The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles

Chapter 23| The Biscuit-Loving Cannibalistic Psychic

Desidonna's house looked more like a monster taking the shape of a house rather than an actual house. It was longer than it was tall. Some of the dirt-caked windows sported broken green shutters and heavy tan drapes. The walls sagged atop a despondent roof with low hopes of getting its shattered shingles repaired The wooden porch had turned a sick gray-green color from years of neglect. 

The porch itself fit Jippity's description: feather-feather jingly bells. Hanging on rusty hooks from the porch's ceiling dangled at least thirty wind chimes and dream catchers. Bright, colorful feathers were dull as they fluttered in the wind. Bells strung onto the end of forks, socks, and mugs jangled among the fray. Every square inch of the porch's surface was covered in odds and ends: gutted couches devoid of stuffing, overturned wooden chairs, mesh tanks, banana peelings, clocks with shattered faces, cotton swabs, old paint swatches.

Lilly and Max exchanged a glance when they got to the foot of the porch stairs.

"We have to try," Lilly said, partly because Max's expression said Are you sure?  and mostly because she was absolutely sure. "She's our one shot." 

"What makes you think you can get her to talk?"

"A lot of luck and an award-winning smile."

"I'm just here to make sure she doesn't eat any of your body parts, lobster-smelling abomination."

Lilly had learned through her study sessions with Wyx that psychics were not the most appreciated people in the Shifter World. The Bloom looked down on them, but because they didn't have the elemental magic that identified Shifters and were powerful, extraordinary beings with an armada of different clairvoyant magic, the Bloom wouldn't touch them. Lilly remembered scoffing when she had read this. "But they'll kill me just because I have different elemental magic than fire, water, or earth," she'd said. 

Wyx had replied, "While the Stem and half the higher-ups in the Bloom despise anyone who doesn't have Shifter magic, the Bloom only cares about Shifters without the classical elements and Acids. Acids want to take over the Bloom, most Shifters want a better Bloom, and everyone else operates out of their own government. So yeah, the Bloom wants to kill you because you run the risk of compromising their perfect little Shifters-with-classical-elements-only world. After Storm, after the Acids...they don't want to risk you." 

Lilly slammed the book closed in response. 

Now she and Max started up the porch steps, and everything was fine up until they made it to the fifth stair. Save for the eerie tinkling tune the wind chimes and dream catchers sang, the world around this little house was quiet, quiet. The sun shifted and fell through an opening in the overcast sky, casting a hazy gold glow over the porch.

Then the front door burst open and everything was not fine.

An old brown-skinned woman hobbled onto the porch. Her hair was peppered with gray, falling in shaggy twisted ends to her waist. She wore an ankle-length skirt composed of every possible fabric imaginable, from silk to wool to nylon, and wrapped around her huge waist was a belt of multi-colored feathers. She was heavyset and had to squeeze through the doorframe, and she might have had a kind face if she didn't currently look so furious.

She barked, "Lillian Cart Ci, stop walking right now."

Lilly and Max halted. A smile scratched at the corners of the psychic's lips. It was not an I-have-company-for-the-first-time-in-a-long-time sort of smile.

"I stopped," Lilly half-whispered, throwing up her hands in surrender. "Like you asked."

"I'm not blind. You cannot have my biscuits, you understand? The biscuits are for me and me only. Got it?"