The wellington alternate, p.3
The Wellington Alternate, page 3
Mandy peeled herself from her niece’s hug and ruffled the girl’s short blonde hair into a bird’s nest. “You know. There is one way that you can keep your studies while focusing on working in the family business.”
Merinette rolled her eyes. “An arranged marriage,” she answered.
“It has done wonders for our bloodline. How else did our family achieve a near monopoly in the country?”
“Can I -I do something else instead? Maybe serve as a recon before you do your job?” Merinette responded. “That can work. I can teach my classmates about the various Fictions and what the best way to respond is.”
“There’s already a lot of those folks going around. Any more and our family will face unwanted competition. Let alone an anomaly problem when those folks force themselves to be like one of us,” Mandy answered with a pat on Merinette’s head. She checked the time. A growl in her stomach confirmed it was nearly dinner and Mandy started walking in the direction opposite from Josefina.
Merinette paced a step behind her aunt. “Could I continue my studies in peace if Josefina stayed longer?” she asked.
Mandy cupped her mouth for a giggle. “Feel free to try,” she waved it off. “I doubt both parties would agree, though. Ms Franken wanted to leave this country as fast as possible, and our family doesn’t want any competitor to take up the role of the capital’s Fiction Collector.”
“How about if we arrange a marriage for her. Can she –”
Mandy wrapped her arms around her waist for a laugh. “Really? Ms Franken? Really? She is a talented young woman, but our family’s treasure isn’t worth a lick to that girl. As much as I wanted her, it is for the best because Ms Franken’s willingness to work is no excuse to become lax. My position is not difficult, Meri. I promise. You might even love it. Not only is it an earned struggle but people will look up to you. Any problems with the Fiction? Call Meri. Any issue with the surreal that was causing trouble? Meri’s office is at the waterfront walkway next to a lobster restaurant. It’s easy money.” Merinette didn’t answer. Her aunt cut off the silence when she added, “Could you quit school if she left early?”
Merinette straightened her back. Feet planted on the ground as she raised her voice in reply. “What? No.”
“Have you ever thought about it?”
“No.”
“Not even a passing notion?”
“Auntie.”
“How about a week skipping school?”
“Auntie.” Merinette stamped her feet. First day of school and she was already defending her side of things. An argument with her aunt was the last thing she wanted after three hours of school, a couple in the library, and another three in her aunt’s office. Deciding on whether to cook dinner or get takeaways should have taken precedence in her mind. Not this. It was too early. The year had barely started. “I’ll find some extra time to get some exposure. I am not going to end up being eaten again.” Her response sounded more like script reading in an empty room.
“Can you promise me?” Mandy said. A gleam was etched in her face as they neared a corner that would lead them to a small lagoon that cosied itself between a boat shed and the City-to-Sea Bridge. It was officially called the Whairepo Lagoon, but for Merinette, it was the home of a van-sized star. Three-quarters of its body was out of the water. The remaining one-fourth caught the attention of a small school of fish, which, in turn, attracted a crowd of school children throwing breadcrumbs on the water.
It would have been a shame if it were gone. The Waterspot had done nothing to deserve capture. It was simply a cute little thing that bid passers-by hello. What would people think if Merinette took hold of the Fiction? Would they presume that it had caused a problem, some anomaly that needed attention? Or would they think that it was just another Collector showing off?
Whatever it was, Merinette had to show her aunt that she was capable. She made the three-minute journey towards the Waterspot in under a minute. She gestured the kids off. She stretched her arm. A slight hesitation. A tingle in her fingers gave her pause before she thought, fuck it, and buried her hand inside the Fiction.
It was warm, a sensation akin to fingers dipped in lukewarm water. Merinette pushed her hand deeper. She needed it. She needed to show her aunt that she was more than capable of interacting with the surreal entities despite wanting to finish school without disruptions. The Whairepo Lagoon without its resident star would be a pitiful sight but it was a price worth paying if it meant that her aunt would shut up.
She pushed her hands deeper.
Steam burst out from her skin as her fingers heated up inside.
It was when she felt a gooish-like liquid that she got her wish.
The area surrounding the lagoon was blinded with a quick flash. The floating star was there one moment and in the next it was gone. Well, that was what would have happened because as soon as the light faded, Merinette stared at fishes swarming around a chair-sized star. Aunt Mandy was heard clapping nearby while Josefina’s earlier comment slithered back into Merinette’s mind.
You need more work. She bit her lip.
It was not enough but far better than nothing.
6
FISHING FOR FIRES
Island Bay
Two weeks later and the bang of two buckets gave no response from inside her old home.
Merinette wished that it did. It had been so long since she had gazed along the hallway of her old home in the suburb of Island Bay. The building was nestled on top of a small hill. The breadth of the Cook Strait lay before it while, at the back, there was a small dirt path that led to a nearby reserve. There were a few scratches around the door hinges. Local blackbirds crafted holes above the windowpanes. A cold gust whizzed towards Merinette as she ventured inside her former two-storey home after three years of vacancy.
