Nona's Garden- Chapter 3
Updated: Feb 28
The Solarium
If you were to ask me what my favorite room in this house would be, it was the Solarium. With its big window walls on three sides of the rectangular space and the many sky lights above, it was the next best thing to being outside.
An eight-foot-wide fountain running down the one solid wall in the room gave off soothing echoes of sounds, as the water flowed over the rocks and branches, falling into a pond that held an assortment of fish and turtles. Oscar was in there too, but we don’t like to talk too much about Oscar.
Immediately moving on in thought, I considered the array of plants in the space… I grew my most exotic roots and flowers in here… the ones that didn’t naturally grow in this climate or world, I kept them protected and babied inside this glass room. I had a lot of plants that were considered extinct or endangered. I would share with this world, but I didn’t want my collection in the hands of those that endangered them in the first place. In this haven, they had hope… unlike me, who was trapped here in my fate.
“Dea!”, fingers snapped in front of my face. “Are you home in there?”
Slowly Nikki’s voice fades into focus, dragging me from my distracting thoughts… still not quite looking at her enough to satisfy her, she waved her tattooed hand in front of my face for extra measure. The ancient tribal tattoos on her hands and arms seeming to make a design in the air in front of me. You’d think her being covered in them would dim her beauty but they seemed to amplify it… they gave her an exotic look that clashed with her so serious personality. The graphics that once bound her to Him, now decorated her like art on a Native American goddess.
I answer slowly, “Yeah, I’m listening.” I was so obviously not listening. How long had I been staring off into space? Lost in the depths of my thoughts. We had been discussing something…
“Good, then you can tell me what do you think? Should we run the stand tomorrow?” she held up her calendar, pointing at tomorrow’s day like I was too dense to know what day tomorrow was. “I know we’re scheduled to be there, but do you think we should chance running into-”
“Why would he talk to me like that?” I interrupted, suddenly snapping alert, and looking at her. “No one talks to me like that. And why wasn’t he listening to my commands? He didn’t run in terror, he stepped closer… and flirted!” Without thinking, I stood up and started pacing along the blue wooden bench I had been sitting on.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to ask you!” Nikki threw her hands up in aspiration and stood up too… “You haven’t been your colorful knowing self since we left the market, it’s like you are in a daze.” Grabbing my shoulders and giving me a jarring shake due to her strength, she said “You think it could be a curse? I didn’t think you could get cursed! Omg that would be bad… Omg this is like scaring me. What if it started affecting the natural order… like, what if He finds out? Should I call your sister? You know… like, the long way?” her ramblings came to a stop with that question.
“Too strong… too strong!” I squeezed out.
“Oh sorry!” Nikki released my shoulders, which I then began to rub.
“I’m glad that you really can’t hurt me or I’d be dead,” I gave my shoulders one last rub for dramatics and dropped my arms. “Nooo… you don’t have to use a phone, no need to call my sister. Anyways, we don’t even know if this is anything to worry about… I am just lost in thought, not cursed.”
I sat back down and motioned for her to sit down too, to help ease her worry… she started breaking things around the house when she worried. And she was always worried… worried that He would find her, me and my two sisters again and take us away, to use when he felt like it. That’s the reason they were here in this world, with the living souls… me and my sisters have been hiding. Living separate from each other to dull our powers and make us harder to find. When we came together, we were the most powerful, but also the most findable. And I didn’t want to be found, even if it meant being apart from my family and my powers. Nikki could go home if she chose to do so, but she felt bound to be by my side and refused to leave me alone in this realm… now that’s what you call a real ride or die soul, take notes Mrs. Oliver!
Anyways, Eye had seen what would happen the next time He found them… Woe to the living when the Gods get their way.
“We could just kill the boy… that should solve the problem.” Nikki looked thoughtfully towards the skylights with her hand to her chin.
“Nooo… he isn’t a problem yet.” Was I repeating myself? And wasn’t that what I had called him earlier though, a problem? “Let’s not jump to murder so quickly.” Geez… you’d think she would be more peace loving, being from nature and all. But then, nature could be brutal.
She looked a little disappointed that I shot her idea down…
“Anyways, I have something else in store for Mr. CherryLee.” I perked up a bit… remembering I had Karma to dole out. “I think his fate should be much worse than death…”
“And what Fate is that exactly? What are you going to do to him?” She looked hesitantly at me. What was she worried about; she was just suggesting death a moment ago.
I winked at her as I got up to leave the Solarium… all the worried weight temporarily lifted off my shoulders. Time to see what pushes babyboy’s buttons… I rarely get a chance to flex some muscle these days, and I do really like pushing buttons.
