Divided Lands

Chapter 14

The sun bleached cobblestone streets sizzled beneath the blinding heat of the sun. There wasn't a sign of the previous night's downpour prevalent--not a single puddle in the cracks between grey stones. Early spring had turned to midwinter and then soared into sweltering summertime overnight.

"What the hell is with the weather in this place?" Eric asked. He wiped the beading sweat off of his brow, his vision blurring from the salty streams that ran into his eyes. "I swear, the temperature was almost freezing last night."

Haley picked up small head of greens and began to inspect it, pulling back the crisp leaves to search for any insects or brown spots. "I have no clue, really. This crazy weather started all of a sudden. Just last week it was perfectly mild and just what you'd expect for springtime." 

"Hm. Next thing you know it's going to start pouring snow." Alice sniffed. She eyed the carts with their produce and the stands with their many handmade goods as if she had never seen anything like it in all the world. "Open markets...so strange. You'd think they'd be afraid of rain or something."

"I just miss the air conditioning in the markets back home." Eric grumbled. "We really took those for granted."

Haley handed a few jingling coins to the man standing behind the lettuce cart "You know, there are a lot of things I realized we took for granted once I moved here. I almost feel like an ass for being one of those stupid teenagers left home for no reason as opposed to, well..."

"As opposed to people like Eric who needed to come so an angry mob wouldn't burn them to a crisp?" Alice raised her eyebrows. She reached into one of the little pockets on each side of her dress---a bright white sundress that was almost blinding in the midday sun---and pulled out a little notepad and a pen. She scratched out a few lines, never losing eye contact with Haley all the while. "Me, I'm just here because I'm really too weird to stay anywhere for long at all."

"Heh, well, I guess I should ...be honest and say that I'm here for the money." Haley said. She blinked at Alice and her notebook with suspicious eyes and tried to keep herself from imagining whatever ideas she could be sketching out. "Grab whatever you want, by the way. We have a lot of it."

"Someone's proud of the work she does..." Alice smirked. 

Haley smirked and rushed off to another cart, this one piled high with melons of some sort. Her loose posture suggested that she didn't give Alice's words a second thought, but the gleam in her eyes revealed otherwise. She knocked on a melon with her ear pressed against the side as she listened for that deep, perfect, hollow sound posessed only by the most perfect of melons. 

Alive felt Evie tugging on her sleeve. She pocketed her notepad and pencil again and shrugged her off. "What is it?"

"How much longer are we going to be out here?" Evie whispered. She stared up into Alice's face with flustered, twitching eyes. "I want to go back inside."

"Why?" Alice asked. Behind her Eric and Haley were both struggling to hoist a huge melon off of the cart and into the satchel. 

Evie rubbed her elbow furiously, her eyes darting to and fro like mice. "I'm...hot."

Alice frowned. "You're not going to pass out, are you?"

"No, no...there are lots of people." Evie said. Her voice shook. 

"Oh, come on. Just pretend they're not here and you'll be fine." Alice laughed. "Now come on, stop acting skeevy. This is nothing like you; it's creeping me out, and that's saying something right there."

Haley finally lifted the melon and began to stagger around with it, while Eric opened the satchel for her to drop it in. When she did, he buckled under its weight and struggled to get it back over his shoulder, great big beads of sweat forming on his brow. Panting, he turned to Alice and Evie.