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The Princess and the Huntsman, a story of the Aunt Family for the March Giraffe Call

Mar18

For [personal profile] jjhunter‘s Prompt.

A continuation of “Tell me a Story,” (LJ) and “Princesses, Knights, and the Huntsman” (LJ)

The Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ.

Rosaria was not surprised to see Cady coming around more and more often. When Lily’s mother dropped off her handful of children to “visit Grandma,” there were often a few neighborhood kids in the van as well.

This particular day, it was Cady, Lily, her two brothers, and another friend, a shy boy with old shoes that she hadn’t met before, and yet felt she already knew.

“Gather round, children,” she said, as she did when the group was right, “it’s time for a story.” She had been asking around the neighborhood, trying to discover what Cady’s demon was. She had some clues, but nothing definite yet. Perhaps a story would tell her more.

“Once upon a time,” she began, reaching for the story as Lily whispered an explanation to her brother’s shy friend. Once upon a time, indeed. The threads were recalcitrant today, not wanting to give her a story. Rosaria coughed. “Some water for Grandma, dears?”

Chamus hurried to get her a glass of water, and Rosaria relaxed, letting the story take her where it would.

Not Cady, and not the new boy, no, today it would be Lily. Rosaria drank deeply from the plastic cup her grandson offered, and let the story take control.

“Once upon a time, there was a…”

“A knight?” they asked eagerly. “A Queen? A dragon?”

“A princess.” She smiled a bit as she said it. “There was a young princess, youngest of many princesses but no less beautiful. And this princess had come to fall in love with the huntsman’s son.”

She saw it hit home, and wondered if this tale was supposed to be cautionary. She liked those the least.

“She had fallen for the son of the huntsman, who himself would be hunstman in his turn, a skinny lad who hadn’t yet come into his full growth….”

“Is there a quest?” Cady asked eagerly.

“Hrrm, it seems there is. But we will get there when we get there, dear. The Princess’ parents didn’t disapprove of the match, because they didn’t, yet, know about the Princess’ infatuation. Thinking the Princess was too young, they were blind to the consequences.”

Interesting. Lily was squirming.

“But the young noblewoman herself was not so blind, and neither was the boy she loved, not the Hunstman, his father. They would have, she knew, many hurdles to cross before they could be anything more than distant friends. ” Oh, dear. I thought we had a few more years…

“And so, it seems, the Princess and the Huntsman agreed on a quest.” Rosaria smiled benignly, hiding the worry she felt. “To prove themselves worthy for each other, and for the world.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/301558.html. You can comment here or there.

Legacy Cat, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-Call

Mar5

For Friendly Anon’s continuation prompt, after That Damn Cat (LJ), Bless the Cat (LJ), and Passing the Cat (LJ)

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Elenora and The Cat regarded each other on what had been, until yesterday, Zenobia’s kitchen table.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully. “I have a cat.” And a house, and a legacy, and a title, and perhaps a decade or two in which to enjoy it. Zenobia had hung on for a ridiculously long time, out of, as she’d admitted, spite and, Elenora suspected, just a general cussedness of character.

But now Elenora was Aunt. She’d made certain the funeral was everything it should be, even if there were those who wanted to slide Zenobia into the dirt as fast and as deeply as possible; she’d made the arrangements herself, and paid the florist to make it look as if her family was mourning her in proper fashion.

And then she’d come to Zenobia’s house and, among all the things that had made it Zenobia’s and not hers, the detritus of a life, she looked at That Cat.

“Well,” the cat purred back at her. “I have a human. An Aunt. A witch, they say. Do I look like a witch’s familiar?”

“Not like that,” she laughed, risking her fingers by petting it behind the ears. “Like that, you look like a barn cat.”

“I have been, on occasion, a very good barn cat.” He leaned into her hand, his purring getting louder. “Much like you will be a very good Aunt.”

She smirked at him. “Fit the role you’re given, is that it?”

“What else has your family ever done, but slide into the roles that are open?” He nipped her fingers, delicately, not breaking skin. “There are things you should learn about the family.”

“Zenobia…”

“Zenobia told you a fraction of what she knew, which was a fraction of what there is to know. It will get lost, if someone doesn’t know it. I can tell you where to look. I can tell you who to ask.”

