Chapter 6

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Family dinners and repressed memories.

"Hi, Yama-nii-nii!" Andromeda bounces up to Alexios once we've made it two blocks away from the school. I offered to drive, but she insisted that Alexios was waiting for her. And here he is.

Why he doesn't come all the way to the school to get her, I do not understand.

"Hello again," I offer.

His gaze flicks to me, then to Chai in his little carrier. An impish grin overwhelms him. "Miss."

"Do you come to pick Meda up every day?" I ask.

"From time to time when the air smells like stone and Pollux worries about her."

Andromeda scoffs. "I've told Daddy I can take care of myself against Castor."

"He's not worried about Castor. Castor knows how young you are, and that is one thing Pollux trusts he will respect. It's the knight who patrols a little more intently when Castor's scent is on the breeze."

"Oh." Andromeda's shoulders droop. "Yeah."

"The knight?" My brow furrows. I've not heard of a knight in any of Andromeda's stories before.

"Zylus Myrkur," Alexios offers. "Our prince's kitty guard."

Zylus. As in Zy? As in Willow's husband, Zy? The "vampire cat"? On another note, Alexios is still entertaining Andromeda's stories, it seems.

Andromeda crosses her arms. "I've told you about Castor, the bad faerie prince. He's upset with Uncle Cael because Uncle Cael never told him that he was unseelie, too. It's all very dramatic, and we don't know yet exactly what he's planning."

"Hurt people hurt people," Alexios murmurs. "However Castor responds, I am invested in the schemes. It is far more quiet within the moth prince's eclipse than I've learned it is within other domains. A little excitement could do everyone some good."

Andromeda lifts her little chin. "Daddy might say you are simply devious."

Alexios exhales a dry laugh. "One of us certainly has to be, no?"

Clenching my fists around the handle of Chai's carrier, I watch the interaction from a step behind. Zahra's arguments in favor of magic and faeries start sounding feasible in my skull before I shake them free.

I know it's easier to believe that someone I care about is safe and happy and living in what, honestly, sounds like a beautiful and peaceful environment—with vampire kitty knights around to protect her and a single fairy-tale villain cackling in the distance.

But it's just not reality.

Magic isn't real.

Faeries don't exist.

Dreams don't come true if you simply believe in them hard enough.

At one point, you grow up.

You confine your dolls and stories and hopes and wishes to the highest shelves or the most ignored closet boxes where they gather dust. You paint whatever emotion will help you survive the next interaction on your face—regardless of whether or not you feel it inside—then you tough out another day. Just like everyone else.

It's the broken way of the world.

When the cracked sidewalk of Pollux's creepy manor comes into view, I take a deep breath in order to fortify myself against whatever horrors might lie ahead today.

Truth be told once I've made it up the porch steps, beyond the foyer, and into the kitchen, the last horror I expect to see is Pollux in an apron.

My eyes lock with his, and I swear the whites are black half a second before they aren't. He swears. His gaze falls hard on his daughter before I can so much as choke out a greeting. "Meda, what the—" He curses.

"What? Didn't you sense us coming up the walk?" she squeaks. "Am I not allowed to invite Mrs. Role over for dinner?"

He sighs, seems to fortify himself against me, and jabs his chin toward the table. Glaring at the green onions he's dicing on the island counter, he grumbles, "Place setting."

Andromeda grins and bounds to a cabinet in order to get another plate for the obsidian dark table.

"Xios," Pollux mutters, and Alexios freezes.

Shoulders bunching, Alexios faces Pollux. "Yes?"

"You haven't had this before."

"Will the torture never end?"

"You might like it."

"I like cashews. I like figs. I like the unending distress of a minimum-wage employee. What else do I need?"

"A soul."

Alexios breathes a laugh. "I have been trying to get one."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, yes, Pollux. Your playground insults are very becoming of you, aren't they?"

Pollux's glare lifts, forceful. "Two bites."

Alexios's already pale face drains further. "Pardon?"

"The first is for science. The second is because you're pissing me off."

Unsure what I'm meant to do, I stand in the middle of the kitchen, holding my kitten carrier, and watch the innocuous family banter transpire.

Pollux is…cooking. A whole meal. There are multiple pots and pans on the gas stove. Blue tails of fire flick against stainless steel. It's a disconcertingly quaint scene that comes nowhere close to matching the horrid images I have of him in my skull.

"Do you mind tofu?" Pollux asks me as he nudges a stir-fry in the largest skillet and sprinkles the green onions on top.

"Um. No. I'm vegetarian."

His hard expression softens, if minutely. Gently, he murmurs, "Of course you are…"

My gut reaction is to snap what's that supposed to mean, but I behave myself, bite my tongue, and stand weakly in whatever alternate universe I seem to have found myself in.

