Miradey

Under Advisement

Golden characters etched the palms of Ben's soft gloves as he shifted one stack of gold coins. They glowed softly as each coin passed between his fingertips. The sums were written by the drifting quill in the accounts ledger in front of him. Rote but a necessary task. At least his gloves were very pleasant-feeling against his skin.

It was after lunch that it happened. A woman wrapped in tawny furs strolled into Kinshara Gold & Trust like she owned the place. Her black hair was pressed into a simple but elegant coiffure of bun and bangs. Heels clicking, she walked right pass three different clerks in the pleasantly quiet hall and walked right over to his desk, stepping up to the high counter. It was last person he wanted to see there, especially since his thirty-eighth birthday passed.

"You can't even greet me properly?" Renita Stargel-Orion said haughtily. "It hasn't been so long that you've forgotten your mama's face."

"Ma'am," he said as patiently as possible though he couldn't keep the annoyed lift out of his tone, "how may I help you?"

She tossed her head and sighed impatiently.

"Withdrawing five bars, please."

Ben had no idea what his mother was going to do with five bars of gold but it wasn't his concern. His only job was to verify her account, record the transaction, and get it for her.

"Your emblem, ma'am."

A manicured hand adorned in gold rings reached into the furs and passed a polished, finely crafted stamp engraved in gold characters across the desk.

He and mother had gone their separate ways long ago though they still chatted from time to time and saw each other on holidays. Or on occasion such as this moment when they "ran into each other" and she felt the need to remind him he was too old to be unattached and without children of his own. They mostly only shared blood and the Orion name now.

Freed witches sometimes took the surname of their slavers in accordance with the European way they had been broken to. Others named themselves or sought to revive the lost kinship bonds and structures, naming ways and family lines of their ancestors. Ben's family, like several others after being liberated, followed a tradition of naming themselves after the stars. Since they didn't know the tongues of their ancestors, they learned English words for heavenly bodies. Even if it was in the slaver's tongue, at least the star naming tradition was in keeping with lost Afric lore from the Old World which the so-called New World and its order had virtually stamped out. It was how the Orions came about. Some of their people thought the naming tradition lofty and overly grand but Ben liked finding this lost bit of his heritage. Even if his mother lived up to the idea some of her neighbors had that it made them snooty.

As Renita pulled out her wallet from somewhere inside the furs, Ben marked his withdrawals ledger with the emblem. Stamping the paper with it, though the stamp was inkless, marked it with the necessary information. He slid the bars across the desk along with her emblem. Hoping but knowing this wasn't the conclusion of their "business" today, he said—

"May I help you with anything else, ma'am?"

"You can help me to some grandchildren, boy," sniffed his mother, wrapping herself more snugly in her fluffy, comfy-looking furs.

"We've been over this. My loins don't exist for your whims. Now do you need anything else, or are you leaving."

Renita leaned over the desk on tiptoe and whispered, "There's a place you can go, you know. For romantic advice."

"Mama, I don't need romantic advice." Ben resisted rolling his eyes and set his hands back to counting.

"Listen, Benny." She said the word in that snappy way that made him wince inwardly, recalling how that word used to accompany a firm tug on the ear when he was not quite paying attention to her directions as a boy. "The books in this one part of the library are written by the fates. They show you your perfect match." Straightening, she looked at him exasperatedly. "Go to the library and find out who your match is. Unless you want to end up a lonely old man."