by A N Britton
There were no thoughts, just me moving, lengthening my stride and preparing to leap. With a surprising proficiency, Manolo leaped up and was over the back of the sofa. In my face. Between me and my prey. He tried to make me focus on him as Alyssa stood and twisted her mouth to make her excuses.
“Chymaera, Chy–look at me!” His head bobbed and weaved to obstruct my line of sight. “It isn’t what you think.”–But that didn’t match the apology in Alyssa’s eyes. I must have arrived before she’d had her chance to make a move because, geezus, when she stood. The “gorgeous undercover” thing was over, or on hold. Gone were the overalls and unkempt look. No, she was all sleek and sassy in skinny, high-waisted denim leggings (tastefully shredded) and a cropped floral bustier. She’d topped off the ensemble with one of those sheer crocheted cardigans that wouldn’t protect you from a cold stare. Still had a messyish bun, but I could tell she’d curled it first, and she had the audacity to be wearing make-up. She must have gone through every YouTube tutorial to get that barely there, yet perfectly highlighted natural beauty style. For anyone else, this would have been “studied casual”, I didn’t want to know how she’d rock “sexy as hell”.
I think I snarled at him.
I tried to see my way around Manolo, tried to move past him without hurting him, but he grasped my upper arms and wouldn’t let go. He made me look at him, and I scanned his face, looking for some change I’d missed. All I saw was familiar, his face, tanned from his soccer playing. The dark eyebrows that furrowed with earnestness. Those beautiful worried eyes, and the black forelock of wavy hair that seemed to fall across his forehead as he was making a point. Nothing in his face explained Alyssa’s presence. Love for me still emanated from him, but so did other things I didn’t want to analyze too deeply. His mouth moved, but I didn’t want to hear anything he said. I loved him, yet part of me saw him as an obstacle. Then Manolo shook me, hard.
“Don’t do this Chy. You do not want to do this. Open your hands.” I almost didn’t understand him, but I looked at my clenched fists and relaxed them. My black claws had bitten into my flesh, it was my good fortune I didn’t bleed unless I needed a show and the gashes were dry. As I looked at them, the moon-shaped incisions closed into smooth scar free skin; I looked to him for approval. Gently, he whispered “your eyes Chy, your eyes”, I closed my eyelids and turned my head to the side, willing my smoke colored irises to return.
Once I thought I might pass for normal and lifted my lids, Manolo released one of my arms and spoke without turning. “Alyssa, we need to talk, just Chy and me…” He stared me down while Alyssa stammered “Of course, of course–it is just a misunderstanding Chymaera. I wouldn’t…. He wouldn’t.”
I heard it all, but couldn’t even acknowledge she’d spoken. The stench of her newly formed cold sweat, the weight of her remorse, her own sense of wrongness just made her offensive. Not to mention that my sense of betrayal on that night of all nights just made me want to rip her lying tongue right out of the world. I looked her dead in her face, “I see you.”
She startled at my words and perhaps sensed the mortal danger she was in because her face drained of all color and fear flooded my nostrils. That just pissed me off more.
Manolo recognized the threat, he clutched both of my hands and held them in an iron grip while she gathered her things.
Alyssa moved past us saying nothing more and left, closing the door behind her. Once her conflicting mixture of emotions stopped touching me, I came down from the rage high. Manolo pulled me towards him and wrapped his arms around me, but mine hung limp at my sides. “Chy, I need you to do whatever you have to do to calm yourself so we can talk. Please Chy, please.” I resisted, while still and deceptively placid. This whole exchange had taken a minute or two. There were questions where there had always been a certainty. I was past tired, my weariness consumed me and would require more than a good night’s sleep to dispel. Finally I gave up, I didn’t have the energy for any more anger. I allowed it to get shoved down with all the other things I planned to deal with later. Others might not get it, but I needed him. So, I sighed and slumped against the familiar “I will. Let me shower and clean up first.” Manolo squeezed me once more and let me go, “You know where everything is.” He kissed my forehead and moved away.
