She pulled on a robe and a pair of big, cushiony slippers that had been fuzzy once upon a time, and wandered into the kitchen in search of coffee and breakfast. She yawned, feeling her back pop as she stretched out the kink that had somehow worked its way into her spine.
Shari was in the kitchen. Slim, her hair the gold of the dune grass on the beach, Cally’s step-grandmother looked twenty-something, like all juvs in their first century. She’d been a middle-aged mother back in the war when Cally was just thirteen. Both women had old eyes — eyes that had seen too much. Shari’s were more motherly and less haunted. The kind of mother’s eyes that didn’t miss a thing. She was loading her breakfast dishes in the dishwasher when Cally came into the kitchen. The O’Neals had to be careful to keep it quiet, but electricity was damn near free. When you had friends who played with antimatter almost as an afterthought, power for basic household needs wasn’t a problem. Raising the kids to understand and follow blackout rules on the electric lights could have been rough, if they hadn’t been doing it all their lives. To satellites or aircraft, what few there were, Edisto Island looked like just another war-wasted and not-yet-recovered stretch of wilderness. Well, it almost was. Secretive clannishness had, by now, become a set of ingrained habits. The O’Neals had learned some hard lessons about survival and had adapted and copied a few tricks from their Galactic friends. In a pre-Posleen world, Clan O’Neal would have been a flock of very odd ducks. In the modern world, they were survivors.
“You’re up early. Not another nightmare?” A frown crinkled Shari’s forehead as she pressed a mug into Cally’s hands, “I just fixed a fresh pot. Carrie said you got in about milking time this morning.”
“Yeah, she was just going out. The kids are at school?” Cally yawned again, pouring a mugful of the wonderful-smelling fresh, strong coffee, but neglecting to pollute it with cream or sugar. It didn’t matter how many times they told her it was hard-coded, she was convinced she was keeping just a little of the extra weight off her thighs and chest by watching what she ate. She split a bagel and dropped it in the toaster.
“Mmm. I expected it would be almost time for them to get out and come home by the time you and Michael woke up. Pam works so hard on her lesson plans, it’s a shame to have the girls miss a day. So, ’fess up, how long’s it been since you went to confession?” Shari asked.
“Uh… a few months, I guess.” Cally hedged. Actually, it had been more like eight months, since she’d gone back to work full time and been taken off of the six-monthly courier run to the Moon. Dammit.
“Go to confession. I’m not Catholic, but even I’ll agree it does you more good than that fancy Bane Sidhe shrink ever did. Here,” she said, putting a box of cornflakes and a bowl on the table. She turned to grab the milk. “Still can’t see why you like that stuff when I’ve got cheese grits in the crockpot. It’s not like you have to worry about your arteries. Go to confession.” She must have thought Cally’s pensive expression was disagreement because she shook the wooden spoon in her hand towards the younger woman. “You’re my friend, Cally O’Neal, and I won’t have you getting all shredded up inside again. It was bad enough when you were pregnant with Morgan. Go or I’ll… I’ll sic Michael on you!”
“All right, all right already. I’ll go. Last thing I need is Granpa nagging.” Cally said, crunching her cereal and wincing as the sound echoed in her skull against her headache. God, I really needed more sleep.
The younger woman was halfway through her breakfast when the door opened. A largish pile of dirty white fur and drool came bounding in, scattering sand across the clean floor. As Shari pulled the joyfully maniacal dog off of Cally and ushered it back out the door, she glared at her husband, who was shaking out his own shoes off the edge of the steps.
“Sorry, honey. He got past me again. Nagging about what?” Papa O’Neal looked sheepish as he shut the door behind the dog. He shook his head, looking for someplace he could politely spit. Shari handed him a mug and a broom.
“Good morning, Granpa. I thought you’d still be in bed.” Cally said, brushing sand off her lap.
“When you’re older and wiser, you’ll have the sense to take a nap the day before a night job.” Papa O’Neal sometimes seemed to forget he didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
“Yes, Granpa. We all know the elderly sometimes need an afternoon nap,” she said, brushing her hair back behind one ear. It was a habit from the Sinda persona she had never quite dropped.
“Elderly, hah! Who had the aches and pains last time we met in the gym?” He grinned, dodging as she took a swipe at him, and began to sweep.
“What were you thinking about for dinner tonight?” she asked Shari, pointedly ignoring Granpa as she drained her cup of coffee.
“I thought I’d make a crab and chicken casserole Pam came up with and get rid of a few leftovers. Why? What’s on your mind?” Shari finished loading the dishes and started the machine.
“Just wondered if there was something I could fix to help out.”
“If you could make something for dessert this afternoon, I’m sure the kids would like it. I could use something sweet myself.” Shari took a cloth and began wiping down the counters.
“That works. I need to go down to Ashley’s for some stuff. I can get the kids and make the weekend incinerator run if you want,” Cally offered, glancing at the nearly full can.
“Thanks. Um, Mark’s spending the night with Lucas. The keys to the truck are on the hook,” Shari said absently, preoccupied with slapping away the hand that was playing around the belt loops on the back of her jeans. She wasn’t slapping very hard. Cally smothered a grin and grabbed up the bag and the keys as she scooted out the door, reminding herself not to get back too quick.
Years ago, when she was a teenager freshly home on summer break, she had ridden cross-country with Granpa in a dusty red pickup truck from the School, in Idaho. They came back through all of the midwestern rear area country, until they met up with Shari in Knoxville, where she’d been filling the shopping list. It seemed Granpa had shamelessly used the slab and about a dozen different identities, with some judicious palm grease, to buy up the bounty farm allotments for all of Edisto Island. Even back then, she could easily imagine him going through all the changes, because it still looked strange as hell to her to see him with red hair and all young and everything. He probably would have kept on buying until he’d owned half of Colleton County if Father O’Reilly hadn’t gotten concerned and ratted him out to Shari.
Still, even the Bane Sidhe had had to agree that the possibilities were useful. And it was already a done deal by the time they’d realized what he was up to. Granpa got to keep his island, but the price for Cally was that her first summer home from school had been spent hunting Posleen and getting a crash course in low-country construction. Typically, Papa O’Neal had spent his free time during her first year of school in a combination of shady trades of Galtech goods from the Rabun Gap cache — those he didn’t plan to keep for himself — and brushing up his construction skills doing day labor jobs.
The hardest part had been sweeping the island once they got there. Satellite shots showed the bridge was intact, but they hadn’t known much else. And at the time Edisto Island was very nearly as far as anyone had penetrated into the Lost Zone. The ride in the back of truck, on the first load of mostly cinderblocks, ammo, and the bare necessities, watching the treeline for feral Posleen, had not been fun. Not fun at all. She’d gotten five of them, and that was just on her own side. The large, ochre, centauroid reptiles had to be the most repulsive things she’d ever seen.