#so I’m just like welp guess I finish grabbing the ones I regret selling and the couple I missed

[raeathnos]

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[pinkalexlive]

“I think you and Ellie have demonstrated you aren’t worth the effort,” Uncle Paul said, his voice low.  He’d approached Paige, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. 

She stepped away, instead.  She was crying, now.  “I thought you’d at least play fair, Peter.  Maybe you have to be loyal to Ellie because you grew up with her, but I thought you’d be fair, with me.  We’re supposed to have a connection.”

“You hear about twins eating one another in the womb,” Peter said.  “Maybe I got some of your brains, huh?  Because that’s fucking stupid.”

Paul no!

Peter no!

Paige stared at him, incredulous.  Then she slapped him, hard.

It was the catalyst for this entire thing to become a full-on fight.  Not sniping one another, not lacing casual statements with words meant to cut.  Shouting, Aunt Steph trying to grab Paige, and Paige ducking out of reach, running instead.

Damnit Peter! Minus cousin points for all this!

“Molly,” the man at the door said.  “She’s asking for you next.”

Wait, is the grandma still alive? I thought she was already dead.

“It’s my turn,” I said.  “I’m Blake Thorburn.  Go after Paige, Molly.  I don’t think I’ll be long.”

“Cutting in, Blake?”  Callan asked.  “I think you were lying, about not wanting any of this.”

I gave him the finger.  When I looked, Molly gave me a nod, before breaking into a run to chase Paige.

Callan loses a point, and Molly gets a point!

Grandmother doesn’t look like someone who’s about to die.   The room smelled of flowers and fresh air, from the windows that opened just above the garden.

Oh shit she’s alive!

She had been propped up in a sitting position in her bed, leaning against an arrangement of pillows.  She was dressed in an old fashioned nightgown that extended to her broomstick-thin wrists, her hair tied back in a tight bun.  Her eyes were sharp as they studied me, and her hands were steady as they raised a teacup to her lips.  Her nurse stood to her left in his scrubs, her lawyer to her right was an Indian man in an immaculate suit.  Her cat, maybe the largest housecat I’d ever seen, gray and well groomed, lay with its head in her lap.

If the creepy house and hag-ness wasn’t a sign she was a witch, the cat is.

“Well, this is refreshing,” she finally said.  Her voice was clear.  Not an old person’s voice.  Certainly not a ninety-year old’s.  “It feels like all the rest of them are dressed like they can’t wait for my funeral.  Or maybe they’re too cheap to buy two outfits for the occasion.”

“With all due respect,” I said, picking my words carefully, “I don’t give a flying fuck, you disgusting, evil, rancid cunt.”

Blake damnit don’t piss the hag off

“I think that’s crude,” she said.  “A more civilized person would use words to attack me.”

Lemme guess. We’re gonna have magic spells with verbal components?

“What words are going to matter?  What am I going to say that’s going to make an impact on you?  Honestly, what am I going to do that’s going to make you recognize even an iota of the pain you’ve caused everyone out there?”

“And the pain I’ve caused you?” she asked.  “You’re most likely right, I suppose.  There’s very little that someone could say that would shake me.”

I’m probably not supposed to like the hag, but I like the hag.

“You’re scum, and you’re the one thing at the root of everything that’s going on out there.”

I wonder what she did to cause that. Bad parenting? Magical side effects? Or is Blake just being pessimistic?

“You took advantage of those things, making all of this one big fucked up game.  Laying down the rule, that only one person gets the property and the millions from selling it.  Then you say it has to be a grandchild-“

“My children are useless,” she said.  She was so dismissive and casual about it.

“-And then you drop the bomb that it has to be a girl.  You broke up this family, you did it strategically.  You set us tooth and nail against one another, and now you’re enjoying tearing the others down, ruining their hopes.”

Is she looking for an heir to her witchiness? I’d bet the property doesn’t just include the house. If Paige gets it for some reason, it’d explain why she’s involved in magic. But then how does Blake get dragged in?

‘Rich’ turned my way.  “I can offer you a cup as well, if you promise not to throw it at her.”

“Don’t offer me anything, then, thank you,” I said.  I looked at my grandmother.  “I don’t want anything she has to offer.  Not tea, not the inheritance-“

“To clarify,” she said, “I’ve stressed repeatedly that it’s a female grandchild that will get the inheritance.”

I like Rich and the grandma. They’re very sassy...

“I’m not about to rule out the fact that you’re messing with us, grandmother.  I could see you handing something over to Callan just to see our reactions.  Not to mention the trouble I’m having with the ‘I’m dying’ bit, which you’re doing a really bad job of selling.”

If anything I’d said had an impact, it was that.  I could see the faint amusement drop away from her.  “Are you accusing me of being a liar, Master Blake?”

Since I sorta know about the whole no lying thing, I’d wager being called a liar is a higher insult than Blake understands.

“I consider myself honest, if nothing else.”

See?

She sipped her tea, winced at the heat, licking her thin lips with her tongue, and then leaned back against the arrangement of pillows.

“You remind me of my father,” she said.  “He had passion, and an interest in justice.”

“He also fucked his cousin, if I remember right.”

She smiled a little.  “You heard of that?  Yes.  That would be him.”

This goddamn family.

“Not an option,” she said.  She stroked the cat, scratching him at the lowest part of his back, just in front of his tail.  “The house stands.  I’m picking the young lady who I feel can look after it.”

The house has some kind of spell. Maybe a seal keeping demons or other magical baddies away? Maybe the “neighbors” are baddies that can’t hurt the family because of the house’s hypothetical seal. Calling it.

“Look me in the eye, then, if you’re so honest, and tell me you don’t.  That you don’t get some measure of glee or satisfaction out of this.”

She looked me square in the eye.

Yet she didn’t say a word.

Yep, she can’t lie. I don’t know if it’s can’t lie as in literally can’t or if she has to consciously be honest, but yeah.

“Blake,” she said.

I stopped, my hand on the doorknob.  I regretted it the moment I paused.

“When you first spoke to me, you said, ‘All due respect’.  Did you mean it?”

I didn’t look at her.  “All due respect, you’re a festering old cunt?  One hundred percent.”

Wideboat and his foreshadowing. I know there’s some hidden message there I don’t quite get. Maybe that’s what makes the grandma choose Blake or something? Calling it.

But I dozed, my eyes half-open, a bit of a burden lifted from my shoulders.

Welp. There’s a chapter break here, so I’m gonna leave it here and pick it up either later today or tomorrow. I’m gonna have to find a way to make this faster, because we’ll never finish this story at this rate.