Waiting for String Lights
“Hi, Mom.”
“Catie! You can schedule your calls in advance. Send a letter? You always catch me while I’m straining.”
“Should I go?”
The phone hisses, “no! Absolutely not! Catarina de Alioni, you are speaking with your mother now.”
“Okay. Uh… so dad was coming over a couple days after the Lights Festival?”
“Yes. He will expect you to put on some magic for us. Don’t disappoint him!”
“I know. I know.” I grip the cable. “I’m actually hosting a bar later that night for the parlour, with my undead servants pouring drinks.
“ It doesn’t need to be stated that I don’t know how to make those servants yet.
“I talked it over with Mistress Vincenza, and she said that you could come if you want, since I might have to skip dinner to help prepare.”
“Skip dinner?“ she sneers. “...But, your father would love that. So would I. But don’t think that you’re not getting at least one real meal with us!”
“I know. Uh, that was it. Bye?”
“Alright, Catie. Goodbye.”
I hang up the phone, absurdly proud with myself for having such a short conversation.
Unrelatedly, the schedule on my wall says I should eat now. Vincenza even drew a smiley face next to that point. For such a tall—authoritative—woman, it’s so sweet. With the same arms that can pick me up like nothing, she produced something so cute.
It burns my heart that I want her. Every day. Everything’s so easy with her. I’m not fearful of her touch; I’m not worried that I’m replaceable. I just wish I could be flustered over her without—without…
In a better world, Vincenza wouldn’t have needed me. She would’ve had the woman she loved, not even knowing that there could be this equally real, far worse one.
That does draw me down. I may not be replaceable, but that doesn’t mean I could ever begin to hope to be the one her heart belongs to.
Vincenza’s washing her hands when I walk in. “Are you making dinner?”
“Yes,” I draw out with a teasing annoyance. “Do you have flour? I was going to make plancakes.”
“Plancakes?”
“Pan! Pancakes.” I kneel beside her to pull a cast iron pan from the drawer.
“Flour, sugar, vanilla, and baking powder are in here.” She knocks a cupboard. “Cashew milk and maple syrup are here.” She knocks the fridge.
“Thanks, Vincenza.”
I start pouring ingredients into a bowl to mix while the pan heats over hot wires and she lounges on the couch.
She probably ate already, but I think she’ll appreciate the gesture of being offered pancakes, even if she declines them. So, I make a bit extra beyond what I was planning on eating.
I drop the two plates onto the coffee table.
“Are you sharing?” Vincenza leans forward, grinning.
“Yes! I—think I forgot butter. Where is it?”
“It’s on the counter.” She nods her head to it, and I run to grab it. “Technically it’s not butter. Debatably. It has more right to the title of ‘butter’ than peanut butter.”
“I know. And the oat milk isn’t real milk either.”
“Milk used to mainly refer to oat milk. Anything produced by milking is a milk. My grandmother would tell me that she had to specify when milk could be substituted with ‘cream of cow.’”
“Are oats milked?” I spread a faintly coconut smelling butter between the layers of my stack.
“By the lax standards of Roversellan, yes, as we have to mechanically squeeze out the milk.”
I… have no clue how oat milk is made.
“And, you used cashew milk.” She starts preparing her stack.
She’s going to eat it!
I feel my cheeks warm. “Why is it you only have vegan foods? Are you allergic?”
“By the Ring, no. Not when I started, anyway.” She slows down her cutting. “Do you want to hear the story? It might be long.”
“Yes! I can—I can eat while you tell it. So I won’t mind.”
“And I’m supposed to ignore that I can’t?” She places a performatively offended hand on her chest. “I should’ve known you would never lose your sass. But, the story starts with my wonderful meretrice.
“I took her on a romantic getaway to a field of tulips in Lawrin.
They used to bury people there in coffins, and I purchased permission to dig one up to make a servant from.
I planned it out as a cute surprise for her.
She would get to see her home and family, and with her own animation to display her progress.
“You’re aware of how you felt after your first spells, right? Before that, even. Your conscience whispering plots you would never think to do into your head and the orchestra bursting in your ears?”
I nod.
“She was able to perfectly animate a corpse. The most beautiful smile lay on her face, and we danced together in tulips.” Vincenza interrupts herself with laughter that draws her to tears.
“We were right next to a chicken pasture. She felt all of them—their dying, their mourning, their trimmed beaks and bent necks. The confusion from little chicks as they fell into a macerator. As I drove us to her home, she kept on swearing to me that she would never hurt them again.”
I listen to her laughter, soft and breaking. “Was it funny?”
“Not at the time—her mother certainly wasn’t amused—but that was before we were even married. Decades passed, and we eventually found humor in it.”
“That’s a nice story… Should I stop? Eating—her friends?”
Vincenza’s laughter is so sweet for such a dark story and question. “I don’t care, Kate. I’m not a moralistic woman; I’m just… It’s not why I’m doing it.”
