Abbernathy and Magick's End |Trilogy Now Complete!

(15) - Finally, A Return to the Familiar

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DESPITE SEBBI begging them to quit their fussing, neither of them would. Abby immediately went to the stove, flicked on the burner, and began a pot of tea. Lucy led Sebbi by the arm, to the bench around the table, flinging trays of dead-appearing, though not truly dead, Abby had assured him, plants onto the ground. The plants' veined, purple leaves folded in on themselves as if saddened by their displacement. Perhaps they'd been enhanced to have emotions. In which case, Sebbi felt bad for being the reason they now sat on dusty, rutted floorboards, beside a pair of muddy, awful square-toed shoes with braided gold laces - Lucy's shoes, undoubtedly.

Lucy forced Sebbi to sit. 

"You really needn't–"

Abby turned to face him, beaming. A pleasant change from her earlier sobbing, though they'd all been rendered sobbing messes out on Ean's streets. "It's no problem." Her eyes flicked to Lucy's face. "Open a window, would you? It's so stuffy in here after being away for so long."

"I will, Love," called Lucy, who had moved on to the living room and carried a pile of tunics in his arms. They were all gold-colored, or gold-trimmed and without collars. Stitched abominations, more like. Lucy threw the heap beside the fireplace, after removing them from the fireplace, the workload minimal, the effort non-existent.

Such familiarity brought a smile to Sebbi's face. The Wizard Kellog had been right. All he had to do was trust in them. And like Red had said, he just needed to prepare to be hugged.

He'd arrived in Ean that morning and with him, had come the rain. He meandered down the roads and alleyways, after never really being there. He knew of Abby's plant shop, and of Lucy's many disruptions to the city's routine. But he'd never walked down the sloping streets, or past the factory districts to glimpse the giant steel stacks releasing blue-tinted smoke into the air. He never rode a cable-car, though that day, he'd almost been knocked over by one.

He regained his bearings shortly after being yelled at to stay three paces from the curb, lest he wanted to be flattened. Another of Ean's citizens, squatting under the awning of a tool store, added that Sebbi would have made for a very pretty stain on Ean's streets.

Flattery was not an Eanian's strong suit. Innovation and invention were. He took a set of moving steps to reach the top of the Western Slopes, while a bell rang out. It fell across the entire city, and Sebbi wondered how such a sound could carry that far and still sound so near, as though it came from overhead.

Abby's plant shop had come into view after he rounded a bend, mindful - very mindful - of the curb and the path of the cable cars. It was a little shack, fenced in on all sides. There was porch, that leaned, and gutters, that leaked. The entire house groaned. Two boxes sat on the lawn, filled with browning sprigs of something. The buds were black on the stems and he didn't know if that'd been intentional or a failing of Abby's ability. As much as she loved plants, they, or maybe more accurately, the growing process, didn't feel the same.

He reached down, grazing the leaves of the plant with his fingertips. He was touching what Abby had touched, what she had undoubtedly toiled over for hours and that realization had him grinning, wildly and stupidly, his heart feather-light, and ready to spring from his chest and take flight.

Taking a breath, Sebbi stepped away from the flowers, and marched the rest of the way to the house. The porch planks bowed under his feet as he stood face-to-face with the door. A sign, hung askew, read: "Closed Until Further Notice."

He sighed, his fist, raised and poised to knock, falling back to his side. He tried to get a peek inside, but the window was covered in curtains, and though there was a crack between them, it was small and dark.