The Void Vaulters

Semius - The Old Lady Next Door

Semius of the Northern Clans
The Old Lady Next Door

    The house next door did not look like much from the outside. It looked just like all of the other small houses shoved up close together in the slums of the Northern Clan. It was slightly larger than the rest with chipping grey paint and an overgrown lawn, not that there was much lawn to speak of. A couple of the window shutters were boarded shut and many of the eves had fallen down a long time ago. If you placed that same house in any of the classier towns in the North, one might go so far as to suggest it looked haunted or was inhabited by demon worshipers. But this was the slums and by comparison to the other houses on that street it was fairly grand, what with it having that small patch of grass out front.
    Perhaps it was that patch of grass that had led Abigreer to ring that house’s bell after a long fight with her husband. Or perhaps it was just because it was the house immediately next door and because her young son, Semius, had already started off in that direction just as soon as she had opened their own front door. Maybe it was because out of all the nearby houses, this one had a small rough over the doorstep and it was a rather rainy afternoon. Then again, it could have been fate. Who’s to say it wasn’t? After all, Abigreer could have rang any number of doorbells that afternoon. And yet she decided to ring that particular one with no prior knowledge that the wondrous woman who would come to answer that door would very soon become one of her son’s closest confidants.
    For a few minutes no one answered the ring. Semius’ mother pulled the bell chain a second time. No one came to the door. Finally, just as they were about to turn away they heard an elderly female voice calling out to them.
    “I am on my way! Just one minute!”
    They waited outside for another five minutes. Semius kicked his feet at the muddy concrete doorstep in boredom dirtying the hem of his worn grey robes. His mother roughly grabbed him by the cloak, wrapped her arms around his chest, and held him tightly in front of her, facing the dark blue front door. Finally it opened revealing a plump old lady in a grayish purple dress.
    It was against the law to break dress code in the North. While in public all adults were to wear robes, cloaks, gloves, and masks or veils that hid every inch of their skin from view. Each class had different colors they were allowed to wear and each profession had different styles of dress they could don. This lady was not wearing the suitable clothing of an sort of Northerner, particularly not of one living on their low class street. This startled Abigreer, forcing her to take a couple steps backwards off the stoop and back into the rain, pulling Semius with her.
   “Yes, can I help you dear?” she asked sweetly, adjusting her glasses slightly to look down at them curiously.
    The woman, whose clothes did not cover every inch of her skin, had a pleasant round face. Her hair was a deep red streaked with silvery grey and was falling out of a loosely pulled knot at the back of her head. She wore a white shawl over her grayish purple dress. And despite the woman’s age and winkles, the cut of said dress was boarding on scandalous, not just in the North, but by any standards of propriety.
    Semius, still a child, did not notice this. If he had he would not even have known that this was not how all woman dressed under their robes. Instead, the focus of his curiosity was directed into the older lady’s eyes. They were light blue and to him seemed somehow much younger than the rest of her. They had a playful quality to them, almost as though at heart she was closer to his age than her own. She had another quality, something he couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was a familiarity or a charming essence about her or some combination of the two, but it made him feel comfortable near her and drawn to her. He thought she must be the most beautiful woman to have ever existed. Though to be fair to Semius’ peculiar tastes, she was after all the only woman besides his mother he had ever actually seen without a veil.
    “I know this is very untoward,” Abigreer started, finally tearing her eyes away from the elderly woman’s cleavage, “But we are having a bit of a family crisis and I need someone to watch Semius here for a little while. I do not have much money but I can…”
    “Don’t worry yourself about that my dear,” the woman interrupted, pulling her eyes off Semius’ and smiling brightly at his mother, “I would be happy to watch the boy for you.”
    “Oh, thank you so much!”
    Much to the old woman’s surprise, Semius’ mother immediately abandoned Semius on the old lady’s doorstep and without any further discussion or hesitation took off hurriedly back to her own run down house. Almost as soon as she closed the door behind her, they heard muffled arguing and a definite smashing sound from within.
    “Why don’t we go inside then,” old lady beckoned to Semius, “My name is Ms. Haranu, by the way. But you can call me whatever you like.”
    As Semius walked through the dark blue door he found himself transported into a completely different world. He stood in a tall arched hallway as wide as Ms. Haranu’s whole house had looked from the outside and many times as long. It was brightly lit by several chandlers, made up of many small glowing crystals, suspended in mid air three stories up. Every inch of the high walls were covered in dark wooden bookshelves except for where there were stairs, balconies, rounded doors, and more arched hallways leading into other rooms. Semius looked around in stunned disbelief.
    “What’s through there?” He asked curiously pointing at the first door on the right.
    “That is a coat closet.” Ms Haranu replied, slightly amused at his excitement.