Andromeda places a fork on the table and cautiously calls, "Daddy?"

"What did you do?" he asks.

"What?" she squeaks, yet again.

"I can hear the guilt in your tone."

She deflates. "I may have mentioned some things about Zy to Mrs. Role."

Pollux sighs. "Meda… That entire situation is difficult to explain to someone unfamiliar with so many things about us, and I didn't think you were even ready to try."

"I'm sorry. Sometimes it just hurts inside, and I feel awful."

Pollux closes his eyes for several long moments. Finally, he murmurs, "I know, dear one. I know. Don't worry. You didn't do anything wrong." He drags his gaze to me. "What concerns can I address for you to help clarify the…situation?"

I tense because the concerns I have aren't exactly the sort I can easily bring up. Especially not like this when he's so calm. It's throwing me off in ways that leave me entirely unsure how I'm supposed to proceed.

Pollux's brows knit as he turns off the heat. "Why did you just do that?"

I plaster my tried-and-true smile in place. "Do what?"

"Constrict all your muscles."

I unconstrict them. "I don't know what you're talking about."

His mouth opens, and closes. He takes a breath, letting it out slowly. "Is this a conversation for us to have in private, dearest?"

Restarting my brain, I wait for the Windows logo to load up. I'm hearing things. Dearest? Did he just call me dearest? Where did that come from? I am entirely out of my depth. What am I even doing here right now? There's nothing I can say that will make anything better. If I attempt to assuage my concerns, I may get Andromeda in trouble, then who knows what might happen behind closed doors after I leave?

That soft, gentle dearest has to be an abuser tactic of some kind. One I'm unfamiliar with. It's the part where Pollux recognizes he's a conventionally attractive man and is aiming to distract me from important things with tenderness.

Well. Listen here, sir. I shan't be fooled!

While I'm waiting for my stupid brain to calibrate, Alexios releases a massive sigh. "Okay, this is actually painful to watch." Sitting in the seat at the table closest to the front kitchen window, he plants his chin in his hands and grins. "Yet, I am ever the masochist. Do you know what A would call this?"

Andromeda gasps and raises her hand as high as she can. "Me! Me! Pick me! I love Alana trivia!"

Alexios points one gloved finger her way. "Yes, Meda?"

"Miscommunication trope!"

He claps. "Very good. Now…do we fix it, or do we watch it all go up in glorious flames?"

"Xios," Pollux grumbles.

His teeth flash in a wicked smile. "Yes?"

"Three bites."

His smile vanishes. "Cruel and unusual punishment."

Pollux shoots a perturbed look over his shoulder, and Alexios pouts. Running his fingers through his hair, Pollux turns his attention back to me and murmurs, "I want to respect you if you don't want to share the truth right now. It's not miscommunicating to allow you the right to share your thoughts and feelings when you're ready. Just know that we speak openly in this household. There's nothing you're not allowed to discuss—either in front of both Xios and Meda or just between the two of us. I want everyone I care for to be comfortable. It's important to me that…that my family feels safe."

I am so confused right now.

This has to be a new form of gaslighting not yet covered in my child protection courses. The videos they show us every couple of years never do seem updated. In fact, the last one still had flip phones and treated the internet like a strange alien monster coming to cyberbully children all on its own.

Pollux could be pretending to be sincere in order to get information out of me. Well, bucko, joke's on you because I am fully capable of being vague. Shifting Chai's carrier to the other hand, I say, "Earlier, I was a little worried that Meda was upset, but she seems to be doing better now. Even if I don't fully understand the situation, as long as she's happy, I'm happy." And I won't even picture roasting you on a spit. Slowly. For hours.

Pollux nods once. "I know we're a lot for you to take in, and my panic cut things short the last time we saw each other. I would like to talk to you in private, later. If…if you wouldn't mind."

I open my mouth to respond about how I would just love to talk to him in private later, with absolutely zero witnesses, but Chai's raging meow whines into the air before I can express my sincerest self.

My little kitty grips the mesh wall of his carrier as he screams.

Pollux doesn't waste a moment. "Meda, get some of the kitten food from the other room, please."

"'Kayyy."

While Andromeda pounces off down the hall opposite the kitchen entrance, Pollux carts the steaming pans to the table and sets them on hot pads.

Alexios's face twists as he sits straighter in his chair. "I am against this."

"You will make more of an effort. I don't care if it gets in your mouth, but you will examine the possibilities."

"I do appreciate your interest in my well-being, Pollux. Being cared for, however, is an occasional burden."

I want so badly to ask what's going on, alongside why does your butler have dinner with you…but I have no idea how to phrase those questions with societally appropriate words. Alexios hasn't seemed much like a butler this evening. As far as I can tell, Pollux has been parenting both him and Andromeda.

Even though, yet again, there is zero family resemblance among them.

