Faeted

by ReGi McClain

  He pressed his lips together and shuffled his walker over, eyeing the empty carton of ice cream. She helped him lower down next to her.

  “I’m sorry, Harsha.” He put an arm around her and pulled her into a side hug. “Watcha watching?”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder by way of returning his hug. “Thin Man. I got a present for you.”

  “You mean the old detective series? What is it?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty funny. Here.” She flipped off the TV and handed him the faerie box.

  He traced the patterns, brows raised in curiosity. Although he kept his aesthetic tastes to himself, she knew he appreciated the feminine floral design. “Thanks. What kind of wood is it?”

  “I don’t know. And the present’s in the box.”

  “Ooooh. Right.” He lifted the lid, handling it with care.

  Harsha bit her lip and clenched her hands together in her lap when the glow of the unicorn horn lit his face.

  “What is it?”

  Excitement bubbled up her throat. Controlling her tone took more effort than carrying the backpack her first day of hiking. As flatly as possible, she squeezed out the words. “A unicorn horn.”

  He pursed his lips but kept his eyes on the horn. “People used to sell narwhale horns as unicorn horns and Alaska Natives are still allowed to hunt whales. Are you sure this isn’t one of those?”

  “I doubt the faerie I met buys contraband.”

  He gaped at her. “You actually think you met a real faerie?”

  “I also met two sasquatches, a werewolf, and a dragon. That’s how I got home. I rode a dragon.”

  His face crumpled with despair. “Harsha, I think this search for a cure is driving you insane. We need to get you help. Fast.”

  “It’s shining.”

  “It’s a gimmick.”

  Or not so fun. She sighed and rubbed her temples. I can’t blame him. I spent a day on a sasquatch’s couch before I believed it. “Just pick it up. If nothing happens, I’ll go to the mental clinic today.”

  Her promise seemed to satisfy him. He wrapped his hand around the horn. The light expanded in brilliance as his fingertips pressed into the ivory, forcing Harsha to look away.

  When the luminescence faded, Jason smiled from ear to ear. His eyes shone in the baby face she remembered from his late teen years. Respectable musculature filled his pajamas and his skin glowed, his healthy cinnamon tone restored. The unicorn horn sat in his hand, no longer radiant. It looked like a lump of ordinary, well-aged ivory. He placed it back in its box and closed the lid with reverence. Bracing his feet on the floor, he pushed off the couch. He put so much force into it, he sprang into the air, surprising both of them.

  He beamed at Harsha, his smile filling his face and tears coursing down his cheeks. After a moment of speechlessness, he jumped in the air and started running around the house like a little boy, whooping and hollering, while she laughed until happy tears rolled down her face, too. He swooped her up and ran outside to the swimming pool. After dumping her on a lounge chair, he cannonballed into the water, pajamas and all.

  Feeling like a little girl watching a circus, she laughed and clapped her hands. She watched Jason bound off the diving board again and again until his healthy body tired and she wore herself out with laughter. It was the most beautiful morning she could remember.

  After his mad rush, he went inside to change his clothes. When he came back out, he wore his swimming trunks and carried two glasses of lemonade. He started to hand one to her but paused to look her up and down. “You’re still in your PJ’s, Sis. Go put on your bathing suit.”

  Her good mood faltered. Bruises from the hours after her visit to Phyllis dotted her legs and arms. True, normal people suffered bruises. If she told him she’d tripped and rolled down a hill…

  She dismissed the idea. Normal, everyday bruises came in purple and red, not black and blue. She stuck a playful smile on her face. “No way. I’ve been cold for six weeks. Today, I want to roast.”

  Jason guffawed and launched into dozens of questions. He hooted with excitement as she described her encounters with the hiders. When she finished, she asked him how life went at home.

  He waved his hand in dismissal. “I sat around being sick and playing games, mostly. There was only one thing that made it okay for you to be gone for so long.”

  “Really? What?”

  His eyes glinted. “My new caregiver.”

  “Oh yeah? Is he an RPG geek too?”

  “No. She is.”

  “She?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Oooh, yeah.”

  “So, does this mean no more virtual girlfriends? You’re dating a flesh and blood woman?”

