Lac and Kris

They were singing a song as it came to them. There were now three candles in the shrine well.

The envelope was open and on the kitchen counter, with a little card tucked under it.  Light reflected sharply from a loopy gold border visible on the corner of the card.

"Uh, how much storage space do we have...?" Lac was half-saying, walking to the room at the end of the hall.

"I really thought she was retired. This is...amazing." 

"Could be. It’s happened before. This could just be a test, like...um...um..." He was shouting from the dark room.

"Oh, I’ll check. I’ll check. And we’ll have the guy in here, what’s-his-name. Get the public records. Who was last? How much?" She slid the card out from under the envelope. She again read the name—Melifluora "Muffy" Waebraie-Fossaburn—and the date. 

Kris was mopping sweat from her face, breathing heavily. She grabbed a bright yellow, stiff rectangle of paper from the desk and scooped around for a pen.

She pressed the screen on. She swiped circles and lightning-bolt motions. She wiped off her face some more and loudly pulled out each drawer on the desk. Something on the screen was loading and she walked across the house, straight to her hanging green cardigan and pulled a chewed-up pen right out of the pocket.  She bit it as she walked back to the screen. 

"Ten months ago. Almost eleven," she read off.

Lac was shouting over some creaking sound. He looked at wires and wiped off a dial. He opened the little doors and stuck his hand in. He watched the lights change accordingly. 

"I don’t know how this thing works, it turns out. I’ll get the guy. uh...storage tank guy," Lac said, walking back.

"Scott," she stated from in front of the screen.

"Scott’s the technician? Oh...I thought..."

"No, no, sorry. I mean it was Scott working with Muffy," Kris stammered.

"Oh. Yeah. Duh. Uh. How much—" he was leaning in, trying to look at the screen.

Kris was writing it down on the left side of the yellow square. Next to it the square said, "Onions." 

"Six hundred thousand." 

She was writing two columns.

"Right before that was Alain. He got two hundred thousand." 

Lac was walking back out, looking for a wipe cloth to wipe his hands.

Kri was writing. She wrote "Mal" on the right side, under "butter," snorted, crossed it out and wrote it in the left column.

Next to it, she wrote "400,000." He hugged her and said, "Don’t you want another sheet of paper?"

She snorted a weird laugh that turned into a sob.  A tear rolled out. She hugged him. She wrote "*honey" next to "butter."

"It holds a million—in theory—right?" She asked.

"Oh yeah, there’s a sticker on it that says that," Lac recalled pointlessly.

"Oh...his name is..." She paused for a long time, scrolling. "Oh, oops. Tara." 

"Tara." He said plainly. "She was there when we bought it...from Alain."

He leaned his head way back and blinked. "He did emphasize the million capacity. I forgot."

He looked at the list on the yellow paper, but he only really looked at the food list.

• onions

• butter (*honey)

• garlic

• melons

• drinks

• lamb roast

* Duzzlle herb**** 5 day

"Ah, I’ll take care of the lamb roast." He paused thoughtfully.

She looked up at him. "What do you think, Li’l Spot or Li’l Comet? I think Spot." She got up from the desk and strode toward the storage.

"Yeah, L’il Spot," Lac nodded. He let out a long hum, and took a step towards where she was now.

She hummed back. She was sliding the little door open and putting her watch hand inside. It lit up and showed its charge bars. She spun the little crown wheel, watching the numbers. The storage bars ticked down slightly while her watch filled up all the way and turned green, then blue. 

"I’m going to the market to get all of this stuff for the barbecue. I’ll tell everyone there about it," she said, wiping her face, upward at an angle and kind of too hard." She 

"I’ll, uh, tell Tara to check the...storage thing." He went to get the list to hand to her as she was striding purposefully across the house again.

"Oh, is that how you spell Duzzlle herb?"

She took the list and looked at it, then scribbled out the first "l,"

"Not a clue," she said. 

"And, five days worth?" He ask-stated.

She went back to the screen and swiped through some more, looking back at the unlicensed records.

"Mal did a five-day," Kris said, glancing at the list again.

"Oh. well, we have five days, if we get going," said Lac, pulling open his clothes box.

"Oh. Alain did a three-day."

"Three is fine. We can start tomorrow." Lac pulled the folded up black apron from the compartment at the bottom. He set it on the chair, then the set of black and brown clothes.

"Now. Let’s start now." Kris strode to her green cardigan and shoe by the door.

She walked out shouldering a large bag. 

He picked up and opened a box in the corner and took out a votive candle with the outline of a black lamb on the glass, surrounded by little flowers. He placed it in the little candle well in the center of the room.

"Here’s to you, Li’l Spot. You’re my little guy." He sighed and wiped some sweat off of his face.

He wiped his hands dry and swiped the screen to "general announcement."

"Hey all," he posted, "for those who haven’t heard yet, we’re doing a 5-day barbecue (lamb.) Please let me know what I’m missing this week."

 Kris came right back in.

"We’re going to need a bigger bag," she said, carefully folding up her bag and putting it in a cubby. She reached way in and rolled out a bag with wheels. She smiled tiredly and went back out. 

He changed into black and brown clothes he had stacked on the chair and stepped into the yard. 

"Hey, little buddy."

A little brown and black cloud bleated cheerfully and sprung towards him. 

Next Chapter: Herb Expansion