Eyubea Girls, Growing Wild 1 (COMPLETED) #Wattys2017

Chapter 18 - Head of House

Lisbette felt every bump in the road as Clare-Voy pressed forward, holding on to the steering wheel. While it wasn't her first time in a car, it was her first time in a car like this, being driven so freely across what looked like a barren desert dotted by expansive flat-topped trees.

Nothingness had never looked so beautiful and she found herself at peace in the open space. Graham, however, was doing his best to stem the threatening avalanche of bags that jostled with every pit and land.
The ride was silent and after a while, Lisbette found herself comforted by it and allowed a small smile to creep to her lips. She had never expected to feel this way. They passed through a small town square where Lisbette saw people on mules, heavy with bags on either side, lumbering down the side. The women dressed simply in light colored shirts and skirts. One young woman with long black hair gathered at the back swept a storefront stopping to fan herself as she watched them drive by.

Lisbette had expected a more primitive appearance from the people here in Africa, much like she had read about in her father's books. She had expected the women to be topless with necklaces that barely covered naked breasts and beads on their forehead and in their hair. The men would be the same with long cloths covering their lower bodies. They would live in huts and eat with their hands or makeshift utensils. Those were the ideas planted in her head from books she read that were apparently wrong, based on what she was seeing in Eyubea.

As they left the town, they turned onto a narrow path lined with tall, straight trees on either side. The road was smoother here as the car reached its true speed easily. Before them was a beautiful white house behind a circular lawn. Clare-Voy drove around to the front of the house and slowed to a stop. Lisbette doffed her goggles and looked at her new home. At the top of a few broad white steps was a front porch with a small white wicker bench, fit for two people on one side and a swing bench on another. The mullioned windows were broad and gave the house a more open feel from the outside.

Clare-Voy took some of the bags from the back and while Graham managed to extract himself from the back pile, Lisbette hunted for and found the handle to open her passenger side door. Going up the handful of wide wooden steps to the porch, she opened the door and felt her breath catch in her chest. Unlike her home in Shaffshire, this one was spacious with neat, small tables covered with lace. There were portraits of the Africa she had read about in the books on the walls. They looked crude yet somewhat skilled and the figures were easily recognizable. There was one that caught her eye. It was a night portrait of a man in a carved boat on the river. The moon was bright silver against inky cobalt and its reflection shimmered in the water.

She was so engrossed in the picture that she didn't hear Clare-Voy come next to her.

"Tafale did this. He was painter. You like, Miss?"

"Please, call me Lisbette. Oh very much so. It is a lot like what I've read about Africa. Does this place exist?"

Clare-Voy nodded. "This was grandfather. He would night fish. He would take the boys with him on the water and the rest of us would just sit and watch him. Tafale painted well."

"Yes he did." Lisbette was hypnotized with little desire to break the connection.

"I will show you house now, yes?" Clare-Voy asked but didn't wait for the answer. Lisbette managed to tear herself away to follow her, the image burned in her mind.

Graham looked around the house and smiled to himself. He was here, away from everyone he had ever known. He was more than ready to educate these heathens, he thought. He swelled with pride at the thought that he would be the one to recreate them in the image of God and deliver them from their tribal paganism. It was his duty, his calling to do this. This is what he told himself daily.