Chapter 12: Roanna

For a second, I was too shocked to answer. The flame was still glaring as bright as the sun, and in the center of it stood an angry looking woman in lavender colored robes and practically dripping in jewels.

“Roanna!” squeaked Yvette.

Rufus’s ex-wife! My stomach dropped lower than the soles of my feet. I blinked a bunch of times until my vision became much less blobby.

“What are you still doing here, rodent?” Roanna said. She turned to me, a sneer pulled across her otherwise lovely face. “And who are you?”

I stared like a dimwit.

Rufus’s bare feet thudded down the stairs.

Yvette smacked my arm. “Tell her who you are!”

“I-I-I’m Coralie. We were just—”

“Trespassing,” said Rufus, holding up the key we’d left in the bedroom door. “How did you find this?”

“Well you know, Rufus, maybe if you didn’t assume that people were so stupid all the time,” Yvette said.

“What does that mean, you disrespectful vermin?” he shouted.

Yvette gasped, indignant.

“Never mind. I’ll deal with you two later.” He pointed at Roanna. “And you are not supposed to be here, either.”

“Maybe I missed your handsome face,” she purred.

“You don’t miss any part of me,” Rufus growled.

“Fine,” she said. “I came to check on your little problem.”

“How on Ransara do you know about that?” Rufus said. “Did you have something to do with it?”

“Darling, I created that pendant you were desperately trying to recover,” Roanna said. “And then some miscreant pickpocket managed to steal it away from me. So, I did some magical-object-tracking of my own. Surprise, surprise, here it was. That over-educated nerd Addison made it next to impossible, might I add.”

“Hey, Addison isn’t a nerd,” I said.

“Why don’t you shut up,” Roanna said.

“This is an outrage,” Rufus said. “I have three trespassers in my laboratory. Everybody clear out, now.”

Roanna’s flame guttered to darkness. We all followed Rufus upstairs to the kitchen.

“Are we in trouble, darling?” Roanna smirked.

Rufus slammed his fists into the table. Roanna and Yvette were unaffected by the noise but I jumped a mile. Obviously, I was the only one unaccustomed to his outbursts.

“I cannot believe I was woken up for this,” he said. “Everybody sit down. You all owe me explanations.”

Roanna sat primly on one of the kitchen chairs, where we gathered around the table. It had the same screaming faces theme as much of the other furniture in the house. “I miss this kitchen table set,” she said running her fingertips over the glossy black wood. “I should have insisted on taking it, too.”

“You took enough,” he said.

She peered at him through a fringe of dark lashes. “Not nearly as much as I would have liked.”

Rufus shifted in his seat. “I’ve had enough of that topic to last me another lifetime. What are you doing here?”

“I’ve told you already,” Roanna said, twisting one of the many gleaming rings that adorned her fingers. “You have a problem you can’t solve in your laboratory, and I wanted to see it for myself.”

“It isn’t anything I can’t handle on my own,” Rufus said.

“No, you can’t,” she said.

Rufus stared daggers at her. “I can fix it. I just need more time.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Roanna said.

“Are you calling me incompetent?” he said. “Remember who conjured the undead legion Zhirkhux to fight against the fire imps that escaped the giant crevasse at Mount Ximmolur?”

She rolled her eyes. “Do I have to hear that story again?”

His nostrils flared. I thought he was going to strangle her.

“There were throngs of those vile little monsters swarming down the volcano, incinerating everything they touched,” he said. “Entire forests burned, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t,” Roanna said, inspecting a lock of her curly hair. “You wouldn’t let me.”

“How about crimes I’ve helped solve interviewing deceased people? None of that ever counted. You know, that’s part of why I started hating you,” Rufus said, his knuckles turning white. “You’re a selfish hag who never gave me credit for my achievements.”

“And you spent half our marriage in a dingy basement, too busy playing with dead things to appreciate a woman of my talents,” she sneered.

“How about all the precious time you spent with my cousin on your special projects?” he said.

Roanna looked down her nose at him. “Harte was better company than you ever were. In more ways than one.”

My stomach clenched at the sight of re-lived anguish, shame, and betrayal on Rufus’s face.

“What are you staring at?” he snarled at me.

I wanted to disappear under the floor, so I didn’t have to hear or see the rest of this argument. What if they fought all night? What if they killed each other in the process? I just wanted to go home and see Addison.

