Chapter 10 Part 3

   Once Skye was settled, Cyrus patted Kona in between the ears and walked backwards out of the room. He didn’t close her door all of the way but left it open a crack and went back downstairs. When he reached the front door not particularly conscience of what he was doing, he locked the door. To the left he looked into the dining room and to the right the living room. Everything was turned off except the steady glow of the wall lights above a few paintings that flanked either side of the wall mounted TV his father loved to watch Hockey on.

   Now he thought about his father…tried to remember things about him. He had noticed that as time went by some of the memories became blurry. Those little things that were taken advantage of at the time were fading. He could remember the important moments and they seemed like they were running in slow motion and at some points his father face would appear foggy in his mind. Cyrus shook this off and made his way to the kitchen to shut everything down. As he came in and cleaned off the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher and wiped everything down he noticed that Angel was still sitting by the back door facing him. She sat alert and at attention, her eyes never leaving his in that way when you can’t tell if she is going to snap or not until he asked the question she always answered the right way to.

  “Angel want a cookie?” he asked lovingly and she cocked her head to the right and her tail started to swish across the floor. Cyrus felt his body relax as he took the lid off of the dog cookie jar on the counter, reached in and pulled out a pink one. Angel stood up at once and began marching in place with only her front paws as her back ones stayed planted firmly. As smile crossed Cyrus’ lips and he patted his left thigh, a command that told the pit bull to come to him. With excitement she was trying to control she half pranced over to him and she looked like she was smiling. When she reached him she sat down  in a pristine way in front of him on her best behaviour and he held out his left hand then asked for her paw. Right away the dogs right paw was in his hand and he gave her the cookie she was staring at in his right.

   He felt normal in this moment, like nothing had changed and felt good. The words of his uncle came swimming back into his head and the dark feeling that was gone only a few seconds ago returned. The feeling of dread resurfaced and at the same time he felt different and a little bit excited and the thought of something unknown and new actually made him feel surprisingly good underneath all of the shock that he had tonight.

   As his thoughts turned in circles he felt tired suddenly and Angel knew and took the lead, walking past him down the hall and to the stairs where she waited for him to catch up. Usually Angel didn’t sleep with him or anybody, she was always on guard but it seems that tonight she was willing to do it.

   He was OK with that

Chapter 10 Part 2 - Revised

Cyrus

   They hadn’t talked much about the important things that Cyrus wanted to hear about but rather kept asking about a leather covered journal that had belonged to Deacon. Skye and Cyrus had both told Dom that they had never seen a journal like that or even knew that Deacon had one. “You have seen it before Skye” Dom said calmly “You have seen it many times before, you just don’t remember.” that had made Skye's anger start to surge but being drunk made her the feeling fizzle out before she had a chance to get vocally confrontational.

   Skye and Maury were pleasantly drunk and bickering like siblings by the time Dom decided they should leave. Just after 1am Cyrus stood up and figured that he should be the one to walk his mother carefully up to her room and put her to bed so she could sleep it off.  As he pushed his chair in Dominic reached over and picked up the box. “I’ll take care of this for a few days,” he said. Without a sound in the room Skye replied with conviction. “No.” There was no anger in her voice, she sounded stone cold sober, only her eyes showed how serious she was.

   This didn’t have any effect on the men in the room except Cyrus who felt the tension like an elastic band stretched to its limits and ready to snap.

   Dom held the box, looked Skye square in the eyes and seemed to grow taller. “Nothing will happen to it, and if anything it will make its way back to you anyway now that the connection between you has been made.” He took a deep breath and let out a long sigh and continued. “If it stays here Skye… she will take over and if she does there will be nothing we can do.” With his last words he attempted to make sure she understood the gravity of the situation yet knowing that her intoxication would hinder it. “If she takes over now, your children... will have... no mother…”

   That struck her like a hand across the face and she gave in reluctantly. “Fine…” she said as she teetered on her feet. “Take it, shove it up your ass and get out of my house!” she wheeled around too quickly only to stumble and fall against Chase, face first into his broad chest. Somehow he came up behind her without her knowledge while Dominic rolled his eyes  and stayed calm.

   As Chase held Skye up with his pecs and her elbow she laughed at her own clumsiness and Maury laughed with her as he resumed his mindless banter with her. Dominic took Cyrus aside. “Look kid, I have always liked you and after your father died it was ok for you to have a fuck it all attitude…” he paused and looked at Skye. “But now you need to be the man here, you need to step up and take care of your family.”

   Hearing this Skye piped up “I do just FINE!” she screamed and then shrunk back once she heard how loud she was reverberate in her own ears, “I do just fine.” She said this time in barely a whisper. Dominic pulled Cyrus further away. “You need to find that Journal,” he continued “I can tell you everything but without it you and you mother won’t understand how important or how far back all of this goes.” Cyrus was exhausted and confused but couldn’t help wanting to know more. “So…” he said “what happens when we fine this journal?” Dominic said simply “It will explain the past, but the future…well that’s a new one.”

   Dominic turned around to see Skye leaning heavily on Chase with her head still on his chest, eyes slowly closing as she no doubt listened to his heartbeat slow and steady. With a deep sigh Dom turned his attention back to Cyrus, “Put her to bed Cy and we’ll talk about this tomorrow.” Dominic himself sounded tired now and eager to get out of there with the white oak box held carefully in his hands. With a nod to Chase, Dominic moved towards the door and Chase gently turned Skye towards her son. Once he was confident that Cy had a good hold of her he turned to follow his boss. With her eyes still closed Skye stopped Chase as he tried to pass by and put her hand on his chest. He stopped immediately but said nothing as her hand slid down and dropped limply back to her side. 

