The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (27 page)

A preacher spoke. Quoting verses I’d never
heard before. Jethro Smith had us read
Genesis
and
Exodus
for
Languages
the year before and that’s the
entirety of my biblical knowledge outside of movies and TV shows.
It was good stuff, I guess. Good enough to keep me lurking near the
doors, unable to go forward, my ears running my body as I listened.
My eyes . . . they found the casket. That opened piece of polished
wood, Mom’s body being shown to those who claimed they loved her,
but not a one had tried to help her. I put myself in the same
category.

We all tried to be understanding at first,
but eventually we all stopped caring, we forgot her to her
problems. Dad tried the hardest to keep her alive. That’s love, I
guess. He didn’t do a good job, couldn’t stop what happened for
nothing, but he stayed firm with her and that’s more than anyone
else did.

He sat in the front row, crying into his
shirt. My grandma sat next to him, pretending she couldn’t hear
him. Mom’s mom. Dad’s mom died of breast cancer when I was three.
Grandpa Price a couple years afterwards. I barely remember
them.

I remember Mom’s mom though. She didn’t have
a last name attached, she was just Grandma, the only one by the
time I got old enough to say it.
What a bitch
. Surprise,
surprise—another shit role-model in King Henry’s life. See . . .
Grandma had exacting standards to which my father didn’t fit, which
meant Mom had married down below her station. Grandma always saw
Mom marrying a doctor or lawyer I think, not marrying some high
school football star turned warehouse worker. But he loved her,
adored her even, and that was enough for Mom. Maybe she did it just
to piss off Grandma . . . wouldn’t surprise me. I have to get the
attitude from somewhere and it doesn’t seem to come from Dad.

Grandma still came over for the holidays
well into my lifetime, but the minute Mom started getting sick,
having her mood swings, I never saw Grandma around but rarely. By
the time things got really bad and the ‘Bad Days’ grew . . . never
at all. Her own daughter and she was forgotten. A mistake, a failed
creation, something to rot and die unseen, left to its misery.

And there’s Grandma. Sitting in the pew.
Right beside Dad. Not crying a tear. Glad it’s finally all over and
she can remember what she wanted out of her daughter’s life, not
what it had
become
.

As always . . . anger got me moving. There’s
something special about striding down the center of pews with
people watching you. That’s probably the secret of weddings. Sure,
the dress, the ring, the lifelong commitment, but we all know the
vast majority of humanity is shallow enough to want to alter their
lives just for a chance to show off in front of their friends and
family. I’ve known people who would give up more for less.

About halfway to the casket, realization
dawned on those that knew me. King Henry had made it to his Mom’s
funeral from wherever he disappeared to for the last years. Heck,
maybe his parents had even been telling the truth about the
special school
and he hadn’t run off like the other two
before him. Yeah, assholes, what do you know about my life? What
gives you the right to ask yourself questions about it? What gives
you the right to think about it at all? Wallow in your own shit, I
know you got plenty, I can smell the stink.

The preacher started to wane in his eulogy,
distracted, the room quieting to a hush that opened up a void for
my footfalls to echo again and again, a
tap-tap
approaching
on the carpet-covered wood floors. I could have found an empty
seat. I could have had Dad and Grandma make room. I could have done
some very private type stuff, but I didn’t.

I stopped in front of the casket. Dad gave a
gasp behind me and knowing Grandma she glared at the back of my
head . . . I wasn’t being
mindful
. Be mindful of others. Be
mindful of your elders. Be mindful of your parents.

“Before you even start,” I said to the room,
my voice croaky from lack of moisture, “Shut up and give me a
minute here.”

Mom looked beautiful. Her dark hair was
still lush, her lips were still pouting—like death refused to touch
her. It would eventually. But not yet. Corpusmancer, Ceinwyn Dale
had guessed, and here was the proof of it. Mancers sense what
normal people can’t and now that Mom was gone and her natural
protections were down I could feel it all. Mom’s body was filled to
the brim with strange anima, enough it unknowingly kept her young
all these years, even as it drove her insane. Enough of it that
even if I’d taught her what I knew it would have been too late . .
. but that thought gave me no relief.

