“Hi.” \u00a0There was a pause, and a breath taken as if she was going to say something more, but I gave it a brief conversational moment, and nothing happened.<\/p>\n
“Hi,” I responded, guardedly. \u00a0It always seemed safe to respond with the same wording the other person used.\u00a0 The mirroring communication techniques were part of some feminism class I’d taken, and while I think I’d forgotten all the history of it, I was at least still putting some of the lessons to use.<\/p>\n
She didn’t say anything. \u00a0I glanced at the phone in the off-chance that I’d lost connection, but no, the seconds were still ticking by on the phone’s counter. \u00a0I shrugged, glanced at Wrecks and said, “OK. \u00a0Tell me everything.” \u00a0It probably wasn’t a fair question. \u00a0I mean, how do you even begin, except with the zen hotdog joke?<\/p>\n
“Grandma,” she responded. \u00a0Not a bad answer, actually. \u00a0I was going to say something more, but she continued. \u00a0“Did you know that the Venn diagram between witches and computer programmers has a very wide overlap?”<\/p>\n
I grinned. \u00a0“I could have guessed. \u00a0`Ten, print, Hello world. \u00a0Twenty print, This is my book of shadows.'”<\/p>\n
“Really?” she asked, sounding exasperated. \u00a0“BASIC? \u00a0Why not go real old school and draw something out in LOGO?”<\/p>\n
“Um, that was the one with the turtle and the directions like a really slow Etch-a-Sketch, right?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah. \u00a0That’s a registered trademark owned by The Ohio Art Company. But you have the right idea.”<\/p>\n
“I guess I could remember enough to draw a pentacle, but only if it did diagonals, and that’s where it would end. \u00a0Yeah, it did diagonals.\u00a0 You could go forward then right 45 degrees then forward again. \u00a0So pentacles, totally.”<\/p>\n
“You never studied.”<\/p>\n
“Is that a ‘Ghostbusters’ reference or are you touting your advanced degree again?”<\/p>\n
“Can’t it be both? \u00a0Oh wait, you studied how to get drunk, laid, and then sober enough to tell your teacher where to shove her opinions on Ray Bradbury before you walked out. \u00a0Did that take a lot of book learning?”<\/p>\n
“Hey, what can I say, girls liked a man who could stand up to a tyrant, especially a tyrant who downgraded them when they wore pants on test days. \u00a0I was real popular for a while. \u00a0That’s not book
\nlearning, that’s book … writing.”\u00a0 I was smooth, real smooth.<\/p>\n
“Real popular with everyone but the parents, if I recall correctly. Anyway, that segues well with my point. \u00a0You take a dash of Grandma and mix her in to the general experimentation of college, and you meet a lot of people. \u00a0A lot of odd folk, like a group of Numancian demon hunters. \u00a0Like Roberto.”<\/p>\n
“Newmancy? \u00a0 New Man-cy kind of Aubry Knight-like? \u00a0New mantids? Insects spirits? \u00a0Universal Brotherhood types? \u00a0I don’t get it.”<\/p>\n
She sighed. “They were a Celtiberan settlement at war with Rome. ‘We’d rather die free than slaves,’ types.\u00a0 It’s complicated and like a lot of things over two millennia has kind of drifted from the original intent.”<\/p>\n
“Celtiberan. \u00a0Irish-Russian? \u00a0No, Irish-Spanish. \u00a0You said you owned him,” I recalled. \u00a0“That sounds like a slave type.”<\/p>\n
“Do you really want to know that much about my sex life?” she asked.<\/p>\n
“No, he hinted enough. \u00a0Ewww, gross.”<\/p>\n
“Now you say it like that and I feel like I’ve got cooties or something.”<\/p>\n
“You’re a girl, and related to me. \u00a0I thought it was part of the package.”<\/p>\n
“Certified cootie-free. \u00a0Anyway, I was kidding. \u00a0It actually tweaks him a bit, and he got me back by playing idiot studmuffin for the rest of the day.” \u00a0She sighed. \u00a0“So, once you presume that Grandma was onto something and that there were demons, your worldview kind of grows to envelop all sorts of other possibilities, like the fact that some of your brother’s associates call him ‘Doctor.’ \u00a0Even though you know he quit school. \u00a0‘Doctor of what?’ you ask innocently, well, innocently enough when you’re wearing nothing but some adequate Victoria’s Secret, and they say, ‘Um, Portal Doctor.’ \u00a0Probably where you want me to quit this story because you’re squeamish.”<\/p>\n
