by J. Naomi Ay
I considered how much I liked Derius, as I walked those four blocks. Sure, there were things I didn't like, such as the brown recycled napkins, and all the sand that seemed to get in my bed and make the sheets scratchy. Overall, this was a pleasant place to be and coming here was undoubtedly a good choice.
Janet was in bed when I came in, so I brushed my teeth and flossed before joining her there.
"Where's Thad?" she asked, looking up from her book, her glasses perched on the end of her nose.
"Still at the bar."
I figured he'd go home with one of the girls. He'd be hung over in the morning and come to me for a tincture. Then he'd fly off, and we wouldn't have to see him for another few years.
"He's an ass," Janet remarked.
"He chooses to be." I went to sleep.
Sometime during the night, I heard the engine on a speeder roar as it lifted off and flew away. It briefly occurred to me that Thad was too drunk to drive, but I was only marginally awake and not thinking straight. Thad was an adult anyway. He wasn't my problem. He could do what he wanted. It was his choice.
Sometime in the night, I didn't know how much later, my cell rang and woke me during a delta sleep stage. I fumbled for my glasses and reached out to grab the phone.
"Moonbeam?" It was Lew. "We need you east of town. I'll send the coordinates to your cell. It's an emergency, Doc, although it's probably too late for most."
"What happened?"
"Who is it?" Janet grumbled.
"Your friend, the fancy Duke. I told you, he'd be too drunk to drive. You should have kept tabs on him, Moonbeam."
"Why Lew? What did do?"
"Your buddy flew right into the side of a bus."
Chapter 8
Shelly
My appointment was in ten minutes, and Gina hadn't arrived yet. It was just a silly hair appointment. I could cancel it. I could postpone it until next week although my roots were getting very dark and I had this nasty patch of gray right at my temples that always seemed to resist the dye. Besides that, the stylist I really liked was going on vacation next week. If I didn't go in today, I wouldn't be able to see her for three more weeks and by then my hair would be a total disaster.
I went into the family room and looked at Tim who was still sleeping in his favorite chair. The vid was on, some afternoon talk show. Dr. Byl or somebody was chatting with a blue woman with three husbands. She was complaining about how they just sat around on rocks all day and watched sports. Dr. Byl asked her if that upset her.
"Hell yes!" I told him while she dithered about making up excuses why they should be allowed to be lazy. The issue was having to make dinner for so many every night especially after she spent all day working as a trash collector. "I'd bop each one of them on the head with a frying pan before I cooked anything in it."
"What? What was that, Shelly?" Tim snorted awake.
"Nothing, sweetheart." I kissed the top of his fuzzy head. "Do you think you'll be alright for a few minutes while I run out and get my hair done? Gina should be here momentarily."
"Gina," he scoffed. "I don't need a babysitter."
"She's not coming to babysit at all, Tim."
"No? Then why is she coming? There's nothing here for her to do."
"She wants a quiet place to catch up on her reading, and she always likes to sit outside by our pool."
"She should sit outside by her own pool," Tim grumbled and made to get out of his chair. He shuffled off to the restroom.
"Do you need any help?" I called.
"No!" He slammed the door.
I looked at my watch. Now, I had only five minutes to get to the mall. I pulled out my cell to call my hairdresser and tell her, I would be late. I'd give her an extra large tip for waiting.
"Bye Tim," I yelled down the hall as I headed for the garage. Gina's speeder was just landing in the outside drive, so I waved at her and climbed in my own.
I didn't worry at all while I was getting my hair done. That's one reason I did it so often. I liked having someone massage my scalp with shampoo and then mix in all sorts of delightful smelling conditioners.
This stylist could do wonders with my hair. It wasn't as thick and soft as it had been. Frankly, it had been getting a little thin and brittle in the last few years. Somehow she managed to coax it into doing miraculous things, which I never could replicate at home. She also was a wonderful listener and was very sympathetic when I broke down in tears. Tim said that was because I paid her well. I didn't believe him. I thought she was really a caring friend.
