“Silver from Gold (Part I)”

 

 

She stood, cold and alone, in darkness.

Mami said that some women could name the moment of conception, but all Analise knew was that her moment had occurred during one of many encounters almost nine moons ago. It had happened in this room; she knew that much. Not in the forest, not in the stable. In this room. His room. The room he had called his sanctuary, where he had brought her on the night of their blood vow, and on many nights afterward in the weeks before he left her. There had been so much love, so much passion. But the precise moment eluded her. She wished she knew. She wished she could have told him, but he might have left her anyway.

The room smelled stale and vaguely sour. The smells of emptiness. Not the warm, earth-and-sun smells that spoke of a living presence. She wondered why she had come. Why she had returned after all these months, on the brink of bearing her child—his child—when she had avoided the very citadel from the day he departed. Slinking up the back stairs, creeping along the corridor long after the main doors were closed … It was a drafty old place, gloomy and cold despite housing Fire in the form of Irfe’s Noni. She was here somewhere; in her own rooms, perhaps, nursing a cup of broth before retiring for the night.

The babe squirmed. Analise stroked him with loving hands, saying nothing. Tears rose in her eyes as he quieted. She could not name the moment of his being, but she knew he was a boy. Poppi had said so long before Analise had learned it for herself, long before the dream of shamir eyes and a deep, resonant voice bidding her be strong. He was a boy and he was gifted. He was the future of Irfe’s Children, the legacy of his father and the hope of days to come.

 

* * *

 

She made the sanctuary into a birthing den. It had always been sparely furnished, featuring little more than a lush nest of sleeping furs piled before the hearth. She found the furs bundled in a clothes chest, stuffed away to await Noni’s convenience. What remained of his clothes lay buried beneath the pelts; when she put on a shirt, the heat of her body roused the ghost of Luko’s scent in the fibres. She cradled her babe in her arms, curled into the soft dark furs by the fire, and cried herself to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Tero came first. “I thought I’d find you here.”

“I’m staying,” she said.

“You’ll be more comfortable at home.”

“I won’t be as safe,” she replied. “Neither will the babe.”

He nodded. “I’ll tell Mami.”

“Thank you, brother mine.”

Safe, in a cold empty room, only steps away from the woman who had forced Ana’s lover to the drastic decision of exile over murder. Tero knew all but had said little more, and Luko had said even less. But the truth remained that Ana felt no safer beneath her father’s roof than she did in Luko’s sanctuary. She had not lived here, but she had slept here. She had laughed and loved and sung and sighed and seen the stars up close. The last trace of Luko lingered in this room, the last fragment of his power lived in the walls and the floor and the furs enfolding her. She could name it no better than she could name the moment of her son’s conception, yet she felt it in her marrow and knew this was the place where the babe must be born.

 

* * *

 

Mami came next, looking stern to conceal her broken heart. “Are you certain of this, Analise?”

“Yes, Mami.”

“Shall I stay with you?”

Against a desperate desire to accept, Ana shook her head.

“Your father would wish it.”

“He doesn’t understand.”

“Naturally. All he understands is that he has a willful daughter and a terrible loss to bear. He did love Luko, my girl. He would not have sent Marko with him if he had not.”

“Does he regret sending Marko?”

“He regrets a great deal, child.”

“It’s not his fault,” Analise said. “He tried his best to dissuade me, but Luko was my heart. I couldn’t live without him.”

Mami shifted from stern to grim. She was kind enough to withhold the obvious, but she had also encouraged Luko’s play for Ana’s hand. That a wedding had not followed the blood bond was less Mami’s fault than it had been Poppi’s, though she blamed herself nonetheless. “Very well,” she sighed. “I would rather have you at home, but you won’t be moved once your mind is set. This won’t be easy, Analise. You know there will be opposition.”

“This is Luko’s room. No other authority rules here.”

“Still … ”

“Please understand, Mami. I have no choice.”

Mami frowned. “I believe those were Luko’s last words to your brother.”

There was nothing more to say. Except … “Mami, were you afraid?”

“Every woman is afraid of childbirth, Analise.”

“But you had Poppi, and Granmami Ida.”

“You are not alone, little wolf. I will send Tero every day with food and anything else you require. I would come as often myself, but yours is not the only child about to appear. I can do little better for you than that, given the circumstances.”

