Domestic Disturbance *HF* Chapter 2
By Gene
Gene made a face. "We don't have that many horses for a bad smell. WE don't notice anything. And besides, he'd be living in a dirt house!"
"I don't know. Couldn't we just make a room for him or something?"
Gene shook his head. "It's a small house. The kid is 6'4"! And do you really want him to be the next bunk over late at night? Or early in the morning?"
Alice blushed. "Other side of the stable sounds fine. Maybe a bit further than that. Sound travels."
Gene grinned. "Good point."
The sound of hoofbeats echoed behind Gene. He turned and saw a male rider trotting toward them. Gene watched, then waved.
"Here he is," Gene said toward Alice.
Alice looked, shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted, then pushed her glasses further up her nose. "My God, he certainly filled out!"
"Two years in the temple will do that to you," Gene said.
The rider trotted up and came to a stop in front of Gene. He was tall and muscular, but lean, with sandy brown hair and piercing hazel-green eyes. He wore a broad smile and a dark cloak. It was Malachi.
"Hi Dad!" he said, jumping down from the horse.
Alice walked up. "No hi for your mom?"
Malachi grinned and swept Alice up in a hug. "Hi, Mom!"
He put her down and turned toward Gene, who was looking at Malachi's horse, a large white stallion.
"So this is your new ride, eh? Goes against the temple tradition of roaming the land on foot with your pack, your stick, and maybe a flute, doesn't it?"
Malachi stroked his hand across the neck of the horse. "This is Murphy. A gift from Gomurr and Grandmaster Pan. Shaman bought the saddle and bridle."
Alice looked around. "Where are they now?"
"Gomurr and Shaman said there was something happening back in 2002 that needed their attention. They were getting fidgety back at the temple, said they'd wasted enough time. Grandmaster Pan returned to his school. He said he'd love to have me come up there and stay with him as a senior student. He said I have a natural aptitude and could be a teacher soon."
"Are you going to go?" Gene asked.
Malachi shrugged. "I don't know. It's a great honor, but there are other things I'd need to learn at the Club, and my friends there, and you guys."
Gene and Alice smiled and put their arms around each other's waist.
"Nice to be remembered," Alice said.
"It doesn't mean you couldn't go up to see Pan some of the time," Gene said. "I do once in a while, you can, too. Like going to school up there, then coming home for holidays and summer vacation. Or vice versa."
Alice slapped Gene's shoulder, her jaw agape. "Don't encourage him to go away! He'll be doing that soon enough!"
Gene laughed. "I just don't want him limiting himself on our account."
Alice turned to Malachi, "Limit! Limit! I lost you long enough without having you go away again. I want to be greedy."
Malachi laughed. "I'll think about it. That summer idea sounds good. Don't worry Mom, I'm not going anywhere too soon."
Alice frowned. "Soon enough. You'll be 17 this fall. In a year you go to college. After that, you'll probably move out. It's only 4 years, which seems far away for you, but too soon for an old lady like me."
Gene dropped his voice. "You're not old. You're not even old enough to be President yet. You're only 33. You're a few years away from your prime!"
"Old enough," Alice said. She smiled. "Malachi, you know I want you to do what's best. It's just hard to see you growing up so fast, knowing you'll be on your own soon."
"I know, Mom," Malachi said. "Don't worry. I'll always come home." He stepped around them and looked at the house.
"So this is the place, eh? Kind of small for the three of us, isn't it?"
Gene smiled and turned toward the house. "That's just what I was thinking. So you're going to have your own place, right next door. What do you think?"
"Does it have to be a sod house?" Malachi asked.
Gene smacked the young man's arm. "Of course, dumbass! There aren't enough trees around for a wood house. Not enough material for a stone house. And the wood we have is for fire and tools. Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Just don't sleep with your mouth open, a worm might drop in."
"WHAT!?"
Alice doubled over, laughing.
"Come on, you can help me start cutting peat."
***
An hour later, Gene had had enough.
"To paraphrase Sean Connery, 'Enough of this digging shit.' You feel like digging anymore?"
Malachi wiped sweat from his face onto his hand, then his hand on his kilt. "Hell no. DIdn't want to do it in the first place."
"A man after my own heart. Imagine doing this when it's 85 or 90 degrees out, not 68, with a cloud of gnats and mosquitoes buzzing around you and biting you. That's what I got to deal with at your age, plus my dad kept telling me to dig like they taught him in the Army. If that's what they taught him, it's a wonder we ever won a war."
"This still sucks. So am I living with you guys then?"
"Maybe. Unless this works," Gene said. He pitched down the spade and held up his hand. Malachi felt an electric buzz in the air as his father concentrated for a second. An instant later, his ring came flying up and out of the chimney of the house and settled on the ring finger of Gene's right hand.
The door to the house opened and Alice stood in the doorway.
"Dammit! I wish you wouldn't do that! It scared the shit out of me! All of a sudden the drawer opens up and the ring shoots out on its own and flies up the fireplace! Either come in and get it or put it in your pocket!"
"I'm tired!" Gene called back. "And it's a kilt! I don't have pockets!"
Alice grumbled and slammed the door. Gene winked at Malachi and closed his hand into a fist. "Watch this," he said.
