A Most Rapid Fall (BWWM)

Supper at Nan's

They built the walls so they were thin in Ripley Manor and it didn't take long before Mona's curiosity got the best of her.

Tugging at the needle through the white rough-spun fabric, she heard a thick thud above her head. Someone had not stuck the landing and, before she knew it, her needle was caught like a hook in the pad of her thumb. She bit the inside of her cheek and tore it out so that the skin was just a flap. Soon, beads of crimson were smiling into an arc up at her, testing her patience. She sucked at her thumb and wrapped it in a strip of scrapped linen, then followed the voices up two levels of stairs until the air was hot and tacky on her skin and her hands felt clammy too. The smell was tangy and bitter here, like someone had died or was close to it.

"Give me a break..." It was a young woman's voice, low and scratchy, matured. Mona halted at the end of the hall.

"Sit up." Nan groaned, Mona could hear her straining to lift something heavy, then there was a scrape of metal along the hardwood floor. "How long have you been down here?"

"I'm fine. Just get me a drink and I'll be back to w-"

"Work? You've never really been working here at all, Frankie? No. Just drinking. There's really no stop to it once you start."

"Because there's no reason to stop." The woman let out a barely audible huff of air, "If a baby's whining, Mrs. Ryker, do you quit feeding it because it was fed the night before?"

A whip and a rustle of fabric then, "Look at her, Eli. The liquor's practically her sweat."

"Should I go run her bath?"

"Yes. Get her more water and soup. She's got to hold something down." There were footsteps coming closer to the door, then a pause.

"Yes, ma'am."

In a much lower voice, she murmured, "An Advil should do her some good, but don't leave her with the bottle. Or any bottle, Eli. Now go and be quick about it."

The door shut and Eli was beside Mona in a matter of seconds, head down, eyes trained ahead to the end of the hall. From this close, Mona could see that skin under his eyes were deep, pits of clay you'd find on the wrong side of the Grand Canyon. Clamping a soft hand on her forearm, "You were supposed to be downstairs."

"It got lonely down there."

"As it would." He winced at the venom in his tone, "I'll show you out."

"Who's in there?"

"A burden." He blurted it as if his words were a sneeze or a cough, instinctively, then slipped a clammy hand off of her sleeve to chew his nail, "I never said that, Mona. Let's go back down the stairs."

"I believe you."

"No." He said, shouldering ahead of her path and effectively stopping her. She was just beneath his chin now and she didn't move a step forward nor back. It was just them and the awful noise of that man whining and throwing things against walls. Glasses breaking, voices shaking. "I don't think you heard me. I mean it when I say this: don't meddle with these things. Something in there is evil. It's wrong, very wrong. He's got something eating away at him and it drives him to do things, strange things."

"Then, what are you doing here?"

"'To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.'" He scoffed at himself, as if he had thought this for the first time.

"Confucius."

He lowered his gaze that, until then, felt so steady and forth-coming, and spoke quietly now, "I've got no choice."