WITCH FOR LEASE

A new start

After a very bumpy seven-hour train ride, the wheelsets screeched to a halt at its final destination. Brashly, I ignored the colossal surge of dark smoke that bashed my face from the charcoal engine as a result of the apparently forced stop. I took a minute to adjust my mind and body to the alleviating stillness of the currently static locomotive, every inch of my muscles and bones relaxing in deceptive relief. When the cold winds blew away the thickness of the smoke, bringing with it the freshness of unpolluted air, I took in a deep hungry breath, the same way a vacuum would suck in air. For once, I felt like air tasted like roasted goose, a delicacy which I would have really appreciated at the moment. However, the reprieve was short-lived as an annoyingly familiar pungent smell found way to my nostrils. I opened my eyes irritably….

“Wellington, I can taste your body odor from here, you should seriously engage very intimately with water” I scrunched up my nose

“A man is to smell” the heavily bearded guy replied with a wide smile, reduced to a faint smirk by his overgrown facial hair. He blatantly ignored my criticism, like he had gotten used to them over time. He adjusted his service band to his upper wrist then stretched his mammoth like figure in a series of satisfying joint snaps.

“I’m 100% sure you just made that up” I said

“ Eeh” he grunted ignorantly “ you need me to get that for you?”

He closed the short distance to my side, hoping to reach for my luggage.

“ No, thank you” I denied my nose its sense of breathing

“ But your arm…”

“ is alright” I snapped picking the luggage up myself. I slightly winced from the sudden pain that resulted from that simple action.

“ For a small guy, you are really taking it hard on yourself” Wellington said

“ We are of the same height comrade” I scoffed back “ And you seem to forget how often I put you on your butt.”

Wellington’s eyes started growing smaller by the second, and the hidden bulges of his cheeks bigger. He stared at me for a while, the same way a comic would before giving you a punchline to a joke he probably thinks funny.

“ You said butt” he loudly laughed, the bare part of his face not shrouded by hair blushing red in discomfit. I had momentarily forgot how ‘mortified’ he became whenever I said vulgar terms. For a giant-like man, he was ironically pubertal.

Shaking my head in wonder, I stepped out of the locomotive and took in to the new sight that greeted my eyes.

Spanning a few miles on every side, the town was the largest I had seen ever since the campaign against the United Southern States started. In my opinion, it would have made a great city upon strategic improvements. It had a few two-story buildings and a multitude of smaller houses that from my position, seemed like tuffs of stone and wooden structures sprouting out of the thick snows. I didn’t fail to notice how biting the cold was. I was heavily dressed but I still couldn’t help but shiver at the uncanny chilliness the town held. However, compared to the previous environments I had explored, this one was somehow picturesque. The thick white snow had made it scenic.

“ Blackhaven” I sighed …. More like Whitehaven.

My stomach grumbled in an obvious show of hunger. I felt my pockets, I still had a few coins, the last of them after my long campaign of brutal fights. I thought of using them to buy shelter tonight but after my stomach grumbled in protest, I decided that appeasing it first wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“ We need to find some food” I said

Wellington walked by me, dragging a wave of stinging acerbic air.

“ And some water” I added

Thirty minutes later, we found a tavern amongst the sea of analogous houses. The task was as tiresome as finding a needle in a haystack. More than a few moments, we found ourselves inside people’s homes, people who were so offended by our intrusion that they cursed profanities at us as we bolted. There was literally no single kind soul that offered to give us directions to a tavern. They seemed to judge us by our shabby rough looks. But who could blame them, we appeared to have time-travelled from the stone-ages to the current timeline. Furthermore, in addition to the heavy bags under our eyes, we were so rugged, foul-smelling, sleep-lagged and tired that you would think we harbored every kind of disease.

We spent all our pennies in the tavern for a good wash and a warm meal. I felt like I was a new man afterwards, reborn after a good meal and shower, two things which were a luxury in our previous occupations. I would say hygiene was a nice investment but now we were categorically broke. Wellington didn’t seem to mind it as he snored away on his chair. He was the type of guy who only saw black and white. He never liked things that bothered his mind, or things that required thinking, or things that needed him to use his brain, the certain definition of a simple man. On the other hand, I felt like my mind was on a tactical mission to deprive my body of sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking of getting a job.

The military campaign against the United Southern States had ended in triumph yet we had been sent home empty handed. Freedom is our reward, the commanders said. ‘but freedom won’t feed us’ I recalled complaining but just like numerous times before, it was either I fell in line or get ‘accidentally killed’ during one of our many missions. Most of the soldiers had begrudgingly gone back to their families or hometowns with nothing but empty pockets and scars to show for their triumph, but at least they had somewhere to go.

With no known family or home, after I was discharged, I just sat on a train and decided I would make things work wherever the train would stop. And so here I was, in Blackhaven town.