South London Forever // George Karim

-emotional attachment and incense stalls-

I'm baaaaack! With regular updates! hopefully!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

<3

Freddie breathed in the crisp air. It smelt of baked bread and baskets of vegetables, but mainly just the bouquets and sprigs of lavender that was sold at every second stall. The tote bag on her arm wasn't full of vegetables, thankfully, only a jar of honey and a new bar of soap that smelt like mandarins and roses.

She followed Chai's lead as he trotted through the bustling paths in the direction of the next stall. He knew which ones to go to once the stall owners Freddie went to, began giving him treats, and now he was off to get a chunk of dried pigs ear from the nice boy that sold wood fired sourdough with little crosses along the top.

"Tea dog! Hey buddy, here you go."

Chai sat obediently and Freddie rolled her eyes when she felt his tail wagging madly and hitting her leg. She let him devour the treat and felt around in the pockets of her coat for spare change. She held out the cold coins, "here you go."

"Olive or baguette? Or spelt?" The boy asked, and Freddie thought for a moment. She didn't know if Lucy liked olives, and it would be mean to buy bread her new roommate might not eat. Freddie would have to ask before she and Lockwood left for the case at that old woman's haunted house she was trying to sell.

Lucy had been asleep by the time Freddie made it upstairs and into her bed, so Freddie hadn't really got to chat with her yet, but that might've been on purpose. Lucy just needed to adjust to seeing her. Freddie smiled, "baguette, please."

"Coming right up," he said, and Freddie waited for him to bag it up and then hand the long stick of French bread over. "Have a nice day."

"You too," she called back, tucking the paper bag into her tote bag she was pretty sure was actually May's, and followed Chai through the crowds that parted for the dog wearing his little neon harness. He was very proud of it.

There was only a few more things she needed to get. Milk, some more salt bombs just in case Lockwood and Lucy used too many tonight, dried limes, pumpkin scones, and olive oil, but Freddie paused, tugging on Chai's rectangular leash lightly for him to stop.

She walked up to the stall cautiously, "hello, um... is this the incense stall?"

"Certainly is," a man said in a gruff voice, like he'd been smoking for a few years. Or maybe it was just all the incense. "You wanted one in particular?"

Freddie tried to remember which one George bought, but she only knew that it smelt faintly of spices and woollen jumpers, but then again, that was just how George himself smelt. Not very helpful. "I don't really know all the types, do you have ones that smell, like...warm?"

"I got cinnamon, amber, and honey," he said, "they're the warm ones, then there jasmine and pear and all the flowery sticks."

She chewed on her lip, "could I have some of the amber incense please?"

"You need to be nicer," Freddie chided.

She flipped through her new folder to the fourth page and pulled out the crisp sheet, pressing the hardened pads of her fingers to the first line. It'd taken her a while to find underneath all of the newspaper cuttings and photos that had probably been ripped from library books.

George scraped the spatula [Lockwood had found the old one under his bed with teeth marks in it and frankly not even George himself trusted his stress cleaning skills with that] against the frying pan. They needed a new one of those too, it was chipped in one corner, and no one could heat up soup anymore. "I told you already, I just have a bad feeling about her."

"Whatever."

Freddie leaned over the page of the novel she would never get to and ran her fingers along the last thing printed into the typewriter. Something about more biscuits, of course, and some notes on the research that Lockwood had waved off immediately. A man had fallen down the stairs and died a few years back, and there was some stuff about an old actor from the eighties, as well as the next-door neighbour's habit of bleaching animal bones and using them as decorations.

She wondered if the next-door neighbour would want the duck wing that had appeared on their front steps last week, courtesy of the vile cat that lived in the gutter a few doors down. Freddie picked at the faint scars on her knee.

Something was mumbled as jars were knocked around, and there was the familiar sound of the scoop in the bag of rice that Earnie had brought over when he wood burned the Lockwood & Co. sign that sat on the spiked fence out the front for them.

He'd also taught the boys how to assemble the shelves that stocked everything they needed for cases once there'd been too many hospital trips that sent Freddie and Lockwood spiralling.

George shuffled around the kitchen and turned the stove on, presumably to put the kettle he filled up on it. "It's fine, she won't last long anyway."

Freddie spun her ring around her finger, the one with the little hearts. "Georgie boy, are you planning to poison Lucy with your ghormeh sabzi?"

He scoffed, and opened a tin, tipping the gross slimy liquid out that always stunk. "I wouldn't need to put poison in it for it to kill her. We don't even have any meat, it's just sludge and beans at this point!"

"We get the DEPRAC pay check on Monday, don't we?" Freddie assured him, and stood up. She squeezed his shoulder when she walked past to the fridge with far too many magnets.

"Only if this case goes well, otherwise we've only done four in the last fortnight, and that doesn't count for the qualifications! And it's definitely going to go badly, because Lockwood rushed into everything again and Lucy's just enabling him!" George argued, and began piercing the dried limes aggressively. "There is so much that could go wrong and-"

Freddie put down the glass jar of milk on the bench, swiping her hand across it first to check she wasn't about to crush the onions. Then she came up behind him and wrapped him in a hug.

George set down whatever he was holding, probably destroyed limes, and sighed. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," she said. Freddie stood on her tiptoes slightly and rested her chin on the top of his head. His hair smelt like her shampoo. She didn't mind. Besides, the poor boy was freaking out over so many things, he didn't need her complaining that he smelt like honeysuckle or mangoes or whatever hair products Lockwood had found on sale.

He sighed again, but it was less of an annoyed sigh and more like he was about to fall asleep standing up, which was something he could actually do.

The kettle began to whistle loudly, making them both jump.

"Remind we why we keep the kettle that doesn't work," George complained, and Freddie let go of him so he could lift it off the stovetop. At least he sounded a little less overworked and overstimulated.

"Same reason we have the dying cat couch," Freddie said, and picked up the bottle of milk to pour some into the chipped mugs that hung above the oven. George had put the skull in it again. The room still smelt like sulphur and strangely, mint. "Emotional attachment."

George began chopping onions. "What shitty thing do I get to keep and claim emotional attachment then?"

Freddie thought for a moment. The teaspoon [George refused to use normal sized spoons. He just really didn't like them] she stirred the vanilla essence into the milk with clicked. "Me and Ant."

"Why do I always get the worst thing," he said teasingly, and Freddie bumped her hip into his, handing the drink to him and wiping her eyes free of the tears that had formed.

Chai barked from the lounge room. He'd probably jumped onto the window seat and pushed off all the fluffy cushions there again. George fiddled with the stove and set the mug down. "They must be back."