Enar's Vacation - Open Beta

Chapter 22

3738 Words

This is a beta version of Enar's Vacation. Changes can - and probably will - be made as a result of reader feedback. I hope you'll enjoy it and I hope you'll take the time to give me some feedback. It will help me make this story the best it can be.

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He could make out the porch through the trees now. At the table, Beired tinkered with something over a large bowl, and by the steps stood Linnea, leaning on the railing. When she saw Enar she waved and came down to meet him.

She might have glanced at his hat, and he couldn't tell if she'd smiled or not, but at least she didn't say anything. Instead, she put a finger to her lips and motioned for him to follow her.

Enar looked from Linnea to the porch and back again. He'd have his breakfast on the porch wouldn't he, not out in the orchard? From where he stood, the table looked rather cluttered, but surely there would be room to fit a plate and a mug for him over at the end, where he'd sat the previous mornings.

He just wanted to get his breakfast done and over with - not go touring the orchard.

"Psst, Enar, this way." Linnea whispered, and, again, waved for him to come along with her.

When he caught up with her she turned and set off on a narrow path along the hillside he hadn't walked before. Soon they arrived at a large blushberry shrub, nearly as high as the surrounding apple trees. It grew in a horseshoe shape around a little hollow dug out in the hillside. Large flat stones covered the ground in the dugout, with grass sprouting through the cracks between them.

Against the back wall, still shaded from the sun by the thick bush, stood a blue bench. The paint gleamed new, but the unevenly rounded planks hinted it had seen a lot of use throughout the years. There was no table though - not even a picnic basket.

"We can wait here," said Linnea. "Mom will be done soon." She went over and sat down on the bench, just on the edge, as close to the side as she could get.

"What..." Enar's voice still rasped against the inside of his throat. He covered his mouth and coughed. "What are we doing here? Didn't you say there would be breakfast?"

"Yes..." Linnea blushed. "We have to wait a little. Mom's working."

"Working?"

The girl plucked at her dress, making sure it fell right and covered her knees, which it did, by a long margin. "Yes... She decided you needed something to pick you up a little, so... she's mixing something together for you."

"Oh? Like a medicine?" Enar walked over to the bench and sat down he too - over on the other side.

"You don't have to worry." Linnea hurried to say. "There won't be any side effects. She's very good."

"Side effects?" He hadn't worried. He'd just wanted breakfast - not that he was hungry, but eating helped.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. Please don't worry." She bit her lip. "Don't tell mom I said anything."

Brilliant, just brilliant. Enar took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to shut the world out for a bit. It didn't work. "Don't worry. I won't tell."

"Thanks." Linnea wrung her hands.

Enar looked away, at the bushes around them and the flat stones on the ground - out over the orchard. Ahead of them, on the hillside in front of the hollow, the ground had been cleared, and no trees blocked the view of the valley below. A cloud vaguely shaped like a teddybear, or maybe a bowl of fruit, drifted south at a snail's pace far away and high above. He could sit here a while.