Edith 13th

Prologue

(Here's a re-cap. It's not very descriptive, but it explains enough.)

Kyo and Alice dated for a few months and "went steady" after that. They were always together. Mayura was a little jealous, but she was ok. Everyone was so happy. Kyo's aunt and uncle did have a baby! A beautiful baby girl named Aya. Kyo and Alice liked to take care of her. It was like playing house. Alice was engaged to Kyo after she finished high school and they got married a year later. Together, they taught "The Lost Word" to many hopeful new Lotis masters in

Mayura continued archery and competed in tournaments. She then got an athletic scholarship to Stanford after high school. Mayura knew English pretty well, but got it perfect pretty soon. She stayed in the dorms and was called by Alice often to hear of Kyo and their wedding plans.

Soon the wedding was at hand and Mayura came for the wedding a few days early. Alice was really busy planning and Kyo was busy tending to Alice's business. Mayura didn't much like Alice's bachelorette party; partly because she wasn't the center of attention, but mostly because she felt something wasn't right. Mayura told Alice she needed a time out and Alice nodded but was paying more attention to the sluttish lingerie she was unwrapping. Mayura decided that she wanted to talk to Kyo. After all, he was supposed to be her friend.

When she reached the club where the bachelor party was being held (put together by Frey), she had a couple of drinks as she looked around for Kyo. By the time she found him, she'd thought she'd found him ten other times. Kyo, also drunk, tried to make conversation with her.

The next morning, not realizing what she'd done, Mayura woke up next to naked Kyo. Alice had probably passed out at home while Kyo and Mayura crashed at his apartment. Mayura decided to not tell Alice and got dressed and out of the house before Kyo woke up. She went to the wedding, like nothing was wrong, and walked in front of Alice as the maid of honor, like nothing was wrong, and listened to their vows and watched them drive away to their honeymoon. Mayura flew back to Stanford and was there for five months of her second year, when she had to drop out because she was showing. Mayura knew she couldn't tell her parents that she was pregnant, especially with her sister's husband's baby.

Mayura made up a lie that she slept with Kyo's cousin, Yukata, but didn't want him to know, which she told Alice. Alice convinced Kyo she had to stay with them at the Lotis Temple and they'd support her. Mayura named the baby girl Alice, and they lived their until the little girl was about nine months old, when she was kicked out because she used the Lotis for personal needs like when the baby was crying she would always tell her "Shibi" and she would quiet. Depressed and not knowing where to go, Mayura went to an old boyfriend, Adam, in California and stayed with him. After having her second child who was named, Edith (per request of Adam), Mayura eventually drove Adam away because of her smoking, drinking, and constantly staying out late. Mayura was living a lie and she just couldn't deal with it. Alice sent her sister money out of pity, and Adam sent Alimony because of their "common law marriage" but, Mayura knew he only stayed because Adam loved her daughters as his own.

Chaos

Chapter 1

The room was small with beat up green couches and puked-on baize carpeting and putrid cigarette smells. The desk near the front door had scratch marks, writing, and a little out-dated computer on it that was clearly abused. The drawers had papers and different things leaking out of them. There was a small brown coffee table in front of the couch that had ugly stains from who-knows-what on it and an ash tray. A small T.V. on top of a large wooden crate was sitting in front of that. The ugly walls were yellow and covered with old memories. The ceiling was cracked and dripping. The apartment had two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a living room. There were three people living in this small shack in downtown L.A., a rather dysfunctional family: A mother, Mayura, and her two daughters, Alice and Edith.

Edith sighed and twiddled at her short, stiff brown hair while she sat on the couch and watched her family squabble. She was at home with her pathetic mother and bitchy 19 year old sister. They were fighting again. Mayura was fighting with her daughter Alice about Alice going off with Jake, her 26 year old boyfriend, a bad boy to the core.

Alice had long pretty blonde hair which she usually wore in a bandana, gorgeous green eyes, and a slender figure. Alice usually wore black bare midriff short sleeved shirts, Jake's large black leather jacket, tight short-short mini skirts, fishnets, and big black boots with heavy makeup. She really liked biker chic.

Mayura, however, looked like she jumped over the hill. Her long blonde hair was always a train wreck and never brushed, her blue eyes looked tired and bloodshot with heavy runny black eyeliner, her lips had cheap red lipstick on them, her discolored skin had waning wrinkles, and her black loose cloth night gown had burn holes from cigarettes and on her feet were pink open toed slippers and a cigarette in hand.

"Shut up! JUST SHUT UP! Why do you even care?" Alice shouted at her mother, who was a few feet away. Mayura, flushed with rage, grabbed her wrist and pulled it.

"YOU GO OUT WITH THAT BOY AND, BY GOD, YOU CAN'T SLEEP IN THIS HOUSE! I WILL NOT HAVE IT!" Mayura screamed in frustration with a strained face. She squeezed her daughter's wrist and took a long angry drag from her withering cigarette. Alice jerked her hand away and stormed to the door.

"FINE! I won't!" Alice ended the fight with a vicious slam of the door.

"Ugh." Mayura sighed and sunk into a dining room chair nearby. "Will your sister ever learn?" She asked Edith rhetorically. Edith shrugged.

