Secret Santa for Blah-San (1/?)

[High on Lullabies]

Okay, so yes I know this is horrendously late and I'm really very sorry about that But well I hope it will be worth waiting for and you'll like it. This first part doesn't have any sneezing in it, but the second part does and that's nearly finished so that should follow fairly quickly. Anyway, better late than never (hopefully! ) and without further waffling, here goes:

House Hunting

“D’you think this is it?” Jessica asked, wrinkling her long straight nose and peering at the printout they’d made from Google Maps as if it was of another planet.

Nicola sighed in mock frustration. “Well you’re the one holding the map. It certainly looks right from the picture I saw.”

“Good enough for me!” Jessica started towards the small, stone-clad house at a rapid pace, her light brown ponytail swishing back and forth behind her like a windscreen wiper in heavy rain.

“Jess, wait! I’m not su...” Nicola began, before realising it was a lost cause. ‘Wait’ was one of those words which never seemed to figure in her friend’s vocabulary. She sighed again, this time with more conviction.

The sweet scent of the last hurrah of summer hung in the air and Nicola rubbed her small, upturned nose. The pollen count was still just sufficient to make her hayfever stir when she was outside for long enough and, thanks to Jessica’s impulsive nature and wayward navigation skills, it had taken them nearly an hour to complete the walk to the first of 3 properties they were to view. Gingerly she inserted a fingernail and scratched gently along the edge of the septum just inside her left nostril before repeating the dose with the right, determined to see off the itch that steadily grown from barely noticeable when they set off, to thoroughly annoying when they arrived. Her efforts were rewarded by a cooling wave of relief flowing down both sides of her nose.

Satisfied, she headed up the rough stone steps that formed the garden path to find Jessica waiting impatiently at a sea-green, wood panelled door. She hopped from foot to foot while Nicola fished in her pocket for the key the university’s accommodation had given her. The door gave a solid click as she turned it and then opened with the slightest of rotations of the handle.

The sight that met them was of black varnished wood offset by white walls throughout and Jessica had to take evasive action from a particularly low ceiling beam as she bounded through the door.

“Nic, look at this!” she called excitedly.

Rather more carefully, Nicola followed the sound of her friend’s voice, noticing with some delight she didn’t have to do anything to avoid her head colliding with the thick wooden supports.

It didn’t take the two girls long to see most of the cottage and they decided it would make for decent accommodation as long as Jessica could get used to keeping her head from making contact with various parts of the supporting structure. They were just about to leave when they noticed a small door in the side of a staircase. Unlatching and pulling it open revealed a set of steep stone steps leading into darkness. A rush of musty air escaped the newly appeared opening and struck Nicola full in the face, making her nose tingle ominously. Her face began to contort and for a moment she was sure she would sneeze and cupped her nose and mouth with her hands as her breath hitched twice, before the sensation dissipated as quickly as it had assailed her:

“ahh...hehh..”

Frustrated, she rubbed her nose vigorously feeling embryonic tickles start and vanish almost instantly as the sensitive membranes were forced together. This slight hayfeverishness she had right now was possibly more annoying than the full on version she’d had to deal with up until a couple of weeks ago. At least then Nicola knew anti-histamines were essential to avoid her descending into an itch-filled, sneezing mess and she was willing to put up with the drowsiness they caused in order to avoid that. Now a fuzzy head and wanting to sleep all day didn’t seem worth it if she couldn’t even be sure she’d be affected.

Nicola was disturbed from cursing her ill-fortune by the realisation Jessica was no longer alongside her and she could hear ever quieter and more echoing footsteps coming from the opening:

“Jess!” she called “Where are you going? You can’t see a thing down there!”

“I’ll be fine!” came the reverberating reply.

For a couple of minutes there was silence, before it was shattered by a piercing scream from the darkness below, followed a few seconds later by a loud crash.

“Jess!” shouted Nicola, the echoes of both sounds still ringing in her ears. “Are you okay?”

~TBC~

[Blah!?]

Thanks so much, HoL!

Don't worry about taking so long. As I believe I've said before, the more I have to wait for something like this, the more savory it becomes when I finally get it.

The girls are both very sweet, and I can't wait to see what happens to them next!

[TheCakeIsAlive]

A delightful story, as always. You describe everything in such an elegant way, capturing the "mood" perfectly.

Can't wait for the next bit to be finished.

[NoV]

What a tease! 'Hayfeverishness' may have become my new favourite word...