September 22, 2010
Family (Archer).
Naomi Whateley Archer settled down onto the sofa, stroking the cover of the book softly. Sometimes, a body just needed a break from grading all those silly essays, and she needed to remember why she taught literature in the first place.
She’d just settled back and cracked the cover when the door creaked open. “Mom?”
Naomi stifled a sigh and looked up as Roland shuffled in. Quick dark eyes took in the book and the steaming mug of special cocoa sitting by her elbow. “Sorry,” he said, backing out of the room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Roland. Come here.” Naomi patted the cushion next to her.
Roland’s mouth jerked, but he obeyed, sitting down at the other end of the sofa and leaning forward so his neck didn’t brush the sofa back. Naomi took the opportunity to give him a once-over.
Only twenty-four, and already he’s getting stress lines. She pursed her lips. And he’s too skinny.
Roland was staring at her out of the corner of his eye, in that slantwise Whateley look he’d picked up from his grandpa. One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Done with the examination?” he teased.
“A mother’s work is never done,” Naomi replied, primly folding her hands over her book. “What’s bothering you, Roland?”
He exhaled explosively, and if his voice had been more directed, it would have been a snarl. “Nothing.” He clasped his hands together, and began picking at his gloves.
And Naomi, who was not his mother for nothing, knew exactly what was wrong. She laid her book carefully on the table next to her mug, wrapped one arm around her second child’s thin shoulders, and yanked him over sideways.
Roland yelped and instinctively struggled, but her bare hand on his face stilled him. “Kick your shoes off, Roland,” she said in that no-nonsense tone only mothers use, and he did, dangling his feet off the far end of the sofa.
Naomi aimlessly hummed a half-remembered lullaby and curled up around her boy, her quick dark child, the only one of her three children to inherit her own dark hair and her own slight frame and the Whateley eyes. She gently ran her hand through his hair, and over his cheek, and rubbed the back of his neck until he finally relaxed and fell asleep.
He didn’t snore, either, she thought. Truly a rarity in this house.
Michael poked his head in an hour or so later, back from the town hall. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of his son curled up in his mother’s lap, which turned into a soft grin at Naomi’s arch look.
“You can make yourself useful, man, and refill my mug,” she ordered softly, proffering the object in question. Roland fussed – exactly like he did as a baby, Mike thought, grinning wider – and stilled when Naomi raked her hand through his hair.
He took the mug. “Everything ok?” he whispered.
His wife nodded. “Just tired,” she said, nodding to Roland. And lonely, went unsaid; they had all come to recognize the peculiar neediness Roland had, that he himself had never noticed. “And I didn’t get to my book,” Naomi added, almost plaintively, eyeing the cover as if this was all its fault, for not being conveniently sized to fit in one hand.
God, but Mike loved his wife. “I’ll be right back with this,” he said, laughter lacing his tone, and at his wife’s slantwise glare he added, “And then I’ll read to you.”
Naomi, mollified, nodded. “Quietly, then. And the brandy’s in the other cupboard.”
And as Mike opened the door, Naomi’s quick eyes spotted two tall, fair figures in the hall beyond, and nodded at them both. Alice detached herself from the ceiling and skittered upstairs, but Beowulf hesitated, and Naomi smiled at him and blew him a kiss with a wink, just like he always demanded as a boy. He nodded in return, then, and grinned – so much like his father, Naomi thought – and followed his sister upstairs.
Roland twitched again, one hand curling in front of his nose, and Naomi laughed her own soft laugh and rubbed her thumb over his forehead and waited for her chocolate.
A mother’s work is never done.
September 21, 2010
Later.
It’s hard to like an uncle who’d been scrupulously absent your whole childhood. That’s me and Uncle Roland in a nutshell. Mom was always after me to be nicer to him, but, honestly, I don’t recall ever meeting him until I was twelve. I mean, I knew who he was – he’d been pointed out to me before, when he’d come ’round the house or we’d go to the Library – but whenever he saw me, he’d find some convenient excuse and slip away.
So you can understand why I think he’s a jackass, Mom’s excuses for him aside.
And honestly- what’s with her, anyway? Even I know Uncle Roland despises her; everyone in Arkham knows he’s loathed her since she came here for college. But Mom still takes his side all the time. Jeez.
I didn’t know why I was thinking about him, but I’ve got enough of a knack, as Gramma puts it, to not be too surprised when I passed by the Field and saw him sitting slouched against Dad’s headstone.
Figures. It’s a bright, clear day, not a cloud in sight, and so of course I have to run into Uncle Roland. He’s like some depressing anti-vampire, I swear.
He raised his head and I saw the weird feverish glitter of his eyes, and it was my turn to try and find a bad excuse to leave. But I’m like Mom, I suck at dissembling, so I just sort of skittered off. Not my best moment, there.
A hand yanked me onto the roof as I approached the school doors. I tried to ignore Aunt Alice and set about fixing my collar, but she’s freakishly strong and just grabbed my chin and turned me to face her.
I’m eighteen. I’m on the freakin’ football team. And Aunt Alice, who comes up to my chin, can sling me around like an empty potato sack.
“You need to knock this shit off,” she said.
“What?” I asked. But feigning ignorance doesn’t work with any member of my family.
