2. A Windstorm and a House on the Other End of Town

"Mhmm," the woman hummed in reply, turning the truck down a sharp curve on the road.

They had been coasting by open field plantations and farms but had now come unto civilization. The orange dirt roads gave way to dark tarmac and the greenery was replaced with buildings and cars. And the noise. Clearly, they were in town now.

She watched as people milled and bustled about the town. It was way different yet so similar to the city. Minus the highrises and skyscrapers.

They passed by restaurants, gated office buildings and computer villages as Bonnie Casss briefed her about the small town of Lucerne-Alpane.

A valley land and the third largest town in the county. Population of roughly three thousand eight hundred people. Three elementary schools, two high schools, a polytechnic, college of education and a few other educational establishments. Famous for the occupation of animal husbandry with the largest animal farm being the ranch down her rent house side.

It also boasted of interesting topography and landforms like banks of hills, chattering rivers and babbling brooks, tranquil lakes, a surrounding mountain, and of course the alfalfa.

True to Everest's Goo-gle search, there were alfalfa shrubs pretty much everywhere. They had passed by clumps and oceans of it on the dirt road and the plant seemed to be growing at almost every doorstep and road partition.

It was the reason why the town had been named partly after it. Lucerne was a synonym for alfalfa, Bonnie Casss explained. Everest didn't bother to tell her she knew that already.

She watched with fascination as the older woman explained the old myth around the atavistic plants and how they were seen as a symbol of land prosperity in the town.

Her first impression of the woman had been somewhat sketchy, but studying her now in full, her opinion changed.

Her warm, dark-brown eyes looked very kind and the crow's feet tugging at the corner of her eyes and laughter lines mapping her mouth denoted an amiable human. Her defined cheekbones looked incongruous against a small, round nose and thin lips. Her puffy, brown hair did need brushing though, or a visit to the salon.

Her warm aura made Everest picture a fussy mother of five in a Tom Hardy fiction.

"Are you done ogling?"

Everest started, embarrassed at having been caught. "Sorry," she mumbled, looking out the window. They were passing by a busy road and a piazza and what looked like the entrance to a big market to the side.

The older woman's chuckle graduated to a vivacious laugh. "Nothing to be sorry about," she said.

After a moment of silence, the woman's glance cut to her and back to the road. "You don't strike me as a silent kind, yet you've hardly spoken.

You're one to talk, Everest thought. The loquacious woman had hardly given her a chance to speak or even reply to her questions.

"Oh." The woman chuckled. "I know. I can be overwhelming sometimes." She cut a glance at her guest before looking back to the road. "Most times."

You don't say.

"So, what brings you into town?" The lively woman asked. "Oh, lest I forget, there's a bunch of the town's map in the glove box there." She pointed to the space in the dashboard before Everest. "Pick one out of them, and do remind me to tick out the house for you." Then the woman tsked. "Crikes, you can't even get lost anyways. In Lucerne-Alpane almost everybody knows almost everybody and almost everywhere. You'll always find someone to point you the right way."

Everest reached forward to pull down the glove box hatch. It registered in her mind that she had no seatbelt on and that the passenger seat seemed to have none. The feeling the thought gave her made her shiver like a slimy cold worm had slithered across her shoulders.

She picked out an ironed-crisp sheet of paper and studied it. She folded it up and put it in her holdall when she finally admitted to herself she didn't understand a thing.

"I get that you don't want to talk about it," said the landlady.

Everest frowned for a second, confused. But then she remembered the woman's question. "Oh, no. I forgot you asked." She cleared her throat and looked out the window at the road. Civilization was gradually dwindling again. More grasses and trees came into view with the occasional stream in the distance. The tarred road got rougher and the ingrained mud tracks in the road hinted at a dirt road ahead.

The dayglow was gone and the sky had darkened. A light wind swayed the trees and shrubs and bit at her nose. The atmosphere was suddenly a little chilly. Everest clutched her bag tighter, perplexed as to the sudden change in weather.

"That's how it's been for a while."

Everest glanced at the woman. She wouldn't be surprised if she found out her new landlady had mind-reading super-abilities.

"Don't worry, it's a normal thing before the onset of the rainy season. It'll get stronger soon, but rain won't be falling for the next two weeks." The woman turned to Everest, pat her tummy and winked. "Gut feeling."

True to her words, the windflaw picked up intensity and sandy dust rose and fell on the road. And by the time they stopped on the dirt road before a picket-fenced house, the wind had gone postal. It moaned and howled and made all the plants all around practically kiss the ground for it.

She collected her suitcase from the landlady who was struggling to keep her billowing dress down and followed her up the house, eyes in slits.

When they stepped onto the covered, porticoed porch, she sighed in relief, resting against a railing to wait as Bonnie Casss produced a bunch of keys from her voluminous side pocket.

When she walked into the dark house and shut the door, the cries of the wind became muffled, like a battle in the far distance. The landlady turned on a switch, bathing the living room in warm white light.

She placed her holdall on the ground and looked around, liking that the warmth of the house ebbed away the coldness from the wind.

The living room floor was parqueted with dark, blushlike, hued wood and the walls wallpapered in rosy colours. The arrangement of beige and coffee-brown sofas around a flat-screen TV and the antique dining set to the side made the warmth suffuse her heart. There was also an empty fireplace to the side.

She fell in love with the homey look at once. She was definitely going to feel at home here.

There was a door to the far left of the dining set which she found out led to the kitchen as Bonnie Casss took her on a tour around the one-bedroom house. The kitchen was equipped with enough modernities to make her cry. The new state-of-art oven which Bonnie proudly explained she had just bought called to the baker on her. The tiled countertops and large island also were a sight to see.

She almost burst from joy when the patio door at the other end of the kitchen opened out unto a back deck and a grassy landscape below. A picnic table sat at a corner of the deck, just beside a window that looked back into the kitchen. The grassy landscape stretched on in expanse, probably far out behind the copse of pendulum trees in the distance.

She could just picture herself sitting out here on a calm afternoon or evening, the deck lights on and she at work at the picnic table, the sound of nature to soothe and inspire her.

She turned to the beaming landlady in the storm-wracked wind. "I love it."