Eight of Cups #5 - An argument about mother.

“You really need to get this place cleaned up.”
Her eyes darted around the room, the musty smell of the windows masking the odour of piles of uncleaned cutlery. Anna had been drawn back to this dingy cottage again, and even though she’d been there for less than twenty four hours, she could already feel her skin crawling at her confinement. She knew that Nickόlaus couldn’t go a week without his candles, and the stormy seasons only made it worse. But she’d stocked up well this time; she’d brought all that she could carry in without falling off her bicycle. There were at least enough to outlast the winter, unless he was trying something ridiculous like lighting a bonfire with them.

---

Anna entered the cottage and where the nostalgia was supposed to overwhelm her vision, she felt nothing. These rooms that she once lived in now felt cold. She was still unconvinced that this was the place Nickόlaus had described. For this empty cavern, filled with half burnt papers and mismatched furniture, she had sold her comfortable house and moved into a nearby villa four kilometres west. Her days were to be generally solitary, but the nights were to be caged in Nickόlaus’ past. Her brother needed her, doctor’s orders. He wasn’t moving and she was called to provide.

---

The wide eyes Anna had seen under the table that night were now reddened and beady, with cause that was more than a lack of sleep. She couldn’t place it. They scanned her packages, wrapped in brown paper (as per usual), and gave her a disapproving once-over before his tight lips parted to release some bottled inner cynicism.
“The mess has been waiting for you. I look after the maintenance, and you do the cleaning. Remember that, Annie?”

The endearing term sounded more of a threat than anything else. It’d been so long since that promise had been made, the farm found and the seeds planted… they’d now rotted. The maintenance he was looking after had been neglected. For her, this house had never been home. As the wooden foundations weathered, so did her patience. She began to stack plates next to the sink, collecting some from the hardwood table. It was then her eyes were caught by the box, detailed with a crudely gruesome drawing of an upside down man. He seemed to be suffering.

“Where’d you get this?”
“It’s none of your business, stay out of it.”
“Something about it makes me feel uneasy.”
“Well, don’t look at it then.”
“You don’t find the image repulsive?”
“Don’t call mother’s things repulsive.”

She swallowed hard.
“Where have you been hiding this?”
His silence was only disguised by the rain that fell softly along the front porch.