   In a flash, Maury kissed the top of her head and staggered out the front door. On his way past Dominic he didn’t notice the tug as Dom snagged the car keys that were partially hanging out of his back pocket in one quick motion. Cyrus snapped out of his daze, put his arm around Skye and watched the tall, broad strawberry blonde man saunter to the front door and take the keys from his boss’s hand. It struck Cyrus then that he never realized how big Chase was.

With a slight bow Dominic left last and quietly closed the door.

   There were so many things going on in his mind at that point that he didn’t know where to begin…or end. Sky moaned softly and her weight shifted, losing her balance as she started to drift deeper. That got Cyrus moving, he walked her to the staircase and then step by step it must have taken almost 10 minutes to get her up to the top landing but he did it and shuffled her down to her bedroom.

   Once through her bedroom door he sat his mother on the bed gently. Skye was practically sleeping through the whole thing, only semi awake enough to not fall over and make him carry her. Cyrus balanced Skye with his left arm while he used his right to pull back the covers on the bed. To make things harder Kona jumped onto the bed and pinned the blankets down so he couldn't pull them back all of the way. Instead of fighting the large dog he pulled the blanket back as far as he could and slowly laid Skye down. He thought about putting her into her pajamas and then decided that things were awkward enough already.

   Skye was out as soon as her head hit the pillow and soft snores came from her in no time at all. Kona put his large head on Skye’s thigh and closed his eyes leaving Cyrus standing in the dimly lit room watching his mother like a parent would watch their child sleeping. With some certainty he knew that a shift had happened and somehow knew that he was going to have to be the parent now and had no idea how he was going to handle that.

Chapter 10 Part 1 - Revised

         In a house so run down it looked abandoned the old woman paced back and forth working an obvious path in her 70’s style orange shag carpeting as she flattened the pile. The walls were covered in paisley wallpaper and 2 china cabinets full of knick knacks gleamed and shook as she stomped by. Instead of pictures of Jesus or Elvis on her walls there were framed photos of wood nymphs and trees, of oceans and mountains.

   Each time she changed direction she would shake out her fingers and there would be an audible pop as her knuckles snapped. She paid it no mind and continued to pace relentlessly as her thoughts felt unsettled and she had never had a feeling of dread so deep inside of herself before.

   “Something’s wrong…” she mumbled to herself even as Jack the Blue Hyacinth Macaw sat on his perch preening himself and could have provided an audience. “This isn’t right…” continuing as she walked a solid track across the floor and couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to do something, that something unexpected was about to happen. As the long-time Caretaker of the goddess in the stone, for what was going on for centuries now, she watched over the vessel that housed her Mistress.  As the long time protector she knew when her Mistress had been released to live her next cycle and also knew that this time things felt drastically different than they have in the previous ones.

    Just as she protected her charge, Gertie also knew that what she herself called a pack of thugs watched over living vessel in much the same manner except that when her Mistress was released then the her job was over.

   This time she worried, although she didn’t exactly know what she was worried about, she just felt that something was not quite right. She felt the energy shift when Skye made contact but by now she should be able to feel the living essence of the Goddess and she couldn’t feel anything past a hum of vibration.

   So often she would hear the goddess in her head, talking to her and keeping her company in her solitary world, the two of them alone and yet still having each other. Gertie knew that when Georgia took hold she was out of control, causing trouble while she was free, making the ‘Thugs’ jump and skitter to clean up her messes before she drew too much attention but for her it was a simple duty and she missed it whenever her time was over.  For so long she would see Skye and each time she had a different name but always the same face and always the same contented sense of self.

   Sometimes she would meet Skye face to face just like at the flea market and pass on the white oak box, other times the box found its way to its vessel all on its own.

   Gertie had always felt that it was safe... not this time though…this time she felt strange and knew she had to find the box with her mistress within it. Gertie knew but she had to make sure he Mistress was alright because her job was to keep her charge safe until she was in the right hands or body such as is was again. To lose that job meant that she would lose the magic that kept her alive all of this time.

 “Changing of the guard!” the Macaw’s shrill voice had startled Gertie out of her trace. As she turned exasperated and glowered at him… he chattered again “Changing of the guard!” the old witch couldn’t help smiling as she watched him while he had a cobalt blue feather stuck in his beak that he was trying to shake free. She shuffled her withered legs towards him, put her arm in front of his perch and held it there until he stepped forward. His claws pinched her skin lightly while he got a better grip on her and she liked the feeling.

    Gertie reached up and plucked the feather out of his beak, tossed it aside and stroked his head. He pushed into her dry boney thumb. “What do we do Jack?” she spoke softly nuzzling him with her knuckle. “Without her…we die…” As if understanding her sudden sadness Jack tilted his head and looked at her with one small yellow rimmed eye, extended his wings, proceeded to wrap his wings around her head and pecked her hard on the bridge of the nose before he quickly jumped back to his perch.

  

At first she was angry, but it subsided quickly as her mind continued to worry and the air around her vibrated slightly. She knew at that moment what she had to do. The old woman had never had to go on a long trip before and yet she knew that at this moment she needed to pack and leave…for how long…she didn’t know…all she knew was that she had to leave right away.