MILY THE MILLENNIAL - Chapter 2

MILY THE MILLENNIAL | II. In Diana. Copyright 2021 by Kailey Ann. All rights reserved. This is the second chapter of a #metafiction novel by Kailey Ann, read aloud by the author. Discover more about this story at HEDERAREADS.COM.

II. In Diana

Mildred Junegrass Womack-Yoder vividly remembered tripping into that fateful patch of Pitcher’s thistle. Reliving every moment was how Mily ultimately became convinced that the bugs in her brain weren’t just figments of her imagination.

In fact, everything that had happened since she lost near half her marbles in the overgrown grass really did happen. It was exactly a month since Mily turned eight, and she’d gotten to know the bugs a bit in the days leading up to the Twins’ birthday.

As a matter of fact, that very afternoon Mily had finally decided on a name for the critters, since E had forbidden her from ever speaking the word queeries until she heard it said. And besides, fashioning them a new name made Mily feel better about the fact that the Clairs had given her magical powers.

“We like Harvest Road, we got a good piece ’a land here. Built the house smack in the middle of the moraines. See those marshy ponds? They get real pretty with the willows and all the cattails. Yup, four’n a’quarter acres. There’s a big treeline separate’n us from the farmer’s field. Trees ain’t technically ours, but we let the kids play in the woods anyway…”

Mily thought her best power was overhearing. The Clairs had taught her how to keep hold of the sound of someone talking even when they were a long ways off. Mily was in the kitchen snacking on cinnamon applesauce while Bird iced the Twins’ birthday cakes, yet she could hear Dog cutting-up with someone who’d parked at the edge of their front yard – in a black car Bird said she’d never seen before.

Bird had baked two cakes and cut them both down the middle, mix-matching the sides so that each twin would have their own half-and-half cake. Chocolate and angel food were Esa and Eyani’s mutual favorites, and because Bird was of a mind that the Twins had to share too much of everything, she often found ways to make her niece and nephew feel special.

Mily daydreamed while watching her mom decorate the cakes with doubly thick layers of buttercream icing. She noticed that Bird had already counted out sixteen candles from her surplus in the junk drawer. The Twins were turning eight too.

She took her mom’s fixed concentration as an opportunity to practice sightseeing. Mily found that when she gazed down somebody else’s line of sight, the Clairs sometimes let her see glimpse from that person’s point-of-view.

She tried it out right there in the kitchen, but Bird’s gaze kept jumping to the front door, probably because she was as curious about the Stranger outside as Mily was. But Bird’s sightline was shifting so much that when Mily tried to share the view, her eyes kept getting crossed.

The instant headache made Mily decide Bird might not be the best person to test out the Clairs’ powers on.

Mily would’of been willing to bet that the Stranger was somebody her dad knew from work. Dog was a Jack, and anyone with a Face was bound to have an important job. In any case, Mily knew that was true for Dog at least.

The Great Marsh of Diana ran on renewable energy now, and Dog said meant all the old gas-electric and steel facilities had to be renovated. According to him, the old factories and ports were being converted to serve a new purpose. It was Dog’s job was to grow the grass.

Bird always said all Dog had to do was ask and the grass would grow. Mily knew there was more to it than that though. She remembered the drowned towns left after the Hundred Year Flood. Mily’d even seen her dad cast his special grassroot nets along one of Diana’s many muddied disaster zones. Bird had wanted Will and Mily to see how their dad’s grass had sprung up and stabilized the whole stretch of woodland watershed. Mily would never forgets how the puddly landscape she remembered had turned so audaciously green thanks to Dog’s seeding techniques.

Near everyone said that Mily’s dad was the best Jack in the trade. But the adults were often saying things like an honest to goodness Spadesman was hard to come by.

“You could say I was born a Spade,” she heard Dog say to the Stranger still standing at the edge of their yard. “But I ain’t been a Jack long, so forgive me for put’n it blunt but – What exactly can I do for you?”

Before the Stranger responded to that, Bird hooted and alerted Mily to the sound slow-rolling tires pulling onto driveway.

Mily flew to the front door floor-to-ceiling windows and saw her aunt and uncle’s car hobble to a crawl before it stopped at the foot of the drive. Eyani and Esa leapt out of the car speedwalking. They rushed around the arc of the flowerbeds and landed on the front porch where Mily was waiting them inside the pane-glass foyer.

Emjay!

Permission to teletalk?

Happy Birthday! But stand-by I’m busy.

Ten-four

The Twins grinned and hurried inside crushed red pepper colored door, happy to practice the telepathic etiquette they’d been cooking up for a month. The three kids were amazed at the ways their brains were connected these days, and they relished the chance to discuss any and all intel they gathered.

