Prompt Word: Shutter
Minervie and Chip 46
Gungan got in the back seat of a pale yellow Holden. It was dirty, but otherwise in pretty good shape. Minervie was in the front with Edna. Gungan tried to pay attention to where they were going, in case he needed to get back to town on foot. Edna and Minervie were catching up in the front, and that kept distracting him from his internal mission. He knew rivers so much better than the land, and he wasn’t a good river navigator either.
The road was winding up and down hills, through mostly neat rows of pine trees, occasionally interrupted by a brook, or a rocky knuckle jutting from the land, or a small group of buildings around a farmhouse.
It was one of these where they finally pulled off of a dirt road and onto a farmstead. Gungan was hopelessly lost, and feeling very uncomfortable about it. He got out of the car, and slowly turned around looking for landmarks, but could see nothing but pine.
Edna was the one to break him out of his head space. “Gungan? Let’s get you fed, and then we can talk. Come along.”
They weren’t going to the main farm house, but to an additional house that was almost as big. The large house didn’t look like it was actually lived in. All the window shutters were closed, and there was no visible trail to its door.
In Edna’s parlor, on a coffee table, a map of the property was laid out. There were symbols here and there, and besides the buildings directly surrounding where he was, he couldn’t make heads or tails of anything else.
Minervie came in from the dining room and said, “I was kicked out of the kitchen, so we might as well sit down.”
Gungan’s first question was, “Who’s ranch am I on?”
Minnie smiled, “It’s Edna’s. Not on paper, exactly, but nobody is will bother you here.”
Gungan next said, “This place looks plenty big, why are you staying elsewhere?”
Minervie shook her head, “No, I said I had other arrangements. I am going to fly back to Brisbane, and get the luggage I left behind. Do you need me to pick anything up from your home? A change of clothes?”
He didn’t understand how she would fly, there was no place for a plane to land nearby, not even on that map, but she was insistent, and he’d started to get used to the idea that Minervie wasn’t one to explain things.
They worked out some details, while Edna worked in the kitchen. Gungan didn’t even have the key to his rented room anymore, so he didn’t have a lot of confidence that she’d be able to do anything.
Link to First Post: https://wandering.shop/@vollink/115845473556894273