#ex from hell

Nådegåva (The Charism) [Norwegian, YA] Marje Anna is 16 years old and ready to get out of her tiny, isolated shithole of a town in the far north where nothing ever happens. After catching her boyfriend with her best friend at a party, she curses him out in front of everyone. Rumors spread fast and when he ends up in a freak accident, the whole town knows she is responsible. She has The Gift, just like her grandfather who could stop blood and her father who gave his life to the sea.

It does not matter how many times Marje Anna tells people she does not have any kind of gift, capital letter or not. People start avoiding her in public, but ask for her help in secret. Her paranoid and superstitious principal runs for mayor to reinstate the witchcraft laws and now the new policeman wants her to solve an old murder case where her father was the main suspect.

Rot [English, Horror/Fantasy]

A rotten skeleton is freed after centuries chained to a broken throne at the bottom of a toxic lake as part of a prophecy to help the second-born son of a duke find true love. Unfortunately, the skeleton does not even remember who it once was, and they go on an adventure to restore it back to its old self and might bring along the end of days in the process.

The Ex from Hell [English, Romantasy]

The gates to the Manor stood wide open, as inviting as a Venus Fly Trap, and a steady stream of black-clad people trickled in on the white paved walkway. Too many people for it to be normal, and my neck prickled as I trailed along to the main entrance. It was not until I reached the double set of doors and caught a glimpse of the inside that I realized what was going on.

This was a damned wake.

The front drawing room held no less than three caskets, each one drowning under a mountain of flowers and cards. Surrounded by a variety of people, all dressed to the nines in deep, rich black, drinking from long-stemmed glasses and gossiping as if their lives depended on it. Which it often did.

Distracted by the caskets, I entered the Manor and failed to appreciate that it had been almost ten years since I last stepped foot in these halls. A step was all I managed before a hard claw of a hand gripped my arm and yanked me to the side, sending me into a darkened hallway that used to be part of the servant’s entrance.

“What,” Kathy hissed less than an inch from my face, “in the name of all goddesses are you wearing?”

“Clothes.” I tore my arm loose and straightened my sweatshirt from where it had ridden up. “I didn’t realize there was a dress code, but I might have if you’d have told me there was a damned wake going on!”

“Like you would have come if you knew.” Kathy sneered and looked over my shoulder to ensure our conversation had not caught anyone’s attention. “And there is always a dress code, as you are well aware. You must change at once before any of the Aunties see you. Surely, you must have something appropriate.” Her flickering eyes returned to me and traveled the entire length of my body twice as if they could not come to terms with reality on the first go. “Where are your belongings?”

“Stashed them at a fr—” I bit my teeth together and tried again. “Stashed them with someone I know. I’m not staying, Kath. You said you needed my help, fine, I’m willing to listen. Doesn’t mean I’m moving back in.”

“Then where will you stay, hm? Battered women’s shelter, maybe?”

While she probably hoped I would flinch at her brazen question, a heavy rush of blood flew to my face. Heating up my cheeks in the prolonged shame that still accompanied the memory of that night when everything had gone wrong. When I had betrayed my then-husband so violently. “No.”

Kathy gave the impression of waiting for me to elaborate but did a little impatient eye-roll when I did not. “Fine. You will have to borrow something of mine. You’re fortunate that oversized garments are still in vogue.”

The hair on the back of my neck raised with every step I trailed after Kathy down the familiar hallways. A primal part of me that screamed of danger, like the walls would close in behind me and trap me in there forever. My fingers twitched, aching for the comforting motion of lighting a cigarette, and I stuffed my hand into my jean pocket for the little stupid key tag and clutched it so hard the plastic dug into the soft parts of my palm. It always started with craving just a cigarette.

For some reason, I had expected Kathy to lead me to the room we had shared as teenagers, but she veered into another corridor and opened the door to one of the suites. Like an extension of Kathy herself, the room was decorated in muted extravagance and smelled faintly of incense. She wasted no time and stalked into the walk-in closet that might as well have been a portal into a midnight realm — every single object in there, from belt to shoe to garment, was black. Which was no surprise, but I had never appreciated how stupid it looked before.

“Here.”

She thrust some hangers at me and waved me behind a privacy screen to get changed. Even with the oversized fit, I barely got the black pants over my hips, and my squishy belly spilled slightly over the stretchy waistband. Not for the first time in these last months, I grabbed the excess flesh on my stomach and jiggled it, fascinated by how it moved separately while also being a part of me. The same went for my breasts, fuller than ever before and potentially spilling over my fingers when I cupped them like I had been longing for ever since hitting puberty. I had been many things in my life, but soft had never been one of them. The matching sweater hung looser on my frame and covered up both my belly and hips, which, for some reason, made the insides of my chest itch a bit.