I blink and turn myself back to eating. It’s probably not a good idea to ask more.
“Catarina, do you have any thoughts?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You always insist upon entering my head. What if I want to see yours?” She leans over, head above mine and staring down. “I’m not going to judge; I’m just curious.”
We’re so close I can smell the maple syrup and cherry seltzer on her breath.
A better woman would respond with something profound, but I only manage to produce a whimper through my constricted throat. “I hope it isn’t evil.”
“Go on,” she softly demands, hands in my hair.
“Imagine if it was. It would—I couldn’t do anything about it.
The world w-would be pervaded by it. It would be a horror that no one cares about and will never change.
That I’ve participated in, every day for so many years.
A-and the Ring! It would tell us, wouldn’t it?
The matrons and priests would know if we were doing something wrong? ”
She breathily whispers, “I want to only pry into your mind, but, our nation is thousands of years old. We accepted homosexuality thirty of them ago.”
Right, we can be wrong. Extremely wrong.
“I just hope it isn’t.”
“I would hope so too.”
Again, the matron’s words. Everything is right under the Ring. Even the things I don’t want to be. Because it can’t have made something wrong.
I blink, stammering, “I hope it isn’t right either.”
She turns her head curiously.
“It’s just that—It’s like what you said about Ringborn. If it’s true that the Ring made some life that was meant to be servile and exploited, then why wouldn’t it be true about me too? How could I say that I wasn’t also just… made to serve someone that did have moral importance?”
“You are not. I may only be an authority on necromancy, but I will speak authoritatively here: you have as much importance as me.”
My heart eases. She really would say that… after seeing me fluster and fail my way through her apprenticeship. “I’ll just stop thinking about it. Thank you.”
“You have an interesting mind.” She releases from me and sits back down. “Express it to me more often, if you wish.”
“I-I will, Mistress!”
Preparing for the Lights Festival is easy. Sit, wait, and there it’ll be.
Just a day away.
It’s painful, having a life so dull. Serving to no goals, no beautiful future. I’m an apprentice who can’t access the Ring, serving a mistress who also can’t access it. I’m sure if I asked, if I insisted, she would give me another chance.
I won’t. She looked so guilty with her last two gifts. I won’t tear out her heart for the convenience of my education.
I see her walking in and raise my head from Love Marks and Werewolves. “Hey, Vincenza.”
“You talk to Piero too often,” she comments, passing by me to grab a seltzer from the fridge. “You read in here?”
“I don’t like to read in bed.” Except for smut. “It makes it hard to go to sleep.”
“Would you like for me to add a sacco chair to this room? I’ve had one in my own bedroom for reading.”
“That would be nice.” I make room for her on the couch. “So… what do you read?”
“I try to keep up on the state of necromancy. Newspapers, scientific articles, and the occasional sci-fi story written by a prominent necromancer.”
“Aw.”
“Bored by my answer?” She smirks. “What did you hope to hear?”
“Uh, well—“
“What do you like to read?“ she asks in a tone that’s knowingly teasing.
I blush and hide the title of my book. “F-fiction!”
She knowingly looks at me. “Fiction is a far more fun genre. You’ve also kept up on theory?”
“Yes, Mistress.” A thousand pages in one week was tough, but after reading all of The Need for Modernism in Arcane Practice in three nights, I was able to waste the rest of them reading… uh, lower quality material.
“Good.” She levers open her can and takes a drink
The silence is gentle when shared with her. It’s a comfortable vulnerability, sharing this private space and meals together. I even got to show her my skills at burning pizza, and she didn’t laugh. Not that we could’ve told it tasted bad; it really is just nostalgia that gives food any taste now.
That and crushed red pepper flakes.
“Are you going with any friends to the Lights Festival?” Vincenza sets down her can. “Lucia or Hanna?”
“No, but I might meet them. I think Hanna’s taking Lucia on a date with her girlfriend. I might go and… flirt with some people.” I give an awkward laugh.
“You’ll have a lot of competition with how much they like to swarm the Ringborn with the most prominent eyes, but I find it hard to believe they won’t find something in yours.”
“I have the most boring eye color. Even if it’s anyone’s favorite, there’ll be no shortage for them to get worked up over me. It’s not your eyes. They’re stunning, beautiful, and absolutely just your—“
Why the fuck did I say that? Fucking—I don’t even know. Fuck me onto a spike, I guess.
She plays off the compliment wonderfully, not even looking embarrassed.
“Pink is fine, but I have a strong favor in my heart for a hazel-brown. Even if it’s common, it lands better when on your smiling face.
I’m sure there’ll be a patron who swoons for you tomorrow night, Kate—or a consort.
Love doesn’t have to make you powerful.”
“Sh-shut up! I’m… leaving. Bye!” I grab my book and go.
She chuckles back, “I’ll bring you dinner.”