Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie Read Online Free PDF Page B

a fist in the man’s direction.
    “No!” replied the man. “Quiet, you!”
    “A man has the right to a decent dinner!” Caramon cried.
    “Then go eat someplace else!”
    The two waitresses were standing between the long counter (before which sat perhaps fifteen swivel-stools) and the serving station. They were whispering fearfully to the cooks behind the station, and glancing nervously and repeatedly towards Caramon. He was breathing heavily, and the cords in his neck had begun to show through, so that he resembled a miniature of an enraged Titan. Orin rose up quickly, and took hold of Caramon’s arm, so as to lead him from the restaurant.
    “Very sorry, everyone,” he said. “He means nothing by it.”
    “Well, I certainly do!” cried Caramon. “I mean every bit of it! Especially you there!” Again, he gestured threateningly at the man in the brown cap.
    He and Orin disappeared through the door. Nessa looked out into the lot, where Orin was standing with his hands on Caramon’s shoulders, while the latter seemed to be attempting to charge back into the diner in the manner of a raging bull. Nessa sighed, and looked to Dechtire, who appeared not to have noticed anything at all. Still she was peering under the bun of her hamburger, searching for evidence of saliva.
    Nessa sank down in the booth, the better to hide herself from the eyes of the other diners, and put a hand to her face. When finally she gained the nerve to look again, she saw that a third waitress had joined with the pair already mentioned, having apparently been out of the dining room, and hence out of earshot of all that had occurred. She looked with something of a smile towards Nessa and Dechtire, and patted the arm of the mousy-haired waitress, who looked even more anxious than her blue-haired colleague, before setting off across the room.
    “Oh, no,” muttered Nessa.
    Dechtire, who had taken to scraping the first and foremost layers off of every item on her plate, in order to enjoy safely their undoubtedly hygienic cores, sat utterly oblivious.
    The waitress came to stand beside their table, looking down at Nessa (for, of course, Dechtire did not notice her) with nothing of her smile having faded from her face. She peered for a moment out into the parking lot, where it seemed that Orin was succeeding in the feat of calming Caramon.
    “Is there a problem here?” asked the waitress.
    “Not with me,” said Nessa.
    “Then with whom, may I ask?”
    “My brother.”
    With every response, Nessa felt her voice shrinking even farther into something which was nearly inaudible. The waitress looked at her strangely, with a single eyebrow arched, and her right foot tapping.
    “I take it he’s the angry-looking one, out there in the lot?”
    “You take it rightly.”
    Finally, Dechtire glanced up, and eyed the waitress suspiciously. “Who are you?” she asked.
    “Look here,” said the waitress. “You picked a bad night to come to Wiley’s. Both of the cooks back there – well, they don’t honestly know how to cook. So what do you say you slip on out the door, before anyone else comes asking questions? I’ll say you squared your bill with me.”
    “And why would you do that?” asked Nessa.
    “You look like good people. Let’s leave it at that.”
    Nessa glanced from Dechtire (who, at the best of times, looked as a far cry less than good people) to Caramon, who stood huffing and puffing between Orin and the truck, doubled over with his hands upon his knees. His silver Turin had fallen out of its hiding place beneath his shirt, and hung down from his neck, glinting in the moonlight above the gravel in the lot.
    “If I were you,” said the waitress, “I would follow through on that offer, right about now.”
    Nessa looked, for the first time, rather carefully into her face. A face more than pretty, it was, with bright blue eyes to contrast the thick, dark hair piled atop her head. Nessa, who was in the habit of thinking and comparing