From the moment Frankie stepped into his grandmother’s house, he felt almost disoriented. It was an odd sensation to be in a house that felt so familiar to him and yet still so foreign. The general layout was more or less the same. The biggest difference was that without the kitchen addition, the room that Frankie knew as the dining room also had a small kitchen at the back.
But there were other things that were different too. While Frankie had always been proud of the fact that a lot of the furniture in his house was very old, the ones he saw in this house were different from what he remembered. Likewise, some of the wallpaper choices had changed over the years. Even some of the finer architectural details tucked away in the corners of the house were missing.
“It’s such a nice day, why don’t we sit in the sunroom?” Anna ushered them through the living room and into a room with full windows overlooking the landscaped yard. One hand rested on her large belly. “Would you like some tea?”
Levi looked to Frankie, then to Anna. “Yeah, that would be nice.”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.” She smiled at them and then disappeared through the door to the kitchen.
“Nervous?”
Frankie shook his head. “No.”
“You might want to tell that to your knee.” Levi pointed to Frankie’s bouncing leg.
Immediately, he stopped. “I just don’t want to say the wrong thing. We need to approach this delicately.”
“Well, she let us in the door after we only asked her to talk, so I think she’s pretty open to anything.”
“That’s just because people in this time are so trusting.”
That seemed to confuse Levi. “Why shouldn’t we be? Are there, like, murders and home invasions all the time in 1984?”
Frankie raised his eyebrows. “You’d be surprised.”
“Here we are.” Anna came back with a large tray with a tea set. The tray shook as she struggled with its weight.
Frankie shot to his feet. “Here, let me help you with that.” He took it from her and set it on the small wicker table beside the furniture.
Anna rested one hand on her belly and reached for the back of the chair with her other as she sat down. “Oof. Thank you for helping, dear. I’m not as agile as I usually am. The baby has been growing like a weed lately!” She gestured to the tray. “Please, help yourselves!”
Both Frankie and Levi reached for their cups, doctoring them up to their liking. Anna did the same, with effort to reach around her belly, and then sat back in her chair.
“So, what brings you boys out? You said your names were Frankie and…?”
“Levi,” he said.
“Ah, that’s right!” She sipped her tea and studied Frankie. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”
“No, we haven’t.” Frankie kept it firm, but polite.
“Are you sure? I feel like I know you or I’ve seen you somewhere. I just can’t place it.” She pinched her chin as she looked, then sat back and said, “You know what? You look just like my husband, William Walker. He goes by Will most of the time. Maybe you’ve met him?”
“Uh, well…” he started before Levi cut in.
“Frankie’s new to town. Just got here last month, so he doesn’t really know anyone. But, you know, we don’t want to take up too much of your time. We were just hoping to talk to you about something.”
“Oh? I don’t see what there is to talk about if we’ve never met. Although, I do enjoy the company.”
“We need to talk about Lady Luck,” Frankie said plainly. No sense in hiding it or trying to cover it up.
“Oh.” Her tone was flat. Deflated. She set her tea down on the table beside her and folded her hands over her belly. “And how would you two know about her?”
“We’ve been tracking her,” Frankie said. “She’s hurting people. Did you see in the paper that Charles Bennett died? That was at her hands.”
Anna scoffed and looked away.
Frankie leaned in close and added another bomb: “I know you’re a witch. I’m one too.”
Propping herself up with both hands on the arms of the chair, Anna propelled herself to her feet and walked to the window. She was quiet, although she hadn’t asked them to leave, so Frankie decided to let the silence last while she absorbed everything he had said.
Finally, she spoke up. “Are you related to my husband somehow?”
Again with that. “I’m really just here to talk about Lady Luck.”
She turned back to face him. “It’s just that, you look so strikingly familiar. So much like William.”
“Did you make a deal with Lady Luck?” He thought that ignoring her comments would be the best way to steer the conversation away from her recognition of him.
The only thing was, Frankie hadn’t counted on his grandmother being so stubborn. And it was a little disorienting to call her his grandmother when, in this time, she was so much younger than him.
Anna crossed her arms over her belly. “I’ll answer your question only after you’ve answered mine.”
Frankie sighed and glanced back at Levi, who didn’t seem to have any other answers. Turning back to Anna, he admitted, “Yes, I’m a relative.”
The answer, however, didn’t satisfy Anna. She continued to eye Frankie skeptically. She shook her head slightly. “Yes, you are. But…you’re not a cousin or a brother. You’re…a descendant.”