It was mostly boring adult stuff, with tidbits of information about upcoming plans and hints about birthday gifts sprinkled into conversations between Dog, Bird, Uncle Earn, and Aunt Elaeagnus from day to day. Eyani may’of been able to hear inside every brain in a room, but the way they tested Mily’s new abilities made it seem like the Twins thought E’s powers were old news or something.

Old news? Mily shook her head to clear the outrageous idea. What she would give to know what Dog was thinking right then, as her dad turned his back to the house and face to the road.

Dog didn’t surprise easy, but he was standing all tall and stiff and had his arms crossed, Mily thought perhaps untangling a thought...

She couldn’t figure it out. A funny feeling tickled the inside of her skull, and Mily gulped to try to shake it while the Clairs hyper-tuned to hear the Stranger explain, “Jack, I’m here to update you on the status of your rank and suit, sir.”

“My suit? You don’t mean to say...” Dog sounded confused. Her dad’s tone mirrored Mily’s on befuddlement at the Stranger’s words.

She was leaning with her left shoulder against the front porch pillar, trying to look casual to obscure the fact that she was eavesdropping, when all a sudden, Mily remembered vividly: Standing at the foot of a dam where a massive breach had been fixed; Dog got off a machine and greeted Bird, Will, and Mily on a staked-off walking path between broad swaths of seed-nets, when Will asked their how long the new break walls would last.

Mily remembered her dad had said something about how water and wind always win at the end of the day. That had prompted Mily to add that if water and wind would always win, well what was the point of pitching grassroots against the might of climate change?

Dog had just smiled at them under the turquoise brim of his ERATHEntact cap and replied, ‘Water’s gonna go wherever it can fill or flow, wind’ll cut everywhich way you can think, and well, rhyme-or-reason, grass grows long as it’s got what it needs.’

Mily blinked away the flashbacks as Aunt Elaeagnus arrived on the front stoop, giftbags hanging from her forearms also laden with four lidded glass dishes that smelled like dinner.

Mily sidestepped outside to avoid further crowding the foyer, thinking she could buy a few seconds more to listen when Bird showed up behind her to help Elaeagnus move all the food into the dining room. But just as soon as they’d moved past her, one of E’s mental pings brought her back to the present moment.

Mily your mom wants you!

Huffing, Mily heeded E’s warning and rushed inside the house, skipping into the connected kitchen-and-dining room where Bird was waiting for her to do something she couldn’t discern.

Mily’s cheeks burned. She realized had heard Bird call for her a couple of times, but she’d been preoccupied trying to overhear what Dog was saying to the Stranger outside… Bird might’ve said what she needed her daughter to do, but Mily must have missed it…

And now she had to admit it. Her ears blazed and she was furious with the Clairs for getting her lost in her own thoughts again.

Mily grit her teeth and held her breath, fuming in silence for a few seconds till she summoned enough gumption to look Bird in the eye and ask, “What did you say, Mom?”

“I asked if you could please help Aunt Elae set the table for nine?” Bird reiterated, pecking her consonants so they’d stick in her daughter’s ears.

“Who else is coming?” Esa asked as she and E followed Mily’s trail into the kitchen-and-dining room.

Mily sighed quietly and went to fetch her mom’s nice cloth napkins and cutlery from the china cabinet. The cabinet was stationed in a small corner alcove beside a sliding glass door that opened to the back porch. Grabbing a fistful of folded napkins and as many spoons as she could carry in one hand, Mily pinged, Eyani.

What’s up?

I think that guy outside might crash your birthday.

“Is that dude talking to Uncle Dog going to stay for dinner?” E asked a second later.

Aunt Elae smiled at Bird and said, “If you can follow suit...”

“You’ve got to follow suit,” Bird finished, shrugging.

Mily found both her mother’s tone and demeanor odd. What’s that supposed to mean? she asked E, who must have relayed her confusion to Esa because she looked right at Mily with bug-eyes and high-brows that reflected their mutual sense of ambiguity.

“Huh?” said all three kids together.

“Dad has a face now, remember Mily?” Will said, out from upstairs bedroom for the first time all afternoon. He cropped up between Eyani and Esa and squeezed them tight around the shoulders. “Happy birthday, you two.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mily demanded as the twins were saying thanks. Her ears were ringing again and a frustrated knot pulled her brows into a crease on her forehead. The Clairs’ impatience made Mily mad. Quit being so nosy, she told them, but more to convince herself that they were the busy-bodies.

“It means that your dad has more responsibilities now that he’s a Jack,” Bird answered while lifting a stack of porcelain plates from a kitchen cabinet. “And, evidently, subject to housecalls…” she added in an undertone to Elaeagnus, whose lips puckered like she might giggle.

