Chapter Three
Endearment in a teapot
Thirty-nine years ago
Kate Freelander was boiling the kettle in Sanctuary's kitchen. She had gotten into the habit of pouring the boiled water into a tea pot Helen had gave her for a wedding gift. The reason why it was in the Sanctuary kitchen and not in the comfortably sized kitchen at home was one she kept from Helen. It was horribly ugly, the pattern, the style, the colours all seemed to be constantly fighting with each other. If Helen weren't as eccentric as she was with design tastes, it would have been easy to consider the gift as an insult.
Kate had tried to keep it on the counter for the first few months after receiving it, but soon put it in the cupboard, only getting it out when Helen dropped by.
In the end having it in the cupboard was too much, Kate would wake up in the middle of the night with dreams that the tea pot was attacking and tearing up her kitchen. She had constant fights with her Husband to decorate it the way it was, he didn't like it, but she loved it. He wanted it his way because he was going to spend the most time in there cooking, nevertheless she had used her charm to convinced him that she would take over the cooking if she had the kitchen the way she wanted. It didn't last long.
Kate moved the tea pot to the Sanctuary along with some matching cups when Helen was off travelling. If she had noticed by now she was too polite to say anything.
Kate put the tea pot in the centre of the table wincing ever so slightly to leave it there. Maybe she could encourage the two small children sat at the table to help accidentally destroy it. They didn't seem to mind it at all, the smallest one look as though he was happy to see it. That she found weird, even for all the things Kate had seen. She'd have to do something about that.
There was a small humming sound that started to get a tiny bit louder, she looked around and found it was coming from the fridge. She tapped the outside, 'ancient thing.' then proceeded to get the milk out.
'Mōmiyā'ī can I pour the tea, please?'
'No, you'll burn yourself.' Kate answered almost automatically.
'But Daddy lets me!' Connor protested, 'I asked nicely!' he added folding his arms in a mood which was then enhanced by slumping down in the chair. Clearly his mum wasn't going to rise to the occasion to argue with him. She looked at his little grumpy face that she could only smile at. Feeling a bit bad for him she got out an extra cup and saucer. She leaned forward waving the cup, 'Do you want a grown up cup like Mōmiyā'ī?' The only response she got was a tiny sulky nod. Then she filled up the two cups and a beaker after sitting down to drink her tea with the horrid pot glaring at her.
The fridge started to make an even louder buzzing sound, Kate went over to it then stuck her head in, poking the thermostat. She had to move the mountain of cheese away from the filament at the back, to try and get the sound to decrease.
Rapidly the pitch of the buzzing changed, she knew that sound, that was the sound of something just before it explodes. She pushed away from the fridge, ran toward her children, grabbing them and half pulling them along. Almost at the door she fell with the unbalanced weight of them but she managed to use the impact to slide them along the floor. They both looked like rag dolls as they skated toward the door on their bellies. Connor grabbed his little brother puling him even further away when they started slowing.
The fridge had electrical pulses running up and down it, the wall surrounding it look as though it were bending toward it then the electric built up shooting straight up into the ceiling. A shock wave made its way forward surrounding everything in a blue light. The continence of the cupboards spurted outward crashing with each other to the floor. It went over the table cracking the pot, tea jumped to the ceiling splattering so it rained down. Kate let out a scream as the wave went over her.
Connor held his brother close to him trying to push further away in the few seconds he had. Then the wave diminished just short of them. The brothers crawled back to their mum and poked her trying to wake her up. After Connor wiped his tears away he told his brother to stay with Kate. He ran out of the room, to get help.