These crones? As in the both of us?
Sighing, the unmasked man shook his head. “We’re leaving. Ladies.” He nodded first at me, then at Ingrith. I ignored him.
“Take care not to let it happen again, Ingrith,” said the unmasked man as the two workers left. “It’s dangerous for there to be earthquakes near the quarry.”
Ingrith started muttering to herself and hobbled past me toward the table. I caught something like “useless, oblivious men” as she stepped past, leaving behind her scent of decay. With a groaning, scratching sound, she pulled a chair out from the table and plopped herself into it. She stared back at me. “Well? You goin’ to stand there all day, like your mind has gone numb? Sit down!”
It was as if I were a man, and she were my goddess. A cloud of dust flew out from under my mud-colored skirt as I sat. The chair I was in was dustier than Ingrith’s, but it seemed to be in much finer shape than the rest of the furniture. It was as if the chair had been sleeping, waiting for someone who never came to use it.
Ingrith pounded the walking stick, still in her hand even though it soared above her head while she was seated, making me sit taller in my chair. She pointed to the chipped and cracked snake mask on the table between us. “You know what that is?”
I raised an eyebrow. “A … mask?”
“A … mask?” Ingrith echoed my words as if they left a vile taste in her mouth. “Yes, we both have eyes, girl! I’m askin’ if you know what that is!”
Okay, maybe hanging out with the crazy old crone to pass the time before I lost the only man I’d ever love was a bad idea after all. Then again, it did get me out of extra primping. “A snake?”
Ingrith pounded her stick on the floor again. “Oh, for the love of … ” She grunted and reached across the table to snatch up the snake mask. She held it next to her face. “This was a man’s face, girl! How do you reckon I got it and got no man for it to be wearin’, eh?”
“I don’t know. Your brother’s or something?”
Ingrith sighed as if she needed to clear her lungs of all that dusty air in her house. She tossed the mask back onto the table, where it landed with a thud. “I never had no brothers, girl.” She held up a finger. “Tut, tut. And before you go guessin’ it was my father’s, he was a loved man since the day my mama turned seventeen, so no, he had no need for another face when I knew him.”
What did men do with their masks if they had their love Returned and could be rid of them? Smash them, break them, as I might do if I were them? No, they had other things on their mind. Like happiness and goddesses.
Ingrith sighed and shook her head. A white tendril broke free from the cloth covering her scalp, and I was reminded, with a jolt, of Elfriede. “You ever heard of a man called Haelan?”
I shook my head.
Ingrith heaved that weary sigh again. “Of course you haven’t.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your parents ever wonder how come there’s no healer?”
What is she talking about? “Someone who … fixes boot heels?”
Ingrith pounded her walking stick not once, but three times. “No, I’m talkin’ ’bout a healer, you damn fool! Someone who makes people who are sick or injured feel better.”
“No.” Wonderful. I was going to spend the rest of the day talking nonsense with this woman. “Mother tends to us when we’re sick. I suppose women make their loved ones feel better.”
“Some broth-and-huggin’ home remedies aren’t the same as sewing up a man to stop him from bleeding or blowing air into a girl’s lungs if she stops breathin’.” Ingrith let out a breath, and I could smell the sour scent across the table. “What do your parents think of me, then?”
That you’re a crazy old crone, like the rest of us do. “They don’t speak much of you.”
“They think I never had a man to love me?”
“Yeah … ” They think that their daughter is probably going to do no better.
Ingrith scoffed. “Bunkum! Every woman gets her man.”
I cradled one arm against my chest and squeezed my elbow tightly. “I don’t have one, either.”
“Oh, sweet goddess. Can’t be more than sixteen and she thinks no man will ever find her. Well, isn’t that convenient?” Ingrith cupped her chin, pinching her lips together as she looked me over. “You in love with that boy you came here with?”
I bit my lip. “Why would you ask that?”