Raising Isla | ENGLOT AU

Chapter 19: No Bad Timing Now

The cityscape became little more than a memory behind them as they drove. The ornery grey of pavements seeped into lush verges, a tapestry of green and gold fields surrounding them the deeper they escaped into it.

Calypso had a car now. She wasn't sure how that had happened, only that it had - at some point. She'd never really cared before, but there was something about public transport that didn't seem as secure as it had once, now that Isla was with her.

The landscape was different this time, Calypso noticed absentmindedly, but it wasn't the scenery outside her window that was keeping her attention. Emery, sat in the seat beside her, occasionally, carefully, feeding her snacks by hand from the stockpile she'd resourced at her feet. And the toddler in the backseat sleeping, almost slumped against the window in her car seat. How could that be comfortable? Calypso frowned as she checked on her via the rearview mirror, but she hadn't yet woken to readjust herself, so it couldn't have been enough of a concern to nag through to her unconscious mind, and she'd slept in stranger postures without ever later complaining, which just seemed unfair to Calypso.

God, was she getting old?

...

They weren't far now, twenty minutes, ten, before Emery pried open the window to listen inquisitively to the song her ears had caught onto. Metallic, but musical - like the chinking of a choir of distant wind chimes.

"Is that...?" She asked absently, tipping her head out the window enough to listen without the breeze becoming too much of an annoyance in her hair.

"Cowbells?" Calypso smiled at the mystical look in her eyes. "Yeah."

"I thought that was more of a European thing?" It was in her voice too now.

"It is," Cal agreed; none of the other ranches around here used them. "Mae is a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to things like that, at least, that's what she blames it on, really I think she just likes the sound."

Emery relaxed back against her seat, but the window stayed open. "How many does she have?"

"Cows?" Calypso asked. "Not a lot, it's a relatively small farm, but the noise carries through the whole valley."

She hadn't appreciated it as a youth, a constant reminder that no matter how far her attempts to run away got her the chiming would follow and follow and follow; it had been infuriating at the time. But she'd stopped running eventually.

Calypso pried her own window open so she could listen closer too.

...

Isla was awake by the time the car rolled down the gravel track towards the farmhouse. It was an old building, like somebody had stolen an image off a postcard and stuck it amongst green pastures, wooden barns, and a stream of crystal water. The air was different here, Calypso hadn't faithfully remembered the feel of it, clean and pure as she breathed it in. She'd missed this.

She wrestled with the clips and buckles holding Isla ransom in her car seat, the little girl's eyes darting to a horse a short distance away, it's coat turned a shade of dazzling copper in the late afternoon sun, observing them curiously over the fence line while chomping audibly on the tuft of grass sticking out its mouth.

Isla squeaked.

She dashed over as soon as she was free, Calypso setting her down on the ground and watching as she scurried away on little legs. The horse didn't shy at her sudden movement, instead, inquisitively stretching its neck down towards her before letting out a languid huff of warm air over her face, it was as mellow of a greeting as she was going to get.

Isla was beaming as she spun back to look at Cal. Emery was looking equally as dazzled by their surroundings, awestruck even, stepping out of the car before twirling in a slow circle to take it in.