girlfleeshouse:
She discovers that the house has been beset by salamanders. But in addition, there is a tradition of a shadowy drowned figure, who tears down curtains and who chills warm food even as the plate reaches the table.
“The thing is,” she explained some years later to the visiting accountant, “it actually all works out. You know. Thermodynamically.”
This explanation had seemed, in Mel’s head, perfectly sensible. She had adjusted her life around it, after all; she’d been living like this for years; and Mel was a sensible person.
But now, as she looked at the accountant’s single raised eyebrow, she felt for the first time that maybe this was a weird way to live.
A significant part of the problem was that Mel liked women; and the accountant was one of those extremely beautiful self-contained confident women who can be very hard to look at directly, let alone explain things to. Especially if the things are complex, with lots of moving parts, like the drowned ghost/flaming newt situation.
“Thermodynamically,” the accountant echoed, making it sound like thermodynamics was a thing that only occurred in particularly poorly run households. The accountant probably didn’t have to worry about forces of nature. She was one of those women who understood things like makeup and hairstyles; she definitely had some kind of deliberate, paid-for hairstyle. She was a force of nature herself.
Mel realised that she’d been staring again. “Yes - look. Salamanders are hot,” Mel said, pulling her welding glove back on and grabbing a wandering salamander as it scuttled past the table. After this many generations, the infestation had naturalised and now the salamanders roamed freely around the house, waddling side to side like plump rats and dragging their fat tails behind them - not exactly hard to catch.
Upon being seized, the creature squealed and flared up. When they were excited, salamander flames turned blue, like an acetylene torch - extremely useful to keep around the house. Now, Mel held the creature up hopefully, as a useful visual aid to explanations.
The accountant slowly inched her chair backwards. “That’s why they’re a Class A controlled animal,” she said coldly. “Yes.”
“They can kinda be a fire hazard,” Mel admitted gruffly. The blue flames kicked off heat, but she was used to it.
“Yes.” The accountant weighted the word down with all sorts of criticism.
“Well, and the ghostie thing is good and damp, plus she cools things down.”
“I noticed,” the accountant said, rather glacially herself. She looked down into her teacup with an expression that said this is a carefully controlled facial expression, the kind that women like me learn how to do at school.
Okay, so … sometimes the drowned ghost got things wrong. Usually she just did her “damp chill” thing, but sometimes she froze stuff. Not dangerously! Just small stuff. Grapes. Salad leaves. Mel had been trying her on sorbet.
The ghost had never frozen a cup of tea before. Mel wished she hadn’t started on this one.
Me plunged bravely on regardless. “So you see - it’s all in balance. You know. Thermodynamically.” Mel set the little salamander back down on the floor. It burned a small patch in the threadbare Persian carpet and trundled off angrily.
“Dame Melville, I hope you can understand that this is not exactly what insurance companies like to hear.” The accountant turned her teacup upside down and slid the frozen dome of tea onto the table. “Besieged by flaming salamanders, haunted by freezing poltergeists - this is a shambles. It needs management.”
“It is managed,” Mel said. “It manages itself. Thermodynamics. Hasn’t fallen down yet. And it’s Sir, by the way - different kind of knight.”
The accountant looked at her, and in her precise and orderly mind, she regretted her deep unspoken attraction to this precise type of bewildered, disastrous butch woman. She said to herself: No, Cynica. You cannot fix this. You should not try. This poor magnificent trainwreck of a landknight doesn’t need someone to move into her sprawling haunted country manor and sort her stupid life out. She needs to pull herself together, sell the disastrously encumbered property to a nation that will look after it properly, get a proper job, wear shirts that fit without revealing so many of her stupid muscles, and STOP THINKING SHE CAN LIGHT CIGARETTES OFF SALAMANDERS.
“Don’t do that,” Cynica snapped, “it’s unhealthy.”
Mel looked bewildered. She looked at the salamander, which offered no advice whatsoever, and looked back at Cynica. “No - the flames only go white when they’re happy,” she said.
Oh no, Cynica thought, she’s so my type.
