Sera Ch. 24

"Shut up!" Auntie told her with a tolerant smile.

It only made Sheila and I laugh all the harder, but she continued to tolerate this with her smile, saying, "Sure. ... Yup... Laugh it up. ... Uh huh."

"I'm just saying," Auntie went on after we mostly stopped, "that she hasn't called a meeting in her den before and I think we can attach some dramatic meaning to that."

"Such as?" Sheila asked.

"I think Ash has as many questions as we do and..."

"What?" I asked.

She looked at me and imparted, "I have a funny feeling that, pretty soon, a lot of things are going to look very different to all of us."

Steven

My eventual dilution was something I thought about, but refrained from discussing. The trouble was that there was no more point in thinking about it than there would have been in talking to myself about it because there was nothing I could actually do about it. It's possible I only turned the issue over in my mind as an effort to become familiar with, or accepting of it, but that didn't sit very well either.

Needless to say, I wasn't in the greatest mood when I strolled from the apartment wing on my way to Aunt Ashleigh's den. Knowing the beautiful little tard would be in attendance didn't help, and I reminded myself to be on my guard, or to at least stick a telephone book down my shirt.

The awful thing was that she too, in time, would be moved to the side by her share of the Burchell family legacy. It seemed silly for us to be not getting along in light of this, but she wasn't aware of that alarming, most inconvenient truth yet.

One thing that was working out positively was Mum and Sheila. I was quite happy with how they were getting along and I remembered Ashleigh telling me how Mum could never be what I needed in a woman. Apart from the solid reasons she gave at the time, there was now this one as well, that she was obviously meant to be with Sheila and vice versa.

The tall, open doors of Aunt Ashleigh's den spilled warm light into the otherwise darkened upper level. The Chandelier itself was off, but I stopped at the railing anyway, checking my watch and seeing that I had no time to linger. Something was bothering me and it wasn't any one issue, but something in a larger sense, like a feeling of apprehension. After wanting the answers for so long, the ones I'd already been made privy to were almost overwhelming as it was and now, presumably, I was about to get a lot more. Well, what did I expect?

The most subtle tremble crept into my body, and I cursed my earlier decision to not get shitfaced for this meeting. The ironic reason for this was that I suddenly wanted to avoid giving my mother's other son any more power than I had to while I still had any at all.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I whispered dreadfully.

"It's alright."

" ... I could run."

"What?"

"Sure. I have the keys to the car and access to that laptop bag. Mum and everyone here would be just fine without me, and I could just go somewhere and have me a normal fuckin' life."

I didn't even reply. There was no need because Mum's other son knew as well as I did that if I wasn't found by Ashleigh's investigators, I'd only return of my own choice sooner or later anyway. Even before my eventual dilution, what kind of life could I have without them, without at least one person who I could be truly comfortable around? The truth was that Ashleigh's timing in reuniting the family was impeccable for everyone and there was no getting around the fact that this was where I needed to be.

"I'm fucked."

"Stop it."

I didn't answer, instead moved slowly for Ashleigh's den, the open threshold looming as another point of no return. The tremble got to my guts and threatened a cramp, but I set my teeth to it, straightening my tie and slicking my hair back, finally taking a deep breath before entering.

Stopping just inside the room, I found I was the last to arrive, Ashleigh sitting behind her desk and wearing one of her business suits, this one dark with light pinstripes and translucent. I could easily see her bright red bra and I wondered where in hell she got these outfits.

Kitten, sitting in a comfortable looking chair on the left of the room, wore a pair of burnished brown dress pants that fit her very well. (Everything fit her very well) Uncharacteristically, she also wore a coppery coloured, shiny blouse, but with a fair amount of visible cleavage. Most astounding was the fact that she was now blonde, her uncanny likeness to Sheila now complete and utterly stunning.

Both of them were intently watching Sheila and Mum, the two sisters sharing the red couch against the right wall. Mum was wearing a short, light blue sweater dress that looked more like something Sheila would wear while the ageless Elf Queen sported a thin, shiny, red metallic gown that reached her toes with a slit up the side that reached her hip. It was another sleeveless, exposed shoulders deal that showed absolutely no cleavage with a collar that ringed her throat.

