Excerpt: Dream Catcher (WT)

She spun around in the doorway, catching the doors before they swung back again. Her gaze covered the hall, looking for the man she hadn’t yet seen. Grumbling, she walked between tables, avoiding Mr. Goodwind’s grasping hands. She got to a table of a man she didn’t think she’d seen before, and mumbled quietly, incase it wasn’t the Unsichter. “Water?”
“Mine.” The voice behind her whispered again, reaching around from behind her.
“Hey there,” she spun, her face staring directly at the mans chest. “No touching unless I say it’s okay. Here’s your water. Where are you sitting, I’ll bring it over to you.”
“Mr. Big Beard over there didn’t seem to be invited,” he snapped, looking down at the top of her head. Lael wasn’t short, compared to most people. A healthy five foot six wasn’t too out of the ordinary for Cannoy, where most of the population was average height. In the Marsh, out West, they tended to be much taller, and to the East, in Klaridin, they were much shorter. There, you were tall if you hit five foot. This had better not be the one who Mrs. Wailk was talking about, the man from the Marsh land. Lael thought to herself, taking a breath before she dared speak to him again.
“He’s a regular. You, sir, I’ve never seen before. Now show me where you are sitting, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Right over there. The empty table with five chairs at it. One chair has a broken leg, the other doesn’t have a sturdy back. The other three are just for luck. On the wall next to it is a portrait, kind of shit if you ask me, but whatever floats the owners boat,” he huffed. “What is she doing, dancing? Falling? I can’t tell. Do you need any more details, or should I keep explaining?”
The mans eyes were a stale grey blue, piercing in to her soft brown ones. “That’s fine. I’ll just go plop this down and be out of the way.” The muscles in her jaw tightened, her lips pursed. She walked heavy over to the table he had described. Dropping the glass from a few inches off the table, it splattered. leaving a trail of dribbles around it. “Have a absolutely wonderful day.”