Provenance Black

Rotten Apples

Bit of a long chapter this time. It's one of the first tales of PB I wrote, I hope you enjoy it!

  Everyone was laughing, but it seemed to Joe everyone laughed at everything these days. Joe looked Grace- who was anything but the name implied- who was laughing at something Aaron had said, again. She seemed overly desperate for his attention, fluttering her lashes, and pouting like a wasp had stung her. Aaron was bragging about how he'd won a tournament of some kind. At what, Joe didn't know, nor did he particularly care, as it was likely something physical and violent. Then, there was April- Aaron's girlfriend. She was a lanky girl, with flames for hair and freckles covering her body, in agreement with the myths surrounding gingers- she had no soul. She had her arm looped around Aaron's yet she stared intensely at Joe while chewing her gum.

  "Hey Joey-boy, don't ya care that your best mate has gotten his Brown Belt?"

  It was a trick question Joe knew, one to divert April's boyfriends attention from the clumpy bimbo and onto the lack of attention Joe had given him.

  "Yeah mate," Aaron said, "Aren't you happy for me." Grace giggled.

  "You know I am," he sighed as they rounded a corner, stepping into an alley. Up ahead, they could see nothing, it was as if there was no light at the end of the alley, or else it was a dead end. Joe looked back the way they'd come, noting the fading sun and the distance of closest streetlamp. No one else had seemed to notice, they didn't seem to care either.

  A scuffle broke out between April and Grace, most likely due to a certain green monster that hung over April whenever Aaron and Grace were near each other. There was a few squawks as the two girls fell into the shadows of what must be the next street. Aaron just guffawed before slinking into the shadows himself. Reluctantly, Joe followed.

  He felt the change of the street before anything else- it was bumpy and more slippery than the tarmac- then he noticed that he couldn't determine the black sky from the black building walls, when he could have sworn seconds ago he could. He heard the shouts of his friends as the darkness confused their senses, the lack of sight making them stumble about on wet ground. He turned back in the direction of what he thought was the alleyway but in the darkness, he couldn't tell where he was facing. His back it something cold, he froze. In his paralyzed state he suddenly noticed that his friends had stopped talking and other sounds had emerged from the dark; a squeaking wheel, drunken chortles and cackles, hurrying footsteps, shutters shooting up and banging on impact, a scraping sound on the path next to him. He gazed in the direction of the sound, fear gripping his throat. Directly behind him there was a bang as something else hit the cold thing he was leaning on. There was grumbling that got higher up and Joe realised whoever it was they must be climbing a ladder of some kind. He looked up just as a blinding green-tinted light appeared. He squinted, arm snapping up to cover his eyes. He heard the lamplighter grumbling as he climbed down, and Joe forced his eye to crack open so he could see the man. He looked around noticed that he was propped against a victorian lamp and a man- no more than three feet tall- clambering down the ladder. The man looked up at Joe-the weird green light casting strange shadows on his fairly squashed face, large nose and long mouth- to stare back. He rapidly blinked three times, blinked and the eyelids went horizontally instead of vertically. Joe tried jumped back, but the man had already grabbed his ladder and trotted away to the next lamppost. Joe rotated slowly and gasped.

  All around him the street was alive. Shops had set out stalls to show off their wares, a blacksmith had folded his walls back to reveal the entirety of his smith in all its glory. There was a Haggard Man with what looked like a theatre on wheels further up the street, the creaking music background noise to the entire affair.