An arc of energy extended from his fist and touched the ground behind the stable. The energy spread like fire over a square patch of ground, then turned into a grid. Gene closed his eyes and frowned in concentration. Suddenly, a tree from the other side of the hill disappeared, and a thrumming noise could be heard. After a few seconds, Gene opened his eyes and the energy field dropped. In it's place stood a sod house very similar to the one he and Alice lived in on the near side of the corral.
"Cool!" he and Malachi said together.
"Hey hon!" Gene called out. "You may want to see this!"
Alice came out of the house. "Do you have another boil on your leg?" she asked.
"No. Malachi has a house."
Alice walked a few steps and looked to where Gene was looking.
"Ho-ly shit," she said.
***
That night at dinner, Malachi looked very proud.
"What are you grinning about?" Alice asked. "You that happy to be with us? Or is the stew that good? We made it yesterday, so it's had time to sit."
"Nothing," Malachi said around a bite, still grinning.
"'Nothing' means 'something'" Alice said. "It always does. What are you up to?"
Malachi looked toward Gene, grinning.
"Oh, Lord," Alice said, putting her face in her hands. "They're up to something already." She looked up. "What poor soul are you two torturing now? Are you tipping cows? Making fake crop circles? What?"
"It's nothing, hon, really," Gene said. "He's just proud of something we did."
"What's that?"
"Nothing, don't worry about it."
"If it's nothing, then you can tell me."
"Okay, Malachi, you tell her."
"No, you. I'll get in trouble."
"No, go ahead, you helped."
Malachi paused, then spoke excitedly. "Okay, you know the outhouse out back? I thought it was really gross. And we've spent the last two years without plumbing in China at the temple, so I thought we should have something."
"You made plumbing?"
"Yeah, well no, well not really. First I thought how gross it is when spiders run up and crawl on your butt when you're in the privy. Then I thought about the smell. So I talked to Dad and we took care of it."
Alice frowned, thinking. Then looked panicked. "Okay, what did you two do?"
Gene jumped in. "Nothing really...wrong. We just made some adjustments. You know how the ring is more of a shortcut to magic than anything else, well I've been practicing on using it for enchantments instead of for flight and energy bolts and things. Together we set up a kind of shield over the seat of the outhouse. You can drop stuff down the hole, but nothing's coming out."
"So no more spider bites?" Alice asked.
"Nope," Gene said proudly.
Alice smiled. "Well hey, that's great! What else did you do?"
"That's it," Gene said, kicking Malachi under the table. "WEll, it smells like pine in there now, too. All the time. We tried a cool mountain scent, but it was just too obscure. Pine is easy."
"Yeah," Malachi said. Then he broke into a snicker.
Alice nodded. "I thought so. There's more, isn't there?"
Gene sat silent for a second, thinking. THen nodded. "Yeah."
Alice looked at them cooly. "What."
Malachi doubled over laughing, then tried to speak. "We...made it so...the crap...automatically goes to...to...hahahahaha!"
Alice stared at them, her lips pressed together hard. "To where?"
"Buckingham Palace!" Malachi howled. He dropped off his chair, rolling on the floor laughing. Gene started laughing as well, and within seconds was flushed and sweating from laughing so hard."
Alice did not look amused. "You've got to be kidding me. You teleport our shit to Buckingham Palace? Please tell me it's not the truth."
"HAHAHAHAHA! Sorry hon," Gene said. "It's true."
"Why!?!"
Gene started to calm down, though Malachi was almost hyperventilating with laughter. "WEll, we decided that cleaning that thing out is just not cool. But the poop has to go somewhere. The year is 1680. The English are still assholes. Send it to them!"
Alice was silent for a few moments, then slowly began to smile. She chuckled. "Where does it show up?"
Gene shrugged. "Not really sure. Couldn't make an exact spell. Malachi tried to see it while in a trance, and as best as he can tell, it shows up in the middle of a ballroom floor everyday."
Alice started to laugh. "Oh my God. That IS funny! CAn you imagine the look on their faces? We should live here longer just to make sure it goes on for as long as possible. I'd love that to happen to King George during the American Revolution!"
Gene snickered. "We'll come back for a vacation. Or sell the house to someone who eats a lot of bran!"
THey laughed some more, then eventually settled down and continued on with dinner.
"Hey Malachi, now that we've got you settled in, there's some stuff we have to do tomorrow," Gene said.
"Like what?" Malachi asked.
"Well, we have a neighbor here, Aidan McConnell, who helped us build the stable fence. Tomorrow you and I are riding over to see him. He's going to give us a few sheep and a goat to raise here, and you're going to shepherd for him for the summer," Gene said.
"Me? Be a shepherd?"
"There's no Playstation here," Alice said. "And we're trying to live normally, within reason. So yeah, you'll help him while your dad and I keep things going over here. It's only for the summer, and it won't be that bad. If you really don't like it, we'll give the sheep back, but if we keep them, it makes life much easier. They can give us wool, meat, cheese, milk, even an income if we breed them."
"And they graze, so you won't have to mow the lawn," Gene said, grinning.
Malachi glared at him. "Fine."
End Part 2
Gene
Original and Longest-Running Editor
White Bastard/King's Pawn--HellFire Club
Knight of the Long-Necked Bottle
Forbidden by Law to Eat Onion Rings
Selectively Sterile
Wielder of Unbridled Contempt for Humanity
Clearest Colon this side of the Milky Way
Messiest Underwear this side of the Milky Way
Certified Bastard-Training Specialist
K, your neck is looking overloaded... Let me take some weight off it!