“Why would you do that?” She busied her fingers with some of the knicknacks her Aunt had kept sitting on the table, disassembling a puzzle-charm.

The cat rolled onto his back, showing his white underbelly temptingly. “I just told you. Somebody needs to know, or the information is going to get lost. Your other aunts have almost all passed on. The diaries fade with age. If you do not know, to tell the one who comes after, then it will be lost forever – and that could be rather bad.”

“And you know, and won’t tell me yourself?”

“Won’t, can’t, don’t, shan’t,” the cat shrugged, and batted at the puzzle pieces. “There are things you have to learn for yourself. I can only point the way.”

She shook her head, and began reassembling the puzzle. It had two ways, it seems, that it could go together; Zenobia had picked the one that resembled a dragon.

If she twisted the pattern pieces correctly, however, it looked more like a unicorn. “So you’ll point the way…”

“And you’ll do what you want once you get there. Yes.” He dropped his jaw in a toothy grin. “This is what I do.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/292478.html. You can comment here or there.

In the Cards

Mar4

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commissioned Prompt.

Evangaline modern-era. After Unexpected Guest and Followed Me Home (LJ)

Eva tried not to have any expectations or hopes about Robby being there the next morning.

She did, however, do a little research, sending out e-mails to cousins, nieces, and nephews of about the right age, until she got back an answer: Robert Thompson, lived about two miles down the street. He was a senior at Chalcedony’s school, not a great student but not a bad student, rode the bus with the family kids. He was, Chalce said, a stoner, a burnout.

He was, Stone said, a kid with a problem.

He was, Beryl said, “Interesting :x”

Eva took in those answers, and the answers from several other relatives, and slept on them, confident that a teenaged kid was not going to stab her in her sleep and was, in this case, pretty unlikely to steal anything important.

She didn’t discount the idea that he might actually be a demon, but if that were the case, the secondary wards would kick in if he tried to enter her house and either he, the wards, or the house would light on fire.

(Which could, of course, be why he didn’t want to come in her house, or it could be a new rumour about The Witch’s House that hadn’t gotten to her yet. Or just some parental rule or law she was also ignorant of).

She slept on it, thinking about what Fallon had written about Mr. Thompson.

In the morning, the whisps of dreams still teasing at the edges of her consciousness, she drew one card from the special Tarot, and studied it, wondering at the draw she felt.

Five five-pointed stars, etched over a stone, stared back at her. Rain fell on the stone, which looked disturbingly like a grave-marker. The sky was grey and bleak.

“Wonderful,” she told the card. “I knew that already.”

The deck slipped out of her hand, another card crossing the five of pentacles: A regal woman, her crown a slim diadem. She looked, Eva thought, much like old photos of the Aunts.

“More interesting. Thank you.” She pricked her finger, feeding the deck a drop of blood, and headed down the stairs.

Before she looked, she started breakfast. It gave her some time to clear her brain, to think about the mundanities of the situation. There might be a teenaged runaway in her Florida room. If there was, his mother had died a year ago. And his father was not known as the most pleasant man in the world.

With each thought, she added ingredients to the pancake batter. Pinch of soda, dash of seltzer water. Vanilla. Extra sugar, just a tad.

Beryl thought he was interesting-with-a-emoticon. But Chalce just thought he was a stoner. He had come to her barn, but he wouldn’t come into her house. Buttermilk, walnuts, eggs, flour. He knew she was a witch. But that was common gossip – and he thought of witches like Hallowe’en, still. Tiny pinch of salt.

And the Cards had given her an extra message. That bore thought. She poured the pancakes on the griddle, and wondered if he was even still out there.

Next: Big Bad Witch (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/291919.html. You can comment here or there.

Passing the Cat, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-Giraffe Call

Feb26

For rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt, after That Damn Cat (LJ) and Bless the Cat (LJ).

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Zenobia had held on to a hundred and ten, not because she really was enjoying life anymore, not even with every charm she could come up with, but simply to irritate her family.

This also meant that her niece was not young and, possibly, Zenobia considered, rather irritated as well, which hadn’t really been her point. Of the seventeen potentials, Elenora had always been her favorite niece for the position, and she’d made an effort, as much as she did with anyone, at least, to be friendly with the girl.

