Page 51 of Crossroads Magic
She shook her head and touched her lips in a little pat.
“Just unable to speak. Gotcha. Well, we do need to talk, later, when you’re done for the day. Yes?”
Frida shook her head. She picked up the bucket and put it next to the wall, then rested the vacuum against the wall beside the bucket. Both hands now free, she beckoned me to follow her.
“I do have to cook breakfast,” I warned her.
She nodded and beckoned again, and headed down the stairs.
I followed curiously.
Frida led me into the kitchen and turned to the big garbage pail just inside the door. She picked up the sealed bag I’d put in the can last night, but it was too heavy for her, so she left it in the can, held onto the ties at the top and pointed at it. Then she wagged her finger at me.
Then she pointed through the door and to the left. Toward the front door.
I frowned. “I don’t understand. I should put garbage out the front…?” That didn’t make sense to me at all. “Where visitors can see it?”
She shook the bag and pointed a couple more times, and wagged her finger in a very clear “no”, but I couldn’t come up with any better idea than that she wanted me to put the garbage outside, somewhere out the front, which was exactly where garbage shouldn’t go.
Finally, she dropped the bag and held up a finger.Give me a minute.
I nodded and watched her hurry from the room, leaving the swing door flapping backward and forward.
It was barely sixty seconds before she came back, but I’d moved over to the cold room to start pulling out supplies for breakfast by then. Hirom tread steadily behind Frida. He didn’t look puzzled, simply stoical.
“Frida is trying to tell me to take the garbage out the front and put it in the street or something,” I told him. “Do you know what she’s really saying?”
Hirom looked at Frida, who moved over to the garbage can, and went through the same motions as she had given me. Hirom nodded and said to me, “Frida wants the scraps put out on the road, like usual.”
Like usual?
I stared at both of them. I was missing something here. “On the road,” I repeated. “Is that where the garbage is picked up?” I felt stupid even asking it, but neither of them looked like they were ready to explain without prompting.
Frida waved her hands, like she was washing a window.No, no!
“There’s a big Dumpster out the back of the inn,” Hirom said, jerking his thumb toward the back wall of the kitchen. “Truck comes by every four weeks to pick it up and drop off an empty one. Whole hamlet adds its garbage to the Dumpster.” He shrugged.
“So why would I put a bag of garbage in the middle of the road?”
Hirom rolled his eyes. “Oh, right. Sorry. Shoulda explained. Thamina always…she used to put food scraps,justthe scraps, out on the greenway in winter. For the animals.”
“Got it,” I said. “Well, Frida, you can take whatever scraps you want.” I smiled at her.
Frida’s eyes grew huge. She looked at Hirom.
Hirom shook his head. “Frida doesn’t go outside.”
Frida looked at me with the same large eyes, as if she was willing me to understand.
“Doesn’tliketo go outside, or can’t go outside?”
“I guess…can’t,” Hirom said heavily. He touched Frida’s shoulder gently. She was petite enough that he didn’t have to raise his hand too far. “There’s nothing physical stopping her. She justcan’t.”
“Agoraphobia?” I asked.
“There’s a name for it?”
“There is treatment, too.”
