Reaper

by Lena North

  “If you have anything that needs hand wash, you’re on your own with that,” he said and moved into the utility room.

  “Okay,” I said, and my voice was quiet, but to my satisfaction, steady.

  My mother called while we I was frying bacon and eggs, so I put her on loudspeaker and continued cooking.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she chirped. “Sven is such a nice man!”

  “Are you at Gramps’?”

  She shared that they were, and would stay for a couple of weeks before heading to some place for a set of shows which would last for months. This was in no way unusual, and I was about to tell her we'd come to see them when I saw Olly's face. He'd frozen and was staring at the phone with a look of horror on his face.

  “Ma, hold on a sec,” I called out, and turned to him. “Olly, what?”

  “Yuh,” he said hoarsely, cleared his throat and started again. “Your mother?”

  “Yeah, why –”

  I cut myself off because I was pretty sure I knew what she’d done.

  “Ma. What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” she said, a little too quickly and way too innocently.

  “Ma.”

  “Annie…”

  “Ma.”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “Ma.”

  “Well, he called. I was curious, and he needed someone to talk to so I did.” She paused, and I watched Olly wince. “I talked to him a couple of times,” she added as if I hadn’t understood that part.

  “Give us a second,” Olly rumbled and leaned over to put us on mute.

  We looked at each other in silence for a few long seconds, and then I wheezed, “You talked to my mother?”

  Ma was a trained psychiatrist, but she rarely took on new patients anymore and preferred to perform as my father’s assistant. I’d texted Olly her number, thinking that she would refer him to someone suitable, considering his paranormal abilities and line of work. Apparently, she’d decided to refer him to herself.

  “Didn’t know she was your ma,” he said in a similar wheeze, and groaned, “Well, shit.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to not overreact to my mother’s unethical behavior. “It isn’t so bad,” I said weakly.

  “I talked to your mother about sex,” Olly whispered, put his hands on the kitchen table and leaned down a little.

  He, what?

  “Why would you even do that?” I squealed.

  “It came up,” he murmured.

  “How the hell could –”

  I stopped speaking and turned back to unmute the phone.

  “Ma!” I shouted.

  “Honey, I’m right here. No need to shout,” she said placatingly.

  I did not feel like being placated.

  “I can’t believe you. It was nosy, and rude and… and…” I spluttered, not coming up with any good word for her actions. “BAD,” I yelled.

  “I was curious,” she said calmly. “You’d spent an hour crying over this man when you never cry about anything, and then he suddenly calls me? You bet your butt I’m gonna talk to him, sweetie. Had to see if he was worth it.”

  “Of course, he’s worth it,” I yelled. “But you should have referred him to someone else. This is SO unethical.”

  “I told him I couldn’t be his psychiatrist,” she said, still in that infuriatingly calm voice. “Told him I’d listen to what he had to say and we’d take it from there.”

  “She did,” Olly murmured.

  “It’s not like you haven’t talked to Sven,” Ma added.

  “Not the same, and you know it,” I snapped.

  “Similar?” she asked.

  “I did not talk to Sven about sex!” I yelled.

  The stunned silence that ensued was so thick it could have been cut into thin slices.

  “No, honey,” Ma said, and I could hear that she was getting angry too. “You just told him you’ve removed all the hair from your crotch.”

  I heard someone groan in the background, and suspected it was my father.

  “That is not the same,” I snapped.

  “Honey…”

  Ma was back to her placating voice.

  “I can’t believe you,” I said quietly.

  “Annie,” she murmured. “He was hurting, and you were so sad. I couldn't just calmly send him off to someone. Yes, maybe I should have told him who I was, but he would have closed the call immediately.”

  “I would have,” Olly confirmed. “Would have preferred to know, but yeah. I totally would have closed the call immediately.”

  “I just wanted to take care of my girl,” Ma said.

  “I’m an adult,” I told her. “You don’t think so, but I am. I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said with a smile in her voice. “I know that. But I’m your mother, so I’m going to take care of you anyway, no matter how old you are.”

  I leaned my head back and looked at the ceiling.

  “You can’t talk to him about sex anymore.”

  “Okay,” Ma agreed, but apparently felt the need to elaborate. “I’m not embarrassed. It’s good to know that my daughter has a healthy sex-life.” She made a pause again, and I could hear laughter in her voice when she added, “And creative.”

  Creative? What the hell had he been sharing?

  “Mrs. Morg –”

  “Morgana,” she chirped, interrupting Olly rather rudely.

  “What?”

  “None of the Mrs. Morgan, I’m Morgana.”

  “You're Morgana Morgan?” Olly asked slowly, and I could see humor seeping into his eyes.

  “I told you all I’m the normal one,” I snapped.

  “I know,” Olly said and put his hand on my cheek.

  I leaned into his hand, thinking that yes, he’d met most of my family so he understood. He also knew me.

  “Annie,” Ma interrupted my daze. “Can we get together while we’re here?”

