Shorts & Serials

Kiss those you hate.

Family gorges on me, a dolled-up meat slab in thousands of euros worth of couture. My lips, numb from the pretense, pucker unnaturally to wine red lipstick ridges, sticky and stiff.

I peck my sister's hollow cheeks, buccal fat removed ages ago. "Natalia, you look well," I lie. She's more plastic, titanium, and Botox fillers than human at this point. She's also last to arrive, makes a production of squeezing a black obsidian stone–for protection and healing–into my hands, and lingers on her second cheek kiss.

"Bonsoir, Selene," she says, teeth too white against tanned orange skin, glaring at me. "You look," hate flits in blue eyes dulled with age, "young."

I follow her hunched movements to the only unoccupied chair of three in front of me. She places her brass walking stick at an angle next to her, liver spotted hands clutching its curved handle. Is unaffected when its ferrule jabs our older brother Erik's black Ferragamo shoe.

He scrapes his foot away from it, plump lips pursed, but he's silent. They don’t talk to each other. Not anymore.

"You've got us here," my very American, very ruddy-faced, very unremarkable cousin Marcus says. "Now what?"

They all look at me for an answer, never at each other. Not anymore.

The expansive drawing room smells of orange zest and cigars, pork belly and incense. Of dinner and dancing long over–a brash affair the night before celebrating a life well lived–a life lived. I'd drunk good wine and eaten delectable food, danced in heels till my soles bled, laughed till my sides ached, and cried with chosen family until tears deserted. With nothing left of myself to give, I'd sent everyone away, except–my lawyer.

"Selene?" Natalia prods, white knuckles contrasting her ghastly tan. “Must we guess?”

My smile's as fake as her newest nose. "I've spent the last weeks putting my affairs in order and I want to–"

"Affairs in order?" Erik parrots. He looks decades younger than Natalia, heavy dark eyebrows favour our late father, the rest of him–an uncle long dead at father's hand.

"Yes brother," I say, patient as I can muster. "A thing you would understand if you ever accounted for the children you've sired and left to rot."

He scowls, jaw tense. Spittle flies my way when he speaks next. "Had mama the good sense to leave the family fortune to me, the eldest, instead of you, I wouldn't have to scrape pennies to get by. I cannot give what I don't have."

Natalia laughs, a croaky, choked thing. Breaks a thirty-year silence. "I'd hardly call lavish apartments in Kensington and offshore business interests scraping pennies, Erik." She glowers at me, a wrinkled orange purged of its juice. "What about me?" she asks, whipping her cane against the stone floor. "I live hand-to-mouth, surviving on the measly quarter million euros a year provided by my precious, little sister."

If I didn't know better I'd swear the obsidian she gave me grows hot in my hand with her vitriol. I grip it tighter, knowing what comes next will make this affair worse.

"A stipend sounds nice," Marcus' smile is serpentine. "Seems only siblings are favoured with the de Gramont wealth," he cocks his head. "Eh, Selene?"

Natalia doesn’t let that slide either. “Your settlement from our inheritance was enough to buy and sell countries, your folly pissed it away.”

The door behind us opens, and I turn, relieved when I see Arthur Merriman, my lawyer, enter. He's in his forties, lanky, ginger, efficient and practical–his shoes more expensive than his suit, his watch more expensive than both. He’s holding a remote control.

"Everything is as you've requested Madame," he says, though I look younger than he does.

I remember the days of mademoiselle, of being a teenager, of spilling my twenties on heartbreak and vices. Then the early days of madame, of travelling the world, marriage and divorce, of barrenness and heartbreak. Of life eternal.

Not anymore.

"What's this now?" Erik asks, brows beetling suspiciously.

"Who is this interloper?" Natalia echoes.

I nod at Arthur. At my silent command, he clicks one of the remote’s buttons and dims the lights, cloaking him in shadow ‘til he steps into a single pool.

"This is Arthur, a dear friend," I say, joining him. "He'll be conducting the reading at my behest."

"Reading?" Natalia murmurs, her cast iron façade slipping.

"Good evening," Arthur says, with all the melody of a hardened German speaking practised English.

"Come cousin, you've had your stage play," Marcus says, leaning forward. "Can we reach the point?"

Arthur and I exchange a glance, the smile I give him more genuine than anything in this room.

After an elongated pause, Arthur begins his spiel. My spiel really–words crammed into elegant legalese. Words explaining my death, what would happen to my vast fortune billions of euros strong. 

I half-listen, his talents for memorisation and oratorical prowess giving me no reason to doubt the contents. Most of my attention is on my siblings and cousin, their rapt attention enthralling, as realisation dawns.

"These are the terms," Arthur ends, stepping back into the shadows.

Erik stands slowly, frown deepening. "You aren't serious?" His fists knot. He takes two charged steps towards me.

Before he can reach me with violence, I lunge at him. Smack his chest hard with the back of a palm. His dark eyes widen in surprise, ribs break. He heaves uneven breaths, slumping to the ground. Droplets of black blood sputter from his lips.

Natalia's unmoved as our brother writhes in pain at her feet. "That money is for all of us," she says, lips twitching. "You have no right to–"

"I have every right," I snap, smoothing errant hair back.