As I shambled off to the bathroom, I thought–his forehead kisses used to mean all was right in our world, what do they mean now?
It wasn’t until I stood under the spray for a good quarter hour and had completed a cleansing meditation that a few things occurred to me. For one thing, I might have an anger management problem. I had never, ever been so crazy angry and out of control in my life. Whatever I had walked into, was maybe worth a good cussing out and a strong exit; I had wanted to separate heads from shoulders. To be honest, I might have done it too, had Manolo not interfered. The thought that a part of me had looked for an opening to mangle my traitorous best friend almost brought me to my knees. That lead me to a larger concern; Manolo had known more than he’d ever let on and I didn’t know what that meant. He’d seen me mid transformation into something openly hostile with claws and black eyes, but he didn’t recoil in fear or surprise. Instead, he’d just tried to hide me from being seen by Alyssa, from hurting Alyssa. As if he didn’t fear me or what I could do to him. He’d held my arms and hands, being careful, but still displaying a strength that wasn’t normal. There was no way he should have been able to protect her; he should have been too scared to try. I turned off the water, my evening had been full of questions, someone owed me some damn answers.
I didn’t rush, but I moved briskly through a familiar routine. Manolo’s had been my crash pad of choice for a while now. I’d kept clothing in the back of his closet for nights like these, well, not exactly nights like these. I threw on some panties, a cami bra top and a Lululemon hoodie and leggings. Mentally, I tried to prepare for the coming conversation. Feeling as if I didn’t know what I was walking into, I twisted my hair in a towel and exited the bathroom.
8 - Secrets and lies
Chymaera
Despite the evidence of secrets between us, I didn’t approach Manolo with wariness. He was more family than much of my clan, and I couldn’t discard trust so quickly. Because he knew my moods, he’d taken the time to create a calm setting for the discussion he recognized was coming. The hulking TV sat silent, the screen dark. Instead, a somber Amos Lee tune drifted out of the speakers. He’d settled himself on the far left of the couch, reclining against the arm while he pressed and smeared charcoal to a sketch pad resting against his raised knees. He’d readied my regular seat at the opposite end, propping my favorite mandala print pillow in the corner. Manolo, always a good host, had crafted my “terrible, horrible day” indulgence; a tall root beer float made with vanilla bean gelato, dark chocolate syrup, and Stewarts. And an extra bottle of Stewarts on the side. The frosty glass beckoned from the coffee table.
There was no reason to hurry the conversation, so I made myself comfortable. He’d placed my rucksack underneath the table and I traced a finger along Fiddle for a second before I reached for the float. I beat down the foamy stuff on top to make room for more root beer; my preference being for floats with the consistency of a thin milkshake. No words escaped my lips; I concentrated on my fizzy, sweet, smooth treat while I watched Manolo out of the corner of my eye.
He didn’t disappoint. “So anything you want to say or are you waiting for me?”
“Nope, it’s all you.”
Manolo looked up then, relaxed, a smudge of charcoal on his cheek where he’d brushed his face with sooty fingertips. His eyebrows knit together for a moment. “Fine, what the hell was that Chy? You looked like you wanted to kill Alyssa, your best friend!”
I almost fake choked to make a point, but I didn’t want to be crass. “So that is where you want to start? I had a rough night and was on edge when I got here. Don’t exaggerate, I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even touch her, and hell, she looked like she wanted to get touched
.” I smirked with feigned innocence and slurped more of my float. He tried to stare me down, his serious face made a tad ridiculous by the hair band he’d put on to keep his wavy locks out of his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that! What was she even doing here?”