Girl. She chuckled into her tea. The girl in question was now in her mid-seventies, hale and hearty but prone to be a bit crotchety. And Zenobia was at the end of her ability or desire to hold on any longer, so she was having a long talk with her niece.

“This,” she said, about two hours and four cups of tea in, “is The Cat.” The Damn Cat allowed himself to be picked up in a way he never would have tolerated in her younger days. “You will find that he neither likes to tell you about himself nor to be talked about.”

“Yes, Aunt Zennie.” Elenora had taken on the family’s annoying habit of talking to her as if she was a little gone in the brain. Zenobia whacked the woman over the knuckles with her tarot deck as if she was a wayward child.

“If you’re going to be the next Aunt – and you are – you might as well know what you’re doing,” she scolded. “Pay attention and stop acting as if I’ve gone batty.”

“And what if you have?” she snapped back. “Talking to your cat? What’s next, talking to your tea? Having conversations with the lawn furniture?”

“Your Aunt Fabiana talked to her settee quite frequently in her mid-thirties. It told her all sorts of things her husband was up to behind her back. My point is, young lady, you might be a little more willing to believe things when you’re a member of this family and have been for seventy-three years.”

Elenora glared back at her. “I’m perfectly willing to believe normal things like demons and ghosts, the tarot and charms, but Aunt Zenobia, you’re talking about talking to your cat!”

“Yes I am,” she hissed, “and you would do well to listen.”

“You would,” The Damn Cat finally deigned to say. “I have helped your Aunts more than you can imagine.”

“My… Aunts. Plural.” Elenora studied The Cat thoughtfully. “You are, then, not an ordinary cat.”

“I should say not.” He groomed himself pointedly. “Not in any way. But I am still, miss, a cat. I like cream, and chicken. And the occasional slice of beef.”

“He is a very pampered cat,” Zenobia admitted, “but he has more than earned his keep and, Elenora, I think he will do the same for you.” She looked her niece in the eye. “There are many things I will leave you, because you will be the Aunt. The Cat, I am leaving to you because you are my heir.”

Next: Legacy Cat (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/284206.html. You can comment here or there.

Followed me Home

Feb21

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt

Evangaline modern-era. After Unexpected Guest

The boy jerked and scooted backwards into his pile of blankets when she said “inside.” “I didn’t do anything wrong!” he insisted, skittering backwards away from her.

Startled, Eva crouched down, making herself smaller while still blocking the exit. “I didn’t say you did. But it’s going to get really cold tonight, and the barn isn’t heated.”

He shifted a little further backwards. “You don’t look like a witch,” he answered, not sounding all that certain about it.

“What do witches look like?” she countered gently. She wasn’t surprised at the rumors – the house itself did half the work, with its hallowe’en aspect, the widow’s walk, the cupola, and the tower, the big wraparound porch and the dark red roses.

“Pointy hats?” he joked weakly. “I don’t know, long noses and warts or something?”

“Well,” she tapped her nose, “I don’t have all that big of a schnoz, and I promise you I have no warts at all. My name is Evangeline, but you can call me Eva.”

“Hi,” he muttered. “I’m, um, I’m Robert, but you can call me Robby.”

“Well, welcome to my barn, Robby.” Tone with teenagers was tricky; she could get away with fudging it a bit with her cousins and niece-and-nephews, but with strangers, botch it once and you were a clueless adult forever.

“Thanks.” He smirked back at her, like they were sharing a joke. “I can, uh, leave, if you don’t want me here.”

“I don’t want you freezing to death, in my barn or somewhere else.” She frowned at him, as he started to get jittery again. “Look, if you don’t want to come into the house, how about just the Florida room? It’s warmer than the barn, and I’ve got some soup on the stove if you’re hungry.”

He licked his lips uncertainly. “I’ve eaten?” he offered. “But… the Florida room thing isn’t part of the house?”

“It’s a porch that’s been enclosed,” she assured him. Later, maybe, she could find out what superstition was going around about the house. “There’s an old divan out there and some blankets, and I can haul the space heater out there.”

He eyed her cautiously. “You’re not asking why I’m hiding in your barn.”

