The new Girl in Town

[Seragil]

She smiled softly as she walked barefooted across the grass, her shoes held loosely in her right hand as she made her way slowly to the bench seat placed under the leafy branches of the large oak tree. She tried to ignore the people sharing the park with her and tried not to worry about whether or not her simple attire of blue denim jeans, dark red t-shirt and knee length dark green woollen coat, not to mention walking around barefooted, marked her as an outsider or portrayed her as a country bumpkin. The fact was she needed the connection, craved it in fact. The city was so very different to the wooded farmland she had grown up on and hadn’t realised that living in a concrete jungle had the tendency to lessen her connection to the earth, to nature and the changing world around her.

Once seated she dug her toes into the grass for a few seconds before stretching her legs out as she leaned back and cast her gaze over the city horizon, the sun had set some time ago but there was still plenty of light in the evening sky, it was dusk, an in-between time, neither daylight nor properly night time; The Witching Hour her family called it, an auspicious time for spell casting and energy work if one was inclined and a witch, and if one believed in such things, it was also a special time for the Fae, time for Vampires to be up and about and for the other beings who drew power from the dark part of the day. She smiled a little sadly as she thought of her parents and the so called family history and teachings. Being a witch was weird and freakish enough, she figured the World didn’t need Bogeymen as well. Thinking about her parents made her think about herself and her heritage, so she quickly closed her eyes and sent vitalizing energy into the ground beneath her and the parklands around her. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t do anything obviously noticeable, it was just energy to help nourish the land around her, make the grass grow thick and lush, flowers bloom and so forth. Once done she opened her eyes and looking around she figured she had been sitting long enough so she grabbed her shoes and leaned forward to put them on, only to sigh with resignation as her thick hair fell down around her, with a small grunt of effort she shoved her feet into her shoes, flicked her hair back behind her and prepared to leave.

[WorstEvangelist]

Rich, black soil rained down over the grass in loamy rivers as it spilled from the stranger's shovel. A ridiculously tall and gangly man, bent like a crooked screw over a small bed of flowers, tilled through the dark earth, delicately disturbing both weeds and the thick grey bodies of uncovered grave worms. A perimeter of gaudy security tape closed off the garden from all save it's strange occupant. The gardener worked on silently through the twilight, a dirty sun bleached bucket hat pulled over his eyes against the darkening sky. There was an oppressive sense about the man, doleful and bleak. It was how he toiled cordoned off from the rest of the park, his odd movements weighty, how his presence turned the bright flowers funereal.

As the woman bent to replace her shoes, the gardener mutely turned his head toward her, bizarre shadows dancing in the hollows of his face, his stare enough to send chills up the spine. No wait, there was actually something there, running up her spine like a centipede. It had to be the gardener, somehow from behind his fence of yellow and black tape, he had reached out and touched her. The man cracked a predatory smile, a sinister and demented grin that cut like a reapers scythe over his gaunt face.

Or at least until he doffed his hat and gave an enthusiastic wave from across the lawn. Without the hat obscuring his features the man, while horribly weathered, appeared genuinely benign. What had made him seem so strange was now just silly even under the dimming light of the dying sky. “Have a good night M'am! Beautiful night for the park!” he laughed still waving excitedly, voice carrying clearly through the still air.

“Yep,” Reeves sighed to himself while gazing up as the first stars began to show themselves. He absently scuffed at the soil with a heavy boot, making sure to pretend to be interested in something else. Finally the bloody fingers reaching up out of the ground were hidden completely by a thin layer of fertiliser and dirt. “Sure is a beautiful night for the park.”