Whispers of the Marrow by Faine Bird

Author:Faine Bird [Bird, Faine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ransom Publshing LLC
Published: 2024-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Silver and blues blanketed the sky, matching the bitter chill of the air’s ensemble. Zee cupped her hands over her mouth, funneling warm breath into her cold extremities. The unseasonably balmy air seemed gone for good, but she doubted it was the last time t-shirts could be worn before winter hit. Sitting on the porch swing of her mother’s house after her dramatic stage exit, she had hoped to have a smoke in peace only to realize that she didn’t have a lighter.

The one she and Julius had used for their joint earlier no longer worked for some reason.

Far too proud to face the smooth-talking clergyman in the lilac suit, Zee peeked through the window, waiting for everyone to retire to the den. It took a few minutes for the table to clear and Zee soon found herself creeping in via the back door.

The kitchen remained muggy from the extended oven use as she rifled through the overstuffed drawers in search of matches. Trying her best not to let her mind wander to Aryn, Maggie, or her hellish nightmares, she instead contemplated her session with Dr. LaConte and Taylor. Looking around the grand kitchen, she couldn’t help replaying her mother and grandmother sitting in a much shabbier one with peeling laminate flooring and a leaky roof.

They had made it to comfort somehow, and Zee loathed it.

She felt slightly guilty for wanting her mother and grandmother to continue struggling; life was difficult for the Talbit women, always had been, but they made it impossible for her.

She needed to have a discussion with them. If not about Maggie or Fairville, then at least addressing their ill will toward her. It seemed beyond the normal disdain for homosexuality since the poor treatment had started as early as she could remember and she didn’t recall being particularly open about her sexual inclinations back in middle school. But perhaps they knew back then. Perhaps they had sensed it. Yes, maybe they had always known and treated her less than because parents and grandparents often saw the signs and knew everything, right?

Zee’s teeth gnashed at the plausibility.

That was typical self-induced rage for her, having had this conversation with herself a hundred times over the years. And just like all those other times in which she had wallowed in the misery they’d forced upon her; she was working herself up tonight, too.

But never would she speak a word of it to them.

She finished checking every drawer in search of a much-needed spark and came up empty. Simply lighting up on the stove and running outside could work, although the last time she recalled attempting this, Granny So-So had struck her across the buttocks with a broom handle.

Zee shivered at the memory. No, she would take her search elsewhere.

She took the set of stairs leading to the second floor tucked along the back wall of the kitchen, her eyes tracing over photographs of mostly dead family members she had never met.

Something was off though, wasn’t it? Maggie.

Maggie was absent from every single frame.

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