The Art of Peeling an Orange by Victoria Avilan

Author:Victoria Avilan [Avilan, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction & Literature
Publisher: Shaggy Dog Stories
Published: 2015-01-23T07:00:00+00:00

44

I hoped Kyra’s foot was in agony. She was hurting Anna! How dare she go snooping where I wouldn’t? I sat, letting the hardwood cool my burning anger. How hard it was, keeping Anna’s secret from Kyra, who sensed lies and secrets, who ferreted them out for a living.

From under the table I glanced up at Anna, seeing her graceful neck, the longing in her face as she sniffed the orange, the glow from the blazing fireplace caressing her gold and platinum hair. She reached down, searching for me, aware with her special senses that I had a problem. She ran the back of her citrus-fragrant hand on my cheek. I handed her the knife.

“I need fresh air,” Kyra announced. Then she grabbed my elbow and hoisted me to my feet. “Come with me.”

Instead of the breezy deck, Kyra headed deeper into the house, toward the forbidden place.

I resisted. “The deck has enough fresh air for you to choke on.”

“I need to ask you a few questions about something in the basement.”

“No one goes there!” I jerked my arm away from her death grip. “Anna asked that I stay out of that part of the house.”

“Do you always do what Divine Darkness says?”

“She is entitled to a private corner in her own home.”

“What about your corner?” Kyra asked. “What are you protecting and from whom, princess?”

Kyra’s questions were so infuriating. “Anna from you.”

“She can protect herself,” Kyra said. “I’m here to make sure you don’t become Greg.”

That was crazy. I said, “You blame her for his death, but I know the truth.”

Did I? Anna had been about to open up—confess?—about Greg’s last day. What had she meant by you had something I needed desperately? What about Hades has won? What else had she been about to throw at me when the knock on the door interrupted?

I was doubting Anna, right there at the top of the stairs leading into the innermost core of her pain. If that wasn’t disloyalty . . .

“I blame her not only for his death,” Kyra said, “but for stealing his soul and his name when he was alive.”

“He had his choices.”

“So do you,” Kyra said. “Your hands are clean. If you don’t paint anymore, what do you do?”

“I actually work for her, editing her new book.” I was still protecting, justifying, explaining myself to my sister who didn’t have freaky senses but could see through my bullshit and knew I was hiding something crucial.

“Let me understand,” Kyra said. “She has acquired another pair of eyes, a free editor, who also picks up her shit from the floor. What do you get out of it except a heavenly abode and an ocean view, Palos Verdes to Malibu?”

“You may not know a thing about true love,” I said, clenching my jaw, “but you surely know what one gets out of great sex.”

“I was in love once,” Kyra said. “Remember Saori San?”

“Who went back to her husband and left you for dead,” I said, just to be mean.

“Yes, yes,” Kyra said, unmoved by my cruelty.

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