“Will Poppi come?”

The sadness that welled in Mami’s violet eyes countered the surly set of her jaw. “Poppi is not a midwife. When your labour begins, send for me. There will be plenty of time before the babe arrives, but I mean to attend you from the first pain. Are you certain you want bear him here?”

Ana nodded tearfully. She had sought the sanctuary for her own sake as much as her son’s. Hearing what Mami had not said confirmed the wisdom in her decision. It was better for all concerned that she birth her babe away from home.

 

* * *

 

And then came Noni. Tall, dignified to severity, beauty without soul, she stood at the threshold and confronted the dregs of her grandson’s leavings. “You may have been his whore, but that will not be his child.”

“We swore a blood vow. This child can be no one else’s.”

Noni folded her arms and squinted. “The blood ritual is valid only with Irfe’s consent. I did not grant it for him, therefore that child is no heir of his.”

“What you say cannot change what is,” Analise retorted. “Like it or not, Luko is gifted. His blood binds me to him. Neither of us needs your word to make it so.”

Noni remained contemptuous. “Have you heard from him?”

“No.”

“Yet the blood bond connects all shamir to their consorts. All you need do is call and he will hear. Have you not tested your vow? Or do you fear to fail?”

Analise set her jaw, then lied. “He asked me not to. I have honoured him.”

“Though he dishonoured you. That’s too noble for one of your father’s pack.”

“If you wish to insult me, fair enough. Do not insult my father.”

Noni shook her head, gently tsking. “Loyal to all the wrong folk.”

“At least I’m loyal to someone other than myself!”

Silence too brittle to be born of Fire fell between them. Analise stayed seated on the floor, knees up and arms wrapped about them, protecting her child as best she could from the old woman’s menace. Noni stood like rock at the door, defeated by more than a belligerent girl’s defiance and determined to hide it.

“You are not the only girl who has seen these walls—or that ceiling, I daresay.”

Analise knew this for a lie. Luko had been no innocent. He had taken women for escape, for release, but he had never taken them here. The sanctuary was sacred. Yet when he had bound himself to Analise, he had lain with her in this room on that first summer night. He had made love to her and she had asked nothing more of him; he had held her in his arms and confessed he had not dared dream of such happiness. For a heartbeat, Analise had glimpsed the boy he had never been, and had loved him more deeply for the man he had become. His absence tugged, but she held fast to her resolve.

“I belong here,” she said, “and so does my babe.”

A pulse beat in the old woman’s temple. Ana braced for a fight. Remarkably, Noni relented, albeit through clenched teeth. “Bear your bastard here if you must, but you will do it alone. These rooms are forbidden until I decide what to do with them. No one comes near them without my leave.”

“I have no need of your leave,” Ana said, boldly. “Keep your people away; I’d not have them here in any case—and I’d like to see you try to bar my mother or my brother from my side.”

Noni all but sneered. “I might bar your father, then, if he was minded to join them. Apparently, he is not. Tell me, Analise: would he be so dismayed if he knew without doubt that my grandson sired his little she-wolf’s brat?”

“Ask him,” Ana dared. “Better yet, tell him yourself, after you’ve named the babe and his blood has spoken. My child is gifted, Noni. Don’t take my word. Wait for the naming. Then you’ll have to face the truth!”

It was a reckless challenge, and Luko himself would have scolded her though he had stoked his grandmother’s wrath for the brutal fun of it, but Analise regretted nothing. Whatever angst had existed between Luko and Noni now existed between Ana and Noni, without Ana knowing how or when it had happened. Perhaps it had happened with Luko’s leaving, for Ana sensed Noni’s part in that even if no one had openly blamed her. Poppi had no use for Noni and she had less use for him; perhaps it sprang from a lifetime of overhearing slanderous talk between adults. Whatever the cause and wherever the beginning, it was now Ana’s own, and she embraced it with a dogged ferocity that few but her family would say was natural.

It took Irfe’s Noni aback, but it was not her habit to retreat. Analise watched a pale face pale further, until it assumed the bloodless look of moonlit marble offset by gleaming green eyes. She had not imagined such frigid malevolence was possible in a Daughter of Irfe, but the hair prickling along her arms and the babe holding his breath in her belly warned that she had never been in greater peril.