“Well, yeah, and not just because I just realized how kind of dumb it sounds. \u00a0At least when you say it,” I teased.<\/p>\n
“It’s a gift.” \u00a0She sighed. \u00a0“Anyway, I’ve not been keeping tabs on you, but our circles sometimes intersect, so I got to know a couple of people who know you. \u00a0Including this one guy who is suddenly house sitting for you, named Nen.”<\/p>\n
“He gave you his name in the beginning? \u00a0I’ve called him Rent-a-Wreck most of the time,” I glanced at the individual who was pouring over the car manual in the pale glow of the streetlight.<\/p>\n
“Actually, he gave me some ridiculous poetry, but I grilled him enough to get something I’d actually call him. \u00a0Rent-a…?”<\/p>\n
“Something he said about sharing the name of my chariot. \u00a0Doesn’t matter.” \u00a0Wrecks didn’t even grin up at me; he was looking at a diagram that showed how to install the radio. \u00a0“So when did you start
\nhelping him?”<\/p>\n
“When I realized you weren’t coming home. \u00a0He was kind of cute, but clueless about how the world worked. \u00a0Like an alien, really. Mom would freak out, plants would die, mass hysteria.\u00a0 That, by the way, was a Ghostbusters reference.”<\/p>\n
“I got it,” I said.\u00a0 “There’s two things wrong with your conjectures.\u00a0 One, I came home, and two, there’s no such thing as demons.”<\/p>\n
“Are you sure?”\u00a0 She didn’t believe me.<\/p>\n
“About which?\u00a0 I got stuck in the land of faerie for less than a year and a day, and I know there’s no such thing as demons.\u00a0 Unless you use the old ‘dimension travellers’ saw, but I think that’s kind of a cop-out.”<\/p>\n
She sounded concerned.\u00a0 “What would need an exorcism, then?”<\/p>\n
“Everything,” I said, confidently.\u00a0 “If the term, ‘Exorcism’ means sending things back where they belong, or more likely, kicking them out of these parts and not caring where they end up as long as it isn’t local.\u00a0 Local referring to this reality, Earth-1218, or Earth Prime depending on your …referents.”<\/p>\n
“This isn’t a comic book,” she said.\u00a0 “So, the things Roberto has killed, they’re what, aliens?”<\/p>\n
“Yep.\u00a0 If ‘alien’ refers to something that isn’t naturally a part of this world, and well, of course, presuming he is killing those things.\u00a0 I mean, I love you like family and all, but are you sure he’s not some kind of psycho killer?\u00a0 I ask you this as a big brother.”<\/p>\n
“Well, he might be some kind of psycho killer, but only of things with weird tentacles and the occasional monologue.”\u00a0 She let go a breath I didn’t think she knew she’d been holding.\u00a0 One of those literary phrases that gets a lot of use in my thoughts.\u00a0 “So, is there a basic vocabulary primer?\u00a0 You used the term ‘faerie’ and didn’t get clobbered by anything with wings and glitter, right?”<\/p>\n
“Hah.\u00a0 The ‘ABCs of Abracadabra?'” I offered.\u00a0 “There’d have to be different kinds for each magic type.\u00a0 Necromancy’s ‘Scratch and Stiff’ for young zombie lovers?\u00a0 Nah.\u00a0 I think we get our terms from modern fantasy literature and the occasional pagan gathering.\u00a0 It’s pretty idiosyncratic.\u00a0 If you ask, ‘How does anything get done,’ the answer is that mages are solitary creatures, and don’t play well with others, so they rarely sit down and compare notes.\u00a0 When I have, it’s been a matter of making sure we both think ‘sorcerors’ are the skeevy salesmen wheedling favors in and out of the Beyond, witches making epistolaries of charms and secrets hoarded generation after generation, and then wizards are kind of the jack-of-all-magics.\u00a0 That sort of thing.”<\/p>\n
“I’m busy taking a ton of notes, I hope you know.”<\/p>\n
“I won’t call you ‘padawan,’ ever.\u00a0 Weird tentacles?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, Lovecraft’s followers may have something.\u00a0 At least, the squiddies are fairly common.\u00a0 I hate the creepy kids.\u00a0 I am never going to have children at this rate, and you’re getting too old to pass on the family line.”<\/p>\n
“How bad was Mom while I was gone?”\u00a0 I sighed, closing my eyes and gripping the top of the steering wheel as if to brace myself.<\/p>\n
