Day 6 -- 10, 083 (71,840 total)

Tired tonight. Thunk. I just want to go crawl off somewhere and rest.

But here's today's little snippet:

I didn't expect Aletta to show up at my house. She came walking up the street, looking like a fashion model who had lost her way from a fancy shoot. I saw her pause at the edge of my house and look up into the trees, frowning at the birds. With a wave of her hand, she sent them all scattering.

I was not in the mood for it, so I stepped out and met her on the porch.

"Kat," she said, and looked past as though she expected me to invite her in. I didn't. She gave a petulant little frown that probably melted men's hearts. It did nothing at all for me.

"I'm working, Aletta. Or haven't you noticed that we have troubles."

"Troubles?" she said. "Oh, The Edge moving. I talked to my mother. She said it did that all over the world, but it's stable now."

She had talked to her mother? And I couldn't get through -- but I said nothing about that part. "I meant the riders, Aletta."

"Riders?" she said, looking around.

They weren't here. None in sight. Hell. I didn't need this kind of pressure, so I didn't even pursue that one.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I thought David might be here, working," she said with a bright predatory smile. Great wonderful. "We need to make plans for tonight."

Somehow I kept my hands from rising and smacking her with a nice good, ugly spell. Maybe a big wart on the end of her nose just to make people knew what kind of bitch... um, witch that she was.

"As you can tell, he's not here," I said. I even kept my voice calm. And I felt obligated, I don't know why, to say more. "He's been acting really strange, Aletta."

"He's a human," she said with a wave of her hand and dismissed that as well.

Fine. I had given her all the warnings I was going to.

"I have work to do. I'm sure David will turn up at the hotel."

"Well you don't have to be rude about it, you know. Honestly, I don't know how any of your family got to hold so many posts. You're all so bad tempered."

"You want to take over for me?" I asked.

She made a little noise of disgust. "Can't even be bothered to do the work? Well I have better things to do."

She turned and stomped her way back off the porch and across the yard. I watched until she disappeared around the curve of the road. What the hell had that been about?

"Don't like her, don't like her!" a pair of ruby-crowned kinglets shouted as they swept back into the tree.

"Well, you're not alone there."