Sinner's Halo: Weaver of Snares - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - ASHER

    “Is that you, Ash?” David called down the hallway. From the smell of onions 
and garlic that hung in the air it seemed like pasta was on the menu tonight. 
Or maybe potstickers. Or pretty much any of the cuisine that David, a former
 Cruise Line cook, knew how to make. If there was a perk to my life these days, 
it was probably David’s cooking.

    “Ash? I need you to take out the trash for me, I’ve got a whole mess of chicken 
guts just sitting in there waiting to smell.”

    “I got it David.” I hung my bag off the railing to the upstairs and headed through 
the crooked hallway to the kitchen. When I walked in David performed a quick trick 
with his knife, flipping it in the air before stripping a long ream of fat from a chicken
 breast.

    “How’s it?” he asked me, placing the chicken underneath some wax paper so he 
could pound it into submission.

    “Its alright, actually,” I said, heaving the overflowing garbage bag out of the 
trashcan so that I could tie it.

    “Alright?” said David. “Asher, who is she?”

    I groaned. “David, school was just pretty ok for once.”

    “Ahhhh!” He pointed at me in rhythm. Great. His ‘I gotcha!’ dance. 
“So she’s pretty, right?”

    “Like a daisy outta the snow. But it’s her friendship, her perception 
I admire.” David threw his head back and laughed at that.

    “Well I’m so happy for you. You know I’ll cater the wedding. It’ll be a big 
celebration - for you and my catering business.” He started laughing again as he
 took out a meat tenderizer and stared slamming away at the chicken.

    “Mozel Tov…” I muttered as I dragged the trash through the back door. 
Sometimes David’s concern with getting me a girlfriend was borderline obsessive.
 As I trudged over the the trashcan sporting my haul on my back, I noticed that 
Aimee’s car wasn’t in the driveway. To my knowledge she didn’t have any
 appointments to see our Soc., Brandy-- though since my 18th birthday had
 rolled around ten months ago Aimee kept trying to schedule appointments with her.
 Maybe they’d finally connected after 2 months of radio silence.

    The bag of vegetable clippings and chicken fat gave a satisfying splat when I
 dropped it in the barrel. Running my hands under the bathroom faucet on my way in,
 I crept over to the stove when David’s back was turned -- and while he was singing 
along to a particularly catchy rhythm. I taste tested a small amount of the sauce with 
my finger, ignoring the burn. The butter and lemon melted in my mouth and I went in
 for another taste when I got a good thwack on the arm from a wooden spoon.

    “Get your grubby-ass hands out of the gravy! No lady is gonna want your fingernail 
dirt in her food, you got me?”

    “Gravy? Its not thanksgiving, David. This is a sauce.” I smirked. I knew I was baiting him.

    “Leave the sauce BS in the trash with the ragu bottle. This is gravy.” he waved his
 wooden spoon with menace. He was still muttering about his gravy after driving me 
off and up the staircase. I paused on the landing of the third floor to take a look out 
of the round window overlooking the rest of Covenfeld. Amidst the sea of green 
vegetation I spied the tops of trees where the colors to come hinted. Red. burgundy. 
Yellow. Between the beginnings of orange on a maple tree in the distance I saw a 
spiral of smoke curling, almost invisibly, from an ancient chimney. No one was supposed
 to live there, not at the manor. I stood, mesmerized as the smoke unfurled from the pipe.

The clang of a pan, and Dave’s subsequent swearing, tugged me back into the moment.

    I pulled the attic string from the ceiling and climbed the narrow stair to my bedroom. 
Ritual set in: toss my bag on the ground, hit the head, wash my hands, say hi to mom. I
 had her Star of David necklace hanging from a goat leg wine bottle on my bedside table.
 When I was young, I used to think I could feel her energy around it. Now I did it out of habit.
 Kicking off my shoes, I sank into my bed. I let my gaze unfocus on the endless blue
 through my skylight. I could almost see the swirling smoke from Florenhill again…

    I shot up off of my bed. It was like white noise in your ear. A familiar buzzing, that 
could lull you to sleep but at the same time triggered an involuntary fight or flight response.
 Maybe someone would call it intuition, or an innate alarm bell. But I didn’t know why it 
was going off. Something drove me to the closet, and from there to pull out the cardboard 
box labeled Wes & Andie Hunter.

Twelve years they’d lived together… Nine years with me. And the amount of 
stuffed they’d saved from the estate sale could fit in one cardboard box. They’d 
handed it to me on my eighteenth birthday, promising that if they found a will, 
even after all this time, they’d contact me. Somehow I doubted they’d even written 
one. I dug through rubber band bound photographs, more of mom’s old jewelry, a 
pile of dad’s half carved sticks, but my hand never found what it sought. I took 
things out. Laid aside an old stuffed rabbit that must have been important when 
I was little; pulled out ziplock bags full of tarnished forks and knives; carefully 
placed their wedding bands on my bedside table. Soon a ring of jewlery, paperwork, 
linnens, cutlery, yarmulke, and odds and ends littered the floor around me, and the 
box was empty.

