Bazza'Jo

Chapter 12

Much to Raina's frustration, days passed before she had another chance to visit Kal or her uncle in the woods. Nana Lalia seemed intent on inventing things Raina had to do around the house, from homework to cleaning her room to helping hang the new curtains in the drawing room. Ibli, on the other hand, was free to visit Uncle Septimus and Aunt Julia daily for her lessons in Bazza'Casting. Since beginning to Cast with Uncle Septimus, she had all but abandoned her plants at home, and as they began to die, Lalia and Raina cleared them out of her room. Lalia was at the heart of this new schedule. Their father had barely been at home since the Bazza'Jo Ice arrived the week before. 

Raina was filled alternately with envy of Ibli and Kal, who were both free to pursue their responsibilities, and worry for Kal, Nat and the rest of the woods, who may at this minute be rotting away, poisoned by strange Bazza'Jo Casters. At first Raina had tried to ply Ibli for information about what was going on in the woods, but if the small girl knew anything, it didn't interest her enough to remember it. She shrugged, repeated scraps of what Septimus had told them about Bazza'Jo and that was that.

A little more than a week after Raina's last visit with Septimus and Julia, her father called his daughters to his office to speak with him. It had been three days since they had last seen him. When they met with him, he looked tired and pale, with dark bags under the dark bags under his eyes.

"We will be having important guests for dinner." he told them, which meant clients. "I want you in the foyer at five minutes to eight in appropriate dress." This was a role the girls had to play often. Raina and Ibli were part of the sales pitch. Fort Arnisson: a great place to raise your family.

Raina was in no mood to be an advertisement for Bazza'Jo.  She stomped around her room pulling out the blacks and purples of her hunting garb, bent on presenting herself at dinner as a Kreel hunter, not the nicely-behaved Keissarian poster-child she had to play so often. Ibli watched her storm about in calm silence. She had brushed out her white hair until it was smooth over the shoulders of her cream and gold sari. Seeing her so perfectly presented made Raina irrationally angry.

"How can you do that?" she asked her, pacing the room like a caged preditor. "Play the pefect daughter, knowing what you know? Knowing who father works for?" 

"Father doesn't sell the poison," She told Raina without emotion, "But it's in the warehouses. It's called Bazza'Jo Negator."

Raina tripped over the edge of the carpet and narrowly avoided smacking her head on the door frame.

"What?" she looked at her sister, amazed, and completely without a clue what to say.

"The poison you found, that nearly killed Bushy. They called it Negator. It's an intoxicant." She paused and looked distantly at a spot on the wall. "They don't seem to have it at the Bazzaria. Maybe they need special permission to get it from father."

"'Bushy'?" Raina allowed herself to be distracted by a detail to avoid the bigger picture. Of course her father would have the poison, if it were from Bazza'Jo.

Ibli shrugged and offered a rare smile.

"Your lamprat."

"Ibli, you've always been weird, but now you're starting to be spooky." Raina smiled, though. The lamprat she saved must have lived! "Shoot. Why do you come out with these things at all the worst times? Sometimes I think you do it on purpose, to throw me off." Raina considered this new information. 

"He doesn't want to sell it, Raina. They make him." Ibli put the hairbrush down and watched her sister intently.

"But father's the representative here. Who could make him do anything?"