Binded At Best

1- Unwelcome Visitors

" Read it to me again, mommy," the enthusiastic five-year-old exclaimed to his mother. " I wanna hear the part again about the bitch."
 
She laughed, closing the book, " Tip, honey, she was a witch, and I think that you've had enough story time for tonight." 

He sighed, " Okay, mommy. But will you tuck me in?"

She put her thumb and index fingers on her chin, as if mulling it over, Tip waiting patiently for her answer. " Of course I will, silly," she exclaimed finally, tussling his thick coils of of hair, blowing raspberries in his tummy. She picked him up and into her lap, peeled back his woodland pattern bed sheets and set him in the bed, gently tucking the sheets at his sides.

" Are you comfortable, Tip?" She grazed his smooth brown cheek with her ivory thumb.

" Yes, mommy," he yawned, eyes finally fluttering as one might imagine a sleepy child would after two rounds of The Elf and the Boggart.

" Okay, sweetheart," she leaned down and kissed his forehead, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders, " Ya masalunata owehana," she said in a language they  shared.

" I love you," the child said, eyes finally closing, mind drifting off into the warm oblivion of sleep.

She smiled, " I know." She got up from the bed and moved silently to the door, a dim orange flame hovering behind her. She made her way through the living room and to the kitchen where she pulled down a bottle of dandelion whiskey from the top cabinet, the dim flame extinguishing. She poured a glass, first basking in its sweet scent. She allowed the tangy aroma to trigger a familiar place in her mind. She took a sip, moving back to the dark living room to sit on the plush couch, taking the throw pillow and placing it in her lap. She eyed a framed picture of people she remembered to be far away on the table against the white brick wall. She breathed in the smell of jasmines, the kinds she liked to keep in the massive corner window of their Brooklyn Heights apartment. She picked up a cigarette from the coffee table and then paused. She knew that Tip hated it when she smoked. The smell. The way she looked while doing the act. Though he didn't know that their kind are immune to any and all diseases known to all that exist, she didn't like him worrying about it. But then again... she was an adult, therefore she did what she wanted. She snapped her fingers at the end of the cigarette, a small spark growing the more she inhaled. What am I even doing here, she thought. She exhaled, took a sip of her drink. Nimgalu Tip nawento mwentahe, she said to herself. It's what is best for him.

A soft blue light caught the corner of her eye as she stared out of the wide set window that thoroughly exposed the New York skyline, a flurry of lights capturing her immediate vision. She looked at the metal prism on her coffee table with hieroglyphs engraved with lapis. She pressed her finger on the ankh that held itself in the center of the side closest to her. A soft stream of light widened and morphed, curving to fit the features of a face. She took another drag of her cigarette.

" Ana Terroan," a female voice said in a language that she knew all too well, drawing out each syllable of her name," You know that thing between your fingers is what's killing the humans today, don't you?"

A joke, she thought," Oh, fuck off, won't you, Kaliana?" She smirked.

Kaliana laughed, " Just kidding, sissy."

Ana sighed, taking another sip of her drink. As much as she wished this was a social call, she knew exactly why her sister was calling. The only time her sister would ever call her was to ask her to come back home. " If you're calling for the reason I think you are, then the answer is no."

Any air of humor disappeared between the two as a quick unease filed the space between them.

" Look, mother told me to tell you that she's sorry and that she desperately wants you home," Kaliana said quickly, sputtering out the words as if she thought Ana might drop the call. Ana side-eyed the the light projection, " Kali, that's cute and all, but will she accept him?"

Kaliana looked down, " She feels bad about everything she's said.

Ana eyed the golden ring centered with a star cut rose quartz gem on her ring finger, the skin around it a slight blush compared to that of the rest of her porcelain white skin, " All of what you just said is bullshit. I don't believe you."

Kaliana sighed, annoyed, " Ana, she-,"

" Condemned my son before his birth, calling him a bastard halfling not worthy of our last name?" Ana took another drag.

" Ana, she apologized," Kaliana exclaimed, the light of the projection flickering at her bejeweled ear.

" No to me, Kali," Ana paused," If she really felt as sorry as you say, she would call me herself."

Kaliana pursed her lips " Now you know better than most that mother would rather fuck a goblin spawn than admit her  wrong doings. I don't know why you even expect those types of gestures, Ana."

Ana laughed wickedly, picking at the lint on her pink Victoria's Secret pajama bottoms. Then she sighed, taking another sip of whiskey, a settling warmth beginning to awaken in her lower stomach, " Neither do I, baby sister."

Kaliana sighed again, this time pleading, " Ana, please, you and Tip, come home. The entire family misses you. Our brother is never home anymore because this gigantic house reminds him of the conflict between you and mother."

Ana took another drag of her cigarette, the fire just beginning to meet the filter. She indeed did miss her family, but the way her mother condemned her son as unclean because he was half human was a problematic cause for concern. The main reason she took her newborn child and left her home in the first place. She studied her sister in the light projection. Though her younger sister, Kaliana, did have the same long ebony hair that cascaded down to the small of her back and ivory skin as porcelain as  that of a Russian nesting doll, her eyes were a dark emerald green while Ana's were a combination of warm honey and crimson, the knowledge of what the world had to offer as well as what it would take lingering behind them. " Look, Kali, I understand what you're trying to get at, but--," she stopped abruptly.

What was that scratching she heard coming from the front door? Had she imagined it? She leaned in, hearing the faint scratching once again. Her pointed ears twitched. Someone's trying to get in, she thought. Fuck. She got up from the couch, waving her hand over the prism and pinching her fingers together, the device following her command to mute. Kaliana was saying something that couldn't be heard, soundlessly watching as her sister conjured a line of red roses that trailed behind her, the pink shimmer of her magic coating the floorboards. Ana trekked slowly to the door, pressing an ear to the hardwood, trying to hear what was happening on the other side. For a moment, everything was silent, and she exhaled.

Then suddenly, a lighthearted and childlike whisper came as soft as silk, " Guess who, poppet." The soft roses at her feet immediately spiked, crystallizing and dispersing in a beautiful florescent ray of shards through the door.  Ana ran from the door to the couch. She knew who it was. Who they were. They'd found her. And she didn't know if she'd be able to hold them off for long. Damn.