Cursed Times - What Now?

Chapter 5 - Getting Hairy

The door slammed shut behind Metjen with a bang that reverberated through the house. Inside, the air was pleasantly cool and the familiar scents of his home wafted into his nose. Baking, cooking, dusty old tomes--Metjen gagged, his sister's cloying perfume--and a faint whiff of cat's piss. As if on cue, a clomping noise in the wooden stairwell indicated that Blondie was on his way, his food radar in full search mode. The cat sauntered across and stretched himself to his full height up Metjen's leg.

'Ouch!' He dropped his bags on the floor and removed the claws hooked into his jeans. Metjen fondled the beast's ears and turned his attention to Blondie's Persian mate, who had sneaked up on him in proper feline fashion. 'Hello Mish-Mish.'

A trilling came from the kitchen. 'Come kitty, kitty--food is ready!'

Two tails, one striped, one a feathery tangerine mop, whizzed down the corridor. His mother emerged from the kitchen the boys had just disappeared into, wearing a plastic hood on her head and carrying a tray in her hands. Dark red trickles were inching their way down her neck.

'Why are you still doing this yourself?' Metjen asked.

'The hairdresser never gets it right, dear.'

She did not either. He hugged her anyway, carefully edging past the tray full of delicacies she still balanced in front of her. 'What's it going to be this time?'

'I'm going back to my natural colour, maybe some mahogany thrown in.'

Good—the bottle blond had not worked with those hazel eyes. They radiated a determination that reminded him of Iseret, but only a bit. Mother did not care for lofty goals but a lot about things like fairness and the balance of the Maat.

'You have a couple of hours before dinner, dear,' she said. 'The twins arrived yesterday, but we wanted to wait for you.'

There would be no welcoming dinner if the family was not complete. Ever. His heartbeat slowed and his mood lifted. He was home. That was all that counted.

'Take this,' his mother said pushing the platter at him. 'I know you are ravenous when you come back from that place.' She pulled a face while Metjen placed the tray on an antique table covered in a butterfly flurry of yellow post-it sticks. He tore off a piece of fluffy flatbread, dunked it into the hummus and savoured its taste. From the corridor sounded padding and the next thing he saw was a beige paw with tufts between the claws exploring the edge of the table.

Metjen's mother grabbed a meatball and dropped it onto the floor. 'The poor kitty, he's hungry.'

'He's always hungry, when he isn't asleep. One of the two usually applies.' Metjen loved the ginger beast, but he was getting rather too large. Mish-Mish was a lot more particular about his food and would not have survived outside his home—unless the mice arrived cooked, preferably in a sauce.