The second I stepped out from the screen, Kathy handed me a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of sunglasses, claiming we did not have time to do anything about my hair or face other than hide them. Which was fine by me, to be honest — the mortifying ordeal of being perceived and all. 

“This will have to do,” Kathy said after viewing the full outcome of her work. Her small mouth pursed in contempt. “I suppose. Come now.”

She took a different route on the way back to the front hall, leading me down the grand hallway with the portraits of the ones who came before us glaring down from every angle. Subtlety was not Kathy’s forte, but I still pulled the brim of my hat down to avoid looking at the long line of disappointed women from centuries past. 

“Who are they?” I asked, referring to the caskets when we emerged unscathed and weaved between the crowd of guests attending the wake. Some of the other guests gave me a curious glance, but it had been too long for anyone to recognize me now. Unlike Kathy, I did not look remotely the same as when I lived here. “Why are the caskets closed?”

“Cousins,” Kathy said easily, barely returning the respectful nods people sent her. “All recently graduated. And the caskets are closed mostly because of the flies.”

My eyebrows raised above my sunglasses, hiding in the hat instead. “The flies? Aren’t they embalmed?”

“Extensively so.” Her words came perfectly clipped from her doll-like mouth, and she gestured towards the closest casket. “Alas, to no avail.”

At first, I didn’t understand what she wanted me to do. A photograph stood on the long side of the casket, depicting a striking young woman with strawberry-blond hair and almost non-existent eyebrows. Familiar in a strange way and as I leaned in to read the name engraved on the plaque, half covered by dangling leaves from all the bouquets, I heard the buzzing. Granny had kept bees out by her summer house, and I had helped her tend to them when I visited. My favorite thing was to put my ear to the deceivingly dormant hive and listen to the insane activity inside. 

This was much like that. While the casket lay dead and still on the pedestal, the insides were alive with what had to be thousands of flies. If not more. So many that the wood vibrated against my palm, and the prickle in my neck came back with a vengeance. Lost in the buzzing and overwhelming smell of all the flowers, I dragged my hand along the first casket to the next one and the next one. All three filled to the brim with the droning of flies. I looked up to Kathy to ask her what the hell had happened to these girls but found a pair of vultures staring at me instead. 

“You know, for a second, I was actually happy to see you, Kath.” I left her standing in the hallway that was under constant maintenance and always smelled of paint, and I trudged up the stairs. All too aware of how my steps made the old wood creak with discomfort and remained mum when Cousin Kathy flittered up to follow me. “Not surprised, though. Figured it was only a matter of time before one of you showed up to gloat.”

“I wish I was here to gloat.” Like the rest of her, Kathy’s voice felt foreign in the somber house. Too thin and too sharp, like a stiletto dagger piercing the delicate ecosystem within the walls. Disrupting the relative peace of people like me just existing. Shuffling around and doing their chores, trying to get one day to turn into the next. Kathy kept her hands inside her coat pockets and gave the impression that if she’d had a handkerchief, she would have held it over her nose and mouth. Like she had entered a phthisis ward and not a sober living facility. “Alas, I have come for more serious business.”

If the house was a sanitorium, my room was the plague pit. Kathy visibly recoiled when entering, the bare landlord-white walls and naked linoleum floors apparently too much for her sensitive disposition. I would be the first to admit that it was not much to look at — a bed, a nightstand, a desk, and a chair — but it was clean and organized, all of my meager belongings safely tucked away in the closet. Orange floral curtains, probably donated by a previous resident, covered the windows, and I could picture someone adding the pop of color as an afterthought. Maybe hoping it would help brighten the place up and instead only emphasized the dreariness of the room.

I kicked off the soft slippers I wore indoors, sat cross-legged on the bed, which I made every morning before inspection, and gestured for Kathy to have the chair. It was the polite thing to do, after all. Seeing her squirm, caught between gentility and repulsion, was just an added bonus. She ended up perching on the very tip of the chair, trying to sit on it and not touch it at the same time, and folded her hands neatly in her lap.

It had been years since I last saw Kathy, and I knew those years had been less kind to me than her. Both in our early thirties, we looked roughly two decades apart. Some due to genetics, and the rest probably due to makeup and other kinds of camouflage.

It would be a tough sell to convince anyone about both our shared age and our relation, so opposite in every sense of the word. Kathy’s red hair swept around her face, so perfectly blown out it belonged on the cover of a magazine. In contrast, my curly locks hung limp around my face, scrubbed of all volume and shine from the industrial-strength shampoo provided in the communal showers. And while Kathy’s skin could be described as porcelain, white, and smooth, I was more like an old tablecloth, pale and riddled with mysterious spots. Only our eyes were alike, light gray and unblinking, with one pupil slightly bigger than the other.

