Nenfari: an Assassin's Flower novella

  Chapter One

  14 days before Beltaine Dark Moon

  I had just finished my homework and had started making dinner when the madman showed up at the door.

  The man on the doorstep was in his thirties or forties, probably close to Mom's age. He was on the thin side with narrow features, and was drop-dead gorgeous. But it was the pentacle earring that made me decide to let him in.

  "I'm here to see Hailey Kiarsen...your mother? Is she about?" His voice was a combination of British clip and Scots brogue, but with a strange lilt that I couldn't identify. He was wearing a tight-fitting leather motorcycle jacket that gave his chest a glorious, manly v-shape. His hair was shoulder long, dark brown and cut ragged. It was his eyes that caught you. Gray with silver flecks, liquid and deep. Like staring into a half-frozen pond or a scrying bowl.

  "She's not here."

  "Will she return soon? May I wait for her? It's quite urgent."

  "I don't know..."

  "Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Joth. I met your mother at the kirk--er, church."

  "Mom doesn't go to church," I challenged.

  "A writing class. At the Unitarian Fellowship."

  "Oh. Well, I guess it's okay." I don't usually let perfect strangers in, but just then, his hair had swung away from his neck and I'd noticed the pentacle earring. I told him to have a seat at the kitchen table--where I could keep an eye on him. After all, anyone can buy a pentacle. Some people think they're cool without knowing what they really mean. Just because he had one didn't absolutely make him one of us.

  I glanced at the clock. Mom should be home soon. And be leaving early too, since tonight was Full Moon. "Excuse me a minute. I have to check on my sister."

  In the living room, Carley was watching Wile E. Coyote paint a tunnel on a mountainside. I snapped it off. Big sister mode. "Did you finish your homework?"

  "No homework today. All the teachers are out sick. Turn it back on." She glared at me, gray-blue eyes narrowed behind grimy glasses, face screwed into a miffed puss, rumpled blonde hair a couple shades darker than mine, chocolate smeared on her new pink sweater. Ten-year-olds! Remind me not to have any.

  "Mom'll be home soon. She's got Moon circle tonight, so dinner has to be on time. Change your shirt then go next door and get Arrie. There's some guy here. Some friend of Mom's"

  She humphed and twisted her face up even more, but she obeyed me.

  "Put your shirt in the hamper. I'll see if I can get those stains out." Back in the kitchen I returned to poking through the fridge for tonight's souvlaki. "I'm Willa,I I told our guest. I usually give pagans my Craft name too, but I didn't trust this guy yet, so I kept that to myself.

  "Lovely name. Unusual."

  "I think it's putrid. Willa Cather is supposed to be one of my ancestors, and Mom stuck me with her name." Actually, I'd gotten used to the name, and even incorporated it into my Craft name, but why tell him that? I picked up the bag of lettuce. The outside leaves were rotten and slimy. Peeling off the plastic, I tried to take the rotted leaves with it so I didn't have to touch them. "Would you like a cup of tea?" We were out of juice, and I didn't think Mom would want me offering him one of her beers.

  "Thank you."

  "Cranberry Cove or Earl Grey?"

  "Either would be fine."

  It's annoying when people answer like that. How am I supposed to know which they'd like better? We shared a few minutes of uncomfortable silence while I fixed the tea--cranberry, since we had more of that.

  Back to getting dinner going, I opened the fridge again, looking for the pita bread. Odin, heard the fridge door and came running. He fixed me with his one good eye and meowed.

  "Yes, I'm sure there's something in here for you too, Drooly Boy," I said, smiling down at the elderly brown tabby. We suspected he'd been in a bad fight or a car accident before we rescued him from the pound. His face was partly smashed and the other eye was a huge cataract. I pulled open a fridge drawer and located some cheddar, broke off two pieces and tossed one to him. If I didn't save the other till after I was done in the refrigerator, he'd keep hassling me to open it again.

  Then the door slammed open and Carley came in, dragging Arrie. Behind Arrie came a trail of muddy sand and dead leaves.

  "Carley, how many times do I have to tell you to make sure he wipes his feet?"

  Carley looked back at the devastated floor. "Sorry."

  "Sweep it up. Please. Mom spent an hour mopping it last night. I'm trying to make dinner."

