Wild Magic

Chapter 15. The Purge Goes On And On

Faharmoy walked down Verakay Lane, angry eyes sweeping from side to side.

He stopped across the Lane from Utsapisha and her frycart, glared at her for several moments, then swung round and strode off.

The old woman wrinkled her nose, lifted her veil, and spat.

“Zazil” Her granddaughter looked nervously around, wiped her sleeve across her face.

“Twiddlepoop. Couldn’t find his ass if he had the runs.”

“Za-zeeee.’

‘

Most of Utsapisha’s vast family had packed up and moved across the Bridge, but she grumbled she was too old to shift her bones from the house her children and grandchildren had been born in and too mean to be driven out. Besides, who’d pick on a pore ol’ woman like her? She tied a rag across her face in a mockery of a veil, had a granddaughter sew huge floppy sleeves on her shirts and went marching along the lane swinging her arms and body like some superannuated clown. Giggling but nervous, one or another of her granddaughters followed her, pushing the frycart with the chair tilted over the oilpot.

Utsapisha enjoyed these processions enormously, bowed all round when she reached the deserted shop where she had established her claim on the boardwalk, settled herself with a whoomph and a wiggle and after that traded insults with her customers. She was an institution on Verakay, selling pies and kebabs to anyone who had the money, mostly the sailors that ambled the lane hunting for whores, drink, and food.