“I am not afraid of you,” she growled, glaring through narrowed eyes.

“That may be your mistake,” Noni replied. She broke Ana’s lock on her gaze as if dismissing a negligible irritant, but Analise was certain that she spied a tremor in the old woman’s lips before she turned away.

 

* * *

 

One more came: Luko’s twin sister, Rikka. A younger cut of Noni’s cloth, beautiful with a hard edge yet still possessed of her soul, she came like a shadow in the night, long after Noni’s bedtime. Ana was brooding before the fire, picking at the picnic supper Tero had brought from home, and jumped, startled, when the tirade started.

“I am most seriously displeased with you, Jarkko’s Analise! How could you—how could you?!—come here to bear your child so close to my wedding day? Do you know what people are saying?”

Analise knew. She had known for months, from the time of her first showing, when the babe began to grow and people smiled at her approach then whispered as she passed. Poor Analise, they had said, abandoned by one man then used by another—or many others. No one really knew how many; only that Luko may have been her first, but had certainly not been her last. Wearing his ring proved nothing. The bloodstone had ceased to pulse almost immediately after his departure. It sat dark and dead in its wrought silver setting, mocking her fidelity where it had once glowed as irrefutable evidence of his. She did not know why she kept wearing it. Sighting it was a punishment.

“Analise? Are you listening to me?”

She glanced up from her hand. Rikka towered above her, glaring from the verge of tears. Luko’s sister wore pride as a sheltering cloak and propriety as a shield, weapons against prettier girls of lighter heart and easier smiles.

“I’m listening,” she said. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “What are people saying?”

Rikka balked, either unwilling or unable to recall specific details. She looked nothing like her brother, but for the majestic profile marked by a long and very prominent nose. Her hair was straight where his was wavy. Her colour was dark honey while his was hammered sun. Her eyes were grey and tilted where his were green and slanted; shamir eyes, the eyes of the gifted, who were said to see beneath the surface and detect a deliberate lie. Shamir were sworn to protect and defend, not to ridicule and revile. Luko had held his calling to heart. Had Rikka been the gifted one, Ana could not have sworn the same of her.

“I don’t mean to cast a shadow over your wedding,” she said, after an awkward and fuming silence.

“You are casting one nonetheless!” Rikka hissed. “It’s bad enough that you’re with child at all, but to bear it here … This was Luko’s haven—I doubt he would appreciate another man’s child being born in his room.”

Analise flared. “It’s not another man’s child! It’s Luko’s child and you know it!”

“I know no such thing!”

“Don’t you believe your brother is gifted?”

“I have no choice but to believe it!” Rikka shouted. She caught herself with an effort, passing a shaking hand over her brow as she struggled to regain her composure. “Because he is gifted, that child cannot be his.”

“Then whose is it?” Analise snapped. “I’ve been with no one else. We swore a blood vow, Rikka. See the mark on my palm? He cut me there and mixed his blood with mine; I felt his power sear like lightning through my veins. I was bound to him from that moment on—you know it’s true, Rikka. You know that this is your brother’s child.”

Rikka chewed on her lower lip, frowning to stay the unnatural glaze in her eyes. “My wedding,” she said lamely, when she could speak again.

“I won’t interfere with your wedding, Rikka. I simply want to deliver my babe in this room.”

Rikka regarded her as if she was mad, but most of her fervour had fled. “Do you know where he is? Have you heard from him?”

Ana shook her head.

“But the bond—”

“He’s blocked it. I can’t see him. Sometimes at night, I think that I feel him, but just when I accept it, the feeling disappears and I wonder if it was ever there at all.”

Rikka stared at her. The babe stretched and Analise shifted her weight, but Luko’s sister remained frozen between duty and desire. In the end, she chose duty. “Noni has ordered that no one attend you.”

“Will you disobey her?” Analise asked, already knowing the answer.

Rikka knew it, too. She stared a moment longer, then abruptly turned and stalked from the doorway. 

To be continued …

"Black Friday"

Oh, Lord … Vader.

Aloud:

“Oh! Lord Vader!”

“Hoo-ha, hoo-ha.”

“When I asked to speak to the manager, I expected, ah … ahem … okay, when this cart of Christmas gifts was rung through, it only came out at 30% off.”

