Page 7 of Mischief Maker
It started in her index finger, just at the tip, a sort of mold that crept slowly across her skin, turning it black and wrinkled. When it worked its way up her hand, over her palm—that’s when her first finger died.
It only spread from there, up her arms, closer and closer to her heart. Mother was in terrible pain for the last few days of her life. Horrible, excruciating pain, a kind of pain that I think no one alive in this world has ever experienced or ever will after. I’ll never forget the unbearable torment of holding her dead hand, withered and lifeless, and wishing there was anything I could do to make it better.
But I was utterly helpless. I watched her die. I wept onto her chest as the creeping black sickness finally killed her and then stopped its steady march.
I burned her body because the other villagers told me that was the only way. They said she was cursed and only fire would destroy it. But if it was a curse, burning my mother’s body wasn’t the end of its reign over the farm.
Kireth doesn’t speak as I serve our meager meal. He eats a few bites, then tastes the stale bread and decides against eating more.
“I have some dried meat, as well,” I say, hoping to pay him back in some way for the work he did today.
The demon rolls his eyes. “Your food doesn’t interest me. You should eat it.”
“Oh. Right.” The tail and horns should probably have been my first indication that Kireth doesn’t need things mortals need. “I guess I’ve just always heard of gods eating and drinking.” A lot, or so said the stories my mother told me.
“When it’s worthwhile to do so.” He pushes the plate away. “Do you have any wine? It’s been eons since I had wine.”
“No, sorry.”
I drank it all a long time ago, but I won’t tell him that. He doesn’t need to know how I tried to cope after Mother died, and I don’t want to feel ashamed of it.
Kireth lets out an immense sigh and leans back in his chair. There are raised runes along the skin of his belly and chest, the same designs that I saw carved into his temple in the woods. They look almost like scars.
“What are those?” I ask, pointing at them.
Running his hands down his body and over the strange symbols carved there, Kireth chuckles. “Oh, these old things? Just the words to dismiss me. If you ever get tired of me, you know, you just say them aloud, and I’ll vanish.”
I would never dream of sending him away, not after all he did around the farm today.
“Don’t you want to know how to use them?” he asks, still tracing his body with his hands as if just to draw my attention to it.
I swallow. I know Kireth hasn’t always been summoned just to help with chores. Humans have called on him for less savory uses, too. He’s known for his sensuality and prowess in bed.
Not that I’d know anything about bedroom activities.
“No.” I rise from the table and quickly eat the rest of the food off of his plate. “I have no reason to dismiss you.”
His eyes follow me as I clean up dinner, but he says nothing else.
When I go to bed that night, I offer him my bedroom. I’ll sleep in my mother’s room while he’s here.
“Why your room?” Kireth asks, perched against the doorway like he hasn’t a care in the world.
“I didn’t think you would want to sleep on the bed where my mother died.”
With a scoff, he bats a hand at me. “I don’t live on superstition like mortals do. I can see what is and isn’t. There is no ghost here.”
He saunters into Mother’s room and settles himself on the bed, still wearing only his loincloth. I wonder if he takes it off to go to bed at night.
“I’ll take any soft place to sleep,” Kireth says, reclining. “Or a hard one, as long as sleep is involved.”
With that, he sprawls across the bed and closes his eyes, as if already gone to dreamland. I stand there a moment longer, taking in his strong, lithe form, the horns that looked so frightening before but now remind me more of a farm animal.
I go to bed thinking that maybe I did the right thing. Perhaps summoning Kireth and bringing him home with me was the best decision I’ve made yet.
I’m up early the next morning, even though I could have used a whole extra night’s sleep after the events of the last two days. Kireth is snoring soundly, one of his arms hanging off the side of the bed. His tail is, for the first time, still.
After months of watching my life rotting like an old corpse, I feel a glimmer of hope. I was preparing the fields yesterday for new sowing, and I’m going to ask my resident god to help me bring in a bountiful harvest. In a few months’ time, perhaps things will turn around.
