Layla
Tearing the covering away from the couch, I look around and start swatting at the dust plumes. It takes less than three months for an entire home devoid of life to be covered in dust.
Fortunately, I've yet to see any pests. I'd probably be tempted to burn the place down if something with fur or scales scurried across my foot right now. This day is shitty enough.
"You could totally pay someone to do this," Sally says as she follows me through the home.
"I totally could not," I remind her absently, lifting a picture of my mother and me, swiping a finger through the dust that carries over our faces, revealing hidden smiles.
Mom's eyes have always held soulful secrets. She said it was a Thorne thing. But my eyes never seem to hold soulful secrets, so I'm starting to think that gaze must skip a generation.
Clearing my throat, I put the picture down.
"You could be rich. With a curvy body like that, I'd be rich," Sally states candidly, still following me through as I push open the three doors on this side of the stairs.
"I guess I was born in the wrong era," I state distractedly.
More things are covered. More daunting layers of dust are still left to contend with.
"It'll take me months to get this house clean," I groan.
"Or you could use your ass and get rich," Sally unhelpfully counters, as I continue tearing away the many coverings. "Better yet, use your gypsy magic!"
"That's not how gypsy magic works."
"Okay, so how does gypsy magic work?" she volleys.
"I'm not entirely sure, but I do know it doesn't allow you to circumvent manual labor," I say as I move into a different room that has a sickly feeling trickling up my spine.
"I think I was a gypsy once," she says on a sigh. "Traveling the road, tempting male travelers with debauchery, my shady brothers cleaned out their pockets. I didn't know I was setting a fashion trend that would catch fire in the twenty-first century," she says on a wistful sigh.
"That is the romanticized version of it," I tell her absently. "You're not a gypsy if you think that's the truth of it, though."
"Well, consider me an honorary gypsy and tell me the truth," she says as I lift some fallen books from the ground and place them inside the bottom cabinet before me.
"The word gypsy is actually used as a racial slur in most countries still to this day. I'm fortunate to live in a time and place where gypsy culture is appreciated and even embraced by a lot of gadjo—"
"Gadjo?"
"Non-gypsy," I state dismissively. "Can be an offensive term, depending on the tone," I add.
She pops her head out of the curio cabinet suddenly, and I groan while working around her, as she pretends like she's trying to find a comfortable place to sit.
"Anyway, gypsies have lived through religious persecution, unprovoked violence, unrepentant prejudice, and unapologetic massacres that rarely get more than a footnote's mention in the history books. And in some parts of the world, they're still facing all the same barbaric problems."
"Bummer," she states. "Anyone ever tell you that you shouldn't piss on rainbows? Are you still cranky because of the dead mommy issues?"
I'm not really sure why I try to tell her things.
"What does the town look like?" I ask her, lifting a cushion on the sofa in Mom's office.
This room hurts the worst so far. It has so much of her in it.
"Lots of ghosts are out there. Seems like the town is full of them," she answers dryly.
It's getting more and more difficult to figure out when she's telling the truth.
"Great," I state instead of grilling her to see if she's being truthful.
No, I'm not some special person because I can see ghosts. It's a gypsy thing. Sometimes you can see glimpses of the future, and sometimes you see remains from the past.
"Oh, and there are some major hotties in town, so there are a few perks. I can watch you like that one time when we invaded the frat house and you started that orgy," Sally goes on.
I palm my face, groaning internally. "I did not start an orgy. I've never even been to a frat house. And you're getting more ridiculous by the second," I snap, before I turn away and blow out a long breath.
I constantly remind myself to be patient with her, because she can't help the lies or the scattered way her mind works. But my patience is waning today.
"Have you ever started an orgy other than that one time?" she asks, clicking her tongue, completely infuriating me as she abruptly appears in front of me.
I hate it when she does that.
I level her with a cold look. "I've never and will never start an orgy!" I shout. A little too loudly.
Especially since my eyes lock onto a man's mystic blue peepers, when my gaze darts over Sally's slightly shorter head.
She whirls around, her eyes going round, as she moves closer. "Hubba Hubba," she stage whispers.
I hate her so hard right now that I'm tempted to salt her.