“Nope. And I won’t, either.” There were advantages to being the neighborhood witch; whoever he was hiding from would think twice about coming after her. “I figure you’ll tell me if you want to.”

She stood up. “If you want to come inside, come on in now. I’m going to lock up in a few minutes, and then you’ll be stuck with the raccoons for company.”

He still seemed torn, but a convenient wind rattled the barn just then, and he nodded. “The porch,” he insisted, “right? Not in your house.”

“The porch,” she agreed. “This way.”

The Florida room had, at one point, been a back porch, but a prior Aunt or Aunts had glassed it in and had the floor insulated and redone; it was, as she’d said, chilly, but far better than the barn. She left him with the space heater, a pile of blankets, and a charmed night light.

“If you’re still here in the morning,” she warned him, “I’m going to offer you breakfast. Good night, Robby.”

He looked as if he wasn’t sure if that was a threat, but, gulping, nodded. “Thanks, Eva. Good night.”

She headed into her house, wondering if she’d get a chance to learn his story.

Next: In the Cards (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/279387.html. You can comment here or there.

Bless the Cat, a continuation of the Aunt Family for the Mini-call

Feb21

For rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt, after That Damn Cat (LJ).

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

“You should hear what they’re saying today,” the Damn Cat told Zenobia, as she set out his evening chicken.

“Indeed?” The cat, she’d discovered, loved to gossip, was completely incorrigible and occasionally very interesting. “More to do with Maude’s beau-they-don’t-approve of?” Zenobia had had a couple of those herself, back in the day. One of them still wrote her monthly; she wondered, sometimes, what his wife thought about that.

“Well, he’s quite the story, isn’t he? Every time someone talks about him, another salacious detail comes out. Tasty.” The cat licked his chops. “But no, that’s not what you ought to be worried about right now.”

That stopped her in her tracks. “Worried?” She put another piece of meat on the cat’s saucer. “That’s not a word you normally use. Tell me, what should I be worried about?”

“Gottleib and Edith plotting to kill you and put in Ida in your stead.”

“Ida?” The idea was beyond horrifying; it was stupidly offensive. “The pretty little flutterbrain wouldn’t know a charm if it bit her up her skirt, where, I might add, any number of things have already bitten her.”

“That’s the idea.” The cat pointedly groomed itself. “She’s sweet, passive, and biddable, things that they believe – rightly, of course – that you are not.”

“She’s likely to end up pregnant any moment now, too; she’s indiscreet enough.” Zenobia was still steaming over her uncle and cousin’s choice of replacement; she realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that the rest of the cat’s news would have to sink in soon enough.

“Well, then. It shouldn’t be all that hard to eliminate her as a rival, should it?” The Damn Cat looked downright smug. “I’ve always thought your family’s insistence on spinster Aunts was foolish, but since it is unlikely to change any time soon…”

Zenobia sat down inelegantly, the kitchen stool wobbling under her. “They really mean to do away with me?”

“They seem to.” He filled his mouth with meat and kept talking. “You’re too powerful for their tastes, too intractable.”

“I’m the Aunt,” she snapped. “I’m supposed to be the power of the family and the guidestone. I’m not supposed to be passive and biddable. If the family wanted passive and biddable, they would have given the power to an Uncle!“

The cat nodded. “So what are you going to do about it? You don’t strike me as the sort to deal with such things passively.”

“Of course I’m not. But if I confront Gottleib and Edith directly, I reveal that I know what they’re up to. I might need that again.”

“Especially if you’re going to continue to make waves. You might need my surveillance again.”

“Indeed. Good kitty,” she added idly, reaching down to scratch him behind the ears. Over his loud purring, she mused, “getting her pregnant seems the thing to do. I’m going to have to pay a visit to Cousin Lewis.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/278563.html. You can comment here or there.

“…and Thou,” a story of the Aunt Family for the Giraffe Call.

Feb18

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt.

The Aunt Family has a landing page here.

“Where, exactly, is it that you are taking me?” Ruan was trying not to be short with Johias. He had really been being a dear lately, helping her weed out a cousin’s estate, working with her on the automatic tarot machine, and helping her with that blasted demon that had been stuck in one of Tansy’s messier pigeonholes (her late Aunt had, if nothing else, developed some impressive pigeonhole technology. They would be studying the science behind that for the rest of their lives, and, likely, their heirs would be doing so, too).

