Leaving the Swamp

Written to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s question here: How did sa’Skin-Taker end up at Addergoole?

After A Vision to Purchase.

~1895

The visions wouldn’t leave her alone.

It had been three years since the woman had visited her. The payments had come as promised, quality stuff, and with some planning Chantal could have lived for years on the largess of her client. But the visions wouldn’t stop.

She had moved out to the swamp because she did not like touching people anymore. Touching people led to visions; visions led to nightmares and that worrisome time when she couldn’t separate the vision from the reality in front of her. But she was touching no-one, speaking to nobody but the man who brought her goods and took her furs, and yet the visions kept coming.

She knew what she had to do. The Fur-taker packed up the things she would need, leaving much of the cabin’s supplies where they were. Either someone else would find the cabin and use it, or she would be back.

The man who brought her food was willing enough to take her to dryer land. The fur-taker assumed he’d probably gotten rather rich on her over the years, but she hadn’t been interesting in accumulating wealth, and she’d been less concerned about his honesty than his reliability.

He proved half her suspicions correct and the other half slightly less correct when he handed her a leather bag at the edge of the water. The bag jingled quietly as she took it; the fur-taker raised her eyebrows at the man.

“I’ve put it aside for you over the years. You’ve done well by me and it was the least I could do.” He handed her two pieces of paper. “That, and these. Train tickets. You said you were going to San Francisco.”

The Fur-taker was rusty on her human manners. “Thank you,” she said, more cautiously than gratefully.

“We’re each given to do what we may. Do what you can, Fur-taker.”

“I will,” she assured him. That was why she was leaving the safety of her swamp, after all.

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