Lenny had his moments of questioning what the hell he was doing. He lied to his family that he was visiting his aunt and cousins at Kenil to skitter out of the house early morning, making his way down the road, his destination the evernut plantation once again. A lie which could be proven wrong with a few words between his mother and his aunt, having to answer why he hadn’t told them when the triplets would inevitably visit him today to find he wasn’t at home, all these future problems escaped him. They all eroded at the face of the fleeting promise he might find himself smothered under those heavenly toes. Memories and daydreams weren’t enough anymore, Lenny had to go where he knew the reality was, where Mara stood guard, happily waiting for thieves that she could feed to those hungry feet.
Although Lenny didn’t know where those two travelers who stopped by the inn yesterday were now, they didn’t matter. Lenny didn’t look for travelling companions. He looked to join the chaos they would face.
Lenny took the turn off the clear main road, to the scant trail threading into the grove and though the valleys, the mountains tall to his sides. Gradually, the sea of purple heather appeared under the trees as Lenny was getting closer, approaching noon. After a few breaks, he finished the bread he brought with him, emptying the sack which he’d bring as part of his pretext, supposedly to be filled with evernuts.
It had been a few hours, and at last the trees cleared up ahead, the field of grass leading to the massive post fence. Lenny’s heart fluttered. Mara was somewhere in there. Those feet, objects of his dreams, were in there.
From the perimeter of the grove, he noticed two men entering past the fence. It had to be the ones from the inn. Lenny waited, letting them get ahead a couple of minutes. Then, he tailed them, jogging across the grass and passing under the fence. He paid attention and saw the barrier wobble behind him, a reason to worry if getting caught was a problem. But getting caught was the goal.
He peered past the rose bushes, seeing the two men disappear into the lowest branches of the nearest evernut trees. They wore the same weskits with the pinned cloaks hanging from their shoulders. Lenny sidled through the rose bushes without much noise, continuing to the evernut tree which sagged the most, its low branches concealing him well. He was on all four, watching their shoes.
“No one would believe this!” one of them roared with a laugh, throwing the evernuts into his rucksack, the initial, oblivious glee Lenny recognized.
“Not that we’ll try and convince anyone,” the other said. “Only an idiot goes about telling everyone where the gold mine is.”
Lenny had to hold his chuckle. However, even Lenny had his surprise, expecting a couple of minutes to pass before the quakes arrived, not to feel the tremors already.
“What’s that?” one of them said, both looking about themselves. “You feel that?” No sensitive focus was needed, the ripples across the earth were approaching fast. They both emerged from their trees to get a good look around. One of them stared in shock and pointed down the avenue of trees, as if sighting an approaching avalanche. “Look! Run, now!”
“A lot of thieves today,” Mara called, the voice bringing Lenny back. “But there’s always room for more!” He couldn’t get a good look at her feet, they wouldn’t stand still, stampeding with fast determination. In comparison to the moving mountain she was, the two humans looked pitiful at the face of her, a few pebbles standing before a rockslide.
The two bolted back the path for retreat, but Mara’s foot slammed down right in front of them, the shockwave of her stomp blasting them back. They were thrown back into her other foot, which shuffled them in, rolling them about. Mara pulled her feet closer, hemming them in.
Those enormous feet brought Lenny back, their shapely meatiness, the length and plumpness of the toes, the smooth and untarnished surface befitting a princess whose feet had never witnessed a rude surface to tread upon. However, this time, they were vastly different. They were dressed up, and Mara wasn’t wearing any ordinary footwear.
She was wearing humans.
Two of them lay shoulder to shoulder on the upper side of her left foot, their arms strung up and tied to an anklet. With arms outstretched, their shoes reached the beginning of her toes, tied to them, putting them on the top of her foot as if they were put on a rack to be tortured. Luckily, this rack wouldn’t wear away at their joints. It did, however, wear at their pride and confidence, making them no more than accessories on her foot. On the other foot, the situation was mirrored, two other humans there, making them four in total. The same straps that tied their arms to the anklet were on their lower legs, bound to her toes. They completed a network, weaving in under her feet, and Lenny was sure there were other people tied to the soles. It wouldn’t be a sandal without a bottom.
The two intruders didn’t run, recognizing she had them at her mercy but wasn’t doing anything. Though it was an intentional inaction, hands on her hips with a grin, her towering height intended to demoralize them. The humans she wore on her feet served the same function, as the two thieves between her gaped at the feet to their sides. No words were spoken, but the progression in every second was clear, the progressive understanding on the two intruders that those were real humans tied to her feet, beginning to identify with them, how they too had likely started with sneaking in here and trying to steal evernuts. The conclusion that they too would end up like them wasn’t far away.
Mara wasn’t done with the display. Confirming Lenny’s suspicion of how there were more than the four visibly tied humans, Mara tilted her left foot, standing on its side, presenting her sole. Like chicks peeping out from under the mother hen, Mara’s sole revealed a staggering five additional humans thereunder. They were like a pyramid with the top cut off, three at the base and two in the middle. The three at the base had their heads at the ball of her foot and their shoes in the middle of the arch, and where their shoes ended, the heads of two more humans began, stretching out to the end of her heel. Their bodies were wrapped together and around her foot. Mara shifted her right foot too, confirming there were five identically tied humans on that one.
A few of them coughed and croaked as her foot rose, allowing them to see daylight and the world outside. Lenny revisited the sequence of her stampeding this way, updating the implications of that action. Every step she took, every sprint pursued, she wasn’t merely walking. She was stomping ten humans into her cushy flesh, blocking out all of existence and leaving nothing but an immense pressure, a blinding darkness, and producing close, intimate heat which invited sticky sweat lubricating their bodies and dampening their clothes. And it all happened whether they liked it or not. All they could do was continue existing as her sandals.
“What—” one of the two stammered, trying to find the words. First, he crawled backwards, craning his neck up at the towers for legs and the panties with dark stain in the middle. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking care of shameful thieves, something anyone would applaud me for. Don’t worry, I think there’s room for you. You’re lucky, my soles are all out of space, so you’ll sit on top.”
“You fools…” one of the men under her sole croaked. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
The two recent intruders had the courage to stand up. “You can’t keep them there forever. You’re not the bloody law!”
Mara’s long toes flexed, the threat of a beast’s growl. “You should get used to saying ‘us’ instead of ‘them’, thieves. And I won’t keep them there forever. I’ll let you go, after teaching you a good lesson. But it’s also in my right to take care of criminals who trespass. Don’t like it? Don’t steal.”
The two men, free but soon-to-be-sandals, could only growl in frustration.
“Maybe you could tell me where your third member is, and I’ll go easier on you.”
“Third? It’s just us two.”
Mara brought out the three beads hanging from her necklace. “The beads signaled three invaders. And he should be close, even.”
Lenny felt undressed from where he hid, the branches around him transparent, his cover gone.
However, the two hadn’t known Lenny tailed them. Their confusion was genuine.
Mara looked at them askance. “Perhaps the beads got something wrong. Well, nothing changes for you.” She put her feet and all the captives on one last display, then hunched down, hands reaching for them. “Welcome to the party, footboys.”