Edith sighed and laid her head on the arm of the sofa and stared at her mother. Mayura, slouched over, took another drag on her cigarette.

"I'm going out. Tell your sister she can't come back." She recited and strode out of the compact living room.

A few minutes later, she came out with her hair pulled up, blue eye shadow on, eyeliner and mascara redone, red finger and toenails, a stunning black dress, and tall black pumps. Edith smiled with a thought. She looked so out of place in this dump. Mayura picked up her small black purse off the coffee table and stuffed her cigarette pack in and walked out the front door.

Edith started to pick at the holes in her worn out blue jeans. After a while, became boring and she shifted in her seat. Edith made herself as comfortable as she could and shut her tired, worn out eyes. She fell asleep to the dripping of the kitchen faucet and the police sirens outside.

It was when she awoke that she realized that she'd fallen asleep. The miniscule living was just as empty as before, except for the morning light that was creeping in through the window. It was sometimes nice to live on the second floor.

Downstairs she could hear someone, unsuccessfully, climbing the stairs up to apartment C, her house. Edith dully got up from the couch and sauntered to the front door, expecting who it was. Just for kicks, she looked out of the peephole could see her sister leaning, wasted on the front door mat. Edith could hear Alice's drunken laughing. Edith struggled to open the heavy duty locks that were on the door. When she opened the door, Alice fell through with a loud thud.

Alice was lying on the doormat, looking up at Edith with a dumb smile on her pale, smudged face. After pulling her sister inside, Edith slammed the door behind her. Edith paused and realized that her older sibling was clinging to her ankle. She looked down.

"Heh heh. Mom's not home, is she?" Alice mumbled triumphantly. Edith nodded, although she was sure that her vision, hearing, and balance, were not going to function correctly anytime soon. Alice then began to snort in between her obnoxious laughing. "I did it!" She squealed. Edith wasn't expecting her to make much sense, either. Alice briefly sat up, but then slumped back on her elbows, too dizzy to sit up straight.

"You're a fucking mess..." Edith complained. "Like you usually are." Alice didn't even notice.

Edith examined her sister to make sure she was still breathing before trotting off to the kitchen. When she came back in, she shoved an Advil down Alice's throat followed by water. Fortunately, Alice did gag on it but didn't spit it back up. Edith patted Alice's ratted hair. Why does she always have to be the big sister? It isn't fair... It's never fair! Alice hiccupped.

Alice tried to stand up, but decided it was too much and sat back down on the floor and leaned on the couch. Alice's face warned Edith that she was going to blow. She went to go find a basket or bucket, something, anything. Alice threw up, but a little vomit did miss the empty mop bucket Edith found. Edith knew she would have to clean it up before her mom got home. Alice gave a painful moan and rolled on her side.

"Drunkard." Edith muttered as she scrubbed the chunky stain with a rag she'd brought in with the mop bucket. Alice went on with giddy laughter

"Do you think Mom's happy?" Edith asked while she brushed out her sister's disheveled blonde locks. Alice, propped up with a pillow, mumbled something incoherent. Edith decided she wasn't ready for conversation, yet.

Alice squirmed under her touch and tugged at her pant leg implying she was too tired. Edith dragged her, like a small child, to their closet of a room. The room was colorless except for clothes scattered on the floor and the quilts on the two double beds. Why they were called double beds, Edith didn't know, her bed barely fit her.

Edith pushed open the door and pulled giddy little Alice behind her. Edith grunted as she picked up her sister and dropped her on the bed. She tucked her in.

As she walked back to the door, she turned.

"Goodnight my little whore." Edith whispered as she flicked off the light, but Alice had already passed out for the night or what was left of it.

She decided to feed Dinah, since there was nothing else to do.

Dinah was a stray kitten she saw fall in her trash can while rummaging through. When she pulled her out she could see Dinah was a gray little tabby. Edith knew she couldn't keep her because Mayura was allergic, but she had to do something. Everyday she set out kibble for Dinah and scratched her behind the ears. After Dinah was done, she gave her a few last strokes, went back inside and washed her hands. Every other weekend she would buy another small bag of kitten food and hide it under her mattress.

Edith creaked open the front door with the small bowl in her hand. She didn't particularly favor the smell of dry cat food. Edith walked down the cold flimsy metal stairs to the ground floor. Edith sat down on the last step and set the cat food in front of her.

Edith heard a meow and watched bright green cat eyes come out of the shadows. Little Dinah slinked out and when she reached the bowl, she pawed hesitantly at kibble, which always made Edith laugh. She stroked the kitten gently as she nibbled. Edith touched something on Dinah's neck. A collar?

She examined it more closely. It fit around the kitten's neck loosely. There were symbols inside the clear beads that dotted the bracelet. One bead was lighter than the other, almost glowing. Dinah mewed as she slipped it off. Edith turned it over in her hands.

She then heard a groan come from the front lawn.

Edith glanced over while gripping the bracelet tightly. Edith saw a heap lying on the ground tattered, torn and bleeding. She stood up, scaring the kitten, turned pale, and froze. Although, she did not recognize this man, anything dead is quite frightening. Edith took involuntary steps backwards.

She then bumped into a tall, cold, velvety, figure. This creature's voice was not any type of tone, but chilled down Edith's spine.

"Everyone dies alone, you know."