As Kitten and Ashleigh watched, Mum held one of Sheila's hands in her lap, absently stroking the back of her finger as she smiled and spoke to her ear in low tones. Sheila looked happy enough to burst from her gown and wrap herself right around her little sister.

Then Mum actually noticed me, suddenly looking around in surprise to find the other two watching. However, she only addressed Ashleigh with a scowl that was the total opposite of what her features showed only seconds before.

"What are you looking at?"

"Christ almighty, Kathleen," Ashleigh complained, rolling her eyes and looking at me to add, "Welcome, sweetie pie. Please sit."

"Not beside me," Kitten immediately threw in.

Her expression had also changed and was, if anything, more hostile than my mother's and aimed at me.

"Kitten, please," Ashleigh diplomatically requested.

"He's a fuckwart."

The eldest Burchell sister forced back a sudden smile, her eyes glancing at me for an instant to say so clearly, "Well, she's got you there."

I looked away because there was no sense in arguing or standing up to kitten, and we all knew it. I chose the rather smallish maroon, velvet chair beside the red couch and near the door. It looked like a short cup with a notch cut out, and it wasn't as comfortable as the large chair beside Kitten's looked to be, but I wasn't complaining.

"I'm only asking for some civility for the sake of this meeting, Kitten. You remember our talk?"

"Yes, Auntie," she tightly replied.

Across a small, round end table, Mum smiled at me as sympathetically as she could while Sheila smirked outright, probably thinking of how stupid I was. Considering an earlier epiphany of sorts, I again had to agree with her. I should have known that, of all people, Kitten wasn't the type of person who'd be able to handle being cut off from her roots very well.

The last occupant of the room, Lynette, occupied a chair to Ashleigh's right. With an unusually blank expression of passive content, she rose and crossed the room to close the door, the luscious blonde smiling politely at all of us, but without her usual zest. As she asked us if we required anything, I noted that Mum and Sheila also caught the difference in her as they placed their orders, but Ashleigh only asked for a cognac as she shuffled papers and larger documents on her desk.

I gave in and ordered a triple whiskey with water because of the Jedi Kitten staring at me. Now more uncomfortable than trembly, I watched her peripherally and saw Marie in her to such an extent that I wondered how I could ever trust the little freak in any case. As at other times when I'd see our grandmother in her, I found it more than just a little disturbing.

After what seemed like an eternity, we were all served and Aunt Ashleigh cleared her throat, looking around the room at us all. Thankfully, this silent, slightly dramatic beginning was enough to get Kitten's angry glare off of me, and I tried to get comfortable as the erotically suited woman began speaking.

"I'd like to start by apologizing to Kathleen and Sheila. I certainly didn't mean to offend when I told about my experiences with our mother during our last family meeting, but I should have been more considerate of your very different experiences with her, and I'm sorry for my callousness."

Both Mum and Sheila were quite surprised, but they nodded their heads in acceptance of the offering, Sheila only after Mum did, I'd noted.

"I'll try to watch that from here on. Actually, I owe all of you an apology in one way or another, but I hope you'll all understand why and how certain things had to be done, such as my investigators. In any case," she added with a guilty little grin, I'd hoped to offer up apologies where appropriate as I went."

She looked down at her desktop as though surveying the disorganized looking mess there. Her grin faded and, in a thoughtful, almost distracted tone, she changed the subject, speaking for several seconds to the desk before looking up.

"I've tried to arrange everything I'd like to discuss tonight into some sort of coherent presentation, but it's really not that simple. Of course, I'm talking about us, or if it makes it easier for the sake of conversational referral... Sera."

Somewhat dramatically, she left it there for some moments, again looking down at the top of her desk while the rest of us, except the vacant Lynette, were already hooked on her words.

"'Sera' is how Grammie Sammy's mother referred to us, or the part of us that is... other than us. All of us in this room share her to one degree or another, or I could say, in one form or another. Kitten is the last of us to be introduced to Sera, and I'd like to tell you all right here and now that I in no way preferred the method by which that had to be done, but there was little other choice. Timing is so often like that. Nevertheless, I do apologize, sweetie pie."