“Perhaps you feel you are being treated unfairly?”

“Well, no, not exactly, but, um, the deal in the Imperial flyer was that I pay 30%, not save 30%. See, it says right here - ”

“I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further.”

“Yes, my lord. Merry Christmas, my lord.”

“Hoo-ha, hoo-ha …”

This must be why it’s called Black Friday.

"Silver From Gold (Preface)"

The story starting on Saturday isn’t a Christmas story. It isn’t even a winter story since it takes place at the turn of spring, but the protagonist has survived the hardest winter of her life and is about to face her greatest challenge yet. I consider it a story for the holiday season because I was inspired to write it based on two Christmas songs that struck me particularly hard.

For years, every year, a Christmas song called Breathof Heaven, recorded by Amy Grant in 1992, brought to mind the dilemma of the girl who my Castasian hero, the indomitable Lucius Aurelius, left behind. The lyric is a plea from the Virgin Mary to the heavens, but it easily fit the situation that young Analise faced when her beloved went into exile. It was a story I wanted to write, but somehow never did … until December 2008.

That year, Ter and I were testing twinkle lights prior to putting up the tree. Enya’s then-new Christmas album, And Winter Came …, was playing for the first time. She sings the most haunting version of OCome O Come Emmanuel that I have ever heard, and when that track began, a voice whispered to me that Reijo was born at night. Reijo is one of my favourite characters, my princely white knight in dented armour, the eldest son of Luko and Analise, but who he is and how he got there really isn’t relevant at this point.

“Silver From Gold” is his mother's story about the night when he was born.

Enjoy.

"A Singular Gift"

Julian sits, barefoot, at the piano. His hands rest lightly on his thighs. A glass of cabernet is within reach and candlelight shimmers over the elegant bones of his face. He is very still, as if he’s waiting for something.

Or someone.

Outside the window, snow falls in soft lazy flakes. Winter is here, but indoors the only sign of the season is a string of white fairy lights sparkling amid the leaves of a potted fig tree.

We meet every year at this time. It’s about magic for me – the magic of the holidays, and the magic in his hands. As with most musicians who prize an instrument over vital body parts, the Steinway is a part of him. I rarely hear him play, but once a year, at this time of year, he plays for me.

“Shall I begin?” he asks, and I know that he knows I’ve arrived.

I look around the loft, at raw brick walls splashed with abstract canvases, at glossy fir floors and buttery leather furniture. Naturally, there’s a fire. He’ll never be a fan of artificial light.

“How ’bout a drink?” I ask.

He slips me a pained sidelong look and deigns to keep silent. Now is not the time for our brand of verbal jousting.

I make myself at home on the couch. The piano is behind me, angled to put Julian’s back to mine. He sits a moment longer, to be assured that I’m settled. I breathe in, breathe out, close my eyes, and wait.

The silence ripples like still water disturbed by a falling leaf. The fire murmurs in the grate. He will drag this out until I’m on the brink of snapping, but I know why he’s reluctant. It’s a measure of his affection that he’s willing to give me this one thing when he’d as soon ignore it on his own.

As usual, I considered skipping it this year, but he loves jazz and he loves his piano … and he loves me. Just as the reminder crosses my mind, the music begins: a gentle twinkling of notes cascading effortlessly into the opening of my favourite holiday instrumental—Christmastime is Here, played with the same artless panache as if Vince himself is at the keyboard.

Julian is true to the recording, though he can’t resist adding his own air-brushed embellishments during the extended bridge. That’s when I know that his passion for the music has eclipsed his fondness for me, and for a few minutes more, he and I are bound by the same spell: a mutual love of music and of each other, regardless of the season.

I’m sunk in the cushions, warm and safe and drowsy, when the last notes dwindle and the Steinway falls silent. “Was it good for you?” he asks with a smile in his voice.

“As always,” I reply. I stand up to go. “Thank you, Jules.”

“My pleasure,” he says. He’s still seated at the piano and his hands are back on his thighs. I want to duck in and kiss his cheek but a) his personal space is precious and b) you don’t come at a vampire from behind. I’d like to wish him a merry Christmas, too.

I don’t. I thank him again, then I leave.

He doesn’t celebrate Christmas anymore.

Chestnuts

roasting on an open fire ...

