Evie had a dishwasher, but she never used it. It had always been her and Gran and they barely used any dishes. Evie used even less now that she was alone. Cassie and Tess were curled up in the corner. Lemon was snuffling the floor in search of crumbs.
"Hey Google," Evie called out. "Play My Favorites."
The female mechanical voice clomped out, "Playing My Favorites."
The BeeGees came on. It wasn't that Evie didn't like the BeeGees, but this song was from the nineteen-sixties. Pretty soon, the group started wailing, "I've just gotta get a message to you."
"Hey Google, skip song."
The next song was Carly Rae Jepson and Evie recognized it.
"Skip song," she barked out, but Google kept playing. "HEY GOOGLE, skip song!"
Then it was Blondie with, "Call Me."
"Hey Google, stop."
She snatched up her phone and opened her lists. My Favorites was foreign. Another list, Aoibh's Favorites was there. She opened it up and, sure enough, the familiar list that contained Britney Spears, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and all her favorite dance hits, was right there.
She went back to My Favorites. The list now included the Quinn the Eskimo, Here Comes the Rain Again, and Invisible Touch, among others. There was one song on the list that made her smile.
"Hey Google," she said, "play Here Comes the Sun."
She went back to the spare room. The room glowed red through the gauze sheers. She lifted photograph after photograph of her son. In the nineties, when she first started writing ZangZang, it irritated her that every picture he sent included Ren, and with her teeth clenched, she'd cut his image out. But after months of photographs, Evie gave it up.
Sometimes ZangZang called him Fuqin. Usually when he was mad at him. But more often, he called him A-Die. ZangZang had inadvertently told her something very clearly with all those pictures. "He's always with me."
YOU ARE READING
The Lamb and the Gray Battle
FantasyEvie has spent the last 575 years on the North American continent, now called America, the Pure and Clean. She smiles, volunteers and makes cakes and pastries for her neighbors, hiding away her demon blood. She wants nothing to do with her estranged...
