I catch a hurried, “Congrats, Leni,” before my aunt disappears, off to become the bearer of bad news that she’s always wanted to be to the snooty side of the family.
Tad chuckles at his mother’s hypocrisy, and even I crack a small smile despite the clusterfuck I now find myself square in the middle of.
“I think you just made my mother’s decade, Leni. Shit, I guess I now have to call you Lennox, or would you prefer Oh Powerful One instead?” Tad teases.
“Supreme Being will do,” I deadpan as I try to fight off a new wave of bewilderment and vexation. “Crap, everyone is going to get all formal with me, aren’t they?”
“Well, being that you were just chosen as the next Supreme Boner, oops, I mean Supreme Osteomancer, I’m going to go with yes.”
Hearing him call me that is beyond weird, and what’s scarier to me is that there’s something inside of me, something I’ve never looked at before and don’t want to acknowledge now, that feels right. I’m the next Bone Witch.
A frustrated groan climbs up my throat, and I drag my palm down my face. “What the hell am I going to do? Can I ask for a revote or something?” I query, not even caring about the whine dripping thickly off of every word like cold molasses. I sigh and ask what everyone else will be thinking when they find out what’s happened. “Why in all the universes would the bones choose me?”
I slide down the wall next to my entry table until my ass meets the floor; it’s as though I’m being pulled down by the weight of all of this as it settles heavy like sandbags on my shoulders.
“You know how this works, Lennox. We all do. You knew someday Grammy Ruby would pass away and the bones would choose one of us to take her place,” Tad reminds me, his tone tutorial before it dissolves into sympathy.
“Yeah, but we all thought it would be Gwen. Magda’s been going on and on about how she’s been a gazer since she was seven.”
I rest my elbows on my knees and press my head against my forearm, cocooning myself in defeat and mourning all the plans I had for my life.
“All that bitch can gaze is the inheritance that comes with that purple pouch of bones, the rest is smoke and mirrors. Leni, the bones wanted you. They wouldn’t be there if you weren’t the one.” He pauses, and I hear what sounds like a stifled chuckle.
“This isn’t funny,” I argue.
“Well, that’s not exactly true, Mighty Bone Whisperer, but I’m laughing because I went all spirit guide on you, not because you’re the chosen one. I’m like the Hagrid, Obi Wan, Haymitch, and Khloe of your story, and that is hilarious.”
“Khloe?”
“Damn right. She’s the most logical and badass of the Kardashian clan. She’d totally be a spirit guide if given the opportunity,” Tad defends as though any of that makes sense.
“I’m like a hot Yoda! And trust me, Leni, if the bones want you, then you they shall have. There’s no fighting this,” he declares with an adenoidal voice that sounds more Kermit than Yoda.
“Isn’t there?” I plead.
“Remember all the stories about great-great-great-grandpa Lown and how he tried to avoid his duty? It gets you in the end no matter what you do.”
Thoughts of the ancestors who tried to shirk their selections flash through my mind. Lown choked on a rib bone one night in his bed. Weird thing was, he was asleep when it happened. That, and the fact that the man was a vegetarian, amped up the mystery to outsiders. But the family knew that either you honor the bones or they’ll find the next in line who will.
I pick up my head so I can stare at the underside of my dining room table. At where I know a bag filled with blessed bones sits just on the other side. Their presence marks my selection as one of the few remaining Osteomancers in the world. It decimates all the hopes and dreams I had for my future. One purple pouch, and life as I know it is fucking over.
Desolation and worry roost in my chest. What the hell am I going to do? Tad is talking, but I can’t tune into what he is saying. All I can do is slowly get up and reluctantly close the distance between myself and the unwanted bones that are encased in purple velvet on my table. The bag looks so unassuming. So faultless. But I know nothing could be further from the truth. The bony contents will awaken the dormant abilities in my marrow and unlock a world of secrets, the likes of which I can’t even begin to fathom.
It’s not the letter to Hogwarts I spent my middle school years hoping would drop down my chimney though. This bag of bones leads only to a life of servitude, suffering, and societal rejection.
The aroma of patchouli, singed cedar, and sugar cookies fresh out of the oven waft out to me as I reach for the bag. All at once, it’s as if my grandmother is here, lending me her strength and encouragement. Warmth envelops me, and I’m reminded that the presence of these bones means that she’s gone now.
A hollow ache starts in my chest, the reality of her death trumped by the appearance of the velvet pouch on my table. Shame fills me, and I pull in a sharp breath, emotion stinging my eyes. It doesn’t feel real.
My grandmother’s face pops up in my mind. Her lined tan skin and thick gray hair, cut short because who can bother to try and tame curls in their old age, she would complain. Her hazel eyes and the way they would flicker from stern seriousness to mischievous to kind glimmer in my memories, her time-thinned lips tilting up in a sassy smile.
I’ll never again walk into her incense-soaked shop to be greeted by her sharp wit and knowing way. Her slender and sinuous arms won’t wrap me up in a strong hug that squeezes all of my problems into nothing. Her sure, comforting voice will never call me on the phone to check in or to ask for help with sourcing ingredients because technology just wasn’t in her bones. Her gumption, her light, her give no fucks way, all...gone.
My Grammy Ruby is no longer in this world, and I’m not sure how to navigate that loss let alone the looming legacy I’ve been bestowed because of it.
Tad’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I look down to see the phone still clutched in my palm. I pull it back to my ear, sadness settling like hardening cement in my chest.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I whisper hollowly, the truth of it taking root and changing everything. Whatever Tad was rambling about immediately comes to a stop, and he’s quiet for several beats.
“I know. It’s weird to think of a world without her grumpy ass in it.”
I snort out a laugh, not able to help myself. Amusement trickles in to mix with the sorrow I’m wading through, and I cling to it like it’s a life preserver. “I probably shouldn’t be so shocked, she’s been telling us to fuck off and let her die for at least ten years,” I recall with a despondent chuckle.
“The old bat is probably laughing her ass off right now,” Tad teases, but I hear the melancholy saturating his tone.
“Do you think she knew?” I ask him after a weighted moment of silence.
I find myself looking back at all of my interactions with my grandma and analyzing them with a new lens. Every time she smiled at me with an interested glint in her eye or deposited a curious bit of random wisdom, did she know the bones would end up on my dining room table one day?
“Lennox!” Tad shouts at me, his demanding tone pulling me from my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”