Merinette whispered, “I’m home.” She dropped a third bucket inside. She pulled the zip of her wetsuit. Her blonde hair was glued to her neck. Seawater dribbled down from her sleeves. A soft crinkle of plastic from a nearby stand felt numbed. She rubbed her arms, straightening herself as a cold breeze slammed the front door shut.
“I’m home,” she repeated with a shrill whistle from a crack in the wall as the appropriate answer. Not bad. Any response was better than walking home shivering at five a.m. in the morning. As Merinette carried the buckets to the lounge, she half expected either her father greeting her with a tired welcome from one of the second-floor rooms or her aunt bolting out from one of the guest rooms.
The latter was true back then.
Hell, Merinette admitted that, back then, coming home at five in the morning was early. Her aunt’s visits had always been the main highlight ever since she and her father had moved from the family manor to a small coastal suburb located at the south of the capital. Adventures along the suburb’s beaches had booked her aunt’s schedules. Why bother with family politics when they could whisk their problems away along the surrounding reserves?
Having Mandy at her side was worth walking around rock pools at a witching hour. Her visits were like a lavish cake. The icing on top was when Merinette handed a bowl of glowing shells for her aunt to consume.
However, it wasn’t long before between Mandy’s visits to the old wooden house became rarer and rarer.
What was once a month’s visit had turned into quarterly trips and soon, into annual visits. Mandy’s explanation of complying with the Nadean family’s ideals was the culprit behind her growing absence. Merinette had tried to keep the spirit of their adventures alive. She had rung her aunt numerous times. Each successful call was spent describing the numerous Fictions that resided around her cold coastal coop and a promise that the two of them would relive their adventures.
Merinette was excited. She was determined. She made plans for three-hour escapades. But these dreams – these childish wantons – were chewed to the bone when a casual search for glowing shells ended as a first-hand account on what it was like to have been eaten by an egg.
Now Merinette found herself wishing that her aunt wouldn’t be waiting at the dining table. She was too sleepy. She was too tired. The three buckets of spiral shells that she had collected over the past two hours brought no sign of a childhood caper. She kicked one of the buckets at the sight of those shells. A few fell out from the sides and the fires that were hiding inside poked their heads out.
“Three buckets are better than nothing,” she said as the outline of a plastic-covered sofa alongside her aunt’s snore from a nearby room made her yawn.
Sleep came and went but Merinette still found herself nodding her head off on one end of a dining table.
It took a triple shot of coffee to jolt her mind back to a cold early Saturday afternoon at the southern tip of the capital city.
It was a pity that the building ended in a similar manner as it began.
Her father had told her that when he first caught sight of the place, the building had weeds as tall as fences. It had child-size holes running along the side walls and a village of rats was undergoing a population boom on the second-floor rooms. He stated that it would have been better if he bought property in the suburbs of Roseneath, Churton Park, or Newlands. A place where the winds banged the door like a desperate Jehovah’s Witness was no place to start a family.
Life must have been optimistic if her father had decided to buy a dingy with a discount.
As far as she knew, her father had been next-in-line to become the city’s Fiction Collector. He had recently married and was expecting to raise his first child along Wellington’s sandy coast.
Merinette could only wonder what would have happened if her mother had not died after childbirth. It was a big what-if. Would she enjoy living here? Would she be a dedicated Collector if her mother were around? Who knew?
The opportunity of growing up on a battered coast was lost once her father had decided to move into his parent’s manor in Levin and since then, Merinette had characterised her childhood as a two-hour drive into the flat country that filled the memories of her early youth.
Welcome were the hills that crisscrossed seas of grass like they were cookie dough in a platter. The sheep that grazed behind fences had eyed her hello. Concrete structures morphed into empty plains; people into fence posts, and the glow trapped inside the glass bulbs of streetlights was freed into a night sky.
She and her father may have resettled back at Island Bay when she turned twelve, but it wasn’t the same. The house on top of a hill was turned into a stopping point. The three years she had spent there were like staying in a worn-down four-star hotel. No amount of furnishing had managed to transition this hut into a home. And when her father was called to work up north, Merinette had decided to stay with her aunt at an apartment in the middle of the city.
The winds had claimed this dingy, and she reckoned that they weren’t happy once the previous occupants decided to move back for the weekend. No wonder the weather was pissed. The winds banged against the windows. Some found their way inside through cracks.
Merinette shivered. She took a sip of coffee before she dropped the cup when hot liquid ran down the wrong hole. A chair toppled. Papers rustled. Spoons chimed on the ground as she rushed to the kitchen. A bang of a counter drawer was muffled between coughs.
Merinette latched a hand around her throat. Her watered eyes stared up at piles of spiralled shells strewn on the dining table.
The ache around her neck was easing when she heard the front door creak open.
A petite girl, wearing a loose pink jacket, a sleeveless sweater, and a glass vial as her necklace, walked in. The red-dye tips of her dark-blonde hair jumped when she waved. “Josefina says hi,” the girl said with a chirpy tone that turned a window creak into a relieved sigh.
7
THE ARRANGED EAGERNESS
Of course, Josefina said hello.
