The League of Berries & Laurels: Book the First - First Chapter (Pt. III)
Continued from:
You can purchase the first book of The League of Berries & Laurels in its entirety in print -
The brightness of their outer shells descend along a slowly declining roadway. The salt and exhaust are the merest barriers to make clear the corridor of passage from the extreme wind of the road. The brightness of their outer shells dashes up an embankment a plow had made, past which height they see their path trailing up another, greater embankment, down which the run of water in seasons more temperate has left a gully. An ice pack, a glacier in miniature, stubbornly retains its cherished thaw, over which the pair traverse. Behind them, a ravine narrows to a blister of the wider lake. Endless in her reach, whereas the season resolutely damps the bells of dawning spring in immortal recidivism, the bastion unlike the earth, striving still, falls, is hived by their progress upward, as light these days continues to lose out with darkness’ ascent. As ever, a car, a singular bulk moving through domains of nature’s changing visage, where all creatures else have retreated from, passes them, stopping not.
At its top, branches reach over the open eyelet on the lanes. It grows large, widening the eyelet until this eyelet, having lost enclosure to appear columnar, and then entire, sheds itself of those branches left waving behind them. Still they shiver with their teeth chattering in the cold. Still, the pacific homes before them, secluded here within their amorphous plots, do not offer up the warmth within their pearls. Snows yet a light and blustery snow. Turning with the lanes, they near ever a cottage nestled in the passing growth and wood more bound to purposed service, in itself serviceable, or framing the homes within the bones of fired clay. Their destination settled somewhere upon its own o’er covered lawn, blanketed deep, like all the amoebic, static plots, a distant issue of smoke guides them to a chimney in the trees.
The gate, like a patient, painted harp, calls for a hand, now withdrawn from jacket, to brave the vaporless temperature, whereupon it follows the cause to conclusion, pushes at a slat, which gives upon its frost hinges. An imp of the season who made his bed within the casement protests and keeps the entry to the perfectly edged and well-maintained walkway narrow. After the friend gets past too, taken over to tussling when their getting through found more of one another than space to get by, one of them stands, brushing off snow, and pushes the snickering gate back into place.
Just ahead, the door stands ajar. In the frame appears the tall grandfather they wave to, and that watches over the two approaching, the vacuity of a third form left behind them in the serene resolution of snow. The more the door progresses, the more the grandfather appears to beam with gratitude and care. Under this they pass, while the doorway thins the piercing whistles and strands of wind, until the world they walked through to get here gets closed away.
“My boys, my good lads, get you in out of this bitterest cold. A deeper winter never needed tougher souls than this.” Crouched to look them both squarely on the level, the pair slowly unravel and pull away fabrics from their red and snotty faces.
“J.J. stopped by just when I was getting ready to walk over, so we did, together.”
“We had quite a walk.”
“I see. Go on through, boys, go on through. We need not stop to say hellos.”
“Thanks, grandpa.”
“Hey, thanks, really good to be here again, Mr. Kerrigan.”
“Go on, go on.”
Without occasion, the two boys trundle and push past, continuing, in their disputations, on forthwith toward the solemnity of the sitting room. Briskly, the grandfather to one of those two kicks hats and scarves up, into the air, makes sense of them with the jackets as he is bending to them and hangs these upon the rack.
The intricacies of threaded sapphire, joined by emerald infinite in looking delicate, interlace with strawberries, feeling to tame, soft as they are, any running almost within the first step taken on the magnificent carpet. The window to the yard lets in immense light, and sight of the row of fence, fence past it, and the home framed by pines opposite them. The line of slats combs the whirling air for the intangible flights of patterned crystal dashing upon the window’s panes. Delicate wood, fabrics of luster, too, and tables all impress within the space they hold on the pristine carpet. Across the wall hang items of great interest. Objects are neatly arrayed atop the mantle, from end to end.
Two porcelain cups are waiting with their ornate saucers to be taken. More marshmallows than are now engorged in the chocolate occupy the little pan of silver. A slight steam then begins to peter out, begins again, emanating forth the spout of a matching decanter. Promptly do two hands take stems. Pillows on the couch, silk like the couch, are pushed at, and then these two sit within their space, sinking deep, sipping.
A door swings fore, a sight of the kitchen through it, swinging back through the jamb, then fore again. Grandpa carries a small service tray and manages to sit into an armchair, beside which stands a circular, tiered table, well within reach, where he puts the small tray.
At the floor by the fireplace, the two friends, both enraptured through their semi-transparent reflection in the glass, look at an image not high above them on the wall, but right down where they can perceive every detail up close.
“My sincerest apologies for the delay, lads. I know what busy fellows they make you out for with your schooling and your extracurriculars, but I appreciate you still visit your old, dear grandpa, I do. I had to filter out the dried leaves and small currants from my tonic, my tea, which both of you are sure to remember helping me gather out in the garden this summer. It is quite a bit nippier out now, now isn’t it?”
Interested in more from Russell Block, you can listen to Act I Scene I of his play Veritas! on Inaction.