The Silhouette

Just something I've been working on. Hope you like it..
The Silhouette
Petra eyed the steam issuing from the spout of the old copper kettle with a practiced eye. She hated burning her tongue. It made everything taste filmy and defeated the purpose of brewing tea in the first place. Better to have a cold cup than a scalding one. She crossed the room to the cupboard and grabbed out one of the two mugs she owned- the one with the heliotrope painted on it. She set it on the table and then, grasping it by the handle, gently lifted the kettle and poured the hot water into the cup. Leaving half an inch for milk and sugar, she placed the kettle back on the woodstove. She walked to the cupboard again, her bare feet making slapping sounds against the rough hewn, wooden planks of the floor. The sound of the crickets outside were loud and staccato and pervasive, so unexpectedly like what she heard in the movies. She had been surprised the first night out here. But by now she was used to it, of course. It would be three years in May.
She reached in the cupboard and searched with her fingers until they alighted upon the particular mason jar she was looking for among the rectangular boxes and bottles and packets. She pulled the jar out into the light and opened the top, sniffing the tea leaves and the slight scent of raspberries. She brought the mason jar back to the table and reached into the jar, withdrawing one of the cheesecloth bundles, which she had painstakingly tied up a few months prior. She dropped it into the water, and watched as the reddish-brown stain of the tea seeped into the water.
She glanced up, and noticed the silhouette.
And it was so familiar. The slightness of the shoulders, the hair going in a thousand different directions, the curved shape of his posture. So instinctually familiar, that the only sign of surprise from Petra was a small, low intake of breath.
“Hello Petra.”
She couldn’t see his features. He had placed himself carefully so that she wouldn’t be able to.
“Could you make me a cup of tea?”
“Uh. Yes,” she turned back to the woodstove and lifted up the kettle, surmising the amount of boiling water she had left. “I should have enough for another mug,”
She brought out the other mug and then sifted around in the tea cabinet again, selecting a store-bought, pre-packaged tea bag. Boring English Breakfast. She poured the water into the cup and ripped open the packet. The gauzy package floated on the water for a moment, before it was overcome with absorption and fell under the surface.
The visitor, still shrouded in the dark, gestured to the mason jar. She almost thought she could see the glint of his rings. Two silver ones, on his left hand. Index and middle fingers.
“Did you blend that one yourself?” he said.
“Yes. I grew the raspberries in the backyard. I dry them in the cellar with a dehydrator I made last winter.” She sounded so efficient. And cold.
The silhouette’s head bobbed and she knew he was nodding.
“How did you manage that?”
“With some extra wood. And time.”
“Ah.”
Petra let one hand sit on the table and fished out the homemade teabag from her mug. She squeezed it damp and then dropped it on the table with a feeble padding sound. She added milk and sugar to her tea, thinking, as she always did, it’s like raspberries and cream.
“I like my tea really weak” he said, and she pulled on the string of his tea bag, and dropped it onto top of hers.
“Milk and sugar?”
“Yes, please.” And then when she started to spoon in the sugar, “And easy with that.”
She slid the cup over the table, and he reached out and grasped it by the handle. His wrist and hand slid into the light and they were exactly as she had remembered, all thin and pronounced and right.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She said, lifting her mug to her lips.
“You don’t get too cold out here?” He asked.
“No. The stove keeps me really quite warm.”
“And you have a plethora of sweaters.”
“Yes.” she said
“And in the summer?”
“It gets really hot. Usually we just stay outside and try to keep cool. I garden… The dog nearly died this summer of the heat, though. I had to take her into town she was so sick.”
“Were you frightened?”
“Yes.” She said, and he waited for a moment.
“Do you make other kinds of tea?”
“Mostly just berry teas. But sometimes I try a rosemary blend.. Or thyme.” She waited.
“I like my thyme to be punctual.” he said, putting down his mug on the table. His hands again.
She nearly smiled and instead stared down into her tea, smooth and opaque.
“Where do you go, when you leave?” she said.
But even before she looked up, she knew that the silhouette was gone, and that she wouldn’t have an answer.