"I can tell you those chimes- those ones there, the green ones, yes, those... those are lies."
I stared.
"Yes," she said, and stood. Brushed her skirts as if they had accumulated dust in her short visit to the stool. Smiled.
I felt a pinch in my chest and it made me step forwards quickly. "I am terribly sorry to intrude where it is unseemly for me to do so, but if I may, er, have another moment...?"
The woman watched me as I spoke. It was uncomfortable. I felt as though my mouth was moving too fast, or at a pace with which my words were not able to keep, therefore rendering me a babbling fool. But she continued to smile at me kindly and sat once more when I finished.
"Teraverr," she said as she arranged her skirts and straightened her back. "You are the most clean-shaven man I have ever met."
I blushed. "Thank you, ma'am. Can I-"
"However," she continued, "can you tell the difference between shaving cream and a razor?"
I blinked. "Ma'am?"
"Goodness! Teraverr, call me Holly. I am far too young to be a 'ma'am', and also, stop calling people ma'am. And stop slouching! That's it."
I am ashamed to say that I straightened when she told me so. The lace trim on her dress was rather fetching, all sparkly in its golds and silvers and hideously faded greens. Whoever had sewn on the green lace, well, let's just say they were probably working in an underground mine wearing sunglasses and singing distractedly along to Sporty Hump.
"Yes, thank you," I replied hurriedly, aware that she would need refreshments and a suitable reason for her to stay. I had none. I had only wanted to witness her sparkly dress in full earnest, for another few minutes, up-close to my eye, but not so close as to cause alarm, maybe touch... is that too much to ask? Was I being rash? Daring? Was I being a- a scoundrel?
I gasped and was unable to hide it or pretend it something other than an audible malfunction of my human emotion.
"Teraverr, are you alright?"
"Ma- err Holly, I mean, yes! I-I am well."
I turned and my eyes searched the cluttered room.
"Yes, well..." Holly made a noise as if she were fidgeting behind me. "You seem awfully tense. Have you been sleeping?"
Oh! The bags under my eyes! Were they so visible?
"Madam, I assure you with all my sureness and pleasure- not that I am pleasurable!" I added in haste. "I am certain that there are a number of unp-"
"You are beside yourself with nerves. Come sit."
Finally, I saw it. The red kettle. I lunged forwards with all my weight and slammed the teapot onto the stove top as if putting out a large spider with an enormous encyclopedia.
"Teraverr!" Holly cried.
"Got it!" I called out in triumph for no reason whatsoever, and I turned to face the alarmed, wide-eyed (enchantingly beautiful) woman standing with her hands clutched in front of her.
"Got what?" she asked, trying to peer around me.
"Everything," I said gaily- oh how gay it was. I was in a state of madness. Somehow giddy with a feeling of how divine it is to make tea. "Everything and anything!" I cried.
Holly frowned and I knew it was one of concern. She worried so much about the little things. How I should wish to scoop her up and dance with her across the room, proclaiming in a hearty voice "nothing is such a worry, dear Holly, that we cannot dance it all away!".
Madness, indeed.
Instead, I lit the stove and grabbed teacups and saucers from the cupboard, altogether too hard and too fast so they all spilled out before me in a broken mess. My hands are obscurely too big; the fingers long but also wide, the palms as big as, why, as big as saucers! And I have never seen a saucer try to pick up another saucer, but I fear it would fail miserably. Perhaps that is why all saucers come decorated in pretty patterns, so as to keep them occupied with beauty and distract them from their utter uselessness.
"Teraverr? Are you sure you are well? You've gone rather pale."
"Yes... I do..."
"Here, let me..."
Holly came and knelt down beside me and started gathering the pieces into her skirt.
"Oh you mustn't!" I cried in a fit of anguish that was most probably more like horror. Yes. I would say it was. I was horrified at this breach of trust that had just transpired between us. I regret to say that I reached out one of my lumbering hands to pick out the pieces from Holly's dress, and she slid backwards, scattering the pieces around us like strands of cat hair.
"You are bold!" Holly declared, staring at me hard in the face.
I averted my gaze. Perhaps I was bold. Perhaps I was a forward man who thought nothing of taking broken china from a young lady's lap in a cozy, romantic setting. Perhaps I would have lit a fire with my telepathy powers, had I been born with such a gift or acquired it from a three penny wishing well. But I, Teraverr, was proud to be that man.
"Madam," I said as I stood up slowly. "The colour of your lace is wrong, yes! It is! Furthermore, you can make your own tea!"
And I strode out of my antiquities parlor as if born a new man, checking my pocket watch to discover that I still had time to purchase an ice-cream of my choosing down the street.
~