When Thad was in town, he liked to go to her, too. She did a good job on his hair and told him, she didn't see any bald spot in back even though the rest of us did. She had a seal in her window and on her saloon door that said, "Official Stylist of the Duke de Kalika-hahr."
I told her, I was going to put a sign on my door that said, "Official Mother of the Duke de Kalika-hahr."
"Maybe you should put a sign on your door saying, ‘Unoffical Mother of the Emperor of Rehnor.’ That's what you were, weren't you, Shelly?"
"I was," I agreed, staring at the ceiling while she rinsed out my hair in the bowl. "A long time ago."
As I sat and looked at my old face in the mirror. as my stylist primped and plumped up what was left of my curls, I thought about that apple tree that Senya had given me years ago. It was still in the yard at Gwen's house. Like me, like of all us, it had grown old and gnarled, not quite as beautiful as it was in our youth. Yet, each year it provided an abundant crop of something that resembled a Red Delicious and each year I made fantastic pies, apple sauce and jelly.
Not far from the tree was the rose bush, the Genus Shoelace and still every summer it was covered in fragrant pink roses. Tim had taken cuttings from it when we moved here and now I had ten more versions of it throughout my new yard.
"Why are you crying, Shelly?" my stylist said as she put away the curling iron and shook off my cape. "Are you worried about Tim?"
I nodded and wiped my eyes and nose resolved to take him to Mishnah whether or not Thad agreed. I would buy tickets on a commercial flight, and I'd pack up Tim, and we'd go there tomorrow. Katie wouldn't turn us away. She'd make sure that Tim was cured.
I spent an extra twenty minutes in the mall before I headed home. I wanted to make sure that Tim had enough clean clothes for the trip, and I needed some new underwear myself. We couldn't show up at the Palace looking like beggars, like someone's poor relations that nobody wanted to see.
Stopping at the pharmacy, I picked up extra toothpaste and shampoo. As I climbed back into my speeder and flew home, it didn't occur to me how silly that was. After I arrived home, I wondered if it would have made a difference.
The house was empty. Gina's speeder was gone. The vid was on in the sitting room, but Tim's chair was empty.
"Tim?" I called softly, putting down my packages and walking toward his bedroom. He was probably taking a nap. I didn’t know why Gina left. She said she'd stay until I got home. Twenty extra minutes shouldn't have caused her any distress. "Tim?" I crept into his bedroom, but it too was empty. Now my heart started to race as panic set in. "Tim?" I screamed and ran through the house, my voice echoing off the empty walls, my footsteps sounding hollow against the wood floors.
In the front hallway, I searched the console table frantically for a note. Then, I ran to the kitchen, but I was stopped short. The room looked like a tornado had come in and tossed everything around. There were dents in the appliances, a huge chip in my granite countertop. The cabinet doors were all open, and the shelves were empty or littered with cracked and chipped plates. Someone had taken all of my good dishes, my glasses, and crystal stemware and threw them at the walls. The food had been removed from the refrigerator and thrown on the floor. There was a bottle of gin turned on its side still dribbling into a puddle while the chicken I was going to roast for tonight's dinner lay upside down in the middle of it.
"Vandals?" I gasped and then the realization hit. They kidnapped Tim a
nd Gina.
Now, my knees gave out. From the floor where I had collapsed, I struggled to reach my purse. I took out my cell and tried to call Thad, but of course I just got his voicemail. I dialed Jimmy, who answered right away, but I was breathing so hard, I could barely speak.
"Slow down, Grandma," he said. "Just tell me slowly. Is Grandpa okay?"
"Gone," I gasped and tried to say more but it came out muddled. I wondered if I was having a stroke.
"Just hang on, Grandma," Jimmy said. "I'll be right there. Don't move." He hung up, and I didn't move.
I sat there in the middle of my broken Lenox and waited for someone to arrive. The police came about the same time as Jimmy, who was followed by Gwen with her kids.
"I got a call from Gina," Gwen said hustling her kids outside to play. "It was about a half an hour ago. She was hysterical about Dad."
