Mrs. Loviatar sat on a bench outside the school, smiling and turning her face towards the sun. A cold chill broke her peace and the smile disappeared.
“Hello, sister.”
Louhi said, “Did you think I’d choose to not come with you?”
“No, I expected it. I just didn’t look forward to it.”
“So, we’re saving children these days?”
“I am. You don’t understand how frightened these children are.”
“Don’t, I though? Terrifying children used to be one of my favorite hobbies. I’d try to remember their crying faces and screaming frowns and paint portraits to hang in my home.”
“No, it’s worse. The adults have all turned to idiots, fools, and braggarts. All that little girl wanted was to not be scared anymore.”
“And she was scared her classmates were what… going to give her ‘cooties’?”
“No, much more. Much, much more.”
“A single little sugar tablet dropped onto an altar stone stolen from across the sea isn’t going to sustain you for long, Lovi. And then what?”
“Then I sink back into obscurity and you with me, dear sister.”
“Do you mean to turn her into a disciple then?”
“I mean to give her just recompense for the first true, selfless offering either of us has had in centuries.”
“Loviatar, you have other children to look after.”
“My other children are all doing well enough. No cure has been found for Cancer, much to my surprise. Ulcers and the Plague have all thrived in my absence.”
“And the others?”
“Not as successful, but not gone. I can leave them to their devices. I have other matters to which I must attend.”
“Hmm… I think I understand you. Just answer me one question.”
“Ask, sister.”
“Why is the Mother of the Nine Diseases keeping one of her own children at bay in a Kindergarten class? Denying them food and shelter?”
Mrs. Loviatar smiled. “If there aren’t enough of them, my spawn have no where to live. The children really are our future.”
“Oh come now.”
Mrs. Loviatar listened to the squeals of the children still on the playground.
She said, “I’m a mother, Louhi. I know that pure faith, that helpless dependence that they have when they’re that little. The offering was made in innocence with great purity of heart. I’ll be cast into oblivion before I turn away from that.”
“Oh, dear. You really have been lonely, haven’t you?” Louhi said. “Well, enjoy it while it lasts.”
Mrs. Loviatar heard the crunching of bone, the flapping of wings, and again the warmth of the sun. She sat there until that was gone again, but this time for the usual reason, namely it had become nighttime.
She stood up and listened. The air was still and calm. Still, she knew who was watching, waiting for her acknowledgement.
“Lover, I need to take me somewhere. I wish to go to Delia’s house.”
The Wind whipped up around in an unnatural gust. It grew in power until a tiny cyclone was raging in the empty parking lot of Long Lake Elementary. Mrs. Loviatar stepped into it and was carried away, caressed by the father of her children.
Moments later, she was let down in a neighborhood where she could feel many spawn of her true children all around her, and more human woes with them: hunger, cravings for strange powdered delights, and the wildfire of wrath. It was a cacophony of suffering being ignored by those who suffered it, perhaps because it was the only way they could go on at all.
Mrs. Loviatar straightened her dress, adjusted her hat, and then went to a house, walked up to the front door and knocked.
There were voices inside. One of them loud, the other meek. The loud one barked a command. The meek one came to the door.
A short woman in a long sleeved t-shirt and ill fitting jeans asked, “What do you want?”
“Are you Delia’s mother?”
Despite standing in front of a blind woman, Delia’s mother nodded.
“I’d like to talk to you and your… boyfriend?”
“Is Delia in trouble?”
“Oh no. Delia is quite secure and an amazing child. May I come in?”
“Um… yeah, sure.”
Mrs. Lovitar entered the home and was surrounded by sensations. Fear clung to the walls like cobwebs. Pain and tears were ground into the carpet. Sorrow coated everything like grime and dust.
A man, the boyfriend, was sitting on the couch. He looked up and said, “Who’s she?”
It was Mrs. Loviatar that spoke. “Delia’s teacher. Well, substitute. I wanted to talk to you for a moment about her.”
The man stood, grumbling. “I told that brat she needed to behave in school. What, did she start another fight? Cuss you out?”
“No sir, nothing like that. In fact, I found her rather charming, polite. She needed only a small favor, one I was happy to give, but I know that she has other needs, perhaps more important in the long run. That’s why I’m doing this.”
The boyfriend did not have a chance to ask what “this” was, but found himself flying across the living room. His back put spiderweb cracks in the window on the other wall. Delia’s mother screamed.
Mrs. Loviatar glided across the living room and picked the man up by his neck, pushing him up the wall until he stood on his tip toes.
Chocking, he croaked out “Who… Who are you!”
