Mayhem

by Michael MolisanI

  “Mayy,” Ramona answered in her best attempt at a woman’s voice, “Father expects me to rule with my sister one day, but I don’t have the freedom to offer myself to a god?” In all this, Margaret struggled to take her seriously. How many times had she shrieked like this, refusing to eat her porridge, as a child?

  “What did you promise her?” Margaret asked slowly, once Ramona had a moment to vent her impotent anger.

  Ramona didn’t answer. Instead she pursed her lips, crossed her arms, and a new wall of barriers erected themselves around her person.

  “Perhaps I should stay at my hotel, after all.”

  No part of Margaret treated Ramona like the heir to an empire. She was simply her niece and a child still, in so many ways. A child she hadn’t seen in years. “No, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed having someone about. My time in Stockton has been lonely.”

  “Lady Mayhem? Lonely? Do you still take an officer to bed every night, or is it now every other night?” Ramona laughed at the older woman, and Margaret was amazed at how deep the chuckle cut. It didn’t hurt right away, there was a pause, just like a knife opening taunt skin, air biting at the exposed nerves. “Maybe you should reconsider your views on patronage. It's a big, bold, new world that we live in.”

  Margaret had no desire to quarrel with her niece, she had no desire to be Maggi Lopez, to push everyone away with an undisputed set of black and white laws, a code that no one else had a copy of. It was easier to capitulate now and return to the subject later.

  “Maybe after so many years, I can’t tell the difference between what’s best for someone I love, and what’s best for myself.”

  Margaret offered the peace too late. Ramona was stubborn, too stubborn to let go and too stubborn to take notice of how deeply she’d hurt her aunt. The ignorance of youth blossomed inside her, “I only told you about Aphrodite because you smell like her.” Ramona spun to talk as she walked backwards, “You met with Aphrodite, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Margaret only replied with a whisper.

  “What did she want?” Ramona latched on. “What did Aphrodite want from the soldier-slut of the Antecedent Empire?”

  That was something her brother had called her, back when there was only one Antecedent army. It did get under her skin, but Alexander had always prodded roughly, just like his mother.

  Now, Ramona sounded just like him, and it was a step past what Margaret could take.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Ramona.”

  Margaret turned to walk away. She all but erected combat barriers around herself, layers and lattices of formless energy, hollow and empty, denying another witch any data. In this case, denying Ramona the satisfaction of knowing she’d made her aunt cry.

  11:02 pm January 11th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  The door to Townsend’s apartment was old. It was old before the Collapse, painted in untold layers of lead, the most recent shade was a deep mauve. Chipped and nicked, asperously under the lines on her fingers, Margaret imagined she was the needle of an old victrola, caught in the spiral of a wax record, a melody whispered in the distance; just beyond the edge of hearing. These were all memories, a resonance left behind for centuries and Margaret did her best to focus on that song.

  The rack and crack of the lock jarred Margaret from her catalepsy. She had no time to move, or shift, or jump back, the door was simply open, and a very disquiet Townsend was watching her. His right shoulder was pressed forward at an incline, and she knew he was holding his sidearm, barrel pressed to the layered wood.

  Of course, if he’d fired, he would have missed the top of her head by easily a foot.

  “Lady,” Townsend withdrew a moment, and she watched him lower his right arm.

  Margaret had already committed to this action, she was already here, there was no way to turn back, so she decided to amend his verbiage, “My name is Margaret.”

  Townsend opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself. He wore black slacks of wool and a gray undershirt tucked tight across his broad chest. He was a boiling pot of confusion, bordering on real anxiety, clear as the paint on his own door for a witch to hear.

  “Lady, what can I help you with?”

  Does he not know? Margaret had never considered what Townsend wanted, and the concept of fearing rejection may as well have been as distant as the moon. “May I come in?”

  “Of course, Lady.” Townsend backed away from the door and allowed her entry. He returned to the night table to lay down his antique .45 caliber ACP.

  The apartment was opulent by military standards, complete with a small welcoming space, a kitchenette and private bathroom. The wallpaper was sun faded, and long before the 3rd Army requisitioned the building, someone had painted clusters of purple and red flowers at random points on the walls.