“The usual, lightning bolts in the kitchen and a repair bill or `Do we want her to sit there in the dark?'”\u00a0 She did the classic New York Yiddish accent, as I thought of it.\u00a0 “Otherwise, she seemed very calm and didn’t ask a lot of questions.”<\/p>\n
“Oh man, now I’m worried,” I said.<\/p>\n
“Think she knows something?”<\/p>\n
“I know she knows things.\u00a0 I just never know what.\u00a0 She’s as flighty as a dragonfly on a sip of Jolt cola, but she’s also darned perceptive.”<\/p>\n
“That’s an old, old reference, older brother.\u00a0 Not many of us would recognize it.\u00a0 We usually use the coffee terms.\u00a0 Ferret.\u00a0 Double espresso.”<\/p>\n
“Too imprecise.\u00a0 You get the caffeine, but you’re not guaranteed the sugar.\u00a0 Speaking of which, I was making a run for fruit puffs and other terribly unhealthy staples.\u00a0 My candy bar stash seems suspiciously low.”<\/p>\n
“You wouldn’t be accusing me, now, would you?\u00a0 I import my chocolate from England.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, I forgot.\u00a0 You’re one of the one percent, or whatever it is.\u00a0 Did people really hang out in tents in the middle of Denver?”<\/p>\n
“It was kind of a meld of a hippie commune and a tent city.\u00a0 People don’t have jobs.\u00a0 People without jobs need something to do, and there are some people who are gluten-free and afraid of clowns.”<\/p>\n
“Gotcha.\u00a0 I’m going to go stick my head in the sand again and hope that when I pull my head out people will be smarter.”<\/p>\n
“Um, that’s a mixed metaphor you didn’t mean, a myth, and a dangerous proposition.”<\/p>\n
“Let me tell you about my life sometime.\u00a0 My life is full of propositioning danger.”<\/p>\n
“I’ve got to go vacuum my cat.”<\/p>\n
“That’s dangerous too.\u00a0 No, it’s just what I thought.\u00a0 Alright.\u00a0 Will catch up with you later, right?\u00a0 Don’t go getting slimed by an octopus man.”<\/p>\n
“You make it sound like an old slobbery dog living with someone who finds him just adorable despite the way he piddles on the carpet.”<\/p>\n
“I wasn’t talking about Roberto.”<\/p>\n
“Neither was I.”\u00a0 She laughed and hung up.<\/p>\n
I sighed.\u00a0 “Alright, Wrecks.\u00a0 Nen.\u00a0 Your opinion?”<\/p>\n
“I stayed quiet during the call, didn’t I?”<\/p>\n
“That means bupkis. I don’t remember the full phrase, but I know what bupkis is.”<\/p>\n
“It’s a pastry.\u00a0 Made from potato flour.”<\/p>\n
“Liar.”<\/p>\n
He grinned.\u00a0 “A misdirection, only.”\u00a0 It seemed important to him, so I gave him the out.\u00a0 “But I suppose there is no denying that I listened.\u00a0 Is it important that neither of you told each other the full truth?”<\/p>\n
“Hey, she’s family.\u00a0 Truth is entirely optional.”<\/p>\n
“Ah.\u00a0 That is not what family means to me,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve met your sister,” I reminded him.\u00a0 “The psychological torture is probably the same.”<\/p>\n
“It is what you said of consequence; there is no common language for those who do not share their practices.\u00a0 Your terms absorbed from community and fiction are not any less relevant for their provenance.\u00a0 Truth is where you find it, and while it is not the whole of the law, it is a major force behind it.”<\/p>\n
“Is a lie the same as a broken promise, then?”<\/p>\n
“Akin, definitely akin,” he said.\u00a0 “And a broken vow is a gateway, is it not?”<\/p>\n
“Is an omission of truth then the same as a lie?”<\/p>\n
“Do you leave someone without the tools they need, you are guilty of having them fail in their quest.\u00a0 That is a law of Hospitality.”<\/p>\n
“Huh,” I grunted.\u00a0 “Speaking of which, we need to get some groceries.”\u00a0 I got out, not that the night was much cooler than the day.<\/p>\n
“I live on more than sugar and spun sunbeams,” he admitted.\u00a0 “I wouldn’t turn down a good steak.”<\/p>\n
“Hey, you cook it, and it’s yours,” I said.<\/p>\n
“Is that a rule like, ‘You kill it, you eat it?'”<\/p>\n
“Let’s not go so far as a rule.\u00a0 I’m not that much of a humanitarian.”<\/p>\n
“You say that like people who eat only vegetables are from another star.”<\/p>\n
“Very funny.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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