  Arrie smiled up at me, green eyes sparkling, oblivious to the mess he'd made or the grime that smeared round cheeks. "Sammy and me we played in the sandbox. We was pirates. Pirates!"

  "Ugh. Smells like the cats were playing in the sandbox too."

  "Can I be a pirate for Halloween?"

  "Sure. Let's get your shoes off. And your pants. Carley'll give you a bath." I started helping him undress then remembered our guest and turned to apologize.

  The man left his chair and knelt on the floor, staring fixedly at the three-year old.

  "Hi! I's a pirate," Arrie said.

  The man nodded. He was looking at Arrie with a weird, serious expression. It was almost...awe? Hadn't he ever seen a kid before? A dirty one at that.

  "Can I has cookies?" Arrie asked, oblivious to the man's stare. "We had cookies in school, but I don't like Figgie Newtons. Gaves mine to Carley."

  "Have cookies," I corrected automatically. His grammar was fine when he wanted it to be, but lately he was lapsing. Mom thought it was Sammy's influence, or just a phase. "Can I have, not can I has. And no, you can't. It's almost time for dinner."

  "This is your brother?" the man whispered.

  "Arrie. Aragorn Frodo Kiarsen. My half-brother," I said, inwardly growling at the mess. "I made the mistake of reading Lord of the Rings to Mom while she was pregnant--we read to each other sometimes, so we can share the story." Grandpa had named Mom after a comet and she's been getting even with the world ever since. "It could have been worse. She could have named him Strider." I knew I was babbling, but something about the man demanded a full explanation. "And that's my sister, Carlin."

  "Aragorn," the man said. It sounded like a prayer. He reached out, pulling a twig from Arrie's red-brown curls. "The Re--"

  The shrieking of the teakettle broke the spell. The man--I couldn't remember his name--blinked his eyes like he'd been slapped. "I'll get that," he said. "Take care of your brother."

  Trying to touch as little of his filthy self as possible, I dragged Arrie into the downstairs bathroom. I helped him out of his corduroy overalls and set Carley to bathing him. That was one chore she didn't mind. They both have a great time playing in the suds with his Waterpets and he'd usually emerge somewhat clean.

  The man was sipping his tea when I returned. He was standing by the kitchen door, peering out at the road through a slit in the venetian blinds. At the sound of my footsteps, he spun around, almost sloshing his tea on the floor. Seeing it was me, he made a visible attempt to relax.

  His leather jacket was unzipped now, and I couldn't help noticing that the shirt beneath it was dirty, even if the chest it covered was nicer without the jacket. A few of the stains looked like ketchup or some kind of chili sauce. One was almost definitely mustard. Several more were unidentifiable from this distance, and I wasn't about to get close enough to check. Was he homeless?

  Goddess, what had I admitted to the house?And he had already crossed the threshold. Well, the house wards were pretty strong. No time like now to test them.

  Glancing over at the broom closet, I wondered if I should try the salt and broom spell. It usually got rid of unwelcome or overstaying guests quick. But what if Mom really would want to see him? Was I being paranoid? Or what if he recognized what I was doing and got insulted? No matter, I'd already forgotten his name, and that was the most important part of the spell.

  He seemed to catch me looking at his shirt and shrugged the jacket tighter around himself.

 
Reaching into the cabinet above the broom closet, I grabbed a jar of Gaeta olives and started pitting them. I popped one into my mouth, savoring the salty flavor. Nothing like those formaldehyde tasting ones that come in cans. "So you're taking Mom's writing class?" I took a Bermuda onion out of the bin, peeled off the papery skin and started to chop it. The fumes teared my eyes and I wiped at them with the back of a hand. I hate trying to make idle conversation with strangers. I always wonder if they really give a damn about what I'm saying.

  "Indeed."He was a sparkling conversationalist too.

  I turned around and noticed that he was again peering out a slit in the blinds. What was he, wanted by the cops or something?

  He saw me watching him and moved back to the table. "So, Aragorn is your half-brother. Is Carlin a half-sibling as well?"

  The onion was really getting to me. I rubbed my left eye hard. Naturally, it sent my contact lens skittering around my eyeball. "Excuse me. Contacts emergency."