  Townsend leaned back, then sat himself at the foot of his bed, produced a twig and struck a small wooden match. The hiss of flame filled the air, along with sulphur, shading his face in hues of bright orange.

  “Why are you here, Lady?” Townsend took a second drag off the twig.

  She repeated, softly, “My name is Margaret.”

  When Townsend smoked, he held the cigarette between his middle and ring finger, pressing palm to face. “Lady, when a commander brags that he’s shared a bed with you once, no one calls him a liar. Until the moment he claims it was twice.”

  Margaret was neither shocked nor repulsed. Vehicles of the 3rd Army bore paintings of her, clad in nothing but a colloquial witch’s hat. Margaret was proud of this, despite enduring decades of disparaging remarks from her brother.

  “It's a rule I wrote for myself, after The Bruja died in California,” Margaret reached over and ran her fingers up the back of Townsend’s hand, the touch reminding her how much she wanted to only be here. “Do you know what it's like for a witch to lose someone she’s shared a mind with?” Margaret slid Townsend’s cigarette from his hand and took a small drag. She nearly choked, then handed it back.

  The musty smoke changed and became something like rotten copper and gunpowder. Margaret reached for Townsend’s free hand, fingers wrapped around his wrist, body pressing into his. The film unraveled in her mind, flickering behind blinking lids and ebbing about with motion she couldn’t familiarize herself with.

  The ground is thick with snow, and snow could be painted in such vivid colors. The man lying next to Townsend is dying, a stream of blood pouring off his lips like a spring thaw cascading down rock and dale. He reaches out for Townsend, but before he can touch him his eyes turn dead and the arm sinks to the ground.

  “You never knew his name, did you?” Margaret asked.

  “No,” came the reply, as he stood, pulling away from her, tugging free his wrist and crushing the twig out on an ashtray.

  Margaret approached behind him and pressed her whole body into his back and buttocks, the 9mm in her cleavage biting into her chest, the rail pressed into her sternum with a sort of comfort that made her feel familiar and happy.

  Townsend liked puns and had memorized many, but would never share them for fear of what others would think. He also loved broccoli. The bold memories of masticating it at meal, between his teeth, the flavors flooding across his tongue and throat were a flashing edifice in Margaret’s mind. Her chest was heavy and chilled as she remembered his eyes watching a particular desert sky, one night in northern Nevada. She must have seen that same sky, maybe even that same night, but it hadn’t captivated her the same way. That had been a moment which he considered unique in his life, something undeniably perfect.

  “Why are you here, Lady?” Townsend repeated, his head tipped down. As Margaret ran her hand up his chest, she could feel the syllables vibrate down his throat.

  “Would you like to spend a second night with me, commander?”

  Townsend didn’t move or flinch. This close he smelled of sweat and cotton, memories crossing his skin and shoulders, something like burning diesel and blood. Margaret liked that, a
nd she inhaled deeply even if her nose could never perceive with the same clarity as her mind.

  “More than anything else,” Townsend answered.

  11:21am January 14th, 39 Veilfall

  Stockton, California

  Although former Heart Aurora Owens was no longer allowed to call her old palace home, the dwellings she now occupied in south Stockton, near McLeod Lake, remained stately. The exterior was manicured and watered, surrounded by carefully tended rose bushes and red brick paths laid surreptitiously through high and vividly green grasses that flitted in the breeze.

  “Mayy,” Ramona greeted Margaret at the threshold, dark hair pulled back in three braids that ran from her temples and forehead to the back of her neck, “A word?”

  “A word then,” Margaret nodded to her niece.

  “I’m sorry,” Ramona began. She was wearing an Antecedent uniform. Where Townsend graced himself in blue woolen jacket with white slacks, a witch and her bullfrog ancillaries had a black jacket. Ramona’s was tailored around her hips and shoulders, presenting herself far more licentiously than other officers.

  “I regret our words. I regret talking to you the way father would have.”

  Margaret, at this second, desperately wanted a cigarette. She’d declined keeping any on her for the moment, but this emotional intensity picked at scabs she’d already forgotten with her legs wrapped around Townsend.