Kitten seemed a little surprised at this as well, but accepted in the same silent manner as our mothers had, possibly only so that Ashleigh could go on.

"As for the rest of us, we've had our questions for a while now, some of us longer than others, but none of us with the support structure Kitten now enjoys when we wrestled with the mysteries of what we are. I myself, even after gaining the knowledge of Grammie and everything that was passed down to her, still have questions, though I've answered a few since her death. Yet, the more answers I found, the more questions the mystery of Sera posed, and the deeper they became.

"And now that we're all on the same page, I can share what I've learned so we can have an open dialogue about all of our experiences, so that we can learn about ourselves from one another and vice versa. So... with that in mind, I suppose I should start with explaining why the name 'Sera' and where she started. For that, however, I suppose its best we start with Grammie's mother, Rebecca.

"Rebecca was the first of us to gather a somewhat definitive collection of information, though she didn't start until she was forty. She was a very forceful woman, not of a type to normally be found in the Toronto of her day, but very well suited for the task she'd set herself. According to Grammie and what I came to know of her from her own writings, Rebecca was a very intelligent, intuitive, resourceful and beautiful woman with many talents besides the ones Sera provides."

Aunt Ashleigh paused here with a smile, taking a sip from her drink before going on with, "Quite a remarkable woman. In her community, she utilized a very pious public persona with the church, which allowed her quite a bit of... understanding. To be specific, if anyone found her a little odd, should they stare a little too long at her dazzling hazel eyes and see something strange... Why, that was the glory and the truth of the Lord shining through."

"You're kidding," Mum toned in disbelief.

"Not at all. Among other things, she and her mother ran a soup kitchen during the depression with prayers before each meal. When Rebecca went away and came back with a daughter, but no husband, nobody asked any questions. People knew whose money was feeding and sheltering them, how much she and her mother put in the collection plate every Sunday and the personal resources they'd funneled to home tutoring children who'd had to quit school in order to go to work. Nobody questioned her social power and influence any more than they did her seemingly limitless money or holy motivations. It was a kind of family management that she'd learned very well and very early on from her mother and, while I have no doubt they were glad to help their community, it was largely a front to dissuade questions. Even if any of her 'supporters' somehow slipped her control, if any stories of the wild and taboo sex parties she and her mother often hosted were ever leaked to the public, the accuser's claims would seem absurd in the face of the family's public credibility."

We were all smiling at the picture Ashleigh was painting of this ancestor of ours, Kitten included as she seemed to have forgotten about hating me, at least for the time being.

"Again, Rebecca was a very attractive woman," Ashleigh reiterated as Lynette rose and took a thin sheaf of papers from her Mistress's desk, passing one page to each of us.

She again took her seat while Ashleigh took a few slow sips of her drink, giving us time to look over a photocopy of an old picture. A dark haired woman who I'd have guessed to be close to six feet in height looked back at me with a direct, authoritative expression that would offer no shit and certainly never take any. Also, I could see how this woman's fine, mid to late twenties beauty and apparent righteous godliness would make anyone think twice before accusing her of anything unseemly. The wacky thing though, the thing that I gasped at along with others, was that it was Sheila's/Kitten's face under the smart little hat. I'd have thought we'd all be used to that type thing by then.

She wore a long skirt that almost reached her ankles with a wide collared, short jacket that only buttoned at the top. Whatever colour the stylish looking outfit was, in the old black and white, these articles appeared gray while the blouse, buttoned to the neck, appeared white with a small cross or crucifix. It was displayed over her blouse and must have been on a very short chain for it to lay so close to her throat. Despite this and how she was dressed, it was easy to see that this woman was built very well and this, along with her expression and the short background I'd gotten, had me suddenly wanting her. When Ashleigh began talking again, I actually jumped a little.

"As it happens, the name 'Rebecca' means, 'a young woman whose beauty ensnares men'. Seriously. She was thirty-seven in that picture."