"You aim to take the money to the grave," Marcus asks, incredulous. "Think you’re a Pharaoh?"

"Have you not been listening, cousin?"

"As if anyone could follow your lackey robot," he shouts, grimacing in Arthur's direction.

"It’s really quite simple,” I begin. “I've lived far too long and need rest. Most revenants like us aren’t privileged enough to avoid fatal perils as we have.”

"Speak for yourself," Natalia says, eyes wet with crocodile tears.

At her feet Erik groans, healing slowly, but surely.

"You chose to refuse the gift, Natalia." Marcus surprises me by speaking directly to her. Thirty years later.

Tears trickle down her cheeks. She sniffs, more a snort, through her botched rhinoplasty. "I had everything to live for back then," she whimpers. "I could not imagine being dead."

"Undead," I correct. "Dead with an edge."

"And now you," Marcus stands, jabs a finger, but doesn't make a move towards me. "Now you want to throw it all away for what? Because you're tired?"

"Have you not been listening, cousin?" I ask again. "I wish to throw it all away to be dead. To taste air, smell rain, feel pain, no more."

Erik grunts, red-faced, and drags himself over to his chair. Leans against it, sweat puddling in skin creases. "Doesn't," he coughs, "doesn't mean–"

"The rest of us should suffer in poverty,” Marcus finishes. 

"I will repeat, for those hard of hearing." I roll my neck, getting kinks out. "You will be well-provided for in the amount suitable to maintain your lifestyles for the next decade." I tilt my chin at Natalia, her time most limited. "This should suit you nicely sister.” Look over at the others. "You can use this boon to increase your already staggering wealth, perhaps, do some good."

Natalia wipes her eyes on an embroidered handkerchief that's appeared from the folds of her pleated skirt. She looks at me, disheartened. "I'm ready now," she says. "Make me what you are, so I can live on." Her next words are a whisper. "Unlike you Selene, I never wish to die."

I fold my lips in as the sister I looked up to as a child, who, jealous of mama and papa's attention to their youngest, had no use for me for most of my life, now pleads for a chance.

"Don't be stupid," Erik huffs, pushing himself up into his chair. "You'd never survive the change in your state."

It's cruelty and the finality–when she looks at me and sees the truth of his words in my eyes–elicits real tears.

It's also the first thing he's said to her since they and my cousin conspired to kill our parents, and succeeded, thirty years ago.

Her brittle body trembles, quietly weeping for a life near its end.

I’m eager to have them gone, to have this be done. 

"Your mind cannot be changed?" Marcus asks.

I shake my head.

"And the rest of the money, it goes where?" Erik follows.

I sigh. "To beneficiaries of my choosing."

Erik releases a string of curses, most of them aimed at his whore of a sister, the one screwing everyone's plans up without remorse.

When he's tired himself out, broken bones setting quicker than I'd like, my plastic smile spreads over lipstick stained lips. "We will never meet again in this life," I say. "And I have given you more than you deserve."

Marcus scoffs, nose upturned. "Scraps fit only for dogs."

I ignore him. "But I do it to secure my own karma." I squeeze the obsidian stone still locked in my palm.

"What you do here is wicked, sister, more evil than anything I could imagine one could do to flesh and blood."

More evil than patricide? Matricide? I wonder. My sister's smudged eye makeup from fresh tears gives me my answer.

"Arthur," I call.

"Madam?" He's at my side in moments, not a revenant, but not quite human either.

"See them out."

"Yes, Madam." He whispers something else to me, something that makes my head hurt and stomach curl, but I nod.

"You're really going to throw us out on the streets after that?" Marcus asks, anger creasing his brow. 

I take a step forward and he hurries away. They’ve never been as strong as I am–being the youngest when I was made revenant has its advantages. 

Arthur tries to guide Erik from his seat. "Hands off me troll," he says, turning to me with narrowed gaze. "My lawyers will shred this shit to pieces, just you wait." He says no more, storming off in a huff of dad's stride and uncle's big feet.

Natalia takes her time rising, reminding me of Italian grandmothers hobbling to funerals. She looks at me, pearly white veneers revealed in a debutante’s smile. "I am glad you will be dead," she says. "Your youth can torment me no more."

I watch her leave. Hear the far door, oak and heavy, close behind her.

It isn’t long before I hear the shouts, the strangled screams, the scuffle as Arthur, my friend, my lawyer, kills the three remaining members of my family. Natalia would have been easy, I surmise, the other two tougher. Revenants aren't easy to kill, but Arthur - not quite revenant, not quite human, is even less so.

As quiet descends, I sink into the chair not long ago occupied by my elder sister. Lean back, enjoying the peace. I won't die this day. That lie in the reading, told to see if my family's greed could be thwarted with even a whisper of change in their morality, a semblance of empathy, of penance, or anything other than what led to my beloved parents' deaths. Yet, when it mattered most, even that they could not muster.

Instead of staying my hand for a moment  longer, the revenge I’ve wanted and resisted for thirty years bared its claws today.

Now, the day I won’t die, is the day they all have.

Perhaps if I’m lucky I won’t face true death for some time. Until then, I live with vengeance's burden no more.

No more. 

_

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