  “You are your father’s daughter.”

  Ramona reached forward, laying a glove of dark, brown leather onto Margaret’s shoulder, squeezing, “I’m a Lopez. We bite before we bark. Just, please, accept the apology. It was unworthy of you and me.” She was right. Her family did bite, and bite hard, but the apology was genuine, and Margaret accepted it with grace. It didn’t mend the narrow cuts that stung with a breath of air, nor did it fill Margaret with false affection. That’s what an apology was, after all, a selfish action to relieve a person of their own guilt.

  Ramona opened the tenant doors for her senior, and both women entered the lobby of Aurora’s home. The floor was pre-Collapse, black and white marble, with carefully drawn patterns of green and gold inlaid across parts of the entryway. Arches that supported a steel and glass frame had been painted in deep shades of gold and blue. Block flowers and clouds were sewn together in a canvas of thick oils and dried, layer upon layer, creating a tangibly contoured surface.

  “Lady Mayhem,” a guard nodded to Margaret. He was old, as was his counterpart to the left, both easily in their sixties, with cleanly shorn beards of gray. Both still wore outlawed uniforms of the House Owens army, post-Collapse campaign ribbons, and roughly hewn medals of silver blossoms. These old men remembered well the glory of Aurora the First, the witch who once helmed much of Northern California.

  “Derrick,” Margaret respected the old man enough to tolerate his illegal uniform. She approached him, gloves of silk, ivory white, on his arm. Drawn to tip toes, she offered him a kiss on the cheek. Derrick obliged her and bowed forward so she could reach his face. The kiss shared a quick snap of Derrick’s past, not enough to frame or read like a book, merely sights and sounds. “My niece and I seek an audience with Aurora Owens.”

  Derrick nodded, standing up straight and returning to his watch, eyes on Ramona, “Lady Owens is expecting you.”

  Margaret’s hair was drawn up with a pomade of boiled honey and beeswax, twisting and braided above her ears. It smelled of thyme, lavender and almond. Her scent was all over the old man as she reached up to run her fingers down his face, offering him a final wink before the second guard pulled wide the double doors.

  “You’re quite familiar here,” Ramona leaned in, whispering with hands clutched behind her back. The two stepped into a narrow vestibule, tile changing, now set in deep shadows of red and sorrel, mixed with veins of faux gold.

  “Aurora and I have dined together since I came to Stockton,” Margaret shrugged.

  The former Lady Owens herself oozed a sly, matriarchal tone that comforted Margaret. In her darker moments, she had wondered how different things might have been if it was Aurora who had found her as a child, not Maggi Lopez.

  Aurora kept a house butler by the name of Cyrus. He was an old man, and Margaret had often wondered at the way Aurora treated him, above the station of a servant. He greeted them, dressed in muted gray and white, and introduced both Antecedent witches, seating them across from Aurora, offering lunch and tea.

  Despite her failing health, Aurora Owens sat straight on a deeply upholstered sofa of red velvet and enameled cherry wood. Gone was the crown she had worn when Margaret first met her, but the adornment of her vast jewelry remained. So, too, did the workmanship and opulence of her gowns, flowing red and black, in silk and velvet.

  Ramona sat, crossing her legs politely, bullfrog uniform tight across her chest in all the right places. In the foyer, her perfume was bold and smoky, but in Aurora’s apartment it was drowned and swept aside by lemongrass and pine smoke, so thick that a fine fog hung across the room itself.

  “This is the niece?” Aurora watched Ramona, eyes calculating. The older woman was also listening to the air around Ramona, a polite, though aggressive, review. Margaret could feel Ramona bristle, “That’s quite a ward you’re wearing, child.”

  Margaret remembered the magnetic draw about Ramona from the night before, familiar, yet an energy spoken in another language. Ramona simply shrugged, a mischievous smile creeping across her lips, matte red ribbon.

  “She’s more pleasant than her father,” Margaret attempted to change the subject, concerned that the two would snap at each other.

