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I rose to my feet as though I were emerging out of a coffin since I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep with her awake and wandering about. Taking a shirt from the floor, I pulled it over my head before I walked into the hall. I expected her to be at the door of the guest room but instead I found her standing at the top of the stairs with her brown hands gripping her pillow as though it were a weapon. Part of me was curious as to how she thought a pillow, out of all the stuff in that room, was going to be her best weapon of defense.
Standing on balls of her bare feet she whispered a little louder, “Hello—”
“Yes?”
“Ah!” She screamed and spun around so quickly that all I saw was white as the pillow hit the side of my face so hard I stumbled back as it ripped, sending an explosion of feathers everywhere. “Jesus Christ you scared me!”
I stood there in shock, my jaw aching, while the white feathers fell around us like snow. “I. Scared. You?” I repeated softly at first before losing it as feather nearly entered my mouth. Smacking it away and I stomped closer to her and screamed. “ARE YOU INSANE?!”
Eyes wide she attempted to step back though she didn’t have the space, and as she did, she reeled at the top of the stairs as her body tilted backward. I reached out and grabbed ahold of her wrist but she only managed to drag me along with her. We tumbled once before I was able to clench the wooden railing while she held on to me.
This woman…
“Are you okay? Are your hands okay?!” she asked when she was able to break free of my arm and sit on the stair.
Pulling myself upright, I bit my tongue and exhaled.
“You’re bleeding.” She moved to reach for my elbow but I stuck my hand out which luckily was the universal sign for STAY BACK!
“Go downstairs. Do not touch anything. Do not go anywhere. Don’t breathe if will cause another disaster.” I hissed out as I rose and walked back upstairs towards my room and slammed the door behind me before I moved to the bed and picked up my phone.
“You’ve reached Alfred Benjamin Noëlle, leave a message after the beep…” BEEP!
“She’s not trouble?! I’ll hardly notice she’s here?!” I hollered into the phone. “Alfred, your granddaughter radiates trouble. If trouble was within a ten-mile radius of her, it would come running until it knocked her over. I notice her. I notice her a lot! Call her and tell her to go somewhere else!”
Hanging up I tossed the phone back onto the sheets. Taking a deep breath and wincing at my scraped elbow I lifted it higher to see. Walking to my bathroom, I ran cold water over it and covered the wound with a clean hand towel before I headed back into my new battlefield. I was worried that if I left her alone for any period of time she’d accidentally start a damn forest fire.
“I deserved that,” she said as she sat on the second-to-last step of the stairs looking out the window. “I mean, I haven’t even been here for even a full day yet and I’ve managed to…oh, where do I start? I missed my flight, flew to the wrong town, got robbed by my taxi driver…” She started to laugh but put her hand over her head. “Sorry! Urgh! But seriously, who does that happen to? From there I got lost in the woods, and now I’ve maimed you.” She glanced over her shoulder up at me with a smile, though it wasn’t the same smile she’d given me last night. This one was forced. She nodded at my elbow “I’m really sorry. I fell off the bed and panicked because I didn’t know where I was…I’m not normally such a klutz, I swear. I’ll talk to my grandfather and—”
“You’re annoying,” I said to her.
She frowned as she rose to her feet. “I’m trying to apologize here!”
“I know which is why you’re annoying,” I said as I sat on the same step she’d just been sitting on. I dabbed my wounded elbow. “You should allow me the courtesy of being annoyed with you for a little longer before apologizing and then making me the asshole who doesn’t want to accept your apology.”
“What kind of logic is that?”
I looked up at her. “My logic. And since this is my house and I’m your client my logic is the only logic that matters.”
She made a face and eyed me up and down before she sat down beside me. “Esther Noëlle. Translation Editor at Penohxi Publishing House, retiring klutz, persona non grata of Lieber Falls, and creator of
Lord Nation online. I’m your biggest fan.”
She stuck her hand, which had about four different rings on each of them, out and I stared at it for a moment then at her.
“If you don’t shake it, I’ll feel super lame and if my defenses are down who knows how much trouble will find me.”
She was right. She was lame.
“Malachi Lord,” I said as I reached out and took her hand, and the moment I did, a pain unlike anything I’d felt before rushed through me. I dropped the towel as my vision blurred and I fell forward.
“Malachi? Malachi!”
“Don’t…call 911.” Was what I wanted to say but everything went black as I fell into the past.
6. POMEGRANATE BLOSSOMS
MALACHI