I still felt guilty. All the ‘Bad Days,’ all
the ‘Good Days,’ all the times I’d blamed her and cursed her and
wished her dead and here was that wish come true after I’d finally
hoped for something better. Too fucking late, kiddo. Too late
before you were born. Some Recruiter for the Asylum screwed up and
missed her back in the 80s and that’s it. Your Mom got fated to end
up here. Dead and still so beautiful.

My hand reached out, hovered over her, doing
as I’d been taught—what she’d been denied—and feeling the anima
saturation inside her. It was so damn much anima . . . twenty-odd
years of a mancer’s resting rate of anima building, minus the few
accident discharges she probably hadn’t even realized had taken
place. Eventually it would turn into necro-anima. Life to death.
The decaying side of the world as the rest of her turned to
something moldy. Even anima can only keep time at bay for so long.
We all rot in the end. Nothing is eternal.

There was a void in the pool, near her
lungs. “Oh, Mom . . .” I croaked aloud.

Her first use of anima and it had been used
to kill her. To end her pain. She gave herself cancer to end it, I
realized with a sob. That hole of anima burned into my mind.

“I’m sorry they didn’t find you . . .” I
whispered, “So sorry I couldn’t do anything to help you . . .”

Over my shoulder, Dad kept crying. Big tough
guy reduced to tears, his eyes puffy, his face worse than mine. Mom
had been his world. He’d stuck by her through everything. I only
hoped that one day I could love a woman like that. Knowing my
childhood, fuck if I will. No chance. But I’d settle for a fourth
of it. That’s a big ass fourth . . .

“She was like me, Dad,” I told him. “It’s
not her fault.”

“Like you?” Dad asked, voice muffled in
shock.

“The school . . . they never found her . . .
so this is what happens,” I explained. “I was hoping I could help
her when I got home, but I guess . . . well, I was too late.” Quite
a few people, including the preacher and Grandma eyed me like I was
the crazy one and maybe that’s what I’d inherited. “There’s nothing
either of us could have done. Save maybe understand it, at least .
. . so I guess you did right by her. More right than I did.”

Dad’s his face crushed up in grief. “Sit
down, boy. We’ll talk after the funeral and you can come home for
awhile. Forget that place, okay? If they did this . . . just forget
them forever.”

I guess I didn’t expect him to understand it
all, so when he didn’t get it . . . well . . . oh well. Maybe one
day it would click for him. “I can’t, Dad. I learn or I end up like
Mom. After that . . . I got to do something to make this all right.
I gotta go. Sorry.”

Dad looked at the casket again. “She wanted
you to go, but I didn’t.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Best do what your mom wanted then. She
always knew what was right.”

My feet moved. I walked from the casket,
away from Mom’s dead body to the sound of my dad’s new chorus of
tears.

“See you in five years, Dad,” I said mostly
to myself.

I walked past all of them, the journey of
heading back up the center of the pews not nearly as fun as it is
the other way. I recognized faces, Dad’s boss and co-workers. Sally
was there with her mom. I didn’t even give her a second glance. I’d
moved so far beyond that by then. This life fit worse than my brand
new jeans and t-shirt. It all felt wrong. Too free and too confined
at the same time.

[CLICK]

On the way out of the church, in my haste to
get through the doors and to Ceinwyn Dale’s car, I ran into a woman
who was hanging outside, like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to
break the barrier. We both staggered from the impact. She yelped
out, stepping back, while my hand lost its hold on the church door,
sending it to close on me, a thud of wood on my shoulder.

Around the wood, I saw black hair and a
beautiful face and for just a moment some part of my mind not in
touch with reality took over and my lips betrayed me to utter,
“Mom?”

The woman’s head snapped up, hair falling
farther away to reveal a face much younger than I’d ever seen my
mother’s, back before she got sick, back to a time I only knew from
picture frames and an old high school yearbook which occasional got
dug out of a closet. Only this woman had my dad’s nose, much
sharper than Mom’s. She frowned at me and I realized my
mistake.

