Dante was wrong. There are more than nine levels in Hell. Currently, I was stuck in level twenty or so, it was called “family time.” My niece, Cassie, was on summer vacation and she was all about helping babysit her aunt. She was still at the age where she thought I was cool. Her younger brother, Kyle, was more interested in my collection of serial killer literature that my sister-in-law had hidden away the first day that they came to stay with me.
The three magpies were in my dining room discussing the day’s schedule. They appeared to have a schedule for everything. Even the week’s meals were completely planned out and it was only Wednesday. There was no spontaneity in their life, they knew that tonight we were having roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms. There would be gravy, green beans and toast served with it. The roast was already in the slow cooker. Tomorrow night we were having spaghetti and Friday night we were having something with the word casserole at the end. I had every intention of ordering out that night, even if they didn’t know it yet.
So far, they had been with me every day since I had been home. To add to this festive family fun, my mother was upstairs in a guest room, sleeping in. Since it was six a.m., I wasn’t sure what that meant for her, but it was way too early for me. I hated being up at six in the morning. The only reason I was awake at this exact moment was that my nephew, in his haste to get downstairs to attend the family meeting before going to some kind of practice, had tripped about half way down. The commotion had woken my mother, but she went back to bed a few minutes after discovering Kyle was fine, claiming that she hadn’t slept well the night before and would be up in a few hours.
I had not been so fortunate. As I had turned to return to my room, my very perky niece had grabbed hold of my pajama top and proceeded to ask questions about my visible scars, like she was making a mental catalogue in case she had to identify my mangled remains. I could verbally attack her like I did most people that asked about them, but instead found myself answering questions as she pointed to different spots on my arms, shoulders and feet.
After about ten minutes of this, her mother had discovered the conversation and chastised Cassie for being rude while apologizing to me. I had shrugged it off and told her it was no big deal. However, I was awake, at least for a while and found myself sitting on the couch considering different absurd things. My current imagining was that Colombian drug lords decided to do a slash and burn of all the coffee plantations in the country and the repercussions on the world’s coffee market as a whole. These inane mind wanderings kept me from thinking homicidal thoughts about the people who were here to look after me.
“Aislinn, I’m going to take Kyle to camp today, so he’ll be out of your hair for the next few days,” my sister-in-law said. Elle was a strong, determined woman of German stock. Her fighting spirit came from her parents, who fled Germany at the start of World War II and lived by their wits as they crossed into France just ahead of the invading German army. Eventually, her father found a spot in the British Royal Army and her mother was moved to the US. They were happily reunited after the war. However, they had given their poor daughter a name that captured that spirit in German. Helmine Bathild was her first and middle name. She never used them and glared when others did.
“Sure, Elle,” this left me with Cassie and Mom all day and the three women in the evenings.
“Do you need anything on my way home?” She asked. I considered all the things I could ask for and rejected them all. Finally I shook my head. “Ok, Cassie, don’t bug your aunt.”
“Yes mom,” my niece rolled her eyes so far into the top of her head, I wondered if she was possessed. Elle and Kyle left. Cassie plopped down on the couch next to me, picked up my favorite lap blanket and snuggled down against the arm of the furniture.
“What do you want to do?” She asked.
“Don’t you ever sleep in?” I asked her.
“Not really,” Cassie answered. “Usually when I’m sick.”
“I thought you were in charge of entertaining me, not the other way around,” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the teenager.
“Well, I can’t figure out what you like to do. You play video games and listen to movies and chase bad guys. Or you put on headphones and listen to music while reading. None of those are really two people activities.”
“I’m not really used to having people around.”
“You have people around; Nyleena, Xavier, Lucas, Gabriel, Michael and Malachi, not to mention Oma.” Cassie indicated my mother, Oma was the German diminutive that the kids used to talk about their grandmother.
“Well, I mostly chase bad guys with four of the seven you mentioned. Nyleena and I watch movies together, usually Monty Python. Not really your thing, I think. And your Oma and I, well, we just talk.”
“You could talk to me,” Cassie suggested.
“About what?” I asked her. “It is summer, I don’t believe you want to talk about school. I don’t date or understand men, so talking about boys is out. We don’t like the same music or movies and I get the impression you’re not really into history.”
“What do you and Oma talk about?”
“Life,” I sighed. Usually, it was just the highlights reel of my life and the down and dirty of my mother’s. I was pretty sure my mom wanted to know and understand more about what I really did, but I was also pretty sure I didn’t want to tell her. It felt like tainting her, which was strange given the life she had already led.
“So, talk about life,” Cassie suggested.
“You don’t want to hear about my life.” I assured her.
“Why aren’t you married?” Cassie asked.
“I’m twenty-seven,” I responded. “Why do I need to be married?”
“Ok, why don’t you date?” Cassie asked.
That was complicated. I didn’t date because I didn’t have sexual urges and all my emotional needs were fulfilled by the few people already in my life. Romantic love was outside my scope of understanding. However, explaining that to a wide-eyed teenager who hadn’t even attended her first prom yet was like scaling Everest without equipment.
“Because,” I shrugged at her. “Because I don’t understand men any better than I understand the universe. Actually, I understand the universe better.”
“What about Malachi?”
“Malachi is,” I frowned. “Malachi is like my evil twin.” I let my face change to a smile. “You don’t date your evil twin, it’s just weird.”
Cassie giggled at that. For the first time, I realized life was taking its toll on my niece. Her face already had more frown lines than smile lines. She looked older than fifteen going on sixteen. Most people probably wouldn’t have carded her for cigarettes or alcohol. Despite her lack of a tan, her skin seemed dry and old. That was something I could understand. I had looked old at fifteen. I looked older than twenty-seven now. Smoking hadn’t helped, but the damage had been done long before I had taken up that bad habit. There was a moment of connection with my niece, something I had never really had before. However, like a wisp of smoke, it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“Have you seen my dad?” Cassie asked, her voice quiet.
“Yes,” I said. “A few times. He misses you and Kyle.”
“Do you think he’ll ever get out?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” I lied through my teeth. My brother was never getting out. The guards at the Fortress might have been sympathetic to his plight, but society was not. It was easier to get sympathy as a crack addict on a drug-fueled paranoid killing streak than to get sympathy as an everyday person driven to mass murder. The new laws were great at keeping serial killers and mass murderers out of the general population, they weren’t known for clemency or sympathy. Elle and my mother could argue diminished capacity all they wanted, it wouldn’t do any good. The same laws that gave me power kept my brother behind bars. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“Cassie?” I turned my full attention to my niece. “When you think about your dad, I want you to remember that he did the same thing I did. He killed a handful of bad people because they were killers. The difference is that I do it while wearing a badge. He is not a bad guy, just a guy who got caught up in a bad situation. I cannot tell you if what he did was right or wrong. That is a decision you have to make, on your own. I can tell you that if I had been older, it could just as easily been me on that roof with that rifle.”
“Aunt Aislinn?”
“Yes?”
“How many people have you killed?”
“More than you need to know about,” I told her. “It is never my goal.”
“So, it just happens?” Cassie’s voice held doubt.
“I consider it a side effect of my life.”
“It sounds like an effect,” Cassie giggled.
“Some would agree with you,” I smiled at her.
“You look younger when you smile, you should do it more often,” Cassie told me.
“My life is not conducive to smiling,” I admitted.
“And the way you talk. Wow! It’s like you just stepped out a Victorian novel or something. No one talks that way anymore and haven’t for like a hundred plus years. You need to learn some slang.”
“No, no I do not.” I said. At that point, my niece began correcting my English to make me sound like a more modern human being. I took it in and learned a few new words that I never intended to use unless I was being tortured into it.