  “And you’ve brought ghosts to my home,” Aurora grimaced, ignoring Margaret, “That wasn’t part of the arrangement I had with your aunt.”

  Ramona’s smile grew larger and her lips part. Her teeth were crooked, overlapping in misshapen places, but they were clean and white, “You have your guards,” she gestured behind her, past the foyer, “I have mine.”

  “Mm-hm,” Aurora’s disdain was barely veiled, “that ward you’re wearing would have any uninclined guards with blood and bones lusting for you in a matter of minutes.” Although Margaret couldn’t solve this particular ward, she wasn’t offended or slighted that her elder had. Aurora Owens was a pre-Collapse witch of no small skill.

  “Not all witches are battlewitches.” Ramona’s smile did not abate.

  Margaret nodded, again hoping to cool the mood, “Like her mother, Ramona has a knack for understanding. Even as a very small child.”

  Aurora showed a hint of disdain for the interruption, “I remember your father well. He was an unpleasant man with little mirth, and a hunger that I don’t see in you,” It was Aurora’s turn to smirk, nodding her head side to side, “Oh, you’re hungry. Just not for land and prestige. The game is different for you.”

  Jokes were one thing, but to speak ill of Ramona’s father, back in Crafton, back east, was a sin that guaranteed unhappy tidings. Alexander Lopez was a well-loved dictator and Ramona had enjoyed much for that.

  “My father is a man of single purpose, I’ve known that since I was young.”

  Margaret cleared her throat, “We came here, today, for the court of Aurora Owens, The First.” Aurora’s ego needed to be stroked. At the end of her life, feeble and crippled, stripped of power, she remained no fool. Her eyes prowled like a wolf, but kind words would calm her ill ease and satisfy the respect that she’d earned. “We also hoped that you might offer a tale, or two, of Ramona’s grandmother. You knew Maggi Lopez, briefly.”

  Glowing with regal pride, Cyrus returned with small plates at hand, full of little sandwiches made from fresh bread, smoked meats, and cucumber slices. Aurora thanked him and Margaret was once again reminded of their strange relationship.

  Nobility never thank the help.

  “Do you know your aunt’s name?” Aurora didn’t lean in to eat immediately, instead she favored Margaret’s niece, her smile as constant as when it first unfolded.

  “I’ve only ever kn
own her as Mayy.” Ramona answered, grabbing one of the sandwiches with thin fingers, delicately gluttonous.

  Chuckling, Aurora finally reached for one of the sandwiches, no longer than her thumb, “‘Mayy’ is a name she gave herself. Her real name is Margaret. Maggi and I talked about her. She held a great deal of regret for the way she treated Margaret.”

  Margaret’s jaw clenched, fingers curling into fists. She had come to visit Aurora, weekly, for close to a year, and had never been told such a thing. Part of her wondered if it was true, and part of her questioned why she’d share that now.

  Ramona, through a mouthful of food, inquired, “Why did you call yourself Mayy?”

  “Your mother thought it was just a silly phase. Didn’t she?” Aurora watched with a smirk, “The drama of a girl at puberty?”

  Her face dour, Margaret had no interest in discussing her name. Her tone fell low and her lips barely parted when she spoke, “When I learned to read and write, I tried to pen my own name. Margaret Lopez is what I wrote.”

  “Maggi didn’t much care for that did she?” Aurora didn’t look away.

  “No.” Margaret sneered, spitting with unveiled aggression, “She broke my nose.”

  Ramona chuckled at this, a few crumbs of bread spat across her knees, and Aurora nodded, taking another bite. Chewing before she spoke, “Maggi, I believe, regretted those choices, late in her life.”

  Margaret bit her lower lip, speaking with a bit less vitriol, “Regardless of what she did or didn’t regret, I never wanted to hear my name after that day.”

  Before Ramona could interject, Cyrus returned with a silver tray and three, small cups of tea. The ceramic was dull and cracked, but enameled in complex hues of green and black, likely antiques long before the Collapse.

  Aurora Owens accepted her cup first and said, “You wanted me to regale your niece with stories of her grandmother. Did you only wish I tell her of the day she brought me Dread Harvester’s mask?”