"You think she did all this?" Jimmy asked.
"There's no sign of forced entry," one of the police officers said. "Your security system indicates there was no one but your husband and daughter-in-law here."
"Gina? Is Tim with her?"
"I'll track down her speeder." Jimmy walked away, already talking to someone at SdK security. "Are you serious?" he yelled a moment later. "You're sure it's the right speeder?"
"What happened?" Gwen cried.
I just continued to sit on the floor while the cops searched the house.
Jimmy hung up his cell. "Gina crashed her speeder just outside Kalika-hahr,” he reported. “They're taking her to the hospital. She was way over intoxicated. Blood alcohol off the charts."
"Tim?"
"She was alone."
"He's outside then," I realized and scrambled to my feet. "We've got to find him. He's in the hills or walking around somewhere. We need to get to him before it gets dark."
"We'll find him, Ma'am," a cop said, and the two of them left the house to go search the back lot.
"I'll go too." Jimmy grabbed his coat and a flash light from the utility closet. "Gwen, you stay here with Grandma."
"No. I want to help."
"Me too." I went after my sweater.
"No!" Jimmy declared. "You two stay here in case he comes back. Somebody's got to watch those kids of yours, Gwen."
"Come on, Grandma," Gwen said and pulled me over to the kitchen table. She dusted off the shards of broken dishes and then while I sat, she went after a broom.
"Poor Gina," I sighed wrapping my sweater around me. "I hope she's not hurt too badly. I can't believe she got drunk and did this."
"She's had a drinking problem for a while. We've all known that."
"But what could have set her off this time? What did Thad do now?"
Gwen made a sniffing noise and dumped a load of dishes into the trash. Obviously, she knew.
"Gwen?" I demanded.
She turned to look at me. "Janet called her. Dad's cheating again."
Chapter 9
June
The man sitting next to me swung his leg nervously. It was crossed over his knee but gyrated back and forth, wobbling the bench seat we shared next to the gate. His hands twitched as he sat and sometimes he coughed into them. When he wasn't doing this, he was scratching the back of his neck.
I shifted my weight as far away as I could but the spaceport was crowded and our flight was delayed. There was a weather issue at the landing site on Cascadia. Some kind of dust storm was predicted to pass through the area right as we were scheduled to land.
"That's a lie," the man muttered under his breath. I was surprised because he spoke Xironian without an accent. His leg began moving quite fast then, and tiny beads of sweat dripped down from his forehead.
"Are you alright?" I asked him, also speaking Xironian.
He looked at me with alarm, his eyes wide and white.
"Who are you?" He jumped up from the seat. "Why have you followed me here?"
"I haven't." I waved my hands to show him, I knew nothing about which he was speaking. I didn't know who he was, or why he should be so alarmed.
I studied his appearance, searching for a memory of who he might be. He had craggy skin, a mid to dark complexion and thin gray hair that might have been blonde before. He didn't look like one of the Brothers of the Resistance, though I was not certain for I had only seen them in the dark.
"What are you doing here then?" Now, he paced back and forth in front of the windows, his hands flipping a cigarette that was not permitted to be lit here in the terminal. "Tell me who you are and what you are doing here."
I opened my mouth to tell him, but it occurred to me not to do so. He might be a master, or possibly the police. I could put myself in danger by speaking too much.
"It's none of your business." I raised my chin. "I'm in the Empire now. I am a free person."
Now, he studied me as closely as I had watched him and his eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Well, I am a free person too. No one has a hold on me any longer." He was pleased by this revelation and slowed a little his pacing and scratching to look at his watch. He muttered out loud again a complaint about the delayed departure.
"You do not believe we are late because of the weather? You think they are lying to us about this?" I reached in my bag for a sweet. It was a ginger candy made with honey and sesame that Dov had purchased in the Black City. I offered the man one and so he pocketed the unsmoked cigarette choosing to suck on the sweet instead.
"I've always liked these." He sat back down next to me, his cheek bulging where the candy lodged. "My mother used to buy them from a shop in our town. Thank you. You are kind to share."