“Somewhere.” Johias was, despite his recent darling behavior, making it very hard to not snap at him. Very, very difficult. “You’ll enjoy it when we get there.”

“Sir, you are acting in a fashion I do not find in the least appealing. Bundling me into your automobile without as much as a hellow-how-are-you, and then refusing to tell me what we are doing, and, I will note, you appear to have finally tuned your aetheric dampers properly and I am very displeased with you right now!”

And now she’d done it. He was going to snap back at her and they’d have a fight, and there’d been a few of those, with the pigeonhole project, and they were awful, especially with both their families hanging on every sign of discontent.

Ruan tensed, but Johias, instead of yelling back at her, laughed. “Ah, Ruan,” he chuckled, “I deserved that. But if you will bear with me just one more minute, I promise it will all be clear.”

“One more minute,” she allowed, attempting not to sulk at him. Sulking was, in the very least, unattractive, undignified, and not at all ladylike.

“And there. Than you, my darling woman.” He stopped the car and got out, offering her a hand out. His other hand, she noted, was carrying a basket. She bit her lip, refusing to ask any more questions.

“It is such a lovely day,” he explained, leading her in the dimming sunlight to the top of the hill, “and we’ve been cooped up inside all spring and into the summer. So, what is it the poet said…? ‘A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou?'” He pulled a blanket from the basket, and lay it out over the grass. “Would you sit with me, Ruan, and watch the sun sink low over the reservist?”

“Oh, Johias,” she began, even as, a twinkle in his eye, he added, “I hear there’s a phenomenon that only occurs at sunset here. I think we’ve enough time to study it over our wine.”

“Oh, Johias!” she repeated, as they both, laughing, sank down onto the blanket to watch the water.

The line is from “From Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Persian Poet‘s verses.

I originally learned it out of context, and use it here, again, out of context.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/274751.html. You can comment here or there.

That Damn Cat, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-call

Feb15

For rix_scaedu‘s commissioned prompt.

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ


Zenobia didn’t give the cat a name, but she did leave a bowl of cream out for him every morning, and a bit of her dinner meat every evening.

Her Aunt Beulah had left her the cat, along with the property and the title, when she vanished into the mist one late-November evening. He was, at that point, already an elderly cat, if family memory held, but, in this case, family memory, generally a very reliable thing, seemed to falter.

That was to say, that while family memory seemed to agree that the cat had been around for quite a while, it seemed to falter horribly, no matter which particular family member one was talking to, if pressed on the details. When had Beulah gotten the cat? Well, she’d gotten it from her Aunt Mary.

That cats did not live that long did not seem to faze anyone.

What was more, in looking at Beulah’s writings, she had, indeed, inherited a cat – several, as a matter of fact, none of them a Siamese tom. And while she had bemoaned the cats all over the place for the first several months, she had then started talking about Aristarchus, as she called her cat, as if she had had him all along.

Digging into Mary’s writings was trickier, the handwriting crabbed, the language a bit archaic and speckled with German and French for no apparent reason, but she, too, seemed to have had cats, too many cats, so many that Beulah’s notes on taking over the house and the title involved weeks of cleaning up after cats. Mary didn’t mention any specific cat by name, but there were occasionally mentions of That Damn Cat, which could, given the cat’s personality, be considered a name.

What Zenobia could determine from family journals, family gossip, and confused mutters was that Mary had been one of the batty aunts, one of the ones that was considered dangerous. Since Zenobia herself was considered dangerous, she took that with a grain of salt.

When she found That Damn Cat urinating on Mary’s journal, however, she took it as a suggestion perhaps she should stop researching his past. She gave him his cream and his dinner, and he kept the mice down and, from time to time, he gave her advice on her more complicated goings-on.

And, she soon discovered, he liked to spy, not only on her, which was irritating, but on the entire family, which was very illuminating. It seemed he had a way to get into just about anywhere, and, as a cat, he could observe on just about anything without cause for comment. Soon he was bringing Zenobia reports on the rest of her family.

