TWELVE YEARS LATER
Eighteen year old Sarabi
Geneis Kahn sat at her father's desk with a pile of advanced English papers
before her, spread upon the smooth wood surafce like a perfect layer of
snow. She glanced behind her and out the floor-to-ceiling window, down
upon the gleaming sunset rooftops of Cape Suzette. She rather enjoyed being
up so high. She smirked to herself, knowing that one day she would be behind
that desk for reasons other than homework, knowing that those gleaming
rooftops she settled her ocean eyes upon would be as good as hers. She
absently ran her finger along a pair of grooves her father's claws had
carved into the desk not long ago.
"Oh Father," she sighed,
"how often WILL you have to get this desk refinished?" She considered giving
the underside of the desk a practice run, but thought better of it; instead,
she inhaled the flora-tainted air and returned to her work.
The door opened at the opposite
end of the office, and and she knew without looking that her younger sister,
Orly, had entered. She could hear the sixteen-year-old's boots, too big
for her feet, clomping noisily as she trekked across the expansive carpet
to the desk.
"Hey Sara, have you seen
my Thelonious Monkey record anywhere?" she requested in her reedy little
voice.
"Haven't," she replied cooly,
not removing her cold sapphire eyes from her papers.
Orly sighed. 'Must have
lost the dang thing. Dang. I had it one minute and then poof, it's gone.
Heh heh. Hmm. Where's Papa?"
"Maybe you should check
the scientific proof of the chaos theory that is your room." Sarabi's pen
scratched evenly over her paper.
"Why would Papa be in my
room?" Orly asked, a taint of panic in her voice at the thought.
"Looking for your record,
maybe."
"Oh, quiet with you, Sara-Jenny."
"I wish you wouldn't call
me that."
Orly rolled her eyes and
sat down in one of the chairs on the opposite side of her desk, putting
her feet up on the gleaming surface. Her body was bathed in orange from
the sunset behind them, and one of Shere's old green sweaters hung off
her body like a blanket.
Her old boots tapped against
the wood, graying tounges flapping back and forth. She hummed a tune to
herself for a moment, and then asked, "What is it that thou stareth so
intently at, ma soeur?"
"Homework, Willaim. You
know, that stuff you never do."
"Oh, ha ha."
Sarabi's brow wrinkled in
thought. "Orly, you're more or less English-prone, are you not?"
"Yeah, when you speak it."
Sarabi rolled her eyes.
"You're good at English, right?"
"Yeah." Orly twisted a vine
from one of her father's plants around her finger.
"Can you help me with something?"
Orly gave her sister an
incredulous look. "You want ME to help you with something?"
"If you could."
"Sarabi took a breath and
tucked her white hair behind her ear. "Coffee is to mug as brandy is to...what
do they call it....?"
Orky raised her eyebrow.
'Snifter?"
"Snifter."
They regarded each other
for a moment.
"Are you sure it isn't flute?"
"Snifter!"
Orly heard the door creak
open and looked about, and upon seeing her father's gray silhouette in
the doorway, hurriedly removed her feet from the desk. Sarabi gave her
younger sister a weary look.
Shere Kahn made his way
across the office to where his two daughters sat. His pace had slowed with
age and some of his fur had grayed, but his eyes were still sharp and gleaming
yellow. Some said he had mellowed having a family about, but nothing could
remove his imposing manner. In fact, it had increased with the years. He
moved with old and quiet dignity.
"Orly,' he rumbled, "dare
I ask how you knew that?"
She smiled large and stood
up an the chair, throwing her arms around her father. Sarabi looked away
from this, and then back at her homework.
She kissed him on the nose.
"A snifter is where you put brandy, Papa." She waited for his response,
and a sly smile crossed her face. "But then again, there are lots of places
you can put brandy. In the pantry, under your bed, in that tub of water
behind the toilet...for example, your brandy is in the bottom drawer of
your desk underneath a file of-"
Orly stopped, realizing
that she may have gone too far.
Thinking fast, she kissed
her father's nose again.
The tip of Shere's mouth
raise in what was trying not to admit to be a smile, and he asked, "I assume
that even though you know where it is, you aren't drinking it?"
"Papa, I know where the
detergent is, but I don't drink that!"
"Yes you did," Sarabi said
dryly. "You were very small. I put it in your baby bottle, and that's why
you are the way you are."
Orly gave Sarabi an exsasperated
look. 'How about that. Sara made a funny."
"I won't have any brandy
or detergent drinking in this house," Shere said, patting Orly on the head.
He looked sternly to Sarabi. "Sarabi, did I say you could use my desk for
your homework?"
She looked him straight
in the eye and said, "Yes."
He blinked. "Did I?"
"Yes Father, this afternoon.
Remember? You told me you didn't have any more appointments."
Shere looked puzzled for
a moment. "So I must have. Memory fails me. I seem to be getting older
as we speak." There was a tinge of rue on his voice. He took a deep, sighing
breath and began to walk out of the office.
"Papa," Orly called after
him, "how about brandy and detergent together? You'd have some mint julep
foo-foo drink then, wouldn't you?"
"I suppose," he called back
to Orly as he left the office. Orly, who reminded him so much of August.
A pit of long-buried angst rose in his stomach where it had been pushed
down for fourteen years. He had ulcers that his private doctor attributed
to stress, but Shere knew the real reason why; he had ulcers because that
was where he packed away the memory of his dead wife.
