Chapter 1 Domestic Dispute
"Why won't you cooperate?" She yells at the computer, an Apple MacBook Air, punctuating each syllable with a puff of cigarette smoke.
"Say… mag… rds… rev… crets… you" says the computer in a monotone, while she inhales with deep frustration another drag of her cigarette.
"You have said that before! This is not cooperating!" The computer is briefly enshrouded in a mist of all the cigarette smoke she blew at it.
When the mist clears and after chewing on her words, as she is about to embark on a new tirade she suddenly catches a glimpse of her reflection in the computer screen.
This causes her to pause.
She is struck all over again by her improbable appearance.
The architecture of her body and face and hair are ghigau, her skin and hair color are colleen.
Her outfit is a mismatched mix of traditional Irish and traditional Native American, with a lacing of Goth jewelry, underwear and footwear.
Contemplating her appearance she is compelled to muse on her improbable and improbably long name: Finola (Ineen Duv) Grieves Rain (Nanye-hi) Ward, which her parents always swore to her she came fully legitimately by dint of direct inheritance from her grandparents; which story she never thought to question, though she also never got to meet the actual people her grandparents.
Such musings inevitably draw her to contemplate the frescoes that decorate the walls of her vaguely cave-like efficiency apartment, which frescoes had earned her home the nickname Painted Cave, though she preferred to call it by another name, the frescoes of her illustrious ancestors: her paternal grandfather, the infamous flown Earl of Tyrconnell, Ireland, Rory Ó Donnell, which second wife was the source of her given name; her paternal grandmother, Old Lady Grieves The Enemy, a Pawnee woman warrior; her maternal grandfather, Rain-in-the-Face (Ité Omáǧažu), a Hunkpapa Lakota war chief who fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn; and finally her maternal grandmother, Nancy Ward or Nanye-hi, a Ghigau or Beloved Woman of the Cherokee nation.
Drifting around her bachelorette style apartment she suddenly stumbles upon a window facing out.
She looks out the window and beseeches of the moon:
"Goddess help me."
The burning tip of her cigarette reaches her fingers. She yells, in a reflexive jerk throws the cigarette butt away, and sucks on her burned fingertips.
This jolts her back into her current here and now, and into the problem at hand; she darts back to sit at the chair in front of the desk where sits her computer and she frantically taps a new string of characters.
"Say… ical…"
"Oh do shut up" Cuts Nuala in disgust and frantically lights up a fresh cigarette, a Marlboro Virginia Blend 100's.
She paces for a while in her cramped and run-down and dirty studio.
"And why are you stuttering?" She yells once again at the computer in a single breath of smoke.
The computer answers with a discomfited silence.
"And for that matter, why are you so dirty?" She gestures wildly, sprinkling cigarette ashes all across her room and at the computer.
The computer sinks into himself and shrugs and looks away with an ever more discomfited silence.
"For that matter, why is The Womb so dirty?" This time she yells at the space between the fridge and the corner of the kitchenette partition.
The brownie steps out of that corner in a defensive stance and sour expression. He looks rather gaunt and disheveled himself.
"You haven't fed neither me nor mine for a while. You know the mutual vows we took, the arrangement we…"
"Yes yes yes, I have heard all that before!" curtly interrupts Nuala.
The brownie's stance grows all the more defensive, his face even more forbidding.
Noticing this, Nuala does a little circular jig, mutters angrily.
Then she stands looking out the window at the waning moon, taking advantage to stub her cigarette out in the adjacent ashtray, made of bloodstone, in the shape and pattern of a concave broken mirror.
"Goddess help me" She sighs away the lingering last exhalation of smoke.
Then she turns apologetically back to the brownie.
"Listen…" She sighs. "You know I have been a little preoccupied. I know that I have been failing on…"
This time it's the brownie that cuts her off. When her eyes snap at him at this his stance has become conciliatory, his expression benign.
"I knew what I was getting myself into when I brought my family into your home."
Nuala makes as to interrupt.
He makes an imperious hushing movement with his upraised arm.
"Shush! I know that it was your paternal grandfather that brought me from the Old Country into this New Land, and that in a certain sense we are indeed one of your family's heirlooms; But. There is a certain degree of choice involved in the matter, as outlined in the oath we both took, namely a certain amount of rules which you must respect, some services you must provide us, some prohibitions you must respect, in exchange of the services we provide you, the breaking of which entails the penalty that results in enabling us the immediate departure from the household; and you just about have broken every single one of those rules."
Nuala mutters to herself:
"The single fact that we are having this conversation."
"Exactly."
Then has if he hadn't been interrupted.
"Now. There has always been great friendship between your kind and mine. But we of our kind are keenly aware that those of your kind's particular flaw might make of you… not so reliable hosts."
Nuala heaves a hesitant sigh of relief. She lights another cigarette to conceal her awkwardness.
"So… you are not leaving, are you?"
His stance gets more defensive than ever, crossing his arms across his chest, his face more gruff.
At this Nuala recoils.
"Did I…"
His face softens.
"Of course we won't leave."
Another deep sigh of relief from Nuala, wreathed in smoke.
"We just won't perform our duties until you feed us."
"Oh do shut up!"
Nuala dances another circular jig on the floor.
"Well, you know what? I'm thirsty. I'm going to feed."
She heatedly crushes her half-smoked cigarette out to vent her frustration.
She starts packing a shoulder bag with a few essentials. The shoulder bag is entirely unadorned matte black leather with a silver zipper, as silver are the rings that bind the bag to the shoulder strap. Cigarettes and a lighter are easy to find. Keys prove impossible.
"Oh sod it!"
"Womb, do you know where are my keys?"
"Unable to comply with request…" Sighs the rustle of the cloth drapes against the glass windows.
She angrily lights up yet another cigarette.
"Can nobody in this household cooperate with me tonight?" Shrieks Nuala.
The air within the room grows heavy, heavier than the mist of cigarette smoke would account for.
"And for that matter, why are you talking like Apple?" She adds in the same tone.
The atmosphere grows oppressive.
Nuala presses her forehead to the top of her hand, then rubs her face in the palms of her hands, then rubs her eyes with her fingers. Then she inhales deeply from her cigarette which had been dangling from the corner of her lips, and sighs heavily a white mist of smoke and water vapor.
She looks once more imploringly to the moon and asks:
"Goddess help me."
She dejectedly snuffs out her cigarette.
Then she faces once again her surroundings.
"Listen, Womb, this night is not going well, I am thirsty, and so I am going out to feed. I cannot find the keys. Be sure you don't let any unwelcome guests in."
"Thy will be done…" Sighs a draft from the open window to the underside of the door.
"Apple, I will be back to work on you. Don't play any pranks on me, like falling asleep."
"Say the magical word and I will reveal my secrets to you." This time the computer manages not to stutter.
"Is really that all you can say? Oh sod it." Says Nuala aghast.
Finally she turns to the brownie.
"As for you, my dear brùnaidh friend, would you at least be so kind as to tidy up the Hearth?"
The brownie has already turned his back on her and starts to walk away, grumbling:
"Yes, of course, mistress can go out and have fun while her servants are left doing all the dirty work, like dumping the ashes and cigarette butts from her ashtray, mistress the vampire can go and feed whenever she wants, in whatever warm body she desires, however much sweet blood she craves, while we her servants get to starve at her pleasure…"
His grumbling fades away in the distance, much greater than the space between the fridge and the corner would allow.
"What was that?"
"I said, thank'ee kindly for having addressed me by our native appellation, ma'am!"
Nuala hastily departs her home, lighting a cigarette as she hurries out.
