The Haven

Chapter 1

Nikolai hated the voice that was speaking to him over the phone. It grumbled and pounded on his ears, always too loud, always too insistent, and never saying anything he wanted to hear.

"Aunt Rita." Nikolai tried not to grimace. She alwaysseemed to know when he wasgiving her a look, even over the phone. His elbow rested on the arm of the recliner where puffs of white stuffing pushed out of the split fabric. The hand that wasn't holding the phone picked at the stuff, pushing it back in, then pulling it out, then breaking it up with his fingers and watching the fibers float down to the rug. His bare toes kicked at the faded red carpet, his nails catching in the exposed threads. One leg twitched as he stared, bored, down at–

“Nik!”

“Yeah?” He moved the phone down onto chair's arm, away from his head. He didn't need to put it on speaker to hear that voice. Even the miles of shitty reception between them could not dilute Aunt Rita's harsh tones. Nikolai tried not to growl. “What is it?”

"Nik, are you listening to me?” said the voice. “There's something I need to talk to you about. Are you listening to me?"

He flipped over a page in the book that lay open on his lap. He leaned over a picture of a robed girl with a wispy thin waist and wide shoulders and flaming red hair and a sword and–

“Are you–”

"Yes. I'm listening.” Aine, he read off the page, admiring the curling red locks that spilled out of a messy braid,Goddess of the sun and summer.“What is it?"

"This is serious–"

"Look, my parents will be back soon,” he said. Serious. Everything is serious! “Do you want to talk to them?"

"No. I need to talk to you."

Of course.

She always had to talk to him! Aunt Rita was his father's sister and she kept her mouth shut well enough, for the sake of family peace, when his parents were around. But when they stepped away for even a minute – seated at another table at a cousin's wedding, or wandering off at Thanksgiving, or leaving him alone for a weekend wine tour – Aunt Rita was there, filling in the gaps, as she saw them, in her brother's parenting. His and that dirty hippy wife's! (So she called Nikolai's mother when she though he wasn't listening.) A little too liberal in the upbrigning, so she thought, they'd never fool her into thinking they'd settled down and become reasonable and responsible parents. It was her duty to give her two cents when she could. It was the least she could do! (Or so she said. Nikolai wanted to suggest that, in fact, she could do much, much less.)

Whenever Aunt Rita showed up, that grumbling voice followed. That voice!Everything was fair game to it. Nikolai's grades. The college applications he wasn't filling out. The after school jobs he bounced around in. (He was just getting some well-rounded experience!)

Everything. All his failures were fair game for this meddling woman. Everything...