Torwood
In the morning, the house was abuzz with activity. It seemed as though Tom, or possibly Tom and Vanessa’s father, had arranged a plethora of appointments as soon as the snow had melted. An assessor walked around the property taking notes in a legal pad, while a structural engineer perused the basement, knocking on walls and snapping photos of cracks in the foundation. Walzer, a pixie who owned a local vintage furniture store, was poking and prodding at the armchairs and bedframes, clearly hungry at the opportunity to flip some of Shirley’s gorgeous antiques.
Shirley herself was doing her best to protest, but was being quieted by Tom, who assured her that the visitors were only getting a first look, and that nothing would be finalized until new arrangements had been made for her.
“Where is Vanessa?”
I asked, as I arrived in the foyer.
“Why?” said Tom.
“In the sunroom, with Kathen,”
she said. I grimaced. Kathen was a family friend and a fellow orc, but her occupation ensured that I had no love for her. I beat a quick retreat to the sunroom, cold but well-lit, with a wonderful view of the backyard.
Vanessa and Kathen were seated on opposite sides of a coffee table, a document spread on the table between them. Kathen was pointing at a printed paragraph, while Vanessa seemed disengaged, leaning back in her cushioned chair. Her face lit up as she saw me enter.
“You’re up! Just in time for the circus,”
she said, a joke without mirth.
“Hello, Torwood. How have you been? I’m excited to get to work with you again,”
she said. I glowered at that. Kathen worked for a company that placed memory spells on the elderly, allowing them to live out their final days immersed in lifelike recollection of their happiest years. In turn they were rendered almost completely unaware of reality, able only to perform the basic functions of survival. The spell was a favorite of certain unscrupulous care homes, as it rendered their residents docile and friendly, with almost no material needs.
“Vanessa, is this what is being considered?”
I asked. I moved over to stand by her, and put a hand on the top corner of her chair.
“By Tom and my father, yes. By me, absolutely not,”
she replied, and gave Kathen a pointed look.
“Our Golden Years tier is just the first level,”
Kathen said, without acknowledging Vanessa or myself. “The Diamond Years tier includes an additional set of minor arcana which allows the client to receive the scent and touch inputs of memories, and introduces a feature we call the “eject button”, where a short trigger incantation can be recited to return them to a safe memory in case their minds wander to anything uncomfortable. Torwood, this of course is the tier that your mother received, and as I recall she was quite happy with it, up until the very end,”
said Kathen.
My jaw clenched, and I felt a boiling begin in my stomach. I inhaled to respond, before Vanessa’s cool hand reached up and rested on mine. She met my eyes, and subtly shook her head no. She was right. Fighting Kathen here would do no good. Shirley would never let herself be put through this treatment anyways, and if-
“You grand bastard! You ratshit motherfucker! Put that back immediately!”
Shirley’s voice shot through the din in the house, and all three of our heads snapped in the direction of the front room. There was a clatter, a crash, and more shouting.
Vanessa raced out of the room first, and I was hot behind her, not caring if Kathen would be left alone. In the living room was a chaotic scene.
Shirley was on the floor, leaning against a wall and clutching an object in her arms. One of her philodendrons had fallen from a windowsill, and the potting soil was scattered around like there had been a struggle. Walzer flitted around the room shouting profanities, clutching at his arm as though it was hurt. Tom was trying frantically to calm the situation, and being roundly ignored.
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
shouted Vanessa.
I rushed over to Shirley and knelt beside her. “Are you alright? Have you fallen?” I asked.
“I’m fine, dear. I’m fine. But that man-”
she pointed furiously at Walzer, buzzing like a bee around the room, “needs to get the hell out of my home!”
I saw now what she was holding. It was a small box, which I knew contained Shirley’s engagement ring. It had been passed down from her own mother, and through countless generations beforehand. Not only was the ring beyond precious, but the box it was contained in was a work of art, crafted by merfolk silversmiths. The ring and box were hundreds of years old, and must have been worth a small fortune, not that you would know it by the nondescript placement on a bookshelf in the living room.