Manolo gave me a sad smile, “She might have a crush Chy. Started a few months ago. Another Friday or Saturday like this and you weren’t around. She’d texted me because you weren’t responding and she needed to get out of her house for a few hours. I told her to come over. It’s happened now and again. She didn’t talk much at first, well, now she talks. Lots of stuff in that head of hers. Lately, she’s been dressing… different. But she has never said or done anything direct. She doesn’t want anything. There isn’t anything.”
Such a simple explanation, but remembering Alyssa’s guilt, that girl wanted something. I cleared my throat and poured more syrupy deliciousness into my creamy concoction. “What about you, what do you want Manolo? I mean you figured it out and nothing you’ve said sounds like you discouraged her at all.”
There was a brief flash of embarrassment across his face that disappeared as soon as it appeared. He stalled for a time, placing the pad and charcoal on the table and rubbing the stain into his fingers. “Like I said, she hasn’t been direct, so I ignored what she didn’t say. Easier that way. Look, I wouldn’t touch her now, not while we. In the future…” He shrugged and pressed his hands into his jeans.
I was not expecting that. I gulped down the last bit of my joy and thunked the tumbler on the table. Reaching underneath, I grasped my Fiddle, my loyal Fiddle.
An earnest Manolo made his plea. “Look, I love you, you’re my best friend. But this, us together, it was never a forever thing. Neither of us even want that. Hell, I figured we’d break up early summer. We never even brought up going LDR.”
All of that was true. Still, I had a petulant “SO!” cocked and ready to go. This wasn’t how I thought we would end shit. “What the fuck! You think I am just supposed to let this go?”
“Come on Chy, there is no ‘this’. There may never be! And yeah, let it go because our friendship has been for real, but I’ve always been more of an accessory or prop than an actual boyfriend. Look, you enjoy acting like a couple when it suits you, when it is fun or comforting to you. But you are just biding your time until you are an adult, and you can hook up with one of your own kind.”
My non-existent heart stopped. WTF? Was that a hint? How long has he thought this? “What are you trying to say Manolo?”
The way he looked at me before he answered, I felt like he was trying to convey sympathy or something, but failed miserably. There was too much conflict beneath the surface to fake it; with a puff of irritation he spit it out, “You are a Thumbra Chy. I’ve always known and you aren’t even the first I’ve known.”
Taken aback, I responded wryly, “Yeah, you’ve experienced so much in your long life.”
His eyes became so queer then. Unfocused, like he was looking deep within himself, “Yeah, I have had a very, very long life depending on your definition of the word.” Then his eyes were glaring at me, into me. “Don’t fight me on this Chy. I know. I have always kept your secret and I will continue to. But we need to talk without bullshit right now.”
There was a modicum of relief in hearing him express the need to be open; however, the revelations were all about me. What about him, what was he hiding? “So, lets say I am what you say; what the hell does that make you Manolo? How could you have always known?” My tone was pointed, perhaps more so than I intended. He deliberated in silence, taking time to frame an answer.
“What do you know about daimons, specifically changelings?”
Daimons? Changelings? He sucked all the air out of the room with those words. Those things aren’t alive. The guy who’d made me feel like I fit in, if he was a daimon, then he was past tense. I sat stupefied, gazing on Manolo while he spoke with a straight face, like his words were nothing. There was only one thing to do; I burst into tears. Crying isn’t even natural to Thumbras; however, we all had to learn to do it before we started school. Think about it, nothing seems stranger than a small child who never, ever cries. Well, I learned too well because whenever I got frustrated (which I was) I bawled.
I’m not sure what was more pathetic, me sobbing like a kid who lost her favorite toy, or Manolo looking stricken and his poor attempt to give me solace. Thinking back; I’m sure it was Manolo. His discomfort was palpable as he slid across the couch to hold me and rubbed awkward circles on my back while mumbling something about it being okay. I almost laughed. Almost.
“For fuck’s sake! You still don’t know how to deal with a woman when she cries?”
Manolo stared at me with surprise and chagrin. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever made you cry before. I don’t like not being able to fix it. And while I have been around for a good long time, neither my human life nor my daimon one has prepared me to like, comfort anyone.”