Yvette drummed her tiny pink paws on the table as if bored by the conversation. “That was a low blow, if you know what I mean.”

“Shut up, rodent,” Rufus and Roanna snapped.

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She put up her paws in mock surrender. “I give up. I’m going to bed.”

Before she could even turn around, Rufus grabbed her by the tail. “Not so fast, ratty.”

“OW, HEY!” she squealed.

“Stop, you’re going to hurt her!” I said.

“You’re killing me!” Yvette squeaked, suspended in midair by her tail. She chittered and scrabbled frantically with her arms.

Roanna snickered. The woman was a migraine in human form.

“You have yet to explain what you and the other brat were doing in my laboratory,” he said.

“Yvette brought me a key,” I blurted. “Now can you put her down?”

“Go on,” he said, gesturing with the hand that held Yvette’s tail.

“I’m gonna be sick,” she moaned. “There’ll be bug guts all over you if you don’t watch it.”

“I left my gloves down there,” I said. “Please, can you put her down now?”

Rufus plunked Yvette onto the table. She smoothed out her fur and examined her tail for damage. There wasn’t.

“You could’ve really hurt me,” she scolded.

He opened his mouth to reply when Roanna cut in. “Where is the pendant?”

He glowered and crossed his arms. “It’s locked away.”

“Let me see it.”

“Absolutely not.”

Roanna gave an exaggerated sigh. “Darling, please. You don’t even know how to use it.”

“I know enough and I am not your darling anymore.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You are clueless.”

“You keep turning up like a bad copre coin,” said Rufus, his lip curled.

I wondered if there had ever been a time when they didn’t fight.

Rufus turned to me. “You haven’t gotten around to telling me why you needed to use my restricted magical equipment?”

I stared like an idiot. “What restricted magical equipment?”

He glowered. “All of it, but specifically the Chimbrelis.”

I started to ask how he knew but instead I explained my plan to call the emergency line.

“You have to admit, darling,” Roanna said to Rufus, “that for a witless child who doesn’t seem to have any sort of powers--”

“I’m not witless,” I said. “You don’t even know me.”

“What a shame. I was just about to compliment you on your boldness, but I shall call you foolish instead,” Roanna said. “I seem to be surrounded by fools.”

“You might try holding your tongue,” Rufus said to me. He turned to Roanna. “As for you. There isn’t a single reason for you to be here and I’m tired of being insulted, so you can go.”

“Shouldn’t you be used to her insults by now? I thought you would’ve developed some sort of immunity to them,” Yvette said.

Rufus hissed ferociously at her, sending her scuttling with a shriek across the smooth wood. She slid off the side and landed on the floor, clambered back up, and hissed back.

I waited for Rufus to destroy her right there where she stood in a fighting stance, her tiny pink hands balled into fists. She reminded me of a cartoon drawing I saw once in a newspaper of two dogs in a boxing ring.

Instead, Rufus did his trademark cackle. It made Yvette even angrier.

“After everything I’ve done for you, and you toss me off the kitchen table like a moldy potato,” she hissed.

“What have you done for me, you little rat?” Rufus said. “Given me allergies, spread your hair everywhere?”

Yvette’s nose quivered. “I haven’t done any of those things. You haven’t sneezed once since I got here, and I hardly ever shed.”

“You’re forbidden from using the Chimbrelis,” Rufus said to me.

“I would’ve used your phone but Yvette told me it was broken,” I said.

“We were getting a lot of calls from people looking for a restaurant with almost the same number as ours, but was one digit off,” said Yvette. “Ruddy got sick of hearing it ring all the time so he ripped it out of the wall and smashed it.”

“Who’s Ruddy?” I said.

An ear-splitting door slam and the clamor of rattling chains erupted from the laboratory. Nobody jumped except me. Then an eerie noise that resembled somewhere between someone getting sick to their stomach while screeching, moaning, and howling at the same time sounded up the laboratory stairs.

Yvette clapped her paws over her ears. “Oh no, he’s awake.”

“You still have that thing?” Roanna asked in an acidic tone.

Ruddy, whoever that was, barf-screech-howled again and made more slamming noises.

“Curse you, Ruddy!” Rufus said, dragging his hands over his face in consternation.

       

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