Chapter 247: 248: Just underfoot

Fresh’s shaking body hoists itself up one more time. “I can’t!” she complains. “I’m going to diiie~” howls Fresh, feeling a shake run through her body, stemming from her trembling core.

Shamrock’s finger presses itself against her forehead, pushing her back down and she lowers herself back down to the floor, lowering herself back to a lying position from the top of her sit-up. Basil is sitting on top of her feet to hold them down, as she couldn’t manage to lift herself up off of the ground otherwise.

“Another,” says Shamrock.

“Shamrooock~” complains Fresh, sweat beading down her forehead.

“It’s literally not even sunrise,” barks Jubilee from across the room. “Do the damn sit-up and shut up!”

Fresh’s lips quiver as she closes her eyes and pushes herself to do another one, pressing past the severe burning sensation present in her body.

“You can do it!” cheers Basil. Not wanting to make Basil a liar, Fresh exerts herself, putting in all of the strength she has left in her body into the next motion. Locking her hands on top of her chest, rather than behind her head like Shamrock had explained to her, she does her best to do one more, final sit-up. Her entire body is shaking from the strain, as if she were shivering. She’s sure that if Basil wasn’t pinning her bare feet down, they’d have fallen off by now from all of the shaking and twitching of her muscles.

Fresh lets out a strained breath, gasping for air as she reaches the top of the next repetition. Only barely.

A finger presses itself against her forehead.

“Another.”

Fresh falls backwards and dies.

“I think she’s done, Shamrock,” says Basil, looking at Fresh who is laying there and gasping for air, failing to pretend to be dead as she tries to recuperate from her mildly strenuous workout of almost nine sit-ups.

Fresh opens her eyes, staring at Jubilee who is standing there with crossed arms. “That’s sad.”

“I’m gonna get strong enough to carry you, Jubilee!” promises Fresh.

Jubilee raises an eyebrow. “If you even try, I will literally cut your legs off and strap the rest of you to an anqa.”

“That’s pretty dark,” remarks Basil, turning her head to Jubilee.

Jubilee crosses their arms. “Fine! We’ll keep the legs and just strap her to an anqa as is.”

Basil nods. “That’s better.”

“That’s not better!” argues Fresh. “Jubileeeee~”

‘Jubileeeee~’ rolls their eyes. “If you guys are done fucking off, we’re trying to run a business here, remember?” they ask. “The city is going to be full as shit in another week or two.”

“We don’t open for another hour though,” says Basil.

Jubilee sighs. “That doesn’t mean you can’t be productive in the mean-time!” they snap.

Basil blinks, looking at Jubilee and then back down at Fresh, before looking back at Jubilee. “I am being productive. I’m holding her feet,” says Basil.

“Yeah!” agrees Fresh.

Jubilee stares at them both for a moment. “Hold on,” says Jubilee, grabbing Basil’s head, turning it to the side and looking into her ear.

“Uh…” Basil looks uncertainly out of the side of her eyes.

“I’m just checking, I think some of her goo-brain leaked into here,” says Jubilee.

“Do you want to hold her feet instead?” asks Basil.

Jubilee lets go of her. “I do not,” states Jubilee, very clearly.

Fresh gasps, pulling herself upright in an instant without even realizing the strain of the movement, which was, essentially another sit-up. “Jubilee!” yells Fresh, realizing something, grabbing Jubilee off of Basil and turning them to face her.

“What?!” asks Jubilee, annoyed.

“Are foot-demons real?!” asks Fresh. “I have to know!”

Shamrock takes a step behind her, so she can rest her back against his leg instead of having to ‘hold’ the sit-up. Basil and Jubilee exchange a look. The priestess turns back to her. “Of course foot-demons are real.”

“Yeah,” says the demon Jubilee. “Real creeps. I try not to associate with them,” they explain. “They make things weird, you know? Fucking foot-relishing degenerates.” Fresh’s eyes widen in horror.

Basil nods in agreement. “Truly the lowest of the low. Gods keep our soles,” she says, clasping her hands together in a praying gesture.

“Really?!” she asks, looking around to Shamrock.

“Yes,” he nods. “I sleep with boots on.”

Fresh blinks, realizing that they might be messing with her. Jubilee and Basil exchange a look and then start laughing.

“You know?” asks Jubilee, between breaths. “Sometimes I think it’s too easy and I should feel bad,” they state. “But then I never do.”

“You really should,” lectures Basil, getting up and laughing herself as she helps Fresh up to her feet.

“Way it sounds to me, you’re in on the joke,” replies Jubilee, waving the clearly laughing priestess off.

Basil does her best to calm herself down. “Sorry,” she apologizes to Fresh. “They’re not real. We’re just teasing you.”

Fresh purses her lips, puffing out a cheek but then lets her posture fall loose as she lets out a relieved sigh. A little teasing is a small price to pay for the truth. “Okay.”

Shamrock’s metal-clad finger pokes into her gut. “Tomorrow. Ten.”

“Huh?!” asks Fresh.