Mily wasn’t satisfied with that answer, but she reminded herself that she was supposed to be setting the table and set to work. First she swept around the long rectangle table and dropped a napkin and spoon at each place setting. Then she unburdened Bird of her stack of plates before she could lay a single one on the maple tabletop.

As she was placing the last plate, Mily noticed that Will had shadowed her path and filled in the silverware she hadn’t had hands to carry the first time around. Will hadn’t said a word. Mily stared at her brother until he noticed and grinned back at her. He was always doing things like that; she hadn’t told him about the Clairs, but Will knew Mily better than anyone and was used to her getting distracted in the middle of doing just about everything.

Bird was giving the Twins’ birthday cakes a final sprucing when Mily’s ears perked up – She heard the telltale tread of her Uncle Earn’s steel-toed boots on the grouted tile floor and swung around to face him.

“Do I know you?” he asked her straight away, scrunching up his face and squinting.

Mily rolled her eyes but was beaming – Her uncle’s earnest teasing made him one of her favorite people on the planet, so she was always game to play along. “Don’t you know a fellow Yoder when you see one, Earney?”

His kids giggled at the thin line his mouth made for one instant – Mily smirked. That was the game, to see who could get under the other one’s skin first. She knew Earn Yoder didn’t like to be called Earney.

But it took more than that to shake her uncle up. “You listen ere, Junesass – Find me a great big piece a’cake, and I promise I won’t sick my Dog on yees.”

“He’s all bark!” Mily laughed.

“I hate to tell you this Bird,” Elaeagnus interjected, leaving Mily’s wit unacknowledged. “But I promised the Twins they could eat cake first.”

“So we’ll eat cake and have dinner after!” Bird proclaimed. “How about we sing and light candles out back since the table’s already set?” Then she smiled at Mily in that mom-ish way that said, Thank you for listening.

Everyone cleared a path for Elaeagnus and Bird while they transferred the Twins’ birthday cakes outdoors. Then they filed one by one through the sliding glass door, giving each other space enough to stand and stretch across the wooden deck. Earn walked behind Mily and gave her a hard pat on the shoulder. She didn’t look back but knew he could sense her smile. To distract herself from the Clairs’ whining, she asked E in thought, What’re you gonna wish for?

Wouldn’t you like to know!

Their mothers placed the cakes on an outer corner of a beautiful orange and blue beachglass patio table that Bird had helped Mily make for last year’s Art Fair at school. Since her dad was in charge of growing grass, he was always coming home with chunks and shards of rock and glass that needed some purpose. But plenty of the finer, sand-smoothed pieces were picked up by Mily or Bird while they wandered down the Great Lake shore or traipsed the singing sand mounds at Dune Park.

Mily was proud of the way it looked in the August evening light. The white crystalline bits shimmered just like the foamy crests of that lined waves. Their craftsmanship had achieved the same sense of froth as the actual beach, Mily thought. Under the golden hour, the blue glass was especially dazzling – Cerulean bokeh danced at all angles in a glittery mist of cobalt gleams, making it almost seem like the Twins’ sixteen birthday candles were already lit.

“We can’t do candles without Uncle Dog,” Eyani said, summoning them all back to the task at hand.

“We should go get him,” Esa added. “Or else E and me’ll be waiting on our wishes till September.”

Esa side-stepped on tiptoe in the direction of the steps, and E took a sweeping sideways stride to block and cover his sister from view.

“Hold your horses,” Elaeagnus said, and the Twins obeyed, standing up straight and leaning into each other’s shoulders. Mily got concerned when her aunt spoke again – There was a timid edge to her brow that usually only came about during a good thunderstorm. “Ought we not give him a minute or two more, don’t you think, Bird?”

When Bird didn’t respond, Elae’s gaze jumped to her husband’s, and Earn rolled his eyes in the same good-humored way he always did when he thought she had said something silly.

On your mark.

Eyani and Esa shot Mily knowing smirks.

Mily returned their expressions with an achingly cool air of confidence. Her eagerness was a stifling breeze, but that didn’t change the fact that it was always Mily they asked to do the running in times like this, when their heads were bent, patience near spent as sudden hunger settled over them. All eyes turned to the confetti sprinkles now morphing into the buttercream icing like watercolor.

Clock doesn’t start till Will says go, she told E, inching past the Twins to the edge of the deck.

Mily’d already slipped down the steps to the grass when, in exactly the sarcastic manner she expected, Earn said, “Time to earn yer keep, Junesass. Go’n getch yer dad, and his Keeper if he’s come’n... and say I may save him some cake if he hurries.”

Mily nodded to show that she understood her goal. Her sure-footed swiftness happened to be one of those weird things she lived for – To be counted as the fastest runner among them made Mily happier than just about anything.