    “Oh.” He said briefly disappointed before quickly regaining his enthusiasm, “And in there?!”
    “That is a bathroom.”
   “Did the person that built this house put it right by the door so you could find it quickly if you really needed to go when you first get home?” Semius asked seriously, still gawking around at how large the place was.
    Ms. Haranu laughed, “Now that you mention it, I suppose there is a bathroom in close proximity to every door that goes outside.”
    “You have more than one door that goes ou- You have more than one bathroom!” Semius exclaimed in astonishment, “We don’t even have a bathroom of our own! My mom and me have to walk all the way to the community ones. The ones that only have toilets are closer but mom makes me bath every day so we have to walk all the way to bathing ones every day.”
   “I did not know community bathrooms still existed.” Ms Haranu stated thoughtfully, “That’s kind of disgusting if you really think about it. You know what, from now on you and your mom can use my bathroom when ever you want.”
   As Ms Haranu began leading Semius down the hallway, he noticed she limped on her right leg. Realizing that this, in addition to having such a big house, must have been the reason why she took so long to answer the door, he politely offered his arm out to help stabilize her. Though she was twice his height and his efforts to help would be completely futile, she smiled and took the offer graciously before continuing to walk.
    Another hall just as large as the first one met it perpendicularly in its center. She motioned to take a right and kept walking with him until it opened up into an airy kitchen. This kitchen had fancy bay windows that over looked a garden so big Semius could not see the end of it. The door going outside to that garden was made up of two parts: an open green door that looked a lot like the blue front door, only green, and a screen door through which a nice swift breeze was blowing in the scent of fresh tomatoes.
    “Would you like a cup of herbs?” Ms. Haranu asked.
   Semius agreed and while she put the water on the stove, he turned around the room looking at everything with the sort of wonder for the world that only children have. The kitchen had a large fireplace, not lit at the time, next to which was a cauldron so huge that Semius had to get on his tip toes to peer in. There was nothing inside. One wall of the room was made up entirely of glass paneled cupboards, in which were several dozen different herb cup sets. Semius examined each set separately and determined that he approved of all of them. The opposite wall from the herb cup set cupboards had three wide china cabinets side by side. Those held different plate sets. Semius looked at them as well. There were many other cupboards against the third wall but all of those had wooden doors so Semius did not look in them because that would be rude. He did however look at the washing sink, the stove that Ms. Haranu had set the kettle on, different kitchen gadgets on the counters that he could not make out a use for, and all of the objects that were cluttering a long mahogany table in the center of the room. Ms. Haranu meanwhile was amused watching the curious boy.
    The kettle chirped a bird song when it was finished brewing and Ms. Haranu allowed Semius to pick which ever of the herb cups he wanted from her cupboard, while she cleared a space on the table for them to sit. They made small talk over their herbs. Semius wanted to know everything - where did Ms. Haranu get her cup sets, did she grow the herbs herself in that garden, what the heck did that appliance do, did she live alone, why did she need such a big house then? After a while Semius sighed and looked into his herbs quietly. Ms. Haranu seemed quite comfortable with this break in conversation. Semius however wasn’t sure if he should continue finding things to talk about or just keep quite until Ms. Haranu said something first.
    “I’m sorry my mother dumped me on you.” Semius finally blurted after a few minutes silence.
    “I’m not.” Ms. Haranu reassured him, “It gets lonely living alone. You are more than welcome to come visit any time, my dear.”
    “Well I’m sure this won’t be the last time my mom is going to want to get rid of me for a day.”
    “I do not think your mother wanted rid of you, Semius. I think she just…” she caught off looking for the right words to tell a child.
    “My parents,” he started tentatively, “They fight a lot.”
    Ms Haranu watched the boy staring down at his muddy grey boots but said nothing for a long while.
    “You know what, lets do something fun. Would you like to see the rest of my house? Oh gosh, that’s not fun for a boy of your age, is it?”
    “No it is! You have the most amazing home I have ever seen, Mizharanu!” he exclaimed, jumping out of his chair in sudden excitement.
   Ms. Haranu walked him around the house, showing him almost every room and explaining their purpose. Besides the normal household rooms, she also had rooms for playing different musical instruments, a room for contemplation, a prayer room that confused Semius as it looked nothing like the church his mother took him to, areas for studying the great many books she owned, a drawing and painting studio, and an observation tower that looked directly out into the Void. Semius was very intrigued by this as he had never seen pure Void before. She also showed him hidden doors and a hallway that looked like it was going to send you in one direction when in fact it put you back out by the blue front door. They were at this point in the tour when a bell sounded signaling the return of his mother.
    “You haven’t even shown me what’s outside the back and side doors yet!” Semius complained, sadly.
    “I have no back or side doors.” Ms. Haranu said matter of factly, “They are all front doors.”