  He lowered his eyes and traced patterns on the surface of the water. “Well, I didn’t ask, under the circumstances.” He looked up with his brows raised in a hopeful expression. “But I will tonight.”

  He chattered about his caregiver, extoling her virtual bad guy tromping skills and praising her young son, whom she’d brought to work with her on Fridays. Harsha listened without interrupting, sleepy and content, until he decided to pick up breakfast for the two of them.

  She stayed by the pool, enjoying the warmth of direct sunlight. The ripples in their pool drifted from one side to the other, driven along by a soft breeze. Watching, she imagined them to be the surf lapping at the shore while she walked along the beach.

  A mental pebble of self-pity caught her by surprise. She flung it away, refusing to feel sorry for herself after seeing the life she’d given her brother. Nevertheless, it left a bruise on her happy mood. Eventually, Jason needed to know. Not today, and not tomorrow. Eventually.

  She yawned and stretched out on the lounge chair. A vague notion having to do with sunscreen wandered in and out of her sleepy daydreams. She heard Jason’s voice and smelled a mahi-mahi sandwich. Then she felt him pick her up in his strong, healthy arms, and carry her to bed.

  “I guess the trip wore you out pretty good, huh?”

  She mumbled what seemed like an appropriate response, to which he replied with a hearty laugh.

  “I’ll put your sandwich in the fridge. “He kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep.”

  She complied. Sleep offered both physical and emotional rest, and she needed both. She half-awoke once to find her room dark, but drifted back to sleep. When the sunlight woke her the next morning, the sound of voices in the living room implied Jason got an early start on his video game playing.

  She squirmed further under her blanket. After trying to fall back to sleep for several minutes, she felt another person in the room. She peeked over her covers and blinked in the morning light. Dark brown irises stared from almond eyes. The boy belonging to the eyes seemed to be about ten years old. His latte skin tone and light brown hair suggested he was among the many Japanese-Hawaiian children who spent their afternoons playing on the nearby beach. The insight failed to explain his presence in her room, however. “Hello?”

  “Hello. Can you get up? Jason says we have to wait for you before we can eat breakfast.”

  Her mind cranked and clinked, trying to discern this child’s connection to her brother. Jason mentioned his caregiver having a son, right? Maybe this is him . “Umm… Okay.”

  A woman popped her head through the door and called the boy in a stage whisper. “Kel, come out of there. Let Aunt Harsha sleep.”

  Harsha shifted to see the woman out of her peripheral vision. She preferred to meet people after she’d dressed and brushed her hair, or at least showered. Too late. She hoped she looked somewhat human. “It’s okay. I’m awake.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get in again.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”

  When she shuffled into the living room, Jason jumped up from the couch. He wore a broad, boyish smile, but fingered the hem of his t-shirt and met her eyes from an angle, his head tilted down and
to the side.

  Harsha raised an encouraging brow. Introductions, please.

  He glanced at the woman sitting on the couch. She peeked around Jason with a forgotten Wii controller in her hand. She wore her dark brown hair in a messy bun secured with a cheap, uncapped pen. A light pink T-shirt, which gave her café au lait skin a sallow tone, conformed to her curves without being tight. It hung to her hips to cover the top of her jeans, but small fat rolls under her natural waistline indicated she wore hip-huggers. She wore heavy mascara, but light shadow and a touch of gloss on her full lips.

  Harsha pulled her lips into a reasonable imitation of a smile. This soon after waking, genuine smiles took colossal effort, but she wanted to be nice to the woman Jason hoped to date. “Hi. I’m Harsha. You must be Jason’s caregiver.”

  “Well, actually…” The woman shrunk as she spoke, wary, it seemed, of Harsha’s reaction. “I’m his wife, now.”

  Harsha experienced a moment of complete blankness while her mind searched for a web of information onto which to stick this sudden revelation. When she found no relevant connections, she started searching for a pertinent question and came up with an utterance to reflect her innermost ponderings on the matter. “Huh?”

  Jason’s smile filled the room. Harsha doubted anyone without faerie DNA would notice it, but he glowed, literally. “We talked forever last night. When the sun came up, we drove out to the courthouse and got there before it opened. We were the first couple to be married today!”