Against the burnished silver I saw the unmistakable lavender shimmer of pixie dust, and Shirley, small and huddled on the ground, with the vultures circling ever tighter around her.
I stood, and as I stood, I roared. The sound that emerged surprised even myself. It shook the window panes in their frames, flickered the fire in the mantle, and sent Walzer tumbling ass over teakettle into a nearby wall.
“OUT!”
The silence was complete, and unbroken for several seconds.
Then, in a burst of activity, the gathered plunderers began to stream out of the house.
The assessor, head held low, hurried up from the basement and made a quick exit without exchanging a word.
Kathen was not far behind, darting a nervous glance at me and silently placing a business card on the hallway table as she left.
Walzer was last, blathering a pathetic stream of excuse and apology while he quickly packed his tiny measuring tapes and inventory lists and fluttered out the door.
I stalked over and shut it hard behind him.
“What the hell was that?”
said Tom, after the last unwanted guest was gone. His face was red, and a vein on his forehead looked dangerously close to popping. Brushing past him, I returned to Shirley’s side. She was being helped to the couch by Vanessa, who placed a hand on my forearm and mouthed “thank you”
as I approached. I was worried that I would see fear in her eyes, that my outburst had upset her, but all I saw was a mixture of deep gentleness for her grandmother, and steely fury directed at her own brother.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
shouted Tom from across the room. “You are not in this family! You don’t get to send my people away!”
I turned towards him. I could feel the ugly twisting of my face, and what Tom saw in it caused him to flinch and shrink. Then the anger returned, and he continued shouting. “Now it’s your turn to get the hell out of here, Tory,”
he said. I hadn’t heard that nickname since we were kids. “Don’t come back. If I can make a few calls, apologize, maybe I can save this-”
“He’s not going anywhere,”
said Vanessa. She was standing at my side, her arms crossed. I thought I could feel heat radiating from her, her rage even fiercer than my own. “Torwood has done more for grandma in the last few months than you or dad did in ten years. He has more of a right to be here than you do. Tommy.”
Tom’s eyes were wild. He looked at Shirley, but she merely shook her head and averted her gaze. His brow knit, and I thought I could see steam begin to escape his ears.
“I know...I know what’s happening,”
he began. “This is...oh, you thought I wouldn’t figure it out but I did. I saw what was going on last night. You two were pretty much on top of each other, all dressed up, playing footsie under the table. The flowers and the candles and the long looks. This was your plan all along, right Tory? That’s why you called my dad when my grandmother fell, because you wanted another shot at Vanessa. God, you’re probably the reason she fell in the first place, huh? You pushed her, didn’t you? But who cares, whether it was at a hospital or a funeral, at least you’d get to see my sister again. I knew I had to keep you away from her, I knew you’d just hurt her, you piece of shit. It looks like I was already too late.”
Tom looked meaningfully at Vanessa’s bandaged hand and the shining bruise on her face.
“That is not what happened!”
Vanessa protested, but she was ignored. Tom was in my face now, his expression a mask of rage, spittle flying from his flapping mouth.
“You betrayed me once, but you didn’t get your fill. Well, I didn’t get my fill either!”
And with that, he picked up the fallen houseplant and hurled it at me. The ceramic shattered against my chest, spraying dirt across the room. It did not hurt.
I remembered that all those years ago, Tom’s rocks had not hurt me either. I had hurt me. My shame, my self-hatred, my rejection of Vanessa, had done more damage than any missile. If it wasn’t for Vanessa’s hard-headed refusal to let me mope my days away, then Tom’s words would have struck deeply once again.
Instead, I walked over to Tom, grabbed the back of his belt in one hand and the collar of his shirt in another, and hoisted him like a poorly-behaving cat. Without waiting for his shocked response, I strode to the front door and kicked it open, wood splintering across the porch.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,”
I said. I gathered my strength, swung my arms back, and tossed Tom clean over the porch and front steps, sending him sailing like a kite into the deep snowbank on our front yard. With a poof, he landed in the vast white expanse, creating a boy-shaped imprint in the snow.
I looked over my shoulder at Vanessa and Shirley, eyes shot open with surprise.
“I will fix the door,” I said.