"I am June." I smiled and offered my name.
"Verneyus." He held out his hand to shake. Hesitantly, I gave him my own as this was a new experience for me. Slaves never shook hands for ours were always dirty and not worthy of touching a master's skin. "Why don't you call me Vern." He held my hand tightly. "Yes, just call me Vern."
"Vern," I repeated and studied our joined hands. There was a scar on his and the middle finger was shortened by half a digit. His nails were clean and cut straight, unlike one who had been a slave or lived in the forest. I pulled my hand away as a voice rang out announcing our flight was further delayed.
Vern shook his head frantically. "They're not telling us the truth." Then he left to go speak to the man at the gate. I heard him speaking sharply in the language of the Talasians, but I didn't understand these words no matter how loudly they were shouted.
Sucking on my ginger candy, I hummed songs that I knew, when a woman and a child approached and pointed at the Vern's seat. I glanced back over at him. He was still arguing about the flight, so I nodded my head and let the woman sit down. The child climbed on to her lap and wrapped his arms around her neck. She hugged him and rocked him, humming her own songs. I recognized her tunes although they weren't of my tribe, but rather sung in the Master's house by his children.
"Are you Xironian?" I asked, my heart quivering with fear.
She shook her head and replied in a language I did not know. Then, she turned her back to me and closed her eyes to sleep, the child laying his head against her breast.
Vern was still arguing, and now our flight was two hours delayed, so I grabbed my one bag and walked away to fetch a bite to eat. I had two coins left to spare, with which I could buy a small cake and a drink. Then, I sat down at a table and watched the people in the terminal hurry by.
"May I sit with you again?" It was Vern with a steaming cup of brown tea. I nodded and watched him take a seat then offered half my cake to share.
"So you're off to Cascadia?" he asked idly, his eyes anxiously watching the people that crossed behind me to the gates.
I told him a story I had invented of a false life on Xironia and a husband who beat me when drunken every night. Vern's attention was elsewhere, though he nodded in the right places and made the appropriate noises when I paused for breath.
"I am coming to start my life over again."
"I underst
and." He picked at the crumbs left from the cake, wetting his finger and putting them in his mouth.
"Are you still hungry?" I asked as I had some dried fruit in my bag.
"No. You are kind, June. I thank you for this. Shall we go reclaim our seats?" He stood up and held out his hand.
I glanced at the damaged finger, the scar on his hand. I decided to keep my hands to myself.
"Do you think we will be leaving soon?" I walked by his side. He was not tall, but he was strong like a tightly coiled spring. His green eyes were hooded as if hiding his thoughts.
"I hope so," he muttered, his eyes still darting this way and that. "I need to get out of here before they catch up with me."
"Who?"
"Those who do not wish for my mission to succeed. Those who want Xironia to stay as a slave planet." My heart skipped again, and my feet became leaden. I stopped in the middle of the terminal and could not move. "What's the matter?
"You are the General of the Resistance. You are the one who the Brothers sought to meet. You would lead them into battle to free our tribes."
"Are you from the Resistance?" he whispered, pulling me close against his chest. "Did the Brothers send you here to be my aide?"
"They're all dead now, including Dov, my husband." I described for him the bodies I had seen in the forest vale.
Vern's face grew very pale as he swallowed hard. "They killed them as they will try to kill me."
"We are in the Empire now," I reminded him. "We are free."
"We are free, but that doesn't mean that we are safe. The Empire lets us come and go as we please, but that means that the minions of Evil may do so, as well. Evil has a way of disguising as Good. If I could only get to Cascadia, the Duke of Korelesk will offer me his protection. He has promised to speak with me in the City of Nensk on the Emperor's behalf."
"We will get there," I assured him for I was reminded of the Angel who spoke to me. He would not have told me to escape just so I might die.
A short time later, they called our flight. Vern and I boarded together and sat in the last row. He placed my one bag of belongings overhead in the bin while I settled into the seat by the window and watched the spaceport float away.
