Shadow War: Book 3 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy (WIP Rough Draft)

20. Scrubbing and Shucking

29th of Eystre, Continued

I put my valise on the rickety table in the middle of the kitchen and looked around, slowly taking in what would be 'our' apartment.

A small, greasy round stove hunched on a patch of tile in the corner, with a funny metering apparatus sticking out of it. There was no cold box, only an open cupboard that must have served as the last tenant's larder, judging from the wedge of moldy cheese left on the top shelf. A chipped porcelain scullery sink stood beneath a small window; the windowpanes were so murky with grime they let in only a dull glow.

Notably, there was no indoor water pump. There wasn't a hot water tank above the stove, either.

Wonderful.

I took a step closer to the cupboard, nose wrinkling when the suspicious black pebbles dotting the shelves proved to be rat droppings.

Arramy came in from the front room, arms crossed over his chest, his mouth set in a grim line. "The roof leaks like a sieve."

"Well, with any luck, we'll only have to deal with it for a few months," I said, moving to peer into the sink. A cobweb stretched like lace over the bottom of the bowl, and a large, black, hairy spider looked at me from inside the drain. She had been undisturbed long enough to make quite the nest for herself in there. I raised an eyebrow at her, then began rolling up my sleeves. "So. Where's the spigot?"

Arramy was giving me an unreadable stare. "It'll be in the yard."

I bent and pulled a bucket out from under the sink, along with a barely used scrub brush and an unopened box of scouring powder. Might as well get started.

~~~

We spent the next few hours shoveling several tenants' worth of filth out of the apartment. I had never cleaned that much in my life, but for some reason it felt good, scrubbing away layers of dust and grease, sweeping down cobwebs, shaking out tattered old rugs, turning a pigsty into something habitable.

The swish of the bristles over the floorboards was lulling, the wash of bubbles and water mesmerizing, the swath of clean I left behind satisfying. I scrubbed until my back ached and my fingers were raw.

I was going to dump the dirty water in the sink and keep right on working when I caught the rapid shuffle of furry black feet in the mouth of the drain. I hesitated. Then I put the bucket down and looked at the spider. She was alive, and she hadn't done anything to deserve a drowning. I knew what that was like, clinging to my tiny life while great big people stomped around, tearing my world apart.

This was what I had been reduced to, finding things in common with a spider in a drain. With a sigh, I grabbed one of the stiff old rags from under the sink.

I was in the middle of trying to get the spider to climb onto the rag when Arramy started muscling a bolster mattress down the stairs from the loft.

He came to a halt in the kitchen doorway, eyeing me over the drooping top of the mattress, his perplexed stare making me turn ten shades of pink. Which was very annoying. Ignoring him, I managed to coax the spider onto the rag, and then made a quick, jittery, cringing dash for the back door before she could run up the rag and onto my fingers ­– whereupon I threw the rag, spider and all, into the weeds beside the steps. Then I dusted my hands off and turned to face Arramy. No nonsense. All business.

With a grunt he started sidestepping the sagging bolster past the kitchen table. "Now that you've saved the local wildlife, would you mind holding the door open?"

Calmly, I did as ordered, keeping the screen from smacking his backside as he hefted the bulk of the mattress down the steps and into the yard, where he flopped it up against the sunny side of the clapboard fence. He looked at me, dry amusement glittering in his eyes.