  The room spun. Harsha reached out a hand to Jason. “I think I need to sit down for a moment.”

  He took her elbow and guided her to the couch. “Oh. Right. Guess we should’ve held off ’til you sat down anyway. Pretty exciting, huh?” He plopped down next to her. “Elaine and I will share my room and we can turn the spare room into a bedroom for Kel. We’ll start moving her stuff in tomorrow.” He prattled about living arrangements, mentioned looking for a job, and asked what she wanted for breakfast.

  Harsha smiled and nodded while a stabbing pain gathered strength behind her left eye. After Vegas, she’d wanted a nice, routine life, and she’d had it. Sort of. Until three months ago. Too much. It’s too much to process.

  Her poor brain shuddered and clunked, grinding against itself in a vain attempt to make progress on this new puzzle of Jason being married. When the pain became unbearable, she excused herself to her bedroom, claiming she felt worn out from her travels. Alone in her room, she buried herself in her covers, curling herself up under them to shut out the world.

  Weddings and in-laws and kids. Oh my.

  When she decided to give Jason the cure, she never guessed it would result in extra family members. At least, not so soon. With this new development, she questioned the need to tell Jason she was still sick. Until she started bruising on impact, he need not find out. She hoped for time to let him settle into his new life with his wife and stepson before that happened.

  Her headache worsened, its origins not limited to the surprise of the morning. She rejoiced for Jason, but mourned her own loss. She welcomed this addition to their family, but questioned the wisdom of marriage after so little deliberation. She delighted in being home in her own soft, comfy bed, but she already missed Seraph and Zeeb and wondered if she ought to move out to give the new couple space to grow together.

  She covered her head with a pillow and tried to fall asleep. With effort, she managed to drift into a half-sleep that dulled the pain but let her imagination wander. It strolled along the gallery of her worries, glancing at each like a disinterested visitor perusing sculptures, none of which suited its taste or excited its interest, and stopping from time to time to analyze the value of a piece, but making no pertinent comments.

  The headache abated after several hours, which gave Harsha the brainpower to be embarrassed for the first impression she’d made on her new sister-in-law and nephew. Outside her bedroom window, the boy frolicked with Jason in the pool, but Harsha didn’t see…

  Oh, no. I forgot her name already.

  Feeling imbecilic, Harsha pulled on her bathing suit, covered her bruises as well as she could with waterproof makeup, braided her hair, headed out to the pool, and hoped Jason would say his wife’s name a few times to spare her the embarrassment of asking. Her sister-in-law sat in one of the lounge chairs tapping her phone. She lifted her eyes for a split second and spread her lips in a flat smile to acknowledge Harsha. Harsha smiled back, but doubted the other woman caught the gesture.

  Jason waved her over. “You’re up! We can play chicken fight. You can be my partner and Elaine can be Kel’s. Come on, Elaine.”

  Elaine and Kel. Their names are Elaine and Kel. Harsha repeated the names to herself while she climbed the short ladder to the diving board and swan-dived into the pool.

  Elaine smiled, but kept her eyes on her phone. “Let me finish this level.”

  Harsha watched Elaine play and wondered where the woman placed her values. Her new husband had invited her to play a family game guaranteed to generate laughter in a cool pool on a hot day, but she chose to sit and stare at her phone. Harsha bobbed her head under and scrubbed the water off her face when she came back up. She needed to be positive about this.

  Look for strengths, not faults.

  Jason seemed not to mind Elaine’s choice, after all. “Okay,” he said, his smile unwavering. “Hey, Harsha.” He tossed a sopping sponge ball at her face. “You’re the monkey.”

  Before she’d wiped the water out of her eyes, he snatched the ball back, dove, and popped back up behind her. He threw the ball to Kel, who whooped and caught it. Harsha smiled at the boy and pretended to lunge for the ball. He tossed it back to Jason. Amidst much laughter and splashing, the game went on for a good half hour, with Harsha spending most of the time in the middle, occasionally relieved by Jason.