“Want me to time you, Emjay?” Will asked her, thumb hovering over a button on his waterproof wristwatch.

“Pick a time for me to beat,” Mily suggested, picturing herself sprinting around the house and down the slope of the front yard towards the Stranger and deciding that wasn’t the sort of first impression she wanted to make on one of her dad’s coworkers. I’ll get him here in less than three minutes!

In your dreams Mildred

Keepers have all the time in the world

Don’t call me that!

Will’s pointer finger was poised to start the timer button on his big digital wristwatch. “Can you do it in under six minutes?”

Mily nodded – That’s fair.

“Ready? On your mark. Get set – Go!”

She took off full-sprint around the corner of the house, but the speed was really only for show. Time was going, but Mily knew she had enough to accomplish her goal and maybe even impress her brother a little...

Will liked to keep track of all kinds of scores and records for sports or competitions, and he had a massive collection of old trophies and trading cards which he often categorized and sorted all different kinds of ways, just for fun... Mily just liked to run.

She had no shoes on, so Mily let her stride lose gradual steam and stopped just around the bend and beyond eyesight of the others. From her new vantage in the sideyard, Mily could just see her dad and the Stranger still standing by the road. She bet her mom’s sunflowers were tall enough to hide her from view if looking Dog or the Stranger looked over – I’m invisible.

You’re right out in the open

Sure about that? Mily teased back, then frowned as her ears caught the tail end of Uncle Earn’s sentence:

“ – remind the man he’s cutting into family time.”

Mily paused and took a few steps closer to the garden path and settled into the shade beneath the sunflowers. Feeling topfull for time, she stretched a few more seconds to figure out what they were talking about back on the deck.

“Mily is fastest,” Esa seemed to defend, which made Mily listen harder.

“Well alright sure but if you sent Will to do that...”

“We might not light the Twins’ birthday candles till midnight!” Bird’s words sound like an attempt to temper all the fuss.

With something like a static tiny zap to her temples, Mily sensed that Eyani had something to say. But Elaeagnus spoke before E’s words had even formed in his head:

“A little girl’s presence is a powerful thing,” Aunt Elae said.

Mily frowned, unsure if that was true or not. Besides, nevermind all that: Mily was fastest. She beat Will to the end of the yard by a second-and-a-half flat over half of the time, and that was a fact. Dog said he’d done the math.

Bird was asking Will how much time had passed...

Mily shook her head and got back on track. Gathering herself to make a polite impression on the Stranger, she and the Clairs dialed back her back into Dog’s ongoing conversation...

“Like I was say’n,” Dog was saying. Something caught his eye, and he walked a few steps to his left and bent to pick it up. It was a tennis ball, sunbleached and weather-worn, evidently tossed and forgotten by one of them sometime back. Tossing the ball between his palms, Dog went on, “My daughter, now she just turned eight, and we only been here since she started school...”

I was five, Mily remembered. It was the summer she turned six, when the house was finished; the head stonemason let her mortar the last bricks in the pavement border on the garden path, not far from where she was standing.

Mily took a deep breath and stepped out of the shade, loping across the lawn so it would seem like a casual jaunt, and not like she’d just spent forty-two seconds eavesdropping on her father from flowerbed while on the clock.

“Hi Dad,” Mily announced right about when she knew they’d start to hear her footsteps crackling on the grass. The lawn was very dry, like brown lichen, covering wide sections of the moraines. Even on Mily’s tough kid callouses, some of the sunburnt patches were awfully prickly.

Dog was a self-acknowledged lollygagger, so he always knew right away when someone was only turning up to fetch him. “Well hey there,” he greeted her. “I reck’n everybody’s wait’n on me, huh?”

Mily tapped her left wrist as if she were wearing a watch. Times a waste’n, she conveyed with a tight-lipped awkward grin. She waited for Dog to introduce her to the Stranger like he always did, but instead her dad sent a sharp, short whistle through his teeth and tossed her the tennis ball.

She caught it but felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment anyway.

“Go on back up to the house Mily,” Dog told her. “And tell’m I’ll be right behind you.”

Because he so rarely used that tone, Mily took it seriously and obeyed Dog at once. Sort of nodding at the Stranger still standing at the edge of Harvest Road, Mily turned on her heel and jogged back to her place in the shade under the sunflowers.

Half-time in ten, nine, eight...

Stop counting – that didn’t go how I thought it would go so oh well. Mily’s chin fell to her chest as she suppressed a moan. But telling herself Dog said he’d be right along after her, Mily put away all thoughts of racing and stole a few more invisible moments beside the flowerbed, summoning her wits. Feeling rebalanced and ready to rejoin the celebration, Mily looked up.

And then she froze, clutching the old tennis ball like a stone.