I love jazz. I stream it at work and play the CDs at home. The car radio would be tuned to it if there was a decent station in range and I’d ask Santa for a satellite subscription, but in truth, I’m not on the road often enough to justify the expense.

Holiday jazz is the best jazz ever. The digital box at home now features a smooth jazz Christmas channel that I play when Ter’s not looking; I know, I know: it’s still November, but I’m finally starting to get in the Yuletide groove so don’t stop me now. The Christmas channel at www.sky.fm plays some smooth stuff, mixed with a bunch of other holiday oddities that I endure in hope of a singularly polished chestnut to make up for the kitsch.

On a whim, I checked into www.jazzradio.com and discovered—as I had hoped—that they’ve added a holiday jazz channel! So now I have all the greats singing the greatest Christmas tunes at the office! Frank and Dino, Ella, Nat, Mel, Harry Connick Jr., der Bingle, and a cornucopia of others – all jazz, no filler!

If I thought I’d died and gone to heaven on discovery, I was assured when the first song I heard was Nat “King” Cole’s O Tannenbaum, sung in German and probably one of my top 10 Yuletide favourites. Nat’s Christmas album gets heavy rotation at home, along with the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack and every Starbucks Christmas disc in the collection (this year's edition already in hand and faaaaaaaabulous!) I have to hand it to Ter – she’s no fan of jazz, but even she will sing along with the Rat Pack if they’re singing Christmas songs. We agree: Sammy Davis Jr’s version of Jingle Bells is the absolute best!

Happy ho-ho-ho to you ...

“From the Inside (conclusion)”

 

 

She was getting into her car when his voice boomed like thunder, rolling into the corners of the cavernous parkade: “Janine!”

She turned. It suddenly hit him that she had lied about her name as well. She froze, one foot on the running board and one hand on the car door, waiting while he approached at a stilted jog.

He put out a hand to steady himself against the Jaguar’s rear quarter. His heart beat so fast that his breath came shallow and ragged.

“What is it, Peter?”

“We’re not finished yet.”

“I have no further need of you,” she said, coldly. “You can explain the million pounds. Blame it on poor investments. You’ll not be punished. You can go on with your tedious little life as if I had never come into it.”

“You think it’s that simple! What about me?”

“What about you?” she retorted smartly. “Are you in love with me?”

“No!”

“Then we shall trouble each other no more.” She turned her back and sank into the driver’s seat. He grabbed her arm and hauled her onto the pavement. She stumbled and recovered as quickly, wrenching from his grasp.

“Give it to me!” he demanded, blocking her escape into the car. “Give me the blood, Janine. After everything I’ve done, you owe me that much.”

Her stare was brittle. “Do you think that I care?”

“I don’t think about you at all,” he snapped. “It’s what I want that matters.”

She laughed at him, truly amused by his audacity. “I don’t think so.” She gripped his shoulder in one hand. “Get out of my way.”

The force of her strength nearly cost him his balance, but he kept his feet by clutching her sleeve. She spun to dislodge him. He lunged, driving her back against the car, taking a perverse pleasure in the wince she failed to restrain. He shoved her once more, just to watch her face contort. Her fangs flashed, lethally sharp in the brutal light—the only proof that he was not assaulting a woman as mortal as himself. “That hurt you, didn’t it?” he sneered, so pumped on adrenalin that fear was not an option. “Maybe you’re not as indestructible as you’d like me to believe.”

“And how do you intend to find out?” she growled. Her eyes fixed like a lynx’s on his own. She hated him. Loathed him. Despised him—but not because he was weak. She had not expected him to fight and was now scrambling to regain control of him. Without even realizing it, he had turned the tables on her. The revelation was as thrilling as the doubt which suddenly rattled him. Having gained the upper hand, how was he going to use it?

“Is there a problem here?”

Peter maintained his hold on her, refusing to break his lock on her gaze in favour of acknowledging the owner of the voice. She appeared equally intent, though her eyes had narrowed slightly at the intrusion. Neither of them was concerned with the scene they presented—the interruption was not a welcome one.

“Just having a discussion with my girlfriend,” Peter said, tightly.

