Open the Shadow Door to Darkness
RECAP: The effect of the ambush and its consequences and Sonny's response continues. Change, transformation takes time. It is rarely linear, rarely smooth or easy or consistent. Sonny is stepping through a door into a different world. This continues his journey.
The cast is small here:
His sister, Georgia, Pet (Tracie) and Mavis.
Howard Percival
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"It's Nova." The voice said in my ear.
Nova? Nova! She hates that name, she being my sister Georgia.
"Who is this?" I muttered in the Saturday hangover fuzz, not from a beer or ten but from the positioning of a son between his mother's legs, and not staying to plunder her nether reaches myself. Driving home I had second thoughts about that but the "walk away" always seems so powerful on TV, people never let it happen. When Jason chased me down, I had that fluttering moment thinking they wanted me to fill one of the two remaining holes but, no, they just needed to get the cuffs off.
"Nova!" My redheaded sister snarled in my ear. "Isn't that what you call me? It's Georgia, Sonny!"
"I know who Nova is." I snarled back and opened my eyes. "It's fucking six in the morning where are you?" I am not usually all worry wartish but for some reason I went to the disaster menu and started coasting through the options. "Did you just get your phone call?"
"Get my phone call? What are you talking about?"
So. Not in jail. My mind was finding its way into the home office and things were making a little more sense. I finally tagged what concerned me. My flaming sister sounded scared.
"Mom's on a tear!" That sister said in my ear.
Oh. That would do it.
"Where are you?" I was stalling but it turned out to be a very pertinent question.
"Downstairs." She said.
"Downstairs? We don't have a basement." Oh wait, we did have an upstairs, so downstairs? My mind was still spitting the bit. "What are you calling me from downstairs for? Just come up to my room." I opened my eyes and understood immediately. I was not in my room, in my house with that familiar downstairs where my sisters lived. Uh oh.
"What? Sonny, what's wrong with you? I am in the hotel, where you are staying, in the lobby, can you come down?"
"Now?" I asked getting out of bed. Mavis growled and rolled over. I nearly stepped on Pet curled up on the floor beside the bed. She squeaked and was on her knees without moving, an at once, adorable and unnerving skill. I shushed her and told her to go back to sleep. Her look in the silver morning light was so crushed I sorted through my standard explanations and found nothing that would do. I had the feeling I was missing something, maybe everything with Pet. Why no owner's manual? Seemed like I needed one...like it would do any good, such things have to be read to have any effect. I am an average guy, I never read the instructions...oh wait, yes I do. Fuck, so much for that excuse.
"Yes. Mom will be waking up pretty soon and we need a plan!"
Now it's "we" and "plan" she says. She and the rest of the quivering cabal moved me into a hotel with moist Mavis without consultation and Mom is on a tear and...wait! Mom's in China, how can she...? My mind turned to pudding as the facts of life slowly fit into place. Not THOSE facts of life, I have a pretty good handle on those...well, the early fun ones at least. How can Mom be in China and be on a tear? Oh never mind.
"Just get down here." Nova said in her best "Nova" voice.
I had a moment right then. You know how things change right? Well, some anyway...they transition from one species to another with small imperceptible changes that turn a lizard into a bird over a million year. I was evolving in just that way. Lizard brain into bird brain...wait! No, that's not right. You get my point though. Things change but sometimes we just don't notice and then, Pow! It hits you. Things are different! Nova had just used her best "Nova" voice that peels paint and makes puppies mean and pee on the carpet and Sonny didn't flinch. Maybe for the first time in Sonny history. It was historic and I took a moment to have a moment.
Pet watched me in that aforementioned silver morning light. Mavis snorted and mumbled something about the casserole being done then returned to her whistling snores. I shushed Pet again.
"Don't wake Mavis, it's Saturday!" I hissed. "Go back to sleep!" The look on her face returned to mortification. Oddly, I understood. "No, not this time. That was my idiot blister Nova and let me assure you, you do not want to get between a guy and his sister...um...well, if he has fucked her at least, twice...well more than twice, and in all the holes..." I careened to a stop realizing I was being noisy unnecessarily. Jabbering. Mom on a tear? Nova got her noveness from somewhere and I doubt it was George. I couldn't just stop at "in all the holes" though...that was like leaving the last note of a song unsounded. "Sister brother stuff, Pet. Best for you to stay out of the line of fire."
Mavis sat up then fully awake, eyes finding me in the glittering brilliance of the pending day. "Georgia is here?" She said in the most normal voice.
"Yes. But she doesn't want you..." I hesitated then added, "...yet." Just to be a bitch about it. "Go back to sleep."
Mavis's eyes blinked a time or two then she simply toppled backwards like a felled lodgepole fir. Thump. And she was whistle snoring again. I made a mental note to check if she remembered this moment later, B flat it was I think. I pointed to the floor beside Pet and with a small hesitation, she did the cat thing, circled a few times and then curled around herself into a tight little Pet ball and was still. By that time I had my shoes on and I could leave. Yes, pants too.
Georgia was standing in the lobby being eyed by the staff. The way she was dressed I couldn't blame them.
"Been shopping?" I asked, the garters and stockings looked good with the flared green pleated skirt but the equally green flannel shirt confused the oeuvre and thus the overall effect. Her hair was a rat's nest so chaotic it looked intentional, like it had been teased by a professional cock tease...no, that's not right! I was still waking up, so I hoped.
She looked down at herself and seemed to see her "halt" couture for the first time, a baby discovering that fabled foot and stuffing it in her mouth. "Oh, this old thing, I just threw something on! I couldn't sleep. Mom's on a tear."
I glanced around and found everyone in the nearly empty lobby watching us and got stage fright. "Maybe the coffee shop? We could sit? Your feet are killing me." Trainers with garters and stockings made my eyelids twitch. I just didn't want to know the story. We adjourned. Nova was not the fastidious fashionista in the family and this was a prime example of what she was not. No wonder people stared...hard to imagine anyone ordering up this combination from the escort menu. Little did I know what strange quirks get served if you avoid centralized government.
We sat down. She ordered breakfast, put it on the tab but didn't eat it when it came...which was fast! So I had some. She seemed to be gathering herself and since I was a bit scattered myself I joined her in the silence. The food came. She didn't eat it. I did.
"Mom's on a tear." She said finally.
"You did mention that. What has you all tangled up? Why is Cici Duncan on a tear and why does it concern you so profoundly...she is out of reach?"
Nova shook her head vigorously. "Mom is never out of reach. She's going to get Alissa fired!"
That woke me up. "What? Why?" She did have an IN with a very influential client of the firm Alissa worked for, but get her fired? I was missing something. "How?" I added, then appended the rest of the journalists' watchwords. "When? Who?" Adding redundancy to thoroughness.