  “Totally,” I confirmed. “We’ll –”

  “Okay,” she interrupted happily. “Sven is going home tomorrow, we’ll go with him.”

  “We?” I asked, knowing well what would descend on us.

  “Everyone!” she squealed. “Have to go now honey, and I'm sure you have things to do.” Her voice was heavy with innuendo, and I felt a blush creep up my neck.

  “Goodbye Morgana,” Olly said calmly. “See you all tomorrow.”

  “We'll be there sometime in the afternoon, and we'll bring food so don't prepare anything.”

  “Bye, Ma,” I sighed.

  I closed the call and stood there, staring at a skillet full of eggs and bacon that was way beyond repair.

  “Crap,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Olly agreed.

  “My mother is a psychiatrist with a weird name. My da is a magician who is a little too fond of his mirror. Gramps is the crankiest old geezer in the whole world and my brothers…” I sighed. “You met them, so you know. They're triplets. One talks to bunnies. The other two are just plain crazy.”

  “Okay,” he said calmly.

  “Can you deal with all of that?”

  “Easily,” he said immediately.

  “But –”

  “Annie, please. You keep saying you’re weird, or that your family is weird, but seriously? Compared to me and everyone around Hawker… Jinx and Dante? Nicky and his laser vision? Seems pretty normal from where I’m looking.”

  He had a point

  “Okay, yes. You’re probably not entirely wrong,” I conceded.

  “So, what are you really worried about?”

  I turned toward the fridge and tried to come up with something that wouldn’t be a lie.

  “Annie?”

  “Um.”

  “That’s a pretty stupid reply.”

  “I know.”

  “Just tell me, babe.”

  “I’ve tried to think about if there are things I haven�
��t told you, and the only answer to that is – yes. There are so many things I haven’t told you that I don’t know where to begin.”

  “What?”

  “And when I don’t tell you things, you get mad and tell me to get out,” I said.

  There. I’d told him.

  “Crap,” he muttered. “I will never ever tell you to get out again. Not ever.”

  “You might,” I protested. “I can be pretty annoying.”

  “Okay, let me amend my statement,” he said. “I will never tell you to get out and actually mean it.”

  I watched him in silence for a while.

  “Okay,” I said, finally.

  I had to trust him, and except for those ugly days at Double H, he hadn't given me any reason not to.

  “I can only promise you that I won’t, Annie. I can’t prove it with facts, and I can’t convince you if you don’t want to be convinced. But if you trust me, you’ll see.”

  “I trust you,” I said. “Totally, Olly. I’m just…”

  “Scared?” he murmured and smiled a little. “So, we can be scared together then, until we're not scared anymore.”

  “Okay,” I agreed since this made sense.

  “Two negatives make a positive, Annie,” he said and took me into his arms.

  Um, what?

  “Actually…” I said and stepped backward. “That is not entirely correct.”

  “Wh –”

  “In a simplified case, it could be said for illustrative purposes, but a more accurate expression would be that the opposite of the opposite is simply the thing itself. Applying that to a –”

  He started laughing, and I got sidetracked because he looked so beautiful.

  “God, I love you,” he chuckled. “So, what haven’t you told me?”

  “What?”

  “You said there were things you haven’t told me.”

  “A lot,” I confirmed, to make sure he’d understood.

  “I get that, babe.”

  “I don’t know where to start, or if I should tell you everything. That might take a while.”

  He protested immediately.

  “You don’t have to tell me everything, Annie.”

  “But how do I know what to tell? And when? And there are things that are unimportant to me but you could –”

  “You want rules?”

  I could tell he was laughing silently but I still nodded with some relief.

  “That’d be good,” I murmured.

  “Okay,” he said. “If not telling feels like you’re hiding something, then tell me. Otherwise, just share as it comes up. If it isn’t important to you, it won’t be to me either.”

  I didn’t have to think about that for more than a second to see the brilliance in this simple approach. I also knew that it meant I should have told him about me a lot sooner.

  “What?” he asked when I made a face.

  “It’s a great rule, Olly, and I wished I’d thought about things like that when we were at Double H. I would have shared about me a lot sooner.”

  “That was pretty special, babe. You have anything else of that magnitude?”

  I shook my head slowly.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. Anything you want to tell right now?”

  I thought about it for a second, and then I grinned. We'd start with some of the simple stuff.

  “I know what Kit likes to do in his spare time, and the only word I have for it is; yikes. I know why Dante and Jinx were arrested. I also know that Wilder claims to love apocalyptic action movies but in reality, she mostly watches romantic comedies. I know about Mac’s SDT-scare when he was sixteen, although how he thought he could have caught something when he was still a virgin, I do actually not know. I know why Hawker lost that bet and had to take his clothes off in front of an audience. I know your real name. I also know Miller’s real name, and let me tell you – when we have kids I’ll totally take what the good doctor gave those women. I’ll probably need it because we’ll have triplets.”

  I thought about all the other things I knew, although when I saw the look on his face, I decided that I’d probably shared enough.