“ ‘Girlfriend’?” There was a hilarity in the stranger’s voice that warranted a look. The voice belonged to a man about his own age, slender and handsome, who seemed more entertained than appalled by the violence he had just witnessed. His dark eyes were aimed, sparkling, at Janine. “ ‘Girlfriend’? I like that.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Janine said, acidly.

“I should certainly hope so.”

Peter could not ignore the evidence that they knew each other—and quite intimately, from the sound of it. A grave sense of foreboding began its rise to the surface. He fought it down with what he hoped was a venomous glare in the newcomer’s direction. “I’ll thank you to mind your own business, chum,” he declared with more vehemence than he had intended.

“Oh, this is my business,” was the mild reply.

Peter scoffed to cover his nerves. “And who might you be?”

The newcomer grinned, displaying a pair of incisors as jagged as Janine’s. “I’m the boyfriend.”

The adrenalin rush abandoned him, leaving an oily nausea in its wake. He saw now what he should have seen right away: the white skin, the thick mane frothing with a life of its own, the elastic grace that mortal dancers strove and failed to achieve. The vampire stood completely at ease, arms casually folded across his chest; absolutely, inhumanly still. Even the fringe on his leather jacket hung motionless in defiance of the parkade’s air circulation system. Peter’s knees abruptly weakened. “What in God’s name is this?” he whispered, fearing that he already knew.

Janine irritably shrugged his hands from her shoulders, but it was the male who answered. He stepped forward, gently taking Peter’s elbow and leading him a few paces from the car. “She tends to get in over her head,” he said in a conspiratorial hush. “She thought you might be trouble, so she invited me along for the finale.”

“Jolly sporting of her,” Peter remarked, tersely. There was an amiable warmth about the male; under different circumstances, he might have liked the fellow. “What do you mean, ‘the finale’?”

They had reached his BMW. The vampire cast a glance over the vehicle, assessing its value and deciding it was probably overpriced. “What’s the top speed you’ve been ticketed for?”

Perplexed and suspicious, Peter answered the question. “One-ten.”

The vampire smirked. “I’ve done one-forty in the Jag.”

“In the Sovereign?” Peter asked, momentarily astonished.

The vampire shook his head. “That belongs to Jan. I have an E-type that would blow this into the weeds. Still, if you like German engineering, I can’t argue with your choice.”

“It got good reviews in all the motoring magazines.”

“Indeed.” The vampire rested his hip against the car and folded his arms again. “I don’t want to kill you,” he said frankly, “but I will if I have to. The decision is yours.”

“You’re giving me options?” Peter asked, only half-aware of the absurd turn his life had suddenly taken.

“You have two,” the vampire said. “You have a girlfriend of your own?”

He thought briefly, regretfully, about Sandy, and nodded.

“Go back to her.”

“What’s my second option?”

“I’ll have to kill you.”

It was not much of a choice, considering the matter of the embezzled funds. He glanced back at Janine. She stood by the black Jag, watching him bargain with the devil for a life he was unsure he could reclaim. He had tossed everything on the hollow promise that she would give him eternity. It was easy to hate her.

The vampire had followed his gaze and now nodded as if reading his thoughts. “Imagine what my life has been like,” he commented, dryly.

Peter was not the least bit amused. “She promised me immortality.”

“She lied.”

“Then why doesn’t she kill me?”

“She grows too attached when she plays these games. Take my advice, Peter. Go back to your life and forget about her.”

Peter uttered a lame attempt at laughter. “That’ll be a bit tricky when Scotland Yard comes to call.”

“They won’t come.”

“What do you mean?”

The vampire pulled a wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open to extract a business card, which he handed over. “I’ll replace the funds you moved for her. By the time you ring this number in the morning, the arrangements will have been made.”

The ground wobbled beneath Peter’s feet. Gratitude was not the first emotion that surfaced. He boldly met the vampire’s brown eyes. “You sorry bastard,” he said. “Do you always wind up righting her wrongs?”

The vampire smiled. “Not always. But I’m not the sorry bastard in this instance, am I?” He gave Peter an amicable clap on the shoulder and sauntered back across the parkade, the fringe on his jacket whispering as he moved.

Peter watched Janine get behind the wheel when the male circled the car to the passenger side. They sat in conference for a few moments, then she started the motor and backed the Sovereign from its space. Neither of them bothered to grace him with a parting glance.

