Story for the Day: Just Visitin'

Normally, Baba does not like visitors to her farm. She goes to many lengths to repel anyone from trying to leap over her fence and approach the house, but for those who know how to navigate the minefield of bear traps and pitfalls, the best dinner a day's work can afford lies within...

Read Baba's first book

                Baba leaned down, exhumed a healthy carrot, and inspected it with a flout. She glared at it some time, as though trying to divine some secret from its taproot, wiped away some of the dirt, and blew on it. She snapped it in two and scrutinized each side, tapering her gaze and turning the carrot every which way. “Aye, looks all right,” she decided, tossing the carrot pieces into her barrow. “Better not o’ got no carrot fly this year, not after all that work I did puttin’ ‘em late and takin’ ‘em

out so early.”

                Coulda just asked Chune to look after ‘em, a voice answered.

                Warmth settled over the farm, and a nebulous bloom blanketed the southern field. 

                Baba humphed. “Go’on way outta that, son. What’s a prayer gonna do what work wouldn’t do itself. She don’t need to be hearin’ from me over a carrot crop. She got enough work to do come harvest anyhow, and she’s gotta hear yer mouth runnin’ all day. Don’t know how that girl don’t got a face on her as long as a hinny, listenin’ to you go’wan all the time.”  

                A slottering sound reached Baba’s ear, and somewhere someone was munching on something. She don’t mind it.

                “Heh, says the japer.” Baba put a few more carrots into the barrow and lifted the handles to her chest. “You gonna help me with this here carrot crop, or you just gonna stand around eatin’ all my store apples all day?” she grunted, pushing the barrow along.

                A complacency pervaded the field, and a presence settled. Can’t. That’d be interferein’, and we ain’t suppose to interfere.

                “Heh! Go along with you now, son,” Baba scoffed, tossing a hand at no one. “Never heard such gibber in all my days. Sure know how to interfere when there’s a dinner innit.”

                The slottering quieted, a silence of embarrassment followed. …I got tol’ by the Aul’ Man.

                “So?” Baba grunted. “Ain’t never stopped you before.”

                Aye, well, it’s stoppin’ me now. No interferin’ and no arseways about it.

                Baba stopped and put the barrow down at the end of the row. An amusing notion climbed the ladder of her thoughts, one that brought a grin to the crease in her cracked lips. “Yer Aul’ Man’s around here, ain’t he?

                There was a pause. How d’ya figure?

                “You usually don’t know nothin’ from shyness, son. Had the shyness kicked outta you the day you were born, or whatever your kind do to wish yerselves inna existence. You don’t know nothin’ about restraining yerself, and yer only bein’ coy now ‘cause you got yer Da lookin’ over yer shoulder.”

                The voice made no answer, but the vigor in the air depressed.

                “Ha! Thought so,” Baba rasped, taking up the barrow again. “Don’t like listenin’ to yer brothers when they tell you to mind yerself, but when it’s yer Da pullin’ yer ears, only fer that should the sky fall down.”

                Naw, I don’t got nothin’ to do with keepin’ the sky where it is. That’s Fuinnog’s job. Sure too busy answerin’ prayers to mind where the clouds go.

                “Yer also busy botherin’ farmers what don’t got their crop in yet. Whatcha doin’ here anyhow, if you ain’t come to help me?”

                The slottering began again. Just visitin’, Gran, said the voice, a simper almost audible between bites.

                “Aye, visitin’. This here visitin’ wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with that pie I was thinkin’ about makin’ for dinner?”

                The presence seemed somewhat wounded. Look at all this here blamin’ I’m gettin’. Aul’ Aoidhe come down from the Realm just to see one o’ my fav’rites, and I’m here gettin’ accused o’ only comin’ for the pie.

                 “You know the rules, japer. There’s pie if there’s work done, and you ain’t done nothin’ but gnash my apples and wag yer lips.”

                The presence shrank, the ether contracted, and the voice said, in a desperate whisper, …I’ll help once the Aul’ Man’s gone.

                “Ha! Aye, you will, if yer wantin’ the pie I’m makin’.”

                He’s still lurkin’. Don’t know what he wants. He don’t come down here without a reason though. You call him, Gran?

                “No. What do I need him for? Sure he ain’t thought o’ me since I was born. Suppose it’s fair. Haven’t thought about yer Da since then neither.” Baba wheeled the barrow toward the garden by the farmhouse and began brushing the carrots off. “Also didn’t mention you, now that I’m thinkin’ of it. Didn’t mention yer name from this mornin’, didn’t think o’ you throughout the day, so the only way you’d know about that pie I was thinkin’ o’ makin’ if yer listenin’ to my me-murmurin’ without my knowin’ it.”

                Somewhere under the curtain of existence, a finger tapped at the side of a head. That’s my Goddin’, Gran, the voice proudly declared. Don’t gotta pray to me or say my name to have me visit. I’m always listenin’. A shrug proceeded somewhere. ‘S what lovin’ parents oughtta do for their children, listenin’. A hen-duck don’t gotta wait for her young to cry out for her to come runnin’. She’s always around, watchin’ and mindin’ ‘em and makin’ sure they don’t fall inna holes and such. S’ what I do, mindin’.  

                “Don’t need mindin’, son,” Baba gowled. “I need someone to help me pack these here meal barrels so we don’t starve come winter. I know you and yer Aul’ Man are waitin’ for the day I put the hoe to ground and breathe backward from the arse up, but long as I can sow the seed and reap the crop, I ain’t goin’ nowhere. You can wait another hundred years, and ain’t leavin’ this farm, d’ya hear me?”

                Silence from the ether, and Baba turned back toward the field with a vicious glare.

                “I know you’re there, son,” she rasped.

                …I’m mindin’, said the voice, in a softened hue. Secret-like and such.

                “Ain’t no secret when you’re talkin’ to me reg’lar,” said Baba dryly, pouring the meal over the carrots. “The minute yer Da’s gone back to his lofty seat, that’s you japin’ me. You try to put me in this barrow, that’s yer slice o’ pie gone to the pigs, I don’t mind tellin’ ya.”

                A defensiveness clouded the air. Wasn’t gonna put you in the barra, but since yer after askin’ me…

                A subdued mirth rose and fell with the gales, cachinnations carrying the voice off. A ponderous sigh heaved across the farm, and the presence was gone.

                “A hundred thirty one years I been on this farm,” Baba grumbled, laying down another row of carrots, “ain’t been pushed in the barrow that long, and I ain’t gonna be pushed now.”

                She suddenly stopped and glared behind her. Something indiscernible scurried away, loping over the house as a swell wrinkling the atmosphere.

                “Aye,” she sniffed, “knew you were gonna try it.”

                Ain’t tryin’ nothing, Gran, the voice returned, choking on a laugh.

                “Aff and away you go now, japer, or I’ll call yer Da down to smite you or whatever he does when he ain’t takin’ folk in and outta this world.”

                Naw, he don’t smite. Frannach does that. The voice grew disgruntled. Comin’ down with his chariot and horses and all, the great LORD OF WAR AND PEACE, ATTENDING TO THY CRIMES AND PERVAYING THINE ACCORDANT CASTIGATION, SMITING THOSE WHO COMMIT EVIL AGAINST ME and such. Wish he’d go aff and smite himself.   

                A smile struggled along Baba’s lips. “Awful lotta blasphemy that is against yer aulder brother, specially when yer Da’s listenin’.”  

                The voice said nothing, however, and the presence, though muted, lingered somewhere in the distance, hovering near the opposite end of the farm.