The Double Cult Cha-Cha: An Al Squires of the Protectorate Story (Book 1)

Ch. 14.1: Aunt Loraine's Lemonade

When I woke up the next morning, I got out of bed, took off the neural scanner helmet I used to update my holographic clone (I must have forgot to take it off when I went to bed again), went to the bathroom, took a quick shower, went back to my room, then spent a few minutes choosing which T-shirt to wear. I was feeling philosophical today, so I decided to pick my orange 'Plato's Cave Search and Rescue Team' tee.

I left my room to go downstairs for some breakfast. Just as I left the room, I could hear Norah and Ky talking and laughing all the way downstairs.

"No, no, sweetness. You misunderstand me," I heard Ky say with a chuckle as I got to the top of the stairs, catching them in the middle of a conversation. "The Enlightened aren't frogs."

I peered down from the top of the stairs when I reached it, and saw Norah, sitting in the same place at the table the night before. Instead of the dress she wore, she was wearing one of the more conservative of Ky's kimonos.

"I know," Norah said with a small shrug, "I was trying to make a joke." The way she said it made me think that she didn't.

I went a few steps downward to see that she was talking to Ky, who was still in her kimono and with colorful oven-mitts on, in the kitchen making breakfast. Well, she usually orders out when she doesn't have the time to cook; and when she does cook, it's with Magick. But, hey, it still counts, technically. She probably wanted Norah to think that she was going the extra mile for her.

"I meant that they are a more...metaphysical kind of amphibious," Ky continued as I slowly went down the stairs, seemingly unaware of my descent. "Just as the amphibian can live on land and water, so too can the Enlightened traverse the worlds of Matter and Mind. Even if they be from one world, or the other."

I cleared my throat to make my presence known to them. They both looked over to my current location.

"Of course," I said as I made it at the foot of the stair, "that's just one thing an Enlightened Magick-User can do, out of a myriad of strange and wonderous feats. At least, that's what is said."

"Morning, darling," Ky said cheerfully with an oven-mitt covered wave to me, before moving around the kitchen once more. "You're just in time for breakfast. I know that we don't normally make a big to-do about breakfast on a weekday, but I wouldn't be a good hostess if I didn't treat our guest with something good to eat."

"You do realize that she's under protective custody, right?" I asked her. "She's not on vacation."

"Oh?" she said before stopping what she was doing and putting a hand on her hip. "And I suppose that means she has to make to with the same thing cops eat for breakfast. Bad coffee and stale doughnuts?"

I was about to correct her for so many reasons that question was inaccurate, but my stomach didn't have the patience for them. "You know what? Never mind," I said with a sigh. "What's for breakfast?"

"Organic apples and cinnamon oatmeal," she said as she moved around the kitchen, "low-fat multigrain blueberry muffins from the bakery nearby, turkey bacon, fresh orange juice, and good coffee."

I scoffed as I got to the table my seat at the table. I looked over to the table to see the muffins in a box and the orange juice in a pitcher on it; along with the table was neatly set for three.

"My roommate, the health food nut," I said facetiously to Norah as I pulled out my chair.

"Now, don't start with that again, Nicky," Ky said as she walked out of the kitchen, carrying a big bowl of oatmeal with a big spoon sticking out with her colorful oven-mitts. "You knew what you were getting when we divvied up the responsibilities when we first became roommates, and I became in charge of the food. No processed foods or sugars are coming through our threshold while I'm in charge." She put the bowl down when we all could reach it, then looked over to Norah and smiled. "Don't mind him, cutie," she says to her, "He always gripes like that, but he never means it. He even likes my choices."