This choice: Go to bed; tomorrow is another day • Go Back...Chapter #43Retrograde Motion by: imaj   You lay the book aside with a snort. You'd forgotten how cheesy the series was. Even Joe could recognize the hackery of the plot and prose at an early age; but they were fun, and he and Giuseppe loved using them as frameworks for their own pretended adventures. Even the man they called "Dad" would play along, hiding "treasures" (such as the "magical table fork of Kublai Khan") and setting them on elaborate scavenger hunts.
But why bring a nostalgic book like this along on a real-life--?
Oh yeah. Now you remember.
You flip to the end cover, where a plain white envelope has been securely fastened between the cover and the very last page. The elaborate sigil was drawn by Kali Valentine's graceful hand. It is nothing "magical", just a message more or less meaning Open only in case of emergency. The character of the emergency in question is described in the sigil: a conjunction of Arbol, Perelandra, Lurga, and Catilindria under a comet, that flaming symbol of nemesis and chance. At least once a week Joe sketches a horoscope looking for the signs. They have never appeared.
But there's no reason you can't read it, is there? You tear it out and tear it open.
From it you draw a sheaf of papers. Not even parchment, just ordinary office paper that's been run through a laser printer. You read:
*****
Kali stirred from her slumber as the early morning light worked its way into her bedroom. It crept past the blinds and marched slowly up her bed as the sun rose in the sky. The room was still cool as she slipped out of the bed, wrapping the sheets around her torso. That would change soon as the stifling summer heat built up.
Although she had lived in LA for years, Kali had never quite gotten used to the hot muggy summers. She slept naked and with the windows open and the faint sounds of the rush hour traffic could just about be heard in the distance. She shuffled over to the large mirrored doors of her closest and regarded herself critically in the half light of the room.
Another grey hair, she thought, picking at it with a free hand. It knows the truth even if the rest of me doesn’t. Kali lifted her chin up and turned her head slightly to the side. The delicate face remained much the same as it had for the last twenty years or so: The same rich coppery colouring, the same prominent cheekbones. Not bad for a forty-something, and especially not bad given she was closer to sixty. Kali still remembered the wee bespectacled girl that had stared into the mirror in a Paisley terrace a lifetime and half the globe away.
All she had to worry about then was the odd insensitive jibe about the colour of her skin from a few particularly idiotic ten year old boys. Life is more complicated these days she thought as she let the sheets slip to the floor and reached for her robe. Kali felt a momentary pang of sympathy for her long dead mother as she walked out the bedroom and into the main room of the loft apartment she lived in.
The girl, Kali couldn’t help but think of her as a girl even though she was in her nineteenth year, was up already, dressed in a simple pair of denim shorts and a frayed pink tee. Her dark brunette hair, already lightening in the California sun, was tied in a simple ponytail and she sucked on a glass of fruit juice through a straw.
“Good morning Kali,” she said, the valley girl intonations in her speech obvious. Charles had told Kali to expect as much, of course, but the speed with which the girl had shed her native accent over the last couple of weeks still amazed her. Kali herself still spoke with a trace of her native accent although she managed to avoid some of the more indecipherable parts of her mother tongue unless her concentration lapsed.
“Morning Hélène,” replied Kali.
“What are we doing today,” asked Hélène cheerfully as she placed her glass of juice on the worktop that marked the edge of the kitchen and the beginning of the lounge.
“I’m going to have my breakfast,” explained Kali grumpily. Even the most generous soul was allowed to be a little prickly before their first cup of coffee. She skirted past Hélène and poured out a cup from the jug in one corner. “Maybe have a shower and check my email,” said Kali as she perched on one of the stools at the worktop
“Great,” interrupted Hélène. She practically skipped away from the worktop and pulled a pair of laptops out from the shelf under the coffee table in the middle of the loft. Hélène set the larger of the two, a sleek black number, in front Kali.
“Aye, thanks.” Said Kali as she took a sip from her coffee. The sarcasm was lost on Hélène. Instead the girl sat down next Kali and flipped open her little pink netbook and booted it up.
Kali took another sip of her coffee and turned her own machine on. It took a little while for wake up fully now, another sign that old age was finally creeping up on her. With the third sip, Kali’s brain finally started to move into gear.
She glanced at Hélène’s netbook. The girl was typing out a message to her family, entirely in French. It was harmless enough, Kali supposed. Hélène would have to break contact with her family, her old family, sooner or later – Just as Kali had done the same with her family, such as it was, all those years ago. Charles had doubtless told the girl as much when he found her in whatever Parisian suburb she had lived in. Letting her email her parents was simply a polite fiction to ease the girl’s transition into her new life.
Kali’s laptop chimed as it finished loading Windows. She took one last sip of her coffee and started her email program. There was a password, of course, and Kali tapped it in quickly while Hélène was engrossed with her own mails.
There was one new mail waiting for her.
Kali took one look at the subject line and dropped her coffee. The cup rolled across the worktop, spilling what little was left across the surface. It reached the edge and fell to the floor where it shattered into pieces.
 | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
<<-- Previous · Outline  · Recent Additions © Copyright 2024 imaj (UN: imaj at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Seuzz has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work within this interactive story. Poster accepts all responsibility, legal and otherwise, for the content uploaded, submitted to and posted on Writing.Com. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author