  Elaine jumped in later and the game of chicken fight got underway. Once again, Harsha and Jason took the majority of losses although their combined height outmatched Kel and Elaine. Kel’s eyes sparkled all the while. Long after Harsha began to feel tired, she kept playing. The sparks of life Kel threw off stirred a longing she’d presumed dead and buried. Motherhood lay beyond her ambitions, but being an aunt looked like a promising substitution.

  “Oof.” Elaine hoisted Kel off herself and dumped him in the water. “That’s enough for today.” Kel bobbed up and she kissed him the forehead. “I need to make dinner.”

  Jason stiffened. “Erp… No. Not on our wedding day. Um, how about we all go out for dinner?”

  Harsha let herself fall off her brother. She popped out of the water to see him looking at her with his brows raised and crinkled in a help me expression. She guessed Elaine’s cooking skills left something to be desired.

  “I’ll cook. Or you two can go out and Kel and I can order pizza.”

  “Pizza!” Kel jumped. Harsha marveled at his energy. After their aquatic horseplay, she felt ready to collapse.

  Elaine wrinkled her nose. “Pizza? I don’t know. It has a lot of grease.”

  “Yeah, but it’s cheese grease, so it has a lot of calcium, too, right?” Jason pecked his new wife on the cheek. “Can’t be too awful for him.”

  “Well…”

  “Please?” Kel looked up at his mother with a puppy face expression so much like Jason’s, Harsha wondered if her brother had given him lessons.

  Elaine stared down at her son with her lips pressed in a flat line and one eyebrow quirked. Jason added his puppy face to the onslaught. Elaine looked unimpressed.

  Harsha, on the other hand, wanted to jump up and rush to make the order. The need to see the adorably tragic expressions turn to elation inspired her to add her own encouraging smile to the assault.

  Elaine rolled her eyes. “Fine, but no pepperoni.”

  “Yay!” Kel bounced to the edge of the pool, climbed out, and ran into the house. He snagged a towel on his way past the open storage bin.

  A crash sounded from inside the house. All three adults cr
inged, Elaine most. She lifted a shoulder in front of her face and slid a wary glance at Harsha. “Sorry.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.” Harsha waved away the apology. “We don’t own much we can’t replace. Do we, Jason?”

  “Nothing, really. Except for ”

  Kel walked out of the house, head hung, holding a smashed clock.

  Jason winced. “That.”

  Harsha sucked in a breath. The antique had been a rare splurge and was the only antique she owned. One of George Clarke’s designs, she’d paid an arm and a leg for it at an auction in Vegas.

  Elaine groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’ll replace it. Kel can earn the money doing chores. How much was it worth?”

  No amount of taking out the garbage or scrubbing the toilet could replace or cover the cost of the clock, but Harsha preferred not to tell Elaine. Jason’s expression pleaded with her not to make a big deal of the mishap.

  Harsha gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Jason let out a breath and smiled at her.

  “No. He needs to learn.” Elaine levelled Kel with a glare, under which the boy shrunk. “If we damage something, we pay for it.”

  Harsha glanced between them, feeling awkward. She wanted to speak on the boy’s behalf, but barely knew these people, yet. I’m not even sure this is my house anymore. “Umm…”

  “How about no pizza tonight, no computer for a week, and he helps me clean the rain gutters tomorrow?” Jason offered.

  Elaine relaxed. “Yes, but it cost a lot, didn’t it?”

  “No,” Harsha hurried to say, relieved to have a solution and, with it, an end to the awkwardness. “That’ll be plenty.” She bobbed to the stairs and climbed out of the pool. “You relax. I’ll go make dinner.”

  After changing into dry clothes and between stirring this dish and checking the temperature of that, Harsha gathered her pretties from around the house and took them to her room. She assumed Elaine wanted a say in the decor of her new home and Harsha felt it wise to start moving her knickknacks out of her way. Besides, it seemed safer to keep breakable items behind a closed door.

  Kel followed her around the house, regaling her with all the theories supporting the imminence of the zombie apocalypse and citing movies, books, and websites to defend his favorite ones. Harsha listened and asked what seemed to be pertinent questions, hoping to ingratiate herself as a proper aunt, until a lurid description of the benefits zombies experienced when feasting on their preferred sustenance, brains, inspired her to change the subject.