That sobered me up a little. I dabbed my face with my sleeves and tried to be mature about all this. “Daimon? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sighed as if his reasoning had been obvious, but still he answered. “First, you weren’t ready. You’ve spent your entire life trying to pass for human. You needed me to be a barometer of success for you. I was a kid that other kids liked, so you took being friends with me, and then being my girlfriend, as proof you were winning. Passing. I didn’t want to take that away from you. Second, as time went on, it felt more like deceit and I couldn’t even fathom how to come clean. I’ve never wanted to tell anyone until you.”
Speechless that he’d read me so well, I gave him a little squeeze. I couldn’t fault his logic. I often escaped to Manolo’s house, hung out with him, because it was easier to pretend I was just a girl, my life was normal. He was my human accessory and shield. I willed away the last of my tears, settled Fiddle in my lap and looked at my new old friend. I needed information and time to process it. “Okay, I’m ready now. Tell me all of it. So you are a daimon… Why?”
“First, tell me what you know.”
“Uh, well daimons are the spirits of humans who’ve died that don’t go on to the pretty pretty in the sky. Hey, I didn’t think you could possess bodies for long?”
He winced and motioned like he wanted to pull his hair out. “Fine, so nothing then. Okay, so daimons are former humans who have died and lost the privilege of having a soul. Being a daimon can be a permanent punishment or temporary term of penance. There are many types of daimons. But I can’t tell you that much because daimons don’t hang out with each other and share experiences or anything. I am a daimon changeling. Changeling refers to my job classification. I guess you could say I work undercover.”
“Ooookay. So how did you get this position?”
It was bizarre watching Manolo contort his face before he answered my questions. It occurred to me that I had never seen Manolo discomfited to this extent. He’d eased himself back into his seat and turned to face away from me, staring at the empty television screen. He seemed old and different now, his 6 foot frame bunched and hunched over at the waist, elbows on knees and hands clenched. A familiar body that was suddenly just as much a mask as my own.
“Chy, my story began in a place there is no record of. My mother was little more than a girl when her tiny kingdom waged war with another. They lost and my mother was lost with it. I believe it was my paternal grandfather who brought her home be a handmaiden to his son’s new wife. Well, she ended up tending to my father more often than his wife. I followed, and several more followed me. So my father’s estate grew in children and property both. As a child it wasn’t a bad existence. The children weren’t segregated and for a long time I played with my half siblings with no real distinction made between us. My younger brother, my father’s heir, was my best friend. My brother and I were so close I attended many of his tutoring sessions as he seemed to engage better with the material when he had me to compete against.”
“I le
arned things that were not typical for the time, much less for slaves. To read and write, to cipher. I even learned to think critically, I thought. Then there came a time when the differences between us became more clear. Now, I will not say life was bucolic for the masters and the slaves were suffering in work pits. No. Everybody worked hard. But while my brother had few options, I didn’t see that I had any. That grated on me.”
“Once my education had concluded, my father decided I would be the next steward. I was to learn from the aging steward and serve my father’s household and in time, I would serve my brother’s. To be fair, my father meant to compliment my intelligence and skill. This pleased my mother, all she wanted was for her children to have a place where they could serve and earn their keep. She didn’t have dreams for more, whether a wife in a poor man’s house, or a slave in a rich man’s house. Her lot was to work and bear children either way. But I had learned just enough to desire more.”
“Time went on, my bother and I became young men. I took on more responsibilities in maintaining the master’s storehouses and household staff while my brother went off to fight a savage horde. With him gone, it was harder to pretend that I was anything other than what I was, a slave. As dangerous as it was, I wanted to be exploring life outside our compound, not trying to improve our food storage methods. And I was sick of seeing my mother bear more and more free chattel for my father. I hated my life. I railed against my situation and I blamed it all on my father.”