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119: All Saint's Day
The autumn chill awakened Evelyn even before Andrew’s alarm. Lifting herself up so she could see over him, she glanced at the faintly illuminated face of his clock and groaned. Another hour, perhaps more before the apartment would start to warm up.
While his residence was far less drafty than hers had been, she missed her small fireplaces. It had been nice to supplement the building’s giant Octopus coal furnace’s heat for her apartment, and in particular, for her bedroom, and to any extent she desired, as long as she had the firewood.
The extra blanket she’d pulled over the footboard from the bench to heap on top of her during the night wasn’t enough to ward off the uncomfortable cold this morning, and sadly, it was only going to get worse. Andrew generated a delightful amount of heat with his masculine metabolism, but in general, she slept too warm for him, and during the night he’d retreat to his side of the bed, often with only the sheet to cover him. Assuming he
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World of Tomorrow 120: Preparations
The final preparations in advance of the movers clearing Evelyn’s small cold-water flat seemed to spark a renewed awareness and an intensified enthusiasm for packing and planning. Not merely in Evelyn and, by default, Andrew, but also in the children, Mary and Tank, and even Justin and Lily. Which was fortunate, as Evelyn discovered upon arriving at her apartment after she’d spoken to Mickey on Wednesday morning. With only an urgent need and no real design in mind for how to clear her own apartment, Lily with Justin’s help had simply moved anything she didn’t intend to throw away into Evelyn’s apartment across the hall. While they had done a marginal amount of packing—including emptying shelves and cupboards into boxes still standing opened and scattered absolutely everywhere—they’d added exponentially to the chaos by cramming the entirety of Lily’s meager belongings haphazardly into Evelyn’s. It followed then that instead of spending her mornings and early afternoon
World of Tomorrow 121: Harrowing Incidents
With an exasperated huff and a muttered curse, Andrew jerked his head down the stairs and towards the older apartment's lobby. “Let’s go then, Officer Morgan, if you’re going.”At his urging, Evelyn took the remaining steps to the ground level while he pulled on his coat and then followed. She didn’t resist when he cupped her elbow, steering her past the wall of tenant mailboxes near the lobby door and the short flight of external stairs that would take them to the street level. While she was disappointed to be denied even this brief bit of normality and time alone with Andrew, she could hardly fault Will Morgan for his staunch dedication to the duties assigned him.Perhaps he was a bit over-zealous. After all, since Edward Montero's death over the summer, there'd been little else of any threat. Sure, strange people and stories had surfaced, but even the contact from Miranda Stiles hadn't been dangerous. And she had to admit, the poor fell
World of Tomorrow 122: Fears
“Oh! There you are!” Mary exclaimed as Will shoved his way around the door to Evelyn’s fourth floor apartment, each arm laden with a brown paper sack of groceries. “We were beginning to—what on earth happened!?”With Andrew supporting her, Evelyn limped her way into the tiny kitchen of her apartment. Before she could even pull out a chair to sit down, the rest of her ‘guests’ came flooding in to see what the hullaballoo was about. Besides Mickey and Tank, she was fairly certain she saw every other tenant residing in the building standing on tiptoe and bobbing left and right, trying to get a look at her.“Ladies,” Andrew pushed further into the room, arms wide and herding them backwards into what had formerly been her living room, “if you please. We just need a few minutes to get settled, then if you’ve all haggled to your heart’s content, we’ll get started moving furniture.”
