. His hair had been brushed and braided into a very thick, stiff braid that quivered as he moved.
“Good morning, dear.” Her mother sat at the table, scowling. “I couldn’t stop him.”
He cackled. “And I am making curry, though it isn’t proper curry; you don’t have the right spices.”
“Alex, do you have your memory back?” Marianne seated herself at the table. “How do you remember the spices?”
The ring of platters hitting the counter drowned her out, and Alex started humming loudly, apparently not having heard her.
“Bon appétit!” he shouted, delivering the platters to the table with flourish. “This is payment for taking me to meet Lord Philip Clarford.”
Her jaw unhinged itself and struck the table.
“Close your mouth, dear,” her mother muttered. “He begged me this morning, so I told him if he managed to cook breakfast without collapsing I’d let him go.”
“And,” he added, “I am quite healthy today.” He thumped his chest as he sat down, but winced.
“Still have bruises there?” Mrs. Addison’s eyes narrowed.
Shrugging, he picked up his spoon, and they dug in. Alex had used all of the normal ingredients, but she had never tasted a soup with this much flavor before. All her life, food was something to give energy, to fill her stomach and move on to the next task. This gave her the strange sensation that her tongue was thinking. From the comfortable silence that had fallen over the table, she guessed that her mother was discovering the same thing. The rest of the meal passed quietly; their mouths too busy with the food to be bothered with talking.
As Alex finally gathered the platters, Mrs. Addison grabbed his arm and pulled him down to inspect his face while he balanced the dirty dishes. “He looks far too pale.”
“Madam,” he whispered, “have I faltered once during this meal?”
She released him, sighing. “I guess not. You may go.” As he stepped lightly away, she added, “But you must ride there on Old Brianna!”
Still tingling and warm from the meal, Marianne bridled a fat, brown mare. She was an old carriage horse that had been retired from the Clarford stables, and given to Mrs. Addison out of empathy. When Alex approached to climb on Old Brianna, the mare snorted loudly and laid her ears back, making it clear that she didn’t want him a step closer. It wasn’t until she had sniffed his hands and his chest for a few minutes before she let Alex climb on.
“She’s normally tamer than that,” Marianne assured Alex as he cautiously climbed onto Old Brianna’s back.
“I don’t doubt,” he muttered and nervously patted Old Brianna’s neck.
The morning was already quite late by the time they reached the Clarford Estate, and a crowd of curious servants greeted Alex, and praised him for his ability to stand on two feet. While Alex slogged through the crowd, Marianne slipped up to Lord Philip Clarford’s library, where he was working.
“Excuse me, my Lord,” she whispered.
He looked up suddenly, as though he hadn’t expected anyone to be in the room. “What is it, Marianne?”
“Alex is here to see you.”
“Why didn’t you let the butler deal with that?”
She shook her head urgently. “He wants you to stop searching.”
Lord Clarford threw his head back and laughed. “That man is on his deathbed! I spoke with the doctor; he didn’t think that Alex would live any longer than a fortnight. Anyways he’s lost his memory-”
“I think he remembers everything now,” Marianne interrupted.
“What makes you think that?”
“He knew how to make an Indian soup called curry, and he is so frightened of what the people who put him into the coffin could do to us that he came here to ask you to stop the search.”
“Too true.” Lord Clarford leapt from his chair, and Marianne spun around in surprise. Alex was leaning against the library door, rubbing his chest. “I remember something. Torment worse than death.” He slid to the ground gasping. “I want to repay... your kindness by... not bringing that... fate to you.” His voice vanished into weak gasps; his chest rising and falling with the same frantic pace that Marianne remembered from the first day that she had known him.
“But it’s too late,” Lord Clarford whispered. “The letters are already sent.”
So, what do you think?