  He made a low, hoarse sound, and shook his head a little as if everything I’d said was rattling around inside and he needed to straighten it out.

  “Triplets?” he asked, in a weird, strangled whisper.

  “First brood in each generation is. If we wait then one of the brothers might beat us to it,” I said. “Although Doughal is slightly gay, so he might not –”

  “Triplets?” he asked again, louder this time.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed.

  He swallowed, and then he swallowed again.

  “Okay,” he said after a while. “Just the first, uh, brood?”

  “I think so.”

  He nodded silently and exhaled on a sigh.

  “How can someone be slightly gay?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know my real name?” he asked. “I hate it.”

  “Not that name, Olof,” I smirked, realizing that I might know, but he didn’t. “Your ma gave you another one, but they changed it as soon as she was off the drugs. There are traces of everything on the net, though.”

  “I had another one?” he echoed.

  “Yup,” I said. “I’m hungry.”

  “What?”

  “We need to get something to –”

  “Annie. My name?”

  I stepped in close, and put my hands on his cheeks.

  “I love you, Baby-Owl,” I said.

  He just stared at me, and I nodded, struggling to hold back my laughter.

  “I was Baby-Owl Harper?”

  “They must have some pretty powerful drugs in that hospital,” I murmured. “Miller’s is worse.”

  “What in the hell can be worse than Baby-Owl?” he exclaimed.

  “Milvus-Milvus,” I said calmly. “Hyphenated. And they didn't change it, so it's still his name.”

  He stared at me for a beat, and then he said, “Hell. That is actually worse.”

  “Totally,” I agreed. “Food?”

  He suddenly smiled crookedly and said, “You think your family is weird?”

  “I know my family is weird.”

  “Around here everyone will be in our faces all the time, but we’ll put a gate up by the main road.”

  “Okay?”

  “Bird says Wilder and Mac are coming down the lane, followed by a huge yellow truck with the name Bubba Jones and some Asian signs in large, red lettering on the sides.”

  I heard the cars then and turned toward the door.

  “Okay, that is actually kind of weird,” I said and stepped out on the porch.

  “Hey!” Wilder called out. “We figured you'd need sustenance, so we ordered food.”

  I turned my gaze over to the yellow truck and the curly-haired, dark-skinned man. He looked like a man from the plains in his red flannel shirt and denim overalls. I recognized the signs Olly had mentioned, though.

  “Neih hou?” I greeted the man.

  His face split up in a happy smile, and he replied politely, “Gei hou.” Then he leaned into the truck and pulled out several plastic bags. “I brought food.”

  “Char siu bao?” I squealed and started walking.

  “Annie?” Olly rumbled behind me.

  “Yeah, I should have told you,” I said over my shoulder. “I speak a few languages.”

  After a stunned silence, Mac asked, “How many are a few?”

  “Eight,” I murmured as I looked into the bags, trying to determine what else the man had brought us. “Fluently,” I clarified. “A few more, though only rudimentarily.”

  “I’m Bubba,” the man said.

  I straightened and smiled.

  “I’m Annie.”

  “I’m not Chinese,” Bubba
said, which was kind of unnecessary. “Lived there for twenty years, though. The missus was born here, missed it, so we moved back a month ago. Bored out of my mind. Opened a take-out place.”

  I grinned at him, thinking that of course a dungaree-wearing good ol' boy from the plains would relocate to Norton after twenty years in southern China. He'd fit right in.

  “We’ll be regulars,” I informed him.

  His phone beeped, and he looked at it, informed me he had more deliveries to make, and after making me promise I'd come and meet his wife, he got into the car and left.

  I picked up the bags and turned.

  The other three were staring at me, and I realized that Bubba and I had spoken Cantonese the whole time.

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  “I’ll get plates,” Olly said, winked at me and walked inside.

  The food smelled fantastic, and I smiled happily as I filled my plate.

  “Eight languages?” Wilder asked suddenly.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You speak that weird shit the Ophidians talk?”

  “Totally,” I mumbled, although my mouth was full of food so I nodded too.

  She swallowed quickly and pulled out her phone.

  “Did you call them yet?” she asked without greeting, and proceeded to cut the one on the other end off. “Get to the Harper’s, Dad. Annie speaks Ophidian.”

  I blinked at her labeling of the language and was about to correct her when she leaned back and rolled her eyes.

  “We are not coming to you. Annie has spent twenty-four hours with a lot of Olly and not a lot of food. She’s eating.”

  She closed the call, threw her phone on the table, and continued eating.

  “You just hung up on him?” I asked.

  “He does it to me often enough,” she grinned.

  Okay. That was rude although she didn’t seem to think so, so maybe it wasn’t.

  We were still eating when Hawker and Miller walked in.

  “Fluently?” Hawker said to me in the way of greeting.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Can we –”

  “They’re waiting for my call,” Hawk cut me off and moved our plates to the side of the table. “Might not be needed but I don’t trust them, so if they say shit I should know, just give me a signal.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “How?”