Much of it was benign things, gossip and backstabbing and affairs, petty stuff that any family had. Some of it was strange but not deadly, tricks being performed on the sly, a card reading, an enchantment, stuff that was supposed to be the purview of the Aunt of the year.

And one of the tales the cat brought her saved her life.

Next: Bless the Cat (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/268903.html. You can comment here or there.

Midnight, Summer Solstice, a story of the Aunt Family for the Giraffe Call

Feb13

For moon_fox‘s prompt

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

The bonfire had died down to embers by midnight. The children were asleep, the husbands and brothers drinking beer and playing poker, and the sisters-in-law settled off watching the children.

Most of the older aunts and grandmothers had drifted off, too; this wasn’t really a time for them. This was a time for the middle generation; this was the hour to let their hair down.

Evangaline took the lead, with a literal pull-pull of her hairsticks, letting her bun release and fall down her back. “Well,” she smiled. “and the world keeps turning.” She lifted her beer with a smile.

“It does,” her cousin Suzanne agreed, as she finger-combed out her braid. “Blessings on it.”

“You know,” Beryl commented, imitating Suzanne, “the neighbors think we’re witches.”

“Let them,” Hadelai snorted. “They have as long as they’ve known we exist.”

“The air of mystery is good for us,” Fallon agreed, smiling. Her hair was cropped short and practical, so she shed her cardigan instead. It was summer solstice; she hardly needed it, even after dark. “And they do like our yard sales more.”

“Well, that has something to do with the occasional lucky trinket Aunt Asta used to ‘accidentally’ seed in, too,” Hadelai laughed.

“Or the ones Aunt Ruan would put in?” Suzanne chuckled. “Oh, I grabbed one of those one year – mom smacked my knuckles so hard, I couldn’t hold a pen for a week!”

Eva grinned, and then, catching movement out of the corner of her eye, looked up. “Janelle,” she called, because if she didn’t, one of the others would send the poor girl away again. “Kids asleep?”

“Like logs,” her sister-in-law agreed. “The men, too, and Mom Ardelia. Everyone but you guys.”

“Welcome to solstice,” Fallon laughed dryly. “No-one else can be bothered to watch the world flip over. Come on, pull up a rock and watch the fire with us.”

Eva hid her smile in her beer. She could always trust her sister to follow her lead.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/267035.html. You can comment here or there.

Unexpected Guest

Feb12

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt

Evangaline modern-era.

Evangaline had spent a nice afternoon talking with Janelle and spoiling Anna Marie with love, explaining some of the more-explainable strangenesses of the family to her sister-in-law and reassuring her that no, the aunties and cousins didn’t hate her and yes, Aunt Beatrix really had known what she was doing when she gave her that silk negligee, and, yes, lavender silk would look lovely on her and Owen would love it, and, just for good measure, repeating her willingness to babysit.

Some days she thought that the family had Aunts to provide a nanny for the endless children produced by all the other siblings.

She finished cleaning up after tea-and-baby, and sat down with her knitting for her self-allowed hour of evening TV before she got back to cataloging and figuring out the mess the last three Aunts had left of the house (just yesterday, she’d found an entire box of haunted mousetraps, each one carrying around a tiny mouse shade).

She was only twenty minutes into NCIS when the first of the wards around the property told her she had a visitor. Sighing – she’d asked the family, time and again, to call first, to come up the front way, but they did what they’d do – she paused the TV, set down her knitting, and listened for the second set of wards.

When the presence went for her barn and not for the house, she began to get suspicious. She picked up the baseball bat Owen had given her when she first moved out, and the glass globe that had been Fallon’s gift, focused on the pitch of the wards – they had to be not-too-sensitive, or they’d go off every time a raccoon wandered through – and headed carefully for her barn.

Unlike older Aunts, she had no need of a horse, no need of a milk cow, no need of chickens, so she’d done basic clean-up to make sure nothing would fall over, and left the barn for the next year. Thus, piles of old horse blankets and unknown family detritus still filled most of the stalls.

And, uncomfortably huddled in one of those stalls, a teenage boy looked up at her, nervous, uncertain, and trying to make himself even smaller.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” he muttered.

“No,” she agreed. At the moment, at least, he wasn’t. “But I think you should come inside.”

Next: Followed me Home (LJ)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/266269.html. You can comment here or there.