“I’m your daughter’s new patron and protector. I am why you will stop hurting her. Do you know that when they pretend that some coward has come to the school with a rifle to harm the children, she pictures that it will be you? There are no ills in her life that she does not find their origin in you. You are her own personal demon. Today, I am her exorcist.”
“I’ll stop! I’ll stop!”
“No, you won’t you don’t know any other way but brutality. You believe you will now, pissing yourself, but tomorrow your weakness will… “
A baseball bat hit Mrs. Loviatar in the center of her back. Delia’s mother pulled it back for another swing but Mrs. Loviatar caught it, yanked hit from her hands, and hurled it across the room.
“Madam, I do not mean to frighten you but understand the only reasons you are not pinned to the wall along with this excuse for a man are that Delia needs you and loves you. In the future, pick better men.”
Delia’s mother went to get her phone. She found it dead.
Mrs. Loviatar smiled. “Viruses are my servants. The new silicon hosts of this age are quite interesting, but they are my servants there too. Now, where was I?”
She turned back to the man in her grasp. He squirmed and swiped his arms at her, clawing the air near her face. He managed to knock Mrs. Loviatar’s glasses off and he gasped when he found the two blind orbs they’d shielded fixed on him.”
Mrs. Loviatar was smiling. “Hm… so what shall it be? Cancer? No… Consumption. Hmm… no, I’d have to drag you away. I know: Gout. In every joint, in every limb. It won’t kill you, but you will feel like you are being ripped apart by beasts for the rest of your life. Every day. I think that might make it hard for you to-“
Mrs. Loviatar stopped, feeling a tug on her dress near her leg.
“Delia,” she said. “You should go back to your room. I don’t want you to see this.”
“Mrs. Loviatar, I don’t want you to hurt him. I just want him to go away. Please. If you hurt him, Mommy will cry.”
Mrs. Loviatar took in a deep breath and said, “As you wish child. The final answer to your heart’s prayer.”
Mrs. Loviatar dropped the man, turned to him and said, “You survive at her mercy. Harm her or her mother again and you will no longer have that mercy. I will not offer you any in its place. Now go. Take only what’s in your pockets and leave. Flee to the farthest corner of your earth. You are banished.”
The man scrambled, going and getting a set of keys out of his jeans. Seconds later, he was pulling the car out of the driveway. It squealed it’s tires, disappearing into the night.
Delia’s mother was kneeling, holding her daughter, when Mrs. Loviatar turned around to face them both.
“Don’t you touch her!” the mother cried, terrified, now holding a steak knife.
Mrs. Loviatar glided to her. “Delia has nothing to fear from me. Ever. If you use that bravery, that fire you summoned to protect her to keep protecting her, to be a better mother, you will never have me at your door again. Oh, and I think you’ll find some of her co-workers will be taking some sick days in the near future. I think that will give you some extra shifts and get you noticed by your employers. It’s no guarantee, but it will give you something to do with your time and perhaps a better future. I wish you luck. It’s up to you now.”
Mrs. Loviatar picked up her glasses, then put them on and went down on one knee. Delia pulled herself from her mother’s arms, walked to Mrs. Loviatar and gave her a hug.
“They said on the field drip that they used to say you were bad. I don’t think you’re bad, Ma’am. People say I’m bad, but I just want to be left alone.”
Mrs. Loviatar embraced the child gently. She said, “I know. Thank you, Delia. This has been a wonderful day. You did that for me. Now, I must go.”
Mrs. Loviatar rose. Delia’s mother rose too, holding the pitiful knife in front of her. Mrs. Loviatar tipped her hat, then turned and went out into the darkness.
In the parking lot behind a liquor store, the man who’d been dating Delia’s mother sat drinking cheap vodka out of the bottle.
“May I have some of that?”
He jumped and turned to find a woman sitting in the passenger seat. She had silver hair like Mrs. Loviatar, but shot through with streaks of black. Her eyes, too, were black. She had a hint of as smile on her lips.
“How the-“
“Sir, you didn’t see the mouse jump into your car when you got out to go into the store, but a mouse did. And that mouse was me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My sister has grown soft, you see. Fortunately, when one prays to her, they too pray to me. When one makes an offering to her, they make it also to me. That means I owe Delia something. Where my sister and I are unalike, however, is that I am not as forgiving.”
She turned to the man, her teeth turning pointy as she growled a wolf’s growl.
When she walked down the road a little later, back to the dark place from which she first came, she did it while humming a happy tune and sipping from a bottle spattered in blood.
NOTE: I had intended for “Sick Day” to be a stand alone story. I got requests for more. I hope you enjoy the extended time with Mrs. Loviatar, standing at safe and respectable difference. There may be more still… we’ll see.
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