Death did not come for Peter Aldroyd that night. It waited a full fortnight. His secretary found him in his office, slumped over his desk with the back of his head blown out and a pistol clutched in his hand. There was no note, but the investigation revealed that a million pounds had disappeared from a number of client accounts over three months preceding his suicide. His fiancée took the news well, all things considered; she told the police that he had not been himself for months. He had recently suffered from impotence and depression—the latter, she had imagined, brought on by the former though they had never discussed the subject. Further investigation failed to turn up the whereabouts of the missing funds, and the subsequent attempt by authorities to classify the case as a homicide failed due to lack of evidence.

In a jazz club across town, the owner finished reading the article and laid the newspaper on top of the bar. His grey-eyed lover was flirting with the patrons as usual, casting her spell over those who had no ward against her magic. She caught his eye and came toward him. When she reached the bar, he silently turned the paper around so that she could see the headline. She gave it a cursory glance before uttering a disdainful snort. “You should have killed him,” she said.

“And finish the job you started?”

“He was corroding when I met him,” she declared. “Rotting from the inside out, bored to death by his job and his woman. I gave him his fantasy in the flesh. It’s not my fault he couldn’t handle it.” She pushed the paper back across the bar. “Let it go, lover. You did all you could.” She flashed him a dazzling smile and flounced back into the crowd, resplendent in violet velvet.

The vampire read the article once more, slowly. “You sorry bastard,” he murmured. Then he folded the newspaper and tucked it into the garbage can beneath the bar.

 

THE END 

written May 9, 1999

revised October 6, 2013

Nonscents

Ter assumed garbage duty the other morning. She hauled the full bag from the can and carried it out back to deliver to the bin. Meaning to help when her back was turned, I grabbed the new garbage can liner and shook it out to install. She busted me.

“You’ll get the Febreze smell on your hands,” she said. “Wash them before you keep on with breakfast.”

Good point. The fresh-scent reek was making my eyes water. I think she must hold her breath when attending the garbage, and not because of the garbage smell. Ter is extremely sensitive to chemical and artificially-produced scents. It almost became a personnel issue at work because her one-time neighbour’s perfume threatened her with anaphylactic shock. Even I have issues with overpowering fragrance, particularly expensive parfum and cheap room deodorizers (you'd be amazed at how little difference there is between them). Glad has recently started scenting their Kitchen Catchers with Febreze – we don’t like it, but we like the liners and they don’t (as yet) have an unscented alternative.

Ter’s comment did make me wonder, though. Why do they want to make garbage smell like fresh laundry? Garbage smells to make us take it out; it’s not supposed to sit in the kitchen until it becomes compost – masking the odors could result in a bio-hazard, for crying out loud. Sure, fish for dinner can hang around until bedtime, but light a candle and play through it, people. It won’t last forever. Why make it easier to live with garbage?

Yikes, you can take that one any way you like …

Run by a Big Eastern Syndicate

It’s November 21^st and I’m a little worried. I am unexcited about Christmas. I am less than unexcited about Christmas. I am actually indifferent and somewhat resentful about it. I’m almost—dare I say?—dreading it. I’m normally so pumped about it that I feel like a thoroughbred penned in the starting gate: I can hardly stand to stand still. I hold off from respect for Remembrance Day, but after the 12^th, I should be off at a frenzied gallop.

Shouldn’t I?

Well, yeah. The Christmas CDs are out and the annual jigsaw puzzle is already done. The city lampposts are dressed in their festive finery. Window displays are ablaze with holiday cheer. I’ve had three eggnog lattes this past week alone and the Tannenbaum trimming is scheduled for the first weekend in December (or maybe the third one in November) ... yet I can do no more than get stressed about the pending stress of the holidays. The effort, the energy, the expense of putting on the glitz. I can’t think about any of it without wanting to fall into a ditch and let the season pass me by.

I love Christmas. Truly, I do. I love the lights and the music and the food and the socializing. In fact, I love everything that I’m dreading.

I’m not alone in the malaise department, either. Almost everyone I’ve talked to of late feels a similar lack of enthusiasm and equal consternation ... except for one. When I expressed my dismay to a co-worker, she dismissed me with a flippant, “I never get into the spirit until my house is decorated and that won’t happen until December.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I can’t even think about going there.”

