The Fiocca household was one of the larger ones on the east end of Tano. It was practically a manor, surrounded by a scattering of more modest looking homes, the sorts of homes that looked as though they belonged in a smaller town. A person not from Tano might look at the house and think its occupant had a big head. Might think they enjoyed lording over their neighbors, or at least pretending to.

The fact was though, that the parental Fiocca units had been very busy building an estrogen saturated family, and so they required eight bedrooms. It was a good thing Domenico had been frugal with all the coin he’d accumulated as a paladin.

“Sharla?” Naya Caprio asked Poesie’s mother, looming over a pot of pasta sauce, stirring committedly, “do you have any fresh sage?” The young blonde girl was wearing a light dress and had her limp, blonde hair tied in a flyaway bun.

Sharla responded wordlessly, slicing a small bouquet of sage leaves from one of her living plants in the kitchen and tossing them onto Naya’s cutting board. Mrs. Fiocca, despite having produced seven children for Domenico, looked to be scarcely a decade older than her eldest daughter, Poesie. Her black curls encapsulated her body down to her waist, and her chocolate eyes stood out several shades darker than her skin.

Naya made quick work mincing the sage practically into a powder and sprinkled it into her sauce. The aroma that wafted up from the pot confirmed the gastronomical alchemy she’d been aiming for that evening. She gave the sauce one more stir, then tasted it. It was a thick cream sauce, which she knew Poesie appreciated. The toasted roux she’d based it with lent a good nutty flavor. The sage had been the one thing it was missing.

Perfect, she thought. Poesie is going to love this.

The Fiocca house clattered and crashed with a melange of noises from Poesie’s various sisters and their friends playing and nearly–or plainly–damaging the family’s property. It was impossible to notice when the front door opened and closed, so the two cooks didn't know the patriarch and his eldest were home until the child choir made an exalted, united squeal.

Instead of joining them in the kitchen, Domenico would be making his usual show of putting out his cigar in a high place out of the children's reach, then proceeding to chase all the little ones around the living room making exaggerated, monstrous bellows. Sharla smirked at the noises without looking back in the living room.

Poesie turned the corner and gave Naya a shining smile as she entered the kitchen.

Hello you, they said to each other with their eyes.

Poesie went straight for a discarded cup of espresso from earlier in the day and knocked it back like a shot, then she deposited it in the sink and stood next to Naya. Nothing was wasted in this kitchen, if such a thing could ever be helped. Poesie’s sweat was pretty unpalatable, but Naya tolerated it. She started to say something, but Sharla imposed on them first, and this she also did wordlessly. She grabbed one of Poesie’s hands by one finger and examined it with force. She gave Poesie one of those quintessentially bothered glares that all mothers seemed to give their children from time to time.

“What happened to your wrist?” Sharla demanded. Naya smirked.

Oh, this.

Poesie made no effort to look less than derisive. “I was training with papa, you know that.”

Sharla huffed, then proceeded to carve slices off a slab of salted beef with a cleaver. It looked about three times larger than anything she should have been able to lift comfortably, and she was managing to shave prosciutto-thin slices off it with mechanical efficiency. “Well, it looks like you’ve been held captive. Either by a very evil man or a very possessive woman.”

A mantle of queasiness settled over both of the younger girls. Sharla wasn’t yet good at discussing her eldest daughter’s sexuality with grace. The pleasantness always felt forced.

“Well, I’ll heal just fine mama, it’s better if you don’t fret.”

Sharla muttered something. Probably an imitation of what Poesie had just said.

Poesie slid close to Naya, pointedly away from her mother. The warmth of her skin was comfortable, even if her smell wasn’t agreeable. “What’s this concoction?” She asked.

Naya smiled and coated a spoon in the good stuff. She dipped the sauce into Poesie’s mouth, who tasted it with chaste appreciation. “Mmm, yes. That’s perfect,” her friend said, “I don’t quite know what it is, but it’s perfect.”

“If you know it’s perfect, then isn’t that all you need to know?” Naya asked.

“I guess so.”

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“You guess so?”

Poesie looked at her as though Naya had just discovered her with her fingers inside someone she didn’t know very well. “That,” Poesie said, “was pretty fucking flippant wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”

“Poesie!” Sharla nearly shouted, her eyes saucer wide. “Don’t say that around your little sisters!” Sharla said, brandishing the meat cleaver at Poesie.

