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It’s the summer of 1867, and it’s a sweltering day. Hotter than Hades. The Sphinx is used to the heat. Being too hot has been a part of who he is since the day he was born. His earliest memories are of years spent drenched in sweat, working beneath the unrelenting sun of Living Mirage. So the heat is something he can handle.
What he can’t handle are these clothes.
The weather isn’t the hottest he’d encountered. But a society where a person has to wear undergarments, long trousers, a cotton shirt, a waistcoat, and an overcoat, just to be able to leave the house? The Sphinx could hardly believe the world had brought him to this.
He was sitting on the porch of his new home, drinking iced tea and hoping the weather would lean off a little. If it hadn’t taken years of planning to get this place set up, he might send messages immediately to move their base of operations once again, simply on account of what seemed to be the required dress code. Having only visited briefly the previous winter, he had assumed the fashions would shift with the weather. There was something wrong with this place.
But, at least it was quiet. He’d settled into a large estate just outside of town. Bringing along a few operatives who would double as farm hands. Mr. Lich was acting as his hired head of household. It would draw attention, a white man working for a black man when just miles down the road there were plantations filled with slaves only years before, but by law he would be a free man, and appropriate papers had been forged to explain his wealth, should anyone ask. All his “staff” would seem to be extremely well-paid.
He sat there, listening to the cicadas cry and taking in the scenery around him. This was to be his home for a good many years now. His plans were going just as he had hoped, but for now, he was in a waiting period. He needed to lay low a while, let unrest simmer and watch as carefully laid traps readied themselves to be sprung. People here would take notice of him, but he was fairly certain he could be ignored. He had enough power and wealth to discourage violence, and enough color in his skin to discourage anyone from trying to adopt him into the community. It was just what he needed, now. A quiet few years, nothing exciting.
He noticed the sound of a horse’s hooves join the song of the cicadas. Leaning forward in his chair, and squinting, he saw a figure approaching from the next house down the road. A woman, definitely, in a pale green dress. There was a basket around her arm. The Sphinx figured she’d continue past, on her way into town, but she slowed as she came to the front of his house, and tied her horse to his fence, and walked straight up the porch steps.
“Hey, is your master at home, mister?” she said. She was fairly pretty, with blonde hair wound into tight curls, and a very round face. The Sphinx stood up, smoothing out the front of his trousers.
“I’m the master of this house. Can I help you?”
The girl’s eyes widened in surprise until she remembered her manners.
“Oh! Beg pardon, sir, I shoulda thought. George, my husband, he said some new folk had bought the old Hart place, and he said they was unusual, only I thought maybe you was just protestants or somethin’. George is always sayin’ that about the protestants. That they’re ‘unusual’.”
“I see.”
“Anyways, I came by to drop this off for ya.” She held up the basket. “It’s a cherry pie. My specialty, and our orchard got some mighty good cherries this year. I always like to bring one by if there’s someone new in town. Make ‘em feel right welcome, make sure they got someone to give a wave to on the way to church, y’know? That is, I mean, s’long as you aint really Protestant. Not there’s anything wrong with that, only I don’t think they got their own church in town. I s’pose Annabelle Leighton’d know, but between you’n me that knowledge would come at a price. She has a habit of talkin’ a body’s ear off. I was there an entire afternoon last week, only ‘cause I was tryin’ to ask if she knew what happened to John, the Harper boy. And ‘course she didn’t even know, so there I was, wasted a whole afternoon with nothin’ to show for it but a story about Goldie Stephenson’s ailin’ mother.”
The Sphinx didn’t know how to react to this. He’d understood the basics of what was considered ‘polite manners’ in this society, but never had it occurred to him that someone might waltz straight to his door and deliver a monologue like the one he had just received. He blinked.
“It’s very kind of you to come by, Mrs…”
“William. Mrs. Amelia Williams. And it’s no trouble at all bein’ neighborly, Mister, no trouble at all. Just doin’ like the good Lord asks.”
There was a moment of silence while the Sphinx again tried to figure out what exactly he should do.
“Would you like a glass of tea, Mrs. Williams?”
“Oh, that’d be just fine of you. Just fine indeed.”
***********************
The Sphinx was beginning to feel sympathy for the afternoon Mrs. Williams had mentioned having with Annabelle Leighton. The sun was beginning to drift lazily toward the horizon, a pitcher and a half of iced tea had been consumed, along with a third of the pie. And Amelia Williams was still talking. By now, the Sphinx was fully versed in every bit of gossip currently circulating the town, who was getting married, whose marriages were not going well, who was engaging in some sort of indecency. Despite himself, the Sphinx was just a little interested.
However, Mrs. Williams had been sitting with him on his porch for nearly four hours, and despite looking forward to a relaxing few years ahead of him, he still had affairs to see to. Eventually, it took some very complicated hand signals to Mr. Lich, effectively begging him to come outside and state that there was an urgent matter which needed his immediate attention. At this, Mrs. Williams got up and apologized for “talkin’ your ears off” and headed down the walkway like she hadn’t been there ten minutes.
As she mounted her horse and was about to ride back towards home, she shouted up to him.
“Mister, I don’t know how, but I never managed to get your name!”
“Samuel Rhodes,” he shouted back. He gave a little salute with his first finger as he watched her ride away. He sighed.
Enough socializing in the community for the month. God forbid he has to endure this again.