Lil Annie - Part 2

Annie kneels on the rug, sits back on her heels, and listens intently while I tell her what I need. She swirls the brown-tinted liquid in her glass, breathes it in. She does not take her eyes off me. She looks me in the eye, face frozen, expressionless, and does not blink. She sips her wine thoughtfully.

"Alright," she says and rocks backwards up onto her feet in one smooth motion. She crosses the room to a small pirates’ treasure chest, flips the latch and lifts the lid, starts rummaging inside with one hand, the other still holding her glass. "Only cos it's you. You're a big boy. Grown up enough to know what you're doing. Anybody else asked me I'd tell them to piss off."

"I can't tell you how much that means to me. To be patronised by someone so wise… so young…" I say with a smirk.

Annie stops dead and glares at me, points at me with the hand holding her glass. "Or you can just piss off anyway?"

I apologise and, with a sniff, she goes back to hunting through the contents of the chest. Eventually she finds what she's looking for and produces a small metal bowl, which she places on the floor next to her. I watch her get up and walk over to a shoe box on her sideboard which she opens and takes out several dried plant stems and a plastic bag filled with shredded leaves.

"Back in a minute," she says and puts her glass down on the sideboard before vanishing off to the kitchen again. I wait patiently, pour myself some more of Annie's homemade spiced tea wine, and settle back on the sofa. I watch the multi-coloured wind chimes spinning in her window in the fading light of early evening.

She comes back in with a selection of bottles, various shapes, sizes and coloured liquids. She gathers everything together in the middle of the room, pushing the stack of books, magazines and papers off to the side, and arranges them in front of her, spread out in a semi-circle around the bowl. "Do you like the wine?" she asks while shuffling the items around.

"It's very pleasant," I tell her and she smiles modestly.

“It’s quite potent too. Go steady.”

I snort.

“Seriously, Pynch. I know you. Drink it slow.” She darts back into the kitchen and returns with a long wand lighter. "Right," she says and waves the point of the lighter at me like the conductor of an orchestra. "You have to shut up and stay very still for a minute."

I mime locking my lips closed and I throw away the key.

She holds the lighter between her teeth while she grabs handfuls of her wild, dark hair and bunches it together, tying it back. Then she takes the lighter in hand again, clicks it again and again 'til eventually the spark becomes a flame. She takes a deep breath… slowly… in… then out.