And the dude's totally dressed in white gloves and a tailcoat.

As though sensing my discomfort, Pollux elaborates while getting a glass bottle of juice out of the fridge. "Alexios is sensitive to textures and finds most foods offensive. He used to do better about it, but it has developed into an anxiety associated with eating in general. We are consistently attempting to broaden his safe list."

"Oh."

Alexios sighs. "Humans have somewhat recently decided my condition is called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. If that means anything to you. I personally just call it why the—" He swears. "—am I expected to put anything in my mouth then make it mushy?"

I blink. "Well. That is a fair question."

"I'm glad you understand my resentment of the rules this meat prison imposes upon me."

Andromeda reappears with a little tube of kitten food, which causes Chai to come, somehow, more violently alive. He rattles the mesh like an inmate and screams at the top of his tiny lungs.

"May I feed him?" she asks, reaching for his carrier.

I pass it off to her. "Sure, sweetie."

"Be careful of its claws, dear one," Pollux grunts as she fumbles to unzip the top door. "Sit with him so he doesn't launch himself out of your hands."

While Andromeda sits on the floor, Pollux pulls out my chair for me. I hesitate before scooting into the spot at the table across from Alexios and taking in the spread. Stir-fried vegetables with tofu. Some manner of seasoned rice. Steamed green beans. Extra sauce. Potato rolls.

Why can this man cook all of this yet not send Andromeda to school with a lunch?

Something is not adding up.

He didn't even know I was coming, so this all couldn't have been planned, either.

Pollux pulls apart a potato roll while Alexios seeks out the tiniest portions of each dish. I follow their lead and hold my resentment in check as I fill my plate.

Alexios lets rice fall off his tongue after taking half a bite of the stuff. "No."

Andromeda giggles. "You've tried rice before. Why did you try it again?"

He scrubs his mouth with a napkin. "It smelled different this time. As A would say, bamboozled again…"

"Meda," Pollux warns.

She tucks herself into a small ball around Chai. "I wasn't trying to make fun of Yama-nii-nii."

"I understand, but you understand one of the most basic means of continuing existence is hard for Xios. Think before you comment on it. We should not laugh at someone's efforts, even when they don't make sense or look difficult to us."

Andromeda makes a tiny confirming sound.

I tear off a piece of soft bread and try to wrap my head around what's going on.

Pollux seems so composed right now. Am I in the same room where he shook Andromeda just weeks ago? Maybe he was drunk before but he's not drunk right now? He was acting really weird when he was drunk at the party yesterday, but not exactly angry weird. To be fair, if I didn't have Chai, I'd mark the entire event off as a fever dream because, last I checked, giant coats don't just disappear and leave the memory of a scent behind.

"Butter?" Alexios asks me as he passes a little glass tub my way. "It's fresh."

"Pila churned it yesterday," Pollux offers.

Churnedit? As in the bread is fresh-baked and the butter is home-churned in this household? Crazy.

"Oh, yes. Than—"

"No."

I bite my tongue as Pollux's growl rumbles like an earthquake in my skull.

Alexios sucks his teeth as he relinquishes the butter.

Pulling his attention off me, Pollux glowers at Alexios. "First of all—"

"You'd murder me. I know. But, counterpoint, you have no idea whether or not I'd enjoy that."

Pollux sighs so deeply the shining light fixture above the table seems to rattle. "Do not make me put you on Alana's drugs."

"Oh yes, because antidepressing the one made of depression is an excellent idea, isn't it?" Alexios drags a finger down the butter knife beside his plate, and the metal glints in the overhead light. "Do you really blame me, Pollux? I am nothing if not an opportunity junkie."

"Could you at least focus your efforts on anyone else?" Pollux grumbles. "Brittny's soul is unprotected."

Alexios scoffs. "Please. A would find an unenjoyable way to torture me if I dared mess with her baby sister."

"Why do you think I suggested it?"

I am so very lost amid the thrashing tides of this conversation, so I nibble my buttered bread. Like a little child who is watching an incredibly confusing drama. I'm resonating with what Pollux said yesterday about his script failing him.

Forget scripts.

I must be on the wrong set.

Not thanking people is a household rule, I guess. Maybe as a means to appease Andromeda? Indulging her isn't exactly how I'd parent and prepare her for the real world, but I'm not her parent, and if they really are going out of their way to appease her faerie rules, that's sweet. In a way. Isn't it?

Also.

The drugs.

They're antidepressants? Not aphrodisiacs?

Is Pollux a pharmacist?

I don't think that even pharmacists have home labs? But, then, what do I know? I only teach elementary school. I had to remove a decapitated gummy bear from my curls in an hour-long surgical procedure last week.

Pollux still shook Andromeda mere feet away from where I'm sitting.

Pollux and Andromeda still work from roughly ten in the evening to three in the morning.

