One of the very last descendants of Lady Gonzalez's cursed line was preparing for her very last day on her Earth.
Harriet Malloy could see Master Pendleson standing on the other side of his encompassing lawn, and although hundreds of yards separated the two, she could feel their eyes meet. Quickly, she turned her face the other way, wrapped her scarf up to her nose, and started to walk, rigid and forced, like a mechanical doll.
Yet, while this was routine—cutting across the daisies and stepping on all of the garden gnomes—it was actually a special day, although no one in the sleepy town of Fairfield, Connecticut had realized it quite yet.
“I see you've come out of your hobo-box bright and early this morning.” Pendleson told her, with a little bow.
He almost smiled.
Pendleson had eyes like a bird, they never seemed to fully blink, and when they looked at you, he did so with one cocked to the side. For an old man he had a lot of vigor—and he was exceptionally old, since he was an alchemist and liked to play with his age like other people played with nail polish.
“Your box assortment is here for you.” He coughed, holding out a silver platter with four bottles; One was chocolate milk. Harriet downed the first, which was the texture of grapefruit juice and tasted like school bus.
She glared at him for a few long seconds.
“As always...” he groaned, “...you treat me like your butler. Except people talk to butlers. Am I your vending machine today, Lady Malloy?”
Rather than oblige an answer, she looked the other way.
Through the window behind them she saw the profile of Doctor Richard Harrison thumbing through one of his books. She didn’t usually like to look at the man; he was horrifying. But, behind the lattice of the window, there was enough of a barrier for her to hazard a glance. Doctor Harrison had a commanding presence, and if Pendleson’s eyes were like curious birds, Doctor Harrison’s were like caged wolves. She caught herself staring, and in turn, the doctor slammed his book on a table and it chilled her straight through.
“What's gotten into him?” she asked Pendleson.
Pendleson took some time to think of a good answer to this simple question, and she bristled like a hedgehog at his lack of words. Despite the silence, she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Would you stop talking about it for five seconds, Pendleson! I can't take you when you yell at me like this!” She shouted, taking the second bottle and gasping at the way it burned her throat. Her sinuses lifted like a balloon, and she felt the flavor of the wind around her ears.
She felt flavors everywhere. It was a very odd, inhuman feeling that the girl had no idea wasn't very human.
“You know what you are and what you should be doing.” Pendleson told her blankly.
She actually had no idea: Harriet spent the last 11 years without her parents by complaining, dying her hair purple, adding feather extensions, trying on short skirts, smoking, joining a band, quitting a band, throwing out her cigarettes, dying her hair back to black, and realizing in the end that the only effective thing she did was beg.
Every day she begged whatever deity or hillside or passing fate that sparked her interest. Once she even asked a preacher why she couldn't have what she wanted right now, and he told her something that stuck in her mind like a fish-hook. He told her in a calm and relaxed voice that:
“This is the problem with most of humanity.”
It wasn't the answer Harriet expected; this was because Harriet was a lot like humanity, but she was far from human—something that Pendleson drilled into her bones.
“You don't know me.” Harriet told Pendleson swiftly, a voice like thick velvet.
“Ah! You've got your mother's voice.” Pendleson sighed, ignoring her taunts and trying to veer Harriet away from the same subject they fought over every single morning. “Finally, you've grown into it.”
Harriet did appreciate her voice, a lot more than she appreciated a disproportionate nose. Her mother blessed her with grace and command in her speech, her father came in and dropped weird genetic traits: a monolith on her face and a length to her legs that put off most men who found her graceful.
"There's no way you'd even remember her."
"Believe me Harriet, I wasn't talking about the tone or timbre of your voice. It's the power behind your words." He chuckled to himself, "She was a very strong woman."
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