Pumpking

Issue 2

My frown was showing on my face as it deepened- I glanced furtively around; no one else was volunteering. I was used to my unusual power making people nervous. It made me nervous. Just because Ash didn't look reliable or poor like the rest of us didn't mean he wasn't a keeper. I couldn't judge a man because his eyes freaked me out. That would be very counter-intuitive to what the PAP meetings stood for. Of everyone here, I was more than capable of taking care of myself if he turned out to be a creep of some sort. Since Tony was dead, I was the next, most powerful person in the room. At least until Simone mastered the arcane arts, I guess. I really was jumping to the conclusion that he was no good.

"Uhm. Sure. I'll grab your details before we finish up," I shifted lightly and looked back to Kurt. He gave me a reassuring smile and went on with the meeting.

It was hard to concentrate on Kurt's light banter after that, Ash was staring at me, and I realised with a start that I was staring back, trying to measure him. At a five-six I wasn't the tallest of women. I'd put on a nice cotton shirt over my old jeans, since I had just come from the gardens, and my copper-red hair was tied neatly behind my ears. I was clean and washed, but still smelled like dirt and the horse leavings I used for fertilizer. My nails were dirty and I didn't have any makeup or jewellery on. There wasn't anything to stare at.

The way he was staring at me made me want to start fidgeting, or blush and turn away. He was direct, catching my eye and then letting his gaze wander down my body- like he was mentally undressing me.

At first I was confused, a man hadn't give me that sort of attention since I was sixteen, then I was annoyed by it. Was he only here to pick up easy, desperate girls? Well I had seen a dozen bozos like him here. The kind of guy who would visit AA meetings and propose a drink after the end. The sort of self-absorbed gentlemen that seemed to populate a certain age range. I guess I must have fit his type.

I was obliviously some sort of neurotic because I needed a buddy to call and confide in during this stressful time of year? Jerk. Well, , I'd take his details; but he was dreaming if he thought I would need him! He wanted me? He'd have to try harder than a suggestive wink to get to me! The nerve of it.

But still, part of me nagged that this obvious flirting was an attempt to distract me from something else. He didn't fit the bill for the kind of guy who was just here to pick up the lonely and desperate. Something about him... god, I was picking up subtext too much these days.

In my day job as a cleaner, I spent a lot of quiet time in the corner of a room, listening to hushed conversations while I remade the beds, or noticing subtleties about certain guests. Habits and excesses and eccentrics. Ash was a habit. He didn't fidget or shift once during the whole meeting, the chairs were uncomfortable and the conversation was too dull for his tastes. I suspected he was more at home talking about... well, something else. He'd not said what he did for a living, and looking at him, I figured it was something physical; a model or sporting instructor maybe? No, maybe he was just a health-nut and the physique was a side-effect. I was betting some sort of office job. He looked like a driven sort of man, probably in marketing. Still, that didn't fit. He didn't fit; it nagged at me.

By the time the meeting drew to a close I had forgotten that he was supposed to be helping out, so when he approached I was more or less on guard.

"So, Dion Moriarty, isn't it?" He extended a hand.

I found myself on guard. I couldn't quite place whatever it was, but he bothered me.

"Ash, I didn't catch your last name...?" I touched his hand with a bare minimum of politeness and rose, so he could tell I wasn't intimidated by him standing over me. He was tall, all leg it looked like. He had the kind of proportions that kept making me think he should be a model.

"Ash Whisper," He offered. He took his hand back when I did, still staring at me. Like our level of eye-contact wasn't enough already. It was starting to annoy me. Why wouldn't he stop staring at me? I couldn't break until he did. Damnit, I needed to look elsewhere, but I didn't want to show surrender. Our staring was starting to get ridiculous.

"So Ash, we're going to exchange phone numbers. If you find that your powers are causing you stress or something bad has happened you need to talk about—you can ring me. And vice-versa."

"Oh. What if I want to ring you to share good news?"

I didn't return his flirtatious grin, his smile was too predatory. Then it hit me- I hadn't told him my last name.

I never gave out my full name when new faces were around—how had he learned it? He hadn't spoken to anyone else, and I had arrived before him, so it wasn't likely Kurt had told him to volunteer- he was too high-class to be a friend of Kurt's.

Something really didn't add up. I took my time getting my phone from my pocket, my phone still in my hand as the pieces clicked. Or rather, I noticed the pieces that weren't clicking. Certainly, his watch was a twentieth-century time piece with gold filigree. Analogue watch, I didn't even know how to read those; I remembered a brief touch on such outdated technology back in primary school. He fumbled around in his pocket until he produced his phone. It, like the rest of him was top-of-the-line expensive. The model wasn't even on the market yet.

"Mr Whisper, forgive me, but you don't struggle with your powers- can I ask, why are you really here?" If he even had powers to struggle with; perhaps he was a Pantheon groupie? I'd heard about them. It wasn't uncommon overseas.

His eyebrow rose, "Hm, you're a perceptive little thing aren't you?"

"Yes," I crossed my arms over my chest, Little thing? His figure was getting harder to read. His shoulders shifted, his spine straightened and all of a sudden I stopped thinking 'some marketing guy.'

He was projecting exactly what I wanted to see. Maybe he was a telepath? Telepaths weirded me out. I scratched the thought. No; he was too confident, too self-assured for that. He was something else.

"Ash, please, Dion, only my mother calls me by my last name, you have unearthed me. I'm not here to talk about my feelings," He was looking down at those of us who were, "I'm here to talk to you."

"Me in particular?" I think I was getting frown lines.

"Yes. I need your help for two tasks," He held up his fingers, like he didn't think I could count to two, "But perhaps we can talk about this over coffee. I do not want to talk about this here."

In front of people that I knew. I gritted my teeth.

If I took a chance he could turn out to be a psycho-axe murderer. But I couldn't resist a mystery. I wanted to know why some guy I didn't know wanted to talk to me, and had sat through an hour of PAP to do so. God I hoped he wasn't a lawyer with inheritance of any kind. I had just about all the inheritance I could handle.

Still, he was overconfident and had a tone to his voice that expected I would agree regardless, because he was so charming. It was strange.

I picked up my handbag. Inside were two small green squash. Squash are nasty little vegetables. Their size is handy because they fit in handbags, but like small yappy dogs, they had foul personalities. I put my phone away and stroked one gently. A flicker of warmth spread from my fingers for the first time in months and the squash began to wriggle and transform. It woke with a small, squash-like growl.

Besides; it was Halloween. If the two squash didn't do the job I had a million pumpkins outside that would come running at the slightest hint of hijinks.

"I'm only going to warn you once, Mr Whisper, anything funny and you are going to regret it."

He smiled then; like it was cute I was threatening him.

The squash in my handbag growled and thin, vines dragged them closer to the opening. I petted the squash and returned his smile.