For whatever reason, the trio of young orderlies had followed him down the long steps leading into what passed for a habitation area. The housing all looked to be designed on one of two patterns - either having been cut into the stone itself, or constructed from the same slabs that covered most other surfaces in Anza. He stood there, before the door, staring up at the shade on the light granite - cast by the tall walls surrounding what was, in essence, a crater.
“Doesn’t it bother you to live like this? You only have an hour’s worth of sunshine and the mountain’s cold. Don’t you ever want to tear that wall down?” He seemed to direct his question at the door, which made it all the more awkward for the three when none knew what to answer. Marcel, courageous as few others, finally spoke up with a questioning: “S-Sir? What?”
Logan shook his head and muttered: “Nothing. My apologies. It’s been a long journey.”
The three were still trying to understand the absurd question when he moved on to knock on the old, wooden door. What answered was a pale woman, long and wide with a dirty, sand-tarnished once-yellow apron and an equally disheveled dress. Logan had seen coal miners with less dust on them, but such was life living in a sloped hole. He bowed his head and the trio of boys quickly followed. Upon seeing the dark, expensive-looking coat, she quickly reached up to pull off her yellow, floral shawl and straighten her long, brown hair. Logan’s eyes rested on her expanded abdomen and chose not to look up at her, as he did not want a repeat of his previous encounter.
“Oh, it’s you boys. And you brought a friend - I’d invite you in, but I’m in the middle of cleaning.”
Mrs. Wellwater was, to one and all, the most beautiful woman in town. More than one of the three had spent long nights fantasizing about where her long legs ended and now that she was pregnant, she was somehow more beautiful than ever.
“What, you’re here just to gawk at my fat belly?” She grinned, her cheeks forming dimples.
“Madame. I am a traveler. I was going through the lowlands when I came across a Mr. Theodore Wellwater.”
He continued to stare at her doorstep, where a tin washbucket soon spilled its contents to the stone. The flood of gray-brown water streamed down the stairs and in the numbing silence of the crater, he could hear her heart shattering as she made sense of his words.
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“N-no… No, they weren’t going through the Lowlands. T-they were going through the safe route - you’re lying!” It was time. He knew it was.
She shrieked and jerked back once she saw his porcelain face before collapsing to her knees. She brought her hands to her face and loudly wept; screaming futile protests. The boys pushed through the doorway and came to her sides, rubbing her back and sharing in her pain. Abraham, as Logan had learned the priest to be, even had tears of his own forming in his dark eyes.
In between her sobs, she stuttered incoherent words. It pained Michael and Marcel how awkward it was - him standing there, perfectly still while waiting for her to gather enough strength to ask the obvious question.
“H-How-... how-...” Logan hesitated before questioning: “He was infested.” This only worsened her state. Screams unlike anything he had heard in some time - worse, even, than the dying men he had encountered in the aftermath of the caravan’s destruction.
“D-Did-... did he… did he suffer?”
This time, Logan let the words hang in the air for a moment, as if pondering the question. “I don’t know. I set him on fire and shot him in the head. The infestation burst out of his chest when it registered the fire - he didn’t feel that part.” Her sobs changed tacts. No longer was she screaming objections - she had accepted it as truth, perhaps helped by the factum that her worst nightmare had just delivered the news of her second-worst nightmare… or visa versa. But in the stead of her objections, denial and protests, he heard that unmistakable dread. As she sat on her knees in a puddle of filth, her mind was racing with thoughts of a life without him - both for her and the child.
The three boys were gobsmacked by the stranger’s lack of bedmanners and how coldly he had delivered the message. They had not known what to expect, but somehow they found themselves disappointed regardless. At least until they heard a choked voice speak: “T-thank you… for being honest…”
Logan took the young men aback by nodding towards the priest tending to the woman’s left shoulder and said: “I read him the rite of purification. I don’t know much scripture, but I’m sure Abraham can be of help.” The priest-in-training’s eyes grew wide. Being given a task by a Ghast was an honor - even under such dire circumstances. Before he could speak his gratitude for the honors, the black form turned back towards the stair.
“S-Stranger… Ghast… what is your name?” She sobbed. An odd timing for the request, he thought. But she deserved to know her husband’s killer’s name. Perhaps she’d even tell the babe, one day. He’d be sure to welcome the vengeance.
“Logan.”