“Of course not!” she replied, half-amused and half-amusing. “Ruthie, it’s way too early to think about Christmas!” She reminded me that it’s barely past mid-November and December 1 is early enough to start the festivities. Or, as she put it, “Three weeks is plenty of time to get ’er done!”

Talking with her really helped to alleviate some of my angst. For one thing, I realized that she’s right. It is too early! Just because the stores were decorated on November 1^st doesn’t mean I have to get on board as well. And do not get me started on Black Friday. I’ve heard that retailers are under orders from head office to get the season started ASAP, so they can rake in big profits before people figure out that they don’t have to mortgage the house to pay for Christmas ... but please. It shouldn’t be about the ka-ching.

Dental drugs and a full moon may be partially to blame, but I totally fell for the hype that demands I get into the shopping-socializing-decorating spirit before I’m ready. And I let it depress me! I was angry about the occasion when I should be angry at the suits, the fat cats with the fat salaries who apply the pressure to spend spend spend before it’s too late. Well, now I’m on to them. Crass commercialism will not ruin the season for this Christmas junkie. And now that I have regained control of my fest-destiny, I’m starting to get jolly ... on my terms.

Scorpio

Mum and Wee Ru - 1962

“OMG, I’ve become my mother!”

It’s the universally-dreaded fate of every adult daughter, to recognize the traits in ourselves that we remember in our mothers while we were growing up. Children learn by example and I guess it’s true enough: when it comes to operating in the real world, boys learn from their fathers and girls learn from our mothers. I’ve watched women around me for years. I’ve known doormats and harridans, timid little mice and saber-toothed tarts, mothers who take pride in their children and mothers who lament the little beggars ever being born. I’ve seen mothers rule their daughters and I’ve seen mothers ruled by their daughters. In my job, I see evidence of women who love their kids but are unable to care for them, whose problems are so immense, so adult, that the kids must be removed for their own safety—and I can’t imagine what that feels like to a child. I do know that the pattern will repeat itself, that the daughter removed from her mother will often have her own child removed further down the road. Sometimes love is not enough. Sometimes, unfortunately, love is misused, misguided and misunderstood. Why can’t the reverse be true and a healthy pattern evolve? Well, in my corner, it did. In a perfect world, every daughter would have a mother like mine.

From the day I was born, my father insists that there was something special between my mother and me. Really? I’m the fourth of five; talk about sharing the wealth. I might have scored big time if my wee sister hadn’t surprised the clan after I was born – with five years between me and the Big Guys, I could have lived the privileged life of an almost-only child. As it happened, the chess pieces were placed for a reason. And there was (is) something special between my mother and me, just as there was (is) something special between her and each of her bairns. Each of us was cuddled and cared for from our first breath, raised with the solid understanding of our place in the pack and how to keep the balance thereof. Strangely, it’s my mother’s strength of will that fixes prominently in my childhood memories of her. She was the rock, the hub, the central nut (if not as nutty as the rest of us) that held the family together. Mum was the nerve center, the financial manager, the maker of killer soup and baker of superior scones. She fed us on a shoestring, kept us neat and tidy, made judicious use of her authority to break up sibling squabbles, and when my arthritis hit … oh, boy. That’s when things get laser-bright for me. That’s when whatever existed between us at the start kicked into full gear, at what cost to the rest of the family I still do not know. All I know for sure is that my mother got me through it and I got through it for her. She wavered once or twice, but that only strengthened my resolve. I was not going to let her bear the burden of my pain (though what mother worth her salt would not wish it on herself to spare her child?), and while a lot of the day-to-day drama is now misty in my memory, the power of the love remains, amplified a thousandfold from what I knew at the time.

I would have loved my mother anyway, because she’s a warm, wonderful, generous, resolute, amiable, and occasionally ferocious, woman. She’s taken her foot off the gas of late, having set her bairns free to wreak our own brand of havoc on the world, and is now less Mum and more herself, a person with magical attributes that make her exceptional in her own right. Today is her birthday—I forget which one, wink wink—and true to my custom, I perceive the occasion as a kind of thanksgiving. I may love my mother with all my heart, but above all else, I am grateful for her.

“OMG, I’ve become my mother!”?

Bring it!

Ru and Wee Mum 2010