World of Tomorrow 123: From Friday to Monday
With all the windows in the entire apartment thrown open wide to let in the cool night air, Evelyn slumped on the edge of a windowsill. Nearby, an exhausted Mary occupied the dressing table’s stool. Through the kitchen, they heard the return of Andrew, Will and Tank. “We did this wrong,” an exhausted Will said around his hard panting breaths as they entered the former living room in search of the two women. Andrew chuckled mirthlessly, crossing the mostly empty room to perch on the windowsill beside his wife. “Oh, now you tell me.” “Yeah,” Will continued, easing himself to the recently swept and mopped floor, then laying out, spread-eagle, with a low groan. “The stuff that had to go the furthest, we should have taken first. While we were fresh.” “I don’t know. I still think taking the stuff that was heaviest first was a wise move.” Lifting Mary, Tank took the dressing table stool then pulled her onto his lap in an intimate, possessive way. “Th
World of Tomorrow 124: Absolved
Tossing the folded piece of paper on the table, Detective Kelly pivoted and faced the two plain-clothes policemen. “Get her out of here.” “How dare you!” Andrew’s chair tipped backwards onto the floor with a loud smack as he vaulted to his feet and began shoving at the men attempting to arrest his wife. “I’ll have your badge for this!” “Mr. James, I can assure you if you don’t get out of the way, we’ll add resisting arrest to the extensive list of charges your wife is facing,” Detective Kelly surged into the fray of struggling men. “Maybe we’ll take you downtown too for aiding and abetting.” “The hell you will! Who do you think gave you that information!? Surely, you can’t be this idiotic! Why would we give you something that incriminated either of us!?” Still struggling to hold off the three men, the larger Andrew snarled, infuriated, “Get your hands off of my wife!” While Evelyn cringed over the table, frantically trying to scrape the papers they’d
World of Tomorrow 125: Unexpected
“Peter!” The shout was accompanied by loud clapping, as if somehow this would encourage some sort of hustle in the boy who loathed the onset of winter weather almost as much as Evelyn did. “Come on, kid! Get a move on or we’ll be late.” With a patient sigh, Evelyn pushed one of the folded mirrors on her dressing table to an angle where she could see Andrew buttoning his shirt behind her. “It’s far too early for it to be this busy in this two-bedroom apartment,” she groused. “He’s talking to a six-year-old boy about getting ready for school, not offering rousing locker room coaching to an entire football team after a bad first half.” Andrew tipped his head back and laughed heartily. “I hadn’t realized it was making you so moody, darling,” he managed once he’d reigned in his mirth. I’ll talk to him this morning about keeping his encouragement to a more manageable volume, but quite frankly, I’m content to tolerate a few loud mornings rather than have to
World of Tomorrow 126: Antagonized
“What did you say?” With a frightened squeak, Evelyn startled violently, dropping the empty matchbook and stumbling backwards. She crashed into her rolling chair, falling awkwardly into a sit as Andrew darted forward to catch her. Once she was stable again, they both looked up to find Will standing in the outer office doorway, his molten caramel eyes boring a hole into them. “Oh, Will!” she clutched her throat with one hand. “I’m so out of practice, I didn’t hear the lift chime. You startled me.” Accepting Andrew’s proffered hand, she stood. “Obviously and I’m sorry.” The former police officer spared a quick glance around the outer office as he entered slowly. His gaze flicked to the view from window to window, over the fine carpets, furnishings and drapes before he craned his neck to get a look into Andrew’s office. With an appreciative brow arched, he met his employer’s unusual blue eyes, darker than his wife’s and as oddly variable in shades from b
World of Tomorrow 127: Ambiguities
The silence hung like a thick soupy fog in the library after Octavia James made her undignified exit. Outside, the rain had begun again in earnest and the patters of fat drops against the window glass, the regular ticking of the mantle clock, and the crackle of the fire seemed to come from a distance through it. Almost as if they’d been tamped down and muffled by the tension that still coiled, wraith-like and terrible, into every corner of the large room. It vied for the most uncomfortable aspect of this whole confrontation with the echoes of Andrew and Octavia’s cruel words. Above the rush of blood past her ears, Evelyn could scarcely hear anything else, but her eyes were fixed to Andrew’s profile, slowly relaxing into its usual handsomeness after being contorted with fury. She ached for him, truly, because no matter how much he hid behind that stoic façade, she knew him as a man who felt profoundly—his love was no less fierce than his anger, his joy no less intense than his sadness.
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