    “Aw, but can’t I stay just a little longer?” Semius whined.
   “You can come over again any time, Semius. It’s been a pleasure having you.” Ms. Haranu said honestly, smiling down at the little boy.
    So Semius went home with his mother. He tore off his Northern attire as soon as he was inside because he hated having to wear a hood and mask all day. His mother looked in his direction disapprovingly. Usually she made a sincere attempt at forcing him to wear his uniform until bedtime but tonight she said nothing against it and instead busied herself cooking dinner for the family.
    Semius’ father was in the basement where he worked. Robard brewed and distributed the best whiskey in the lower North. The demand for cheap booze was high in that part of the clan but even the best whiskey salesman in town couldn’t make much by selling to the fellow poor. It did however pay for them to own their own house. And they rarely went hungry, even if they did sometimes only have bean soup to eat for days on end.
    Their house was made up of one small room, the rafters of that room, and the brewing basement, which Semius wasn’t allowed in. Half of the one roomed house contained the kitchen where his mother was stirring soup over the fireplace. They had a single tall cupboard that held more on the inside than you would expect, a washing bin they had to retrieve water for daily, and a shaky table that his father had built.
    The table top was wider on one end than the other and slanted slightly. None of the legs were even but Semius’ dad had attempted to fix this problem by cutting them all down. This made the table a perfect height for Semius, but not quite so for his parents. And still the table was rocky, so of course Robard blamed the level of the floor, gave up, and shoved a wooden wedge under the shortest leg.
    Beyond that the room contained his parents bed, a nightstand, the wardrobe his parents shared, a mirror, a painting of Semius’ parents on their wedding day, a chest, and a shelf. The contents of that shelf were Abigreer’s most prized possessions - a statue of the sprite Aikaterine, three books she had inherited from her father, and a photograph of her parents right before they had died.
    Robard on the other hand kept his favorite objects, a long whittling knife and a silver plated flask, on him at all times. He believed that if you cared for something that much you should have it near you and use it. The exception was his prized stack of papers containing various alcohol recipes passed down from his father. Those he kept in the chest which stayed locked.
    The only thing Semius owned was a thick book about the Sprites and Seers throughout history. A nice priest at church had given it to him to study. Semius didn’t tell the man that he couldn’t read or that already knew a lot of what the Sprites and Seers had done from the stories his mother told him at bedtime. He loved the book and enjoyed looking at the pictures.
    Neither of Semius parents were in good moods at dinner that night so Semius told them all about Ms Haranu and her big house, hoping that it might lighten the mood the way it had cheered him up. This only angered his father more - who the hell did that old lady think she was living in their town if she had a fortune like that! But Abigreer had a different perspective. She believed that Ms. Haranu having such a house and being allowed to dress as she did must mean she was sent from the Seers or perhaps even a Seer herself. She said Ms Haranu was probably there to watch over them and they should all respect her, even if she did wear indecent attire. Robard agreed that she might in fact be a Seer but doubted she was there for their benefit, more like there to spy on them. Abigreer argued that there was no possible reason the Seers would be spying on them. After all they probably already know everything that happens in all the Clans without ever having to set foot in any of them.
    Semius realized too late that this was just one of those nights where it was better not to say anything at all because his parents were going to argue over every topic brought up. So he kept his mouth closed for the rest of dinner except to try very hard to drink his boiling hot soup as quickly as possible. After dinner, he rushed up the ladder to get to his bed, a small floppy mattress built into the house’s rafters, and pretended to be asleep.
    His father removed his mask and cloak and set them in the wardrobe. Then he retrieved a bottle of whiskey from the basement, pulled his whittling knife from his belt, and sat on the edge of his bed closest to the fire. His mother scrubbed the only three bowls they owned in the wash bin and then took a damp clothe to the table pointedly ignoring the fact that her husband was getting drunk and carving wood shavings all over her recently swept floors. When she was done cleaning, she too removed her cloak and her veil. She sat at the opposite side of the bed from her husband, facing the mirror, and combed through her long black hair. She had deep purple bruises around her neck.
    Semius peered over the edge of his bed watching them. They said nothing to each other. After a few minutes Semius’ mother looked up to check that Semius was asleep and after being fooled by him quickly closing his eyes, removed her under dress and climbed into bed. Semius could tell that she didn’t feel much like sleeping either. Robard finished his bottle and his carving before he too undressed and fumbled to get under the covers.
    Semius watched as he rolled over onto his wife, who attempted to push him away. He grabbed her by the arms and held her down firmly. Semius knew that it was for his sake that did not scream out as she struggled against him. Eventually she gave up fighting and turned her face away staring blankly at the painting of the two of them on their wedding day. Semius wondered if his mother was trying to imagine back to the time when she still loved him. He slowly and quietly turned over in his own bed to face away from them.