A gasp escaped from her pouty lips. “
King
Henry
?” she asked in surprise.

“Susan . . .” I said back, staring at her. I
stepped around the door to finally let it close, but my mouth
stayed shut for once.

My eldest sister smiled down at me. She’d
gotten Dad’s height too. She had to be twenty-two by then, I’m
pretty sure. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in four years

“You grew up,” she told me as a
greeting.

I could have asked so many questions. But I
settled on the present. “What are you doing here?”

Instead of answering right off, she motioned
for me to hug her, so I did. One of my lost sisters appearing just
like that . . . and the one I liked. Susanna Belle Price. It made
my mind turn off more than Mom’s death had. I just kind of . . .
became a part of the moment.

“I heard about Mom, but . . . it’s hard to
work up the nerve, lil’ bro. Here I’ve been, sitting outside on my
butt, not able to go see Dad or you or JoJo.”

I frowned. “JoJo left,” I told her. “Year
after you did. No one’s seen her since.”

There we were, two siblings talking about
the missing one on the sunny summer day, outside of our mother’s
funeral. Susan’s expression went pretty shocked at my news. “She
left? What do you mean
she left
?”

“Her and Dad got into a fight like always
and it was one too many,” I explained, “So JoJo bailed on us.”

“It’s just you and Mom and Dad?”

I grimaced. “Not quite. The parents got me
hooked up with this special boarding school a couple years ago, so
I’ve been gone too.”

“You left them
alone
?” she accused,
face disapproving.

“And who do you think you are giving me shit
for this one?” I yelled back. “You
left
first, Susan! JoJo
bailed
! What I did was fucking
escape
!”

“Right . . . you’re right . . . I just . . .
I never thought it would get this bad,” she admitted to soothe my
anger.

“This bad alright,” I agreed, my whole body
tight, anima bubbling, “and no way to fix it.”

She studied me, up and down again, a frown
on her face, probably still thinking how much I’d grown. I’d been
twelve and not even five-foot last she saw of me. “So where are you
going to, not staying?”

“I said goodbye, that’s all I needed. What
about you?”

“I can’t, lil’ bro . . . it’s too weird.
Especially with JoJo gone. They’ll blame me for that too.”

“Dad could probably use a visit later if you
have the time,” I tried to find some middle ground for her, “Wait
until Grandma’s not around.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She hugged me again . . .
hard, like she didn’t expect to do it again. It reminded me of the
hug I got before she left home. “You’re just going back to
school?”

“Yup.”

“I never took you for the type.”

“It’s a bit different than normal school.”
We started walking towards the parking lot, getting away from the
church. “I was tenth in the class last year.”

“Out of ten?” she joked.

“Out of thirty.”

“My lil’ bro doing good at school. Things
sure have changed.” Susan stopped us in front of a SUV newer than
Ceinwyn’s car. “This is mine.”

Nicer than Ceinwyn’s car too. “You’re doing
well for yourself then?”

She nodded with a smile, a little nervous,
maybe a little ashamed too. “I settled in Washington, up north, not
DC . . . and worked my way through community college, got a
secretary position, have a boyfriend . . . it’s pretty nice and
normal. I like it . . .”

I was just tall enough to see into the SUV’s
interior; plush leather, premium electronics. My eyes caught the
child-lock. I had a dreadful thought.
The Mancy finds
itself
. “Anything ever break around you?” I asked, serious.

She seemed confused. “What’s that mean?”

“Start any fires, walk on water, hear voices
in your head?”

“King Henry . . . you’re not sick like Mom,
are you?”

I gave her a hard look. “No, I’m fine. Are
you?”

“Of course not,” she said, giving me an
expression back that said I might be a
little
sick. “What
are they teaching you at that school? New Age Religion?”

“Something like that.”

Susan opened a door and stepped inside to
the driver’s seat. “I thought about taking you with me when I left
the first time, but you were so young and so much trouble and it
probably would have been considered kidnapping if they caught me
with you . . . so I talked myself out of it.”

“It’s okay Susan,” I told her, giving her
conscience an ease. “It worked out for me. You go have your normal
life, big sis. One of us should get to.”