Merinette could bet that bitch was stroking her own ego knowing that she had Mandy all to herself. Why wouldn’t she? There was no one there to remind her to focus on something outside of her talents. She was roaming around the vicinity of Island Bay’s Shorland Park answering questions on what it was like to be a magician; how many people were to be expected or where the stall should be erected. Yeah. Let Josefina forget that it was Merinette who suggested that a stall was preferable than spending the evening with a full bucket in hand.
Merinette didn’t mind.
Not having Josefina inside her old home was more than enough to put a smile on her face. She was happy to carry on the grunt work from the background anyway. This was what she yearned of. No fuss. No drama. She took her time working on the shells that she had gathered last night.
It was more than what Josefina was doing, Merinette thought as she yanked one from a bucket. She dipped her finger into an opening in the shell. There was a tingle on her skin. A short flash before a dribble of ink slithered from her nail to the middle of her palm. Merinette grabbed a squared cut index paper from a corner. She dipped the ink on the surface. The shapeless blob reshaped itself into the form of a flame.
Her companion, Arissa Joy Carpenter, opted for a different method. Instead of a slight touch, the girl grabbed a spoon and yanked it inside the shell. It cracked. Calcium casing fell on the table. A tongue of fire sat on the metal spoon.
A bit rough, Merinette thought, but it got the job done. For someone who wasn’t a Collector, Arissa had accomplished more than what Merinette had achieved in the past two hours. Her stacks of paper were nothing compared to the eight rows of fires that Arissa arranged in front of her. The girl was good. Too good, in fact. The only thing that Merinette was bothered about was why Arissa ended up being Josefina’s best friend.
Merinette had known Arissa for over a year.
In fact, it was Arissa herself who initiated the friendship. Merinette remembered how she was going over an assignment in the library one day when Arissa walked up to her and said, “I know you are a Collector.” Merinette had scoffed. That fact was almost obvious. Once anyone realised that the Nadean household demanded that both groom and bride needed to adopt the family name, there was a high chance that anyone with Nadean as their surname was also a Collector. Merinette was ready to brush the comment aside when Arissa added, “can you make me one?”
Merinette had no plans to fulfil the girl’s promise but had to admit that Arissa was everything that Josefina was not. Cheerful. Optimistic. A doll face. Arissa explained that she had befriended Josefina the same way as she befriended Merinette: walking up to them and correctly guessing that they were a Collector. It was a straightforward way to become friends, but Merinette reckoned that Arissa was as interested in the Fiction as she was in Josefina.
Besides, ever since she arrived, that girl must have consumed an eight from the total number of shells that were inside the three buckets. Merinette wanted to tell the girl, stop, when Arissa cracked a shell and gulped the fire on her spoon.
“I can taste something,” Arissa said as she cupped her mouth. She tilted her head side to side, letting the fire roll inside her cheeks. She tried one more, then another. “I think it’s a bit like honey over a vanilla ice cream,” she said, raising her fourth spoonful within the last five minutes.
“Banana with strawberry,” Merinette corrected.
“Have you had a sample?” Arissa asked. She slid three shells across the table.
Merinette slid them back. “I think you wasted enough of these fires already, Ari. There’s still the food festival in a few hours and I’m not going back at three a.m. just because we ran out.”
“It will run out,” Arissa said. A toothy smile was etched on her face when she said, “I can already say that it will be a big turnout. But don’t worry, I can help you. I’m more than happy to help you. I always wanted to find out how you get them, and this could be my chance to do it.”
“Just stop eating the fires,” Merinette said. Her order came a second late after her friend scooped up her sixth fire. A glint in Arissa’s eye was a clue that she wasn’t going to abide. A fire down Arissa’s gullet was a step closer to a second round of scouring Rainfires across the rocky shores of Island Bay. “How about I save you a dozen later?”
“Make it two dozen,” the girl said before she waved her hand off. “Sorry. Okay. Okay. A dozen is fine. I’ll stop eating. Just concentrate on taking out the fires from their shells. Got it.”
Merinette nodded. “Thanks,”
“But you’re going to the festival, right?” Arissa asked.
Merinette let out a pause. The answer was so obvious that Merinette wondered if Arissa was serious. Of course, she was going to be at Shorland Park whether or not there would be people filling every nook and cranny in that little place. “We can’t just leave Josefina alone. Next thing you know, she’ll pull out a giant fish from a journal because she wants to show off how she’s more experienced than my aunt.”
“But you’re coming,” Arissa insisted.
Merinette waited for her friend to chuckle. “I’m coming. I know it’s going to be a choker, but I can do it. As long as my aunt can sort out most of the crowds, I’m more than happy to feed the fires to people. Why do you ask?”
“I think it will be an overkill. Four Collectors –”
Merinette held a finger over a shell a little longer. “Four?” she asked. “Do you want to help handing out the Rainfires?”
“Your auntie’s soon-to-be-husband is joining tonight,” Arissa said with a giggle. “Josie texted me before. Said that it was to be a little secret, but you deserve hearing that your crush –”
