A Most Rapid Fall (BWWM)

It Begins

She walked the streets wearing nothing more than a smile. Her everything felt right. Her body was plump with youth and all she had was her loving husband at home with their daughter. It was a modest home for some, but it was the best in the flats of Kenya.

The sun was giving its strongest fight as the bustle and clammer washed over her, but she felt unnaturally cool. Her knotted locks of hair piled in a heap atop her head; she hardly had a bead of sweat on her body.

"A sunflower, Miss?" The man was clearly from the west, but he spoke her family's native tongue. He could've been from some church's mission, she assumed, moving past briskly. His gray eyes were leering at her past the shade of a rough-spun hat, goading her toward Angie's market where nothing good could stay. And the flaky sun would be going down soon, so she didn't want to be out any longer than need be and roads south of here were rough these days. She had to push further, but something had her pinned in right where she stood across from him, leering right bag. Caught and intrepid, she took a step closer to him, curios.

Everyone had a dab of money and didn't know what to do with it and soon, Teresa could tell, no one would have a lick of it much longer than the next month. That meant trouble. She clutched her purse tight to her, "My bobo wants me home soon to Sunday dinner and I'm only in town for the night."

But, he tipped her his woven hat, "Take the flower for free then, Teresa." He tucked it into her shirt pocket and averted his gaze, saying nothing else to her than a, "Blessed be."

Her blood went cold, how did he know her name? She pushed it back and moved on.

It wasn't until she'd made it a few paces further down the street that she realized she was being followed. It was a pair of figures darting between the looming shadows cast by the fleeting sunlight. "Teresa?"

She skirted the curb past the candy parlor she'd worked at, hoping to see Daki doing some late night prep for tomorrow's rush from the sweltering heat, hoping she'd be seen. No such luck and they'd kept a good pace.

Shooting down the alleyway between the salon and the saloon, she glanced over her shoulder to see that they were not too far behind.

By the time she made it to the path nearly two blocks away from safety, dirt had crusted between her toes and she was clinging to the bushes where she could hear the faintest rattle in the lonesome light of the moon. It was the only source of solace the road had to offer. She was cornered.

"Teresa?" A low and trembling voice called her, "Teresa? Do you hear us, Teresa?"

She whirled on them, hissing, "What do you want from me? I'll give you what I have, but it isn't much. Just wait and I'll go get more."

They slowly prodded her in grey willowy fabrics, sliding along the dust like snakes, their faces were hardly recognizably human, like they'd merged together to make something very wrong, "There's no time for that. We only have a single question."

"A small inquiry, if you may." The other one snickered, excited that they'd won this little cat-and-mouse game.

"I have a daughter at home. She needs me. Just let me go and say goodbye to her at least." She'd heard of things like this, they'd been on the news, but no one ever found the victims. It was done too quickly. One snap and they were gone. She took one last look over her shoulder at her old home and cried; this was the last time she'd be free.

In unison, the two closed the distance between and reached for her arms, clamping their hands around them with an icy grip before leaning in and rasping along her earlobe, "We've come to reclaim what you owe, Miss."

"The deed's been done, but we don't take. We only trade."

She closed her eyes and, faint as a whistle in the breeze, she heard it. The shrill wailing of a babe. Tears stung her cheeks so she pinched her eyes shut as her mind raced. "I need time."

They cackled and grinned, "You can't have that."

"Too late." the second one slightly taller now with laughter, whirled and started back down the path they came, letting out a sigh, "What's yours is now ours to own."

Nan woke with a start before anyone else and her heart was caught in her throat, choking her as a burning needle shot through her like it would a stick of butter as her body shot into an arc off of the bed.

Eli, her right-hand, burst through the room, supporting her as she winced and groaned in a heap. "Was it another nightmare, ma'am? Do you need your medicine?" The whole house thought she had trouble with dementia.

"No, I only fell this time. Tried to get up for water." She immediately brushed him off and limped to her desk, biting back the pain in her bones, hands shaking past the clotted weight of arthritis in her fingers. "I'm just a little weak in the morning. Get me some water."

Once the door was shut, she wrote the letter, scratching holes in the margins. It was hardly legible in wobbly script, only half English, she strained to see the words, but her daughter would understand at least a portion of it. She struggled to stand again, then left the room with ample time before the rest of the home heard the front door shut behind her as she left the property for the first time in over thirty years.

This couldn't wait any longer; her time was almost up.