"Holy shit," I barely whispered, shaking my head.

"Don't get too attached, sweetie pie," Ashleigh chuckled. "Your Mother's method of child rearing would seem liberal beside Rebecca's, and she could be very hard to take. As much of a force as she was, even at a young age, she was also conflicted, tortured even, and the older she got, the worse she became and the more Grammie avoided her, which didn't help things between them. Samantha was expected to take over the family tradition of philanthropy and the protection of our fortune, but she obviously didn't have the personal force for it. Rebecca's only daughter became increasingly introverted as she got older, and things between them were only a little better than what they would be between Grammie and Mum years later.

"Now, as I've said, Rebecca wasn't always very fun to be around. She got worse after her own mother died and Grammie made her sound like a raving lunatic at times, but she also told me that she'd found her weeping hysterically in her bed on several occasions. In addition to this, her sex parties were becoming more and more outlandish, not to mention dangerous for Sera. She'd even been influencing church wives and young women, encouraging them to uh, give of themselves. To be more precise, they gave themselves to homeless men."

"Oh, my..." Mum expressed with a sudden perk. "Why didn't I think of that? I'm beginning to like this Rebecca."

"You would," Ashleigh laughed. "But this was going way too far, and later on, after a particular incident, even she knew it. Rebecca was actually the one who packed everything up and came here. She bought this estate and redirected the family wealth, changing the family name to Long. This was where she finished gathering what information she could, mostly staying out of trouble until... well... as a regrettably dark footnote, she also hung herself here when she was fifty-one."

One could almost hear the subtle and collective whoosh of air softly escaping lungs as we all took that in. With Mum's comment and recent behaviour in mind, I looked again at the picture of the young woman whose beauty ensnared men, unable not to think also of Kitten and Sheila.

"Mum was eight or nine at the time and, according to Grammie, she never knew about what happened. She did it just outside the door here. Back then, there was no chandelier and she actually had one of the servants string the noose from the upper ceiling for her. Grammie was avoiding her as usual and Mum, like I said, was a kid and probably off somewhere, so there was nobody to stop the servant from doing as he was told."

"But why?" Kitten asked, a little shaken.

"I don't know," our aunt replied. "She didn't leave a note or anything that explained it. Personally, I've always suspected that she was afraid she'd betray Sera with her behavior, maybe also with a need to safeguard Samantha and Marie from herself. I mean, she'd already pulled up stakes to move out here, so..."

"Why the repeated physical traits?" Mum asked, looking at the photocopy of her great grandmother with a frown.

"Another of the many things I don't know. But back to my original point, Rebecca was the first to document what had been handed down to her pertaining not just to the line of our physical ancestors, but insights on we of Sera. Because what her mother, Odette, was able to tell her was often sparse on detail with many gaps in the timeline, especially the further back she went, Rebecca was also the first of us to begin digging into alternative sources to fill in some of those gaps and details. She had the money and the resources but, maybe just as importantly, she had access to people who still lived at the time, people who had stories, some of them firsthand accounts. With this in mind, I can now start from the beginning of the story as assembled by Rebecca in a place that is now called Markham, Ontario."

"I've been there," Mum stated.

"Me too," Sheila joined.

"No you haven't," Ashleigh disagreed with a grin. "Oh, you've been on the property that is now called Markham, but you've never been where I'm about to take you. This is pre Markham of the mid seventeen-hundreds. The British hadn't yet driven out the French and what would be the city of Toronto amounted to little more than a clearing in the trees with a fort/trading post where Exhibition Grounds are now. There were some several families and such in the area, but the place was really just a waypoint in the middle of the woods for further exploration of the continent. Back then, 'the big smoke' was just trees, trees and more trees. People cut them down as fast as they could, burning them in huge piles just to clear them away from what would become the downtown core and, of course, for farmland.

"What would eventually become Markham was like the back forty acres of Toronto, a small farming community where the people didn't make much of a go of it before the area was abandoned. The officially documented reason for this blames a lack of roads, but our documentation indicates something else altogether. Enter Marie Roy, or our informational consensus of her.