“So, what’s new?” I leaned back on the bed where my gray sweatpants blended in with the bed sheets that had probably been white a couple of hundred washes ago. “What serious business brings you all the way across town?”

“We think it’s time you come home.”

Once, those words would have slapped me right into sobriety. Pity I had taken the hard way there instead. It cost every iota of self-control to keep still, to avoid bursting into laughter or tears or hysteria at those senseless, reckless words she had just uttered like she was commenting on the weather. That was Kathy for you, she did not beat around the bush.

“I am home.”

Kathy narrowed her eyes slightly, squinting in hopes of seeing me more clearly. As if her dear old grandmother suddenly had grown pointed ears and a mouth full of fangs. I did not move from my spot, biting my teeth together as hard as possible and hoping she did not see how my jaw tightened. It was not a lie, I reminded myself. Technically and legally, this was my home.

“You know what I mean,” Kathy eventually said as if daring me to contradict her. “We feel that now that you have served your sentence, you are ready to return to the Manor.”

“Which one?”

“There is only one Manor, Cousin.”

“No, no, I mean, which sentence are you referring to? My two-year stint in Pollwood or my lifetime banishment from our family?”

She stared at me while I stared back, neither of us blinking for an unnaturally long time. A game we had played as children and brought with us into adulthood. A game I had always excelled at, and sure enough, it did not take too long before a hint of a nervous smile played upon her doll-like lips. “Both.”

“Lifetimes sure aren’t what they used to be,” I said and kept staring unblinkingly at her to look for any clues. “What’s changed?”

Kathy’s little mouth pursed into a pin-prick before she answered, clearly choosing every syllable with care. “We need you back.”

“Need is not the same as want.”

“I never said it was.“ She rose from her chair, smoothed her hands over her coat, and nodded to herself. “A taxi will come around tomorrow at eight. That should give you plenty of time to pack and settle whatever affairs you might have.”

“Yeah, uhm, I’m not leaving.” I settled further in the bed, subconsciously emphasizing my words. “No matter when the taxi comes around, really. So you just run back to the Manor and let them know that, as far as I’m concerned, my lifetime is still rolling. I’d thank you for stopping by, but I won’t.”

Kathy paused, looking like a magazine clipping pasted into the trepid room. “You are aware that your accommodation is sponsored by our funding.”

Not a question, did not beget an answer and yet I failed to keep quiet. “My inheritance after Granny pays for my accommodation.”

“An inheritance that is managed by the family, as stipulated quite clearly in Grandmother’s will. A copy was sent your way, but I suppose you were too busy to bother reading it. Like you were too busy to attend her funeral.”

“Funerals are for the living,” I said, a mockery of the whole truth, but an acceptable substitute ever the same. “But I managed without your cash for about ten years. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Managed.” Kathy smiled, showing off teeth that seemed too large for her head. “I suppose you can call it that. But I don’t suppose you have a plan. Except maybe taking your ex-husband back to court, see if there’s a chance of reinstating the alimony? I would suggest hiring a proper attorney this time. He did get out of your previous deal quite fast. Just as the marriage itself.”

“So you have been keeping tabs on me all these years. Good to know. I don’t recall seeing your name on the registry for our wedding though. Not that you were invited, of course, but when has that ever stopped Katherine the Great?”

“Never.”

“Yeah. If you must know, I’d rather cut off my own arm than accept any kind of help from him again. And I would cut off my other arm rather than return to the Manor. You can quote me on that when you go back to kiss Hester’s ass.” As predicted, Kathy recoiled at my crude word choice. “Close the door on your way out, please.”

She remained immobile where she stood on the floor. “This is non-negotiable, I’m afraid.”

With a shrug, I picked up my phone and swiped through non-existing notifications to feign disinterest. “It often is with you guys.”

“You guys,” Kathy parroted and my neck prickled from the power of her stare. My phone screen flickered and went black, forcing me to look up at Kathy’s pinched face. “You guys. How many days do you have now?”

“Ninety-one.”

“Not those days.” Kathy swivelled back to face me, feet and hands together, like a ballerina. “Don’t give me that look, you know what I mean. Don’t make me ask you outright.”

“Like I said, it’s been about ten years now.” I tried to shrug, to give of the impression of ease, to distract from the way my teeth ground together. “So three thousand days, maybe, give or take.”

“Three thousand days since you practiced,” Kathy’s head tilted to the side, like a predator catching the distant pattering of prey, “or three thousand days since you tried?”

The strain from my jaw planted up to my temples, setting off thumps of a brewing migraine. “Yes.” We stared at each other, waiting for the other to blink, but now Kathy had the upper hand and she knew it. I swallowed the sharp edge in my throat. “No.”

Instead of the victorious smirk I expected, Cousin Kathy’s eyebrows softened and she gave a sad nod. “Come home, Harmony. We need you to come home now.”

“Why?”