48) No one invited you
I stepped out onto my front porch and wasted my best glower on the two news station people whose eyes were fixated on the Heap as it stood a few feet off the ground on several legs with various arms raised menacingly.
While I always could tell it what to do, now I could get it to settle down with just a vague thought that I wanted it not to hurt anyone.
I cleared my throat, making the two people standing frozen in place jump.
“You aren’t welcome here.”
The guy with the camera turned it toward me, apparently having already been recording, and whispered, “No shit.”
The woman, a rather pretty looking gal with a head scarf thingy the middle eastern women liked to wear, gulped, but gave me a nervous smile. “Kiri Abbas, Channel-”
She faltered as Vito, who had already noticed my irritation began pressing at them with the Life essence which had been slowly moving through the air. Moving the air along with it.
The two of them began to step backwards as their clothes began to flutter in the stiff breeze blowing at them while loose leaves from all around my new properties started to get carried into to circle around them. At the same time, the branches of the surrounding trees began to sway with creaks and groans.
I couldn’t help but grin, with all my teeth. As the air began to blow at them even harder.
Walking down the steps towards them, I began to yell “Does no one have manners anymore? Call first!”
The woman threw her hands up in front of her, as she fell back against the guy behind her, her legs giving out. “You don’t have a listed number!”
Then Acey was standing in front of me, putting herself between me and them, facing me with her arms stretched out to either side. She stared up at me, looking me right in the eye while looking concerned.
Not for them, for me.
Right, getting a little Galadriel getting a hold of the One Ring here.
Vito cut off the wind and slight movements of the tree branches which seemed to be about the most he could do anyways, while I made a dismissive wave of my hand at the two news people.
“This place is not safe for you. I have made it a stronghold of Life, and while the Lashers are gone, it will soon attract other dangers to my borders for me to destroy. Warn them Miss Abbas. Warn those who would trespass on my land that those who come without invitation are not safe here.”
The two of them turned and ran for their van as Vito began to move the air at them again, much more gently this time. Just enough for them to feel it.
The van drove off with a squeal of tires, and Acey gave me an amused look as she stood before me with her arms crossed.
“What? I’m trying to lower the property values around here. I want the whole block.”
Heading back into my house, I wondered what had gotten them here in the first place?
A little while later I found out when my phone began to chirp with an unknown number. I glared at it in suspicion as I set down the steak knife I had been using to chop up the veggies I was having to balance out the third of a frozen pizza I was having for dinner.
While the ‘National do not call list’ had stopped working worth a damn within a few years after it got started, I had found that just not answering the phone had stopped most of the sales calls. “So who the hell is calling me?”
Did Abby something or other get a hold of my number? If so it was quick work and she should have done that before she came to my door the first time.
I answered the phone, and my Ex asked “Harold?”
Great. But she always did have my number, metaphorically. Why not have this one too?
In a tone of complete despair, I asked “How?”
She sighed. “I got your number again from Patricia after I saw the video. Don’t be angry with Beatrice, she wanted to brag about her grandfather.”
“Crap.” I leaned against my kitchen counter. “Can I be a little mad? Never mind, how bad is it?”
“Reed called me.”
The winds began to rise outside, and Blue whined. “...I have to hang up.”
A little girl hesitantly reached out to lay her hand on my arm, then flinched back as I shot a look at her. Closing my eyes I felt ashamed.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Harold? Harry! Talk to me!”
“…I have to pee…” I ended the call and turned off the phone.
After a while, I straightened up to go and turn off the oven so the frozen pizza wouldn’t burn. Then I sat down at the kitchen table, lifting Blue onto my lap as she softly whined.
Sometime later, I turned my head and looked in the direction of the man who had stepped onto my land and was abruptly holding burning things in his hand, as the other, a woman, gave Heap a stern look that made it take a step backwards.
Oh, her again.
I wasn’t angry at her, at least not for anything she had done today. All she had done was give me some bad news.
“Acey, could you go and invite her in? She might not be able to enter a home without one.”
I sensed her amused confusion as she headed out to the front door, holding the door open, she gestured for the two people outside to come in.
The man who had the burning things was the Grinning man, Hirum. The bottles with burning rags stuffed in the tops vanished as he followed Beryl inside my house. Through Acey’s eyes, she showed me a fancy red car that was parked in front of my house, which Hiram pointed at while grinning at the Heap. “Can you watch that for me… Mr. Stop Motion monster. I just bought it.”
Heh. I guess it does kind of move around like something from a Ray Harryhausen movie.
Inside the house, Beryl sat down at the table across from me as Hiram leaned against the side of the doorway into the kitchen. I felt Acey sit down on the couch between the coyotes before she pulled Blue halfway onto her lap and began petting her.
“Why would I be mad at Bea?”
I could see my ex settled her hands clasped together on the table in front of her from the corner of my eye. “She posted the video you sent her on several social sites she likes, it got picked up by others, and eventually Reed saw it.”
While still looking straight across the room, I took in a long slow breath. “Why would Reed… no, I don’t care why he would call you. Why would you answer him?”
She stared at me for a moment, “I never stopped talking to him Harold. He’s my son, which meant I couldn’t cut him out of my life the way I did you.”
We sat in silence as Hiram looked increasingly uncomfortable until she leaned back in her chair and slowly smiled.
“With him, I could never stop twisting the knife. Reminding him of what he did, and how badly he had hurt us all. And of course, stringing him along whenever he was asking for money.”
Hiram looked back and forth between the two of us. “What the hell did your kid do?”
I couldn’t help myself, I let out a grim little laugh. “Don’t call him my kid again Hiram. He cast himself out, and there will never be a fattened calve for him.”
As much as I wanted to leave it at that, me and Beryl sitting there in bitter silence was making Hiram begin to squirm. “Reed decided to celebrate coming out as gay by abandoning his wife and daughter, but not before emptying everything out of their shared bank account.”
I turned to look at my former coworker. “First, of course, taking out massive loans on the house his wife had inherited from her grandparents, and talking her into selling their cars to get lease vehicles. Which he stopped bothering to pay for. And all that being done in the months before he even left.”
During all of this my voice, my emotions, and the winds outside had remained calm. The anger I was feeling had long since gone cold. The sort of anger that made you wait, and plan, and only then rage.
I looked over at Beryl from the spot below the sink I had been staring at for the last few hours. “What did he want to know?”
Beryl sighed. “How you were doing? If you were… independent. Still able to take care of yourself.”
I slowly closed my eyes. “I got something that might be worth money now, and he wants it.”
My Ex nodded.
I smiled.
“Wait until he sees the report on the local news tonight.”
And if he still comes after what is mine. He will have had fair warning.
That’s more than anyone owes him.