  I raced into the bathroom, dodged around Carley and Arrie, and washed my hands of onion juice, all the while keeping my eye squinched tight so the lens wouldn't pop out. I took it out of my eye and rinsed the green-tinted lens.

  I was born with one green eye and one yellow one--inherited from my Dad's mom--but since I need glasses anyway, why not have my eyes match? Bi-colored eyes sort of throw boys off. Not that boys pay much attention to me anyway. It's not my looks. Except for the eyes I'm acceptable-looking. I'm just too weird and unpopular. They'd be afraid of lowering their reputation by being seen with me.

  I was considering getting a second pair of lenses, this one clear for the left eye and yellow for the right. Then I could switch colors every couple days. That'd really freak people out. If they were observant.

  "Make sure he gets that sand out of his hair," I said to Carley, once I'd regained enough sanity for conversation.

  Meanwhile I'd left the stranger alone in the kitchen. He was looking out the windows again, when I returned. There was something furtive about him and it was beginning to make me nervous. I went back to the onion.

  "Carley," he said. "Is she your full sister, or half?"

  Rude question. Especially since he'd asked it twice. But again I felt compelled to answer fully. I started arranging condiments on two platters--one for us, one for Mom to take to circle. I wondered if he had a spell on me. "Yeah. Mom's second husband, Kurt Kiarsen, is their Dad. She married him when I was about five. Just after he left, she found out she was pregnant with Arrie, and decided to have him anyway."

  "Your own father?"

  I surveyed the platters: avocado, tomato, lettuce, feta cheese, onions and olives. "Bryan Drejski. He died when I was just a baby. Motorcycle accident." Too bad there wasn't a red pepper to roast. "I don't remember him at all. Kurt was more my Dad. Mom would have given back his name, but she was just starting to be known as an author, and she didn't want to confuse her readers."

  "You miss him."

  Shrugging, I pulled the lamb Mom had marinated in red wine, garlic and juniper, from the fridge. "He doesn't even visit his kids."

  Mom walked in then, and the man just about jumped out of his skin at the sound of the door opening. She was wearing her usual business suit for days she goes to the City. White blonde hair--same color as mine--was frizzing out of her long braid. "Oh, wow. Hi, Joth." She had a bag of groceries in one hand and a dead blue jay in the other. "Honey, I found this on the road. His wings are perfect. Could you deal with it?"

  "Sure, Mom, no problem." Butchering things makes her squeamish, so I do it for her. I figure if you're dead, who cares what happens to your body? Your spirit doesn't need it to stay whole for you to reach the Summerlands. We'd use the loose feathers for earrings or wands or ornamenting magick items, and the wings might make a nice headdress.

  "I'll just put it on the side porch so Odin can't get it. I'll be right back," Mom told Joth. "I've got to get these stockings off." She left the room and was back moments later. "Looks great," she said, leaning over me. In my ear, she whispered, "We have enough for one more?"

  I nodded, glad she wasn't displeased with my letting Joth in, and started frying the lamb in olive oil.

  "So, Joth," she said, snagging a couple bottles of Becks from the fridge. She opened one and placed one on the table in front of him then glanced at the other and with a rueful smile put it back and pulled out a bottle of seltzer for herself. She doesn't drink before circle, plus she had to drive, even if its only a few miles. "I'm so glad you stopped by. Only, well, I have to go out tonight, so it isn't a good time to go over your story. But we'd love you to stay for dinner."

  "Yes. Full Moon. Thank you, I shall enjoy staying."

  Mom pulled a double-take, her hand going to the pentacle she always wore beneath her blouse.

  "Are you Craft?" she asked, her voice cautious. This may be the twenty-first century, but there are still plenty of folks who want to persecute you--or who will at least treat you differently--if they know you're a Witch. The last time someone had found out, the neighbors had picketed our house and tried to stop us from holding private rituals in our home because we weren't zoned as a church. That was years ago, when Carley was just a baby, and they'd sic'd Child Protective Services on us as well. We'd ended up moving to the Hudson Valley, and since then Mom was paranoid about anyone knowing our beliefs.

  "In a manner of speaking, yes, I am."

  "Oh. Merry meet." She gave a shaky laugh and downed a swig of seltzer, then started putting away the groceries and setting the table. "I had no idea."

  I took the lamb off the fire and went to fish Carley and Arrie out of the tub.