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“Ten,” repeats Shamrock, giving her a thumbs-up as he walks away together with a still laughing Basil. The two of them grab something to drink and head out to the balcony, leaving Fresh standing there by the beds.

“Psst,” hisses Jubilee, beckoning her over to the corner of the wall of their room, looking around the bend that the other two are busy. Fresh blinks, warily heading over to Jubilee, not wanting to be teased again. She leans down, letting Jubilee whisper into her ear.

“What’s up, Jubilee?” asks Fresh quietly.

“They’re totally real,” whispers Jubilee. “I didn’t wanna scare the others,” they say. Jubilee nods to her and then walks off without another word. Fresh’s eyes widen in an even deeper horror than a moment ago, during the first revelation.

She knew it. This is horrible. This is the worst. She has to do something!

Racking her brain, Fresh looks around the room for inspiration. Back in the west, her sheep had offered her protection from such things as bad dreams, but she isn’t allowed to make them here and even if she did, their magic wouldn’t work here and not for this situation which was very much reality-founded.

She needs something else, but what?

Fresh stares at their beds. As long as their feet were in the beds and not dangling off, they would be safe from any grabby, gribbly claws and teeth. Though if their feet were in the bed, but not covered, that brings a risk that more powerful foot-demons could get past the initial magical seal that the bed itself offers. Fresh often finds Basil in this circumstance, given her flailing. Shamrock as well, just because of his size and the fact that he didn’t really cover himself entirely with a blanket, rather just always clutching it over one spot of his body. Jubilee at least, is a calm, quiet sleeper. But maybe this was the result of years of avoiding the foot-demons that stalk the night.

Light wouldn’t repel them. She’s sure, she can feel it. Foot-demons can walk in a bright room and creep to the foot of a bed, as long as everybody is asleep, as long as nobody is looking.

‘As long as nobody is looking…’

She taps her chin, thinking. “That’s it!” she says, running to her workshop. She pulls her grimoire out of her inventory, splashing water everywhere and slaps it onto the table, furiously flipping through the pages. She finds what she’s looking for, written on some page in the very back of the book, the ink is still wet and the writing was clearly hastily written and has a tone to it that she can’t help but feel is passive-aggressive.

Grabbing a small jar of moist clay from beneath her workbench, she slaps a large few handfuls out and begins shaping the gray clay.

First, she makes a single rectangle and then, she clenches the fingers of her left hand together and spreads out her thumb, holding it over the surface to get an idea of the shape. With her other hand, she crudely carves the ‘exterior’ clay away, throwing it back into the jar.

It takes a little while, but soon, she has what looks like a somewhat stylized version of a hand, with its fingers held together and the thumb extended outwards. In the center of the open palm, she draws an eye with her finger, staring out straight ahead.

“See~ no~ e~vil~!” she hums to herself, looking at the thing. It just needed to be baked now and it would be ready to hang on the wall.

Smiling, she picks it up and sets it onto a small wooden board, to carry it out to the stove.

“Hey guys, look what I made!” says Fresh, turning to Shamrock who is in the kitchen. She holds out the thing proudly for him to see.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” yells Jubilee’s voice and Fresh looks around in terror at the sound of their distress, seeing them fly up into the air. Their body presses against the ceiling of the house.

“JUBILEE!” yells Fresh in despair, running over to help them. Jubilee slides along the ceiling away from her and is pressed into the corner of the wall. She stops, looking down at her hands and then yelps, throwing the hamsa back into the workshop as she realizes.

Jubilee falls down, landing in Shamrock’s arms. Fresh sighs in relief. “Are you okay, Jubilee?” she asks.

“What the fuck was that?!” they ask, looking around the room.

“Do you need anything?” asks Basil. “Are you hurt?”

“Sorry, Jubilee,” says Fresh. “That was my fault,” she stares at Shamrock, somewhat jealously, as he holds a flailing Jubilee in his arms.

“Put me down, Shamrock!” barks Jubilee, jabbing an elbow into his breastplate and waving Basil off with their other hand. “Fucking hell,” says Jubilee, shaking their arms out as Shamrock sets them down. “I almost flew out of the fucking balcony!”

“Sorry, Jubilee!” apologizes Fresh again, making a quick retreat backwards to her workshop before she gets into trouble.

Her foot steps onto something wet and soft and she recoils instinctively, looking down at the smushed hamsa with a foot-print in it. She gasps.

She scoops out the thing, putting it back onto the wooden board. This time, she controls herself. She wasn’t thinking before. Jubilee had entrusted her with the foot-demon secret. She can’t just reveal that to the others not even an hour later.

Silently, she sets the project down on the side, making a note to finish it in secret. After that, she heads out of the workshop and allows herself to get scolded, if only to keep the peace.

The others need to be protected from the foot-demons and she’s willing to make this sacrifice for them.

Razmatazz

A hamsa is like a spooky drawing of a hand, with an evil eye in its center, used to repel evil forces. Fun fact every one of my amazon stories has my own personally designed hamsa in the frontmatter to protect you from malevolent spirits and me from refunds! =)

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