Naya busied herself chopping some things that didn’t actually need to go into the dinner.

Poesie looked at her mother as though she resembled a centipede. “My sisters aren’t even paying attention to me, mama. Papa’s distracting them with his silliness.”

Sharla separated some new hunk of meat at the joint with her cleaver. It made a noise like a prisoner's final, dull moments. Poesie didn’t seem to hear it.

“Mama,” Poesie said, “Why are you making our guest cook dinner?”

Naya knocked her blade down on the cutting board with a dull thud. She was about to berate her friend, but Sharla beat her to it.

“If that twice damned father of yours wasn’t on the outskirts of town turning you into a boy, I’d be making you help me with dinner! I’m fortunate this young lady loves you so much. Most children don’t have the decency to tolerate their friends' parents, never mind helping them in the kitchen.”

“Mama,” Poesie nearly whined, “when I told papa I was going to be his ‘son’ that was just a figure of speech.”

Naya snorted. She couldn’t help it. Poesie gave her a look.

Sharla glared, slicing away another portion of beef. “You might be my clone young lady, but it's your father’s blood that runs hotter in your veins. Don’t pretend.”

Poesie didn’t respond to her mother. Why should she have? There wasn’t really any denying it.

Domenico imitated the noise of some kind of howling beast in the living room. The little ones squealed with ardent enthusiasm.

With that, Poesie seamlessly drifted into helping them with the food. Her parents were throwing a party for the neighborhood, and so the spread needed to be generous. It was mostly hors d'oeuvres, so the work was meticulous, finicky, and time consuming, but the three of them did it all with practiced and caring efficiency. Eventually, Sharla finished preparing the last of the meats and trusted the younger women to handle the rest of the preparations. Naya shuffled up close to her best friend. She sensed her loosen up a bit by proximity.

“I want to show you something.”

Poesie gave her a sly glance. “What is it?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“You can’t show me here?”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

Instead of answering, Naya popped a dumpling in Poesie’s mouth. It would have been salty, doughy in the center, and still wet. Poesie made a good noise as she swallowed it.

“Trust me, you’ll want to see this. I mean it.”

Poesie swallowed the dumpling with a smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m getting the impression this is something my parents won’t want me to engage in.”

Naya smiled on the inside and the outside. Her cheeks felt positively tight. “They really won’t.”

Poesie smiled. She was convinced. That was good. Tempting her friend into bad behavior usually took more effort than this. The arguing with Sharla probably stoked Poesie’s suppressed rebellious streak just now. Considering this made Naya feel like she was using Sharla in some way, which was upsetting, but she couldn’t really help it if those two wanted to fight with each other. There was no good reason to feel bad about it, really.

Naya dipped one of the dumplings in her sauce and slipped it in her mouth. She would get to show her friend something exciting soon. That was what really mattered now. She shot Poesie a quick glance and felt that warmth in her heart that boys never made her feel.

He emerged out of the ground outside of the whore’s new house. He drifted through the branches of a tree outside of the kitchen window so he could watch them. They wouldn’t notice him there, obscured by the leaves, so long as he hid most of his incorporeal self within the tree.

Lenore…

The whorish Lenore was with a blonde girl now. The Shade didn’t recognize her. The blonde, that was.

Lenore, on the other hand, was too recognizable. Her hair unfurled like kudzu gone wild, a kind of living aura that smothered the rest of her from his sight, and her dark eyes burned outward with that same old, counterfeit love. She was fooling this blonde girl now, and the girl seemed only too happy to be fooled. Another puppet.

The puppet was dipping a spoon of some green flecked sauce into Lenore’s lips, and the whore sucked it off with the same enthusiasm with which she had once sucked on his fingers during their lovemaking. The counterfeit affection stoked the fire in his chest. It was a distant pain, like most sensation was to him now, but it was motivating enough to inspire retribution.

When the puppet slipped a dumpling in the whore’s mouth, he felt the sword in his chest again.

He couldn’t make out everything they were saying, but there was clearly talk of leaving on this night. The pair had an air about them of rogues plotting an escapade. Until then, he would watch them. He would watch, and their false affection stoked the fire.

Lenore… Lenore… Lenore…