There's still a mysterious relationship between a child and a grown woman's husband that results in guilt.

I am surely not this easily moved by good food.

But, also, oh my word, it is phenomenal. I'm a touch peeved Andromeda doesn't bring her father's cooking to school to trade with me. I've never had such amazing tofu before in my life.

"Meda, if you're done feeding the kitten, would you mind feeding yourself?" Pollux mumbles around a green bean as the staring contest between him and Alexios wanes.

Andromeda looks up from where she's splayed on the floor with Chai on her stomach. Her lip juts. "But—"

Pollux redirects his stare at her.

And that's all it takes for her to get up and deposit Chai into her father's massive hand. He rubs the little brown spot on its forehead with his thumb while it wiggles then holds it against his chest as he gets another mouthful of stir-fry.

"What was work today, Yama-nii-nii?" Andromeda asks as she gets to the last empty seat and piles a mountain of rice on her plate. Then, seeming to forget the question she just asked, she bounces. "Ooh, Daddy, can I use chopsticks like Lana?"

He nods once, and she trots off to get a pair out of a drawer below the carrot guillotine. Around another mouthful, Pollux clarifies for my sake, "Alana only eats with chopsticks. Even if she's eating pancakes."

"Which is utterly ridiculous," Alexios notes. He's begun glaring at a green bean. "Our darling princess is so strange."

"It's genetic." Andromeda giggles and sticks her tongue out at Alexios.

Pollux sighs, so she stiffens and carefully positions the adult chopsticks in her tiny hand.

"Forgive her," he murmurs to me. "I think she's being a little terror because she considers you company. Her brain is still developing in some areas."

With all the innocence in the world, Andromeda just barely manages to get a few grains of rice in her mouth.

Alexios stabs the green bean, then his eye twitches as juice leaks out of it. He looks at Pollux.

"I believe in you."

Alexios narrows his eyes. "Your faith is not only astounding, it also makes me uncomfortable."

Pollux's teeth flash in a single-second grin.

Alexios shudders, but he gets the bean to his mouth. He crunches it, audibly. It winds up back on his plate as a look of stricken horror overtakes his expression.

Clinically, Pollux says, "I'll update your spreadsheet," around a mouthful of tofu.

Tongue still hanging out of his mouth, Alexios nods.

It looks like he might cry, and I'm honestly a little worried for him.

Sighing yet again, Pollux stands, fetches a bag of cashews, and hands it to Alexios, who curls up on his seat, resting his shoulder against the back, and crunches the nuts while looking absolutely traumatized.

This is the oddest family dinner I've ever witnessed. Having been the sole teacher of a very small school for almost a decade now, I am more than used to parents inviting me out to dinner on occasion. I've seen the shouters who don't think they're shouting. The borderline narcissists who don't care how their child acts so long as it doesn't reflect poorly on them. I've seen the nuclear units that could star in commercials. The fathers that work too much. The mothers that resent being treated like they don't work at all. The abusers who are so charming it's like they think I'll forget the bruises I've seen…

There are all sorts.

Good, bad, ugly, decent.

Broken homes with only grandparents to raise their grandkids.

Single mothers who have no time to help with homework.

I have never, once, sat at a family dinner table with so many worries eating away at the back of my head…and felt this inexplicable peace.

Like…like I belong right here.

It doesn't make any sense.

All my life, I've needed to make sense of things. Even toys. I couldn't just play with them. I'd sort them by shape or color. Give them all names, whether they had faces or not. Blocks had personalities and genders and ages and roles. The inanimate became creatures, and I painted cities around them. Forests. Skies. Rolling hills and endless landscapes.

My fork and spoon always had to be on the same side of my dish.

Because they were in love.

And the knife was jealous.

He believed he belonged with the spoon.

But he didn't.

Because I said so.

And…I'd forgotten…I'd forgotten so many of those sorts of things.

Once, my life was a collection of dreams and stories. Paintings made out of thoughts.

All up until the point when I grew up. Learned to stop. Learned to focus on my studies. Learned what things the world valued, and what things were useless.

Here, in this kitchen with a carrot guillotine on the counter behind me, something is different.

"Kassandra."

I lift my face, finding Pollux, as the horrible sensation of a tear slips down my cheek.

"I…"

He stands, looming, and cuts his thumb beneath my eye. "Dearest, what's wrong?"

Regaining my senses, I push my seat back, reach for Chai in Pollux's other hand, and pull the kitten against my chest. "I'm sorry. I don't… I'm fine. I think I need to go." My mouth feels too dry. Like it's full of sand. "Th…e food was amazing. I'll see you tomorrow, Meda. Sorry."

Sorry.I'm so sorry.

I run.

But even as I make it all the way back to the school and my parked car…I don't know what I'm running from.