“Benji…” I muttered, tossing a dreidle back into the box.

His room was unlocked. I grabbed the doorknob gruffly, startling myself for a 
moment as it clanged against the wooden doorframe. Flinching, I opened the
 door gently to find Benji curled up asleep on his twin bed. His own backpack 
spilled right out onto the hardwood. I picked between pages algebra homework
 and his textbooks but didn’t find what I was looking for in his bag. I moved to 
search his desk. I didn’t find anything inside. A drawer still open, I got down on
 my hands and knees and checked the underside of it. Sure enough, taped next 
to some pokemon cards, a report card and an old envelope was my mom’s knife.
 I ripped it down and shut the drawer with a snap. Benji sprang out of bed at the 
sound, pulling some kind of disoriented fight stance.

“What the hell, Benji? You stole my knife?!”

“I was just borrowing it!” We said at the same time.

“Borrowing it? You hid it away! Did you think I wouldn’t notice it missing?”

“Not so quickly…”

“This thing is still sharp, you could’ve hurt yourself, and then Aimee and David 
would have hell to pay.”

“I’m not an idiot! I’m practically an adult-”

“You’re barely 15, Ben. And if they found out it was my knife you got hurt with, 
I can kiss this place goodbye.”

“It’s not my fault if you’re freeloading.” Benji spat back at me.

“Ari could’ve found it. And he could’ve hurt himself, and then who’s fault would 
that be.” It was a mean thing to say, and I wouldn’t have ripped Benji such a new
 one if Ari had been in the room. Something about having an innocent 9 year old
 watching you to make you think before you speak.

Benji rubbed his neck. When I wouldn’t quit looking at him, he shuffled over to 
his brother’s bed and began rearranging the covers and his stuffed elephant, Fwoop.

“Ben,” I said, trying to seem a little less gruff. “You can’t just steal stuff from 
your foster siblings. We know where you sleep-” I added, trying to lighten the
 mood, but Benji cut me off.

“It makes me feel safer.” he said, still standing by his brother’s empty bed. 
“Having your knife makes me feel safer.”

“You don’t even know how to use.” I said, pocketing my knife. Benji crossed his arms.
 He looked very small. I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder

“And if there’s an emergency?” he asked, shrugging my hand away. 
“Like that guy who was following me last week.” He must have seen the 
shock register in my face.

“Someone was following you?” I asked. I had a feeling he was exaggerating,
 especially since he wouldn’t look at me. He didn’t answer.

“Well you don’t pull a knife on him, for one.” I turned him around to face me.
 “You know what you do? You hide - unless there’s a fire. Then you run till 
you can find somewhere to blend in. Whipping out a knife will just escalate things.”
 I could see tension in his neck. He really was worried about something. 
He only got like this when he went around the house at night, double checking
 all the locks. I got an idea what this was all about.

“Look,” I said. “If you hear anything from downstairs- door opening, a tree
 tapping against the glass, hell, a floorboard creek, bring Ari up to my room, 
get in the closet and close the door. I can pull up the folding staircase and 
we can wait it out together.” Ben nodded. “But if anyone is using the knife, 
it’s gonna be me, got it?”

“Got it.” he said. “Look… Ash, I was just going to borrow it-” He looked like he
 was going to say something else when the door opened and Ari ran into the room
 and straight up to his brother.

“Aimee’s home! Aimee’s home! We gotta go say hi, come on!”

No kid got excited about his foster mom’s return home like Ari did. I suspected
 it was because he had one of those crushes that young kids get on their 
teachers. He never greeted me like that, that’s for sure. When he and Benji
 had moved in almost five years ago, I recognized the paranoid husk Benji 
trudged in with as a reflection of my own experiences; Ari had always been a 
happy toddler, and now, a cheerful kid.

Ari tugged on his brothers arm and half dragged him down by the sleeve. I 
followed a little ways behind hem, aware of the knife in my pocket pressing 
into my thigh.

“Aimee-- !” Ari bounced down the last few stairs towards her. She did not wrap
 him up in her arms like usual. There was something a little off in how she 
smiled at him, like she was nervous or distracted. Maybe she had talked to
 Brandi about my situation.

As she was scolding Ari for jumping on someone without their permission I 
approached her gingerly.

“Bad news from Brandi then?”

Aimee, still distracted by Ari, who was now apologizing with the poutiest of faces,
 looked up at me like I had three heads.

“Quoi?” she said. “Ah did not see Brandi today, Mon Ange.”

“Is that my beautiful lady?” David called from the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready come
 and get it!”

Aimee and Ari gave identical squeals of delight. And hurried to the kitchen.

“ ‘urry up, boys, it smells divine,” she said.

Apparently, I’d guessed wrong. She seemed fine now as she ushered Benji 
and Ari into the kitchen. I followed close behind, pausing only a moment by my 
backpack to zip the knife safely inside. †