“This thing you’ve got against Roland. You’re hardly being-”
“Being what? Reasonable?” I snarled. I immediately felt bad about it – being angry at my aunt is like being angry at a woebegone kitten – but it was like she’d set a match to a fuse. Once I’d started I couldn’t stop. “You want me to be all buddy-buddy with a guy who ignored my existence until I was twelve? Who still won’t come near me?”
She sighed, clapping a long-fingered hand over my mouth almost absently. “You know why that was. And yes,” she said, glancing sharply at me when I made a muffled objection, “he carried it a bit far. But you’re old enough now to look at things from more than just your own hurt perspective. Your uncle’s always been extremely wary of small children. You being who you are, it just made him even more cautious, to the point of paranoia. He made me or Talia handle all the gifts he sent you – he never so much as came in the same room as them – because he was utterly terrified he’d somehow contaminate them.”
Something in my expression must have settled, because she took her hand off my mouth before continuing, “And it’s not sane. None of us ever said it was. But we also have no way of knowing if you’ve inherited your father’s immunity, and the only way to test it is fatal if you didn’t. You didn’t see him,” she added abruptly. “He was there when your father was killed, which is why he’s so paranoiacally obsessed with you now. And he killed your father’s murderer by breathing in the man’s face.”
She settled back on her heels, elongated hands clasped around her knees, humming a bit before looking over at me. “Did your mother ever tell you Roland got the first blow in? Before the guy even killed your dad, that is.”
I felt hotly numb. I’d never heard this before. I couldn’t bring myself to shake my head, but Aunt Alice was always good at reading me.
“I’m not even sure Dora knows. Your uncle’s always had the odd problem of being fast on the uptake, until he’s upset,” she continued. “He’d figured out what the man was up to, if not the specific target, seconds after he entered the room. And he did get in the first blow – and promptly broke two fingers on the guy’s body armor and was unceremoniously chucked across the room.” She sighed, shifting on her perch, and I began to realize how uncomfortable this conversation must be for her. “Whoever this guy was, he was well-informed. There wasn’t an inch of skin visible, and even after he’d killed Wulf and Roland had gone completely berserk on him, he couldn’t get through the fabric. Couldn’t work his fingers past a hem or a cuff, couldn’t tear the damn stuff. The guy ran him through, but I doubt Roland ever noticed, and it freaked the guy enough to give your uncle a second’s breathing room, and he took it. Exhaled straight into the guy’s nostrils.”
“You were there.” I sounded even to my ears like a stunned rabbit, but Aunt Alice just gave me a grim little smile.
“I was. I was climbing down the wall behind the guy, actually, and would’ve gotten him in another few seconds if Roland hadn’t poisoned him first.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Roland was there when you were born,” she said, “I remember him, standing as close as he could to the nursery window without fogging it with his breath, watching you in your bassinet. He was the one who finally talked your father into actually getting some sleep – your dad was way too excited, and kept chattering about you to everyone he ran across. Your uncle actually held you a bit when you were an infant – only at your dad’s insistence, sure, but he was always afraid you’d accidentally touch him and he wouldn’t be able to stop you. But he’d sing silly old showtunes to you, and you’d laugh and laugh, and roll off his hands onto the rug, and laugh until he’d sort of helplessly join in. Even after your dad died – he never missed a game, and he hates football. He rants about the stupidity of it after every game. He’s never missed a birthday or a Christmas. He’s got copies of all the articles on you and all your school portraits and report cards that your mom shared with him. He keeps the wonky mug you made him in kindergarten on a shelf above his desk and cleans it every day – he won’t drink out of it so it’ll last longer. He even hid in the back by the doors at that disastrous school play. He loves you, Chris,” she said, more solemn than I’d ever seen her, “and I know you don’t believe that and you don’t remember that, but it’s true. He’s gone a bit stupid with old promises and paranoia and the madness your father’s death brought out in him, but he thinks the world of you. If he’s been distant, it’s because you’re all he’s got left of his twin, and he’s terrified of losing you.” Like he did your father hung unspoken between them.
Aunt Alice watched me with her weirdly luminous eyes. “I’m late for class,” I said.
Sighing, she helped me off the roof.
I didn’t want to think about what she’d said. I didn’t want it to make sense, but it did. I didn’t want to feel sorry for my uncle, or understand him, but I did. And I hated it as much as I hated my aunt’s unspoken criticism. You’ve been a real brat, Chris-my-boy.
But their birthday was coming up, and ok, I had no idea what to get an uncle I barely knew, but if it’s the thought that counts then maybe he wouldn’t mind a random visit from his nephew.
People always told me I was so much like my dad. Maybe it was time for me to start acting like it.
April 10, 2008
Grendel.
“Your name is Grendel?” Jacob said disbelievingly.
“Boy, is Roland the odd man out, or what? Two from Beowulf, one from medieval legend.” Talia was trying her damndest not to laugh.
“Actually, my name’s Alice,” Grendel said, hitching her backpack higher on her shoulder.
“As in Wonderland?” Jacob was clearly having some trouble with this.
Grendel nodded, looking woebegone.
“Why Grendel, then? As nicknames go, it’s a little … odd.”
“Not if you spent your toddler years tormenting a brother named Beowulf.”
