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The end.

The end is always inevitable.

My mother always told me that any ending is just the beginning of something else. She always spouted this sort of hippie nonsense to us. She had tons of little clichés that she clung to tenaciously. She would sit and gently string the glass beads onto wire and share the wisdom of her years living on a commune. She was constantly talking about how we should never pass open windows without enjoying the breeze, the air from outdoors. How we should never pass an open door without enjoying the possibility of walking through it. How the end of one row of beads was just an excuse to begin another. How ends were just new beginnings. But I was pretty sure that some ends are just that. An end.

I lay on the floor watching the flicker of light being thrown by the almost burned out candle resting on the floor just inches from my fingertips. My hands were a tangle of silver rings encircling my fingers, a rope of my mother’s carefully strung beads looped around my wrist. I reached out, running my fingers quickly through the flames. A childhood trick, one I had always loved, loving the heat and the defying of the laws of nature.

But then again, I had always been obsessed with fire. The dance of red and yellow flames, the glow of the orange embers, the pulse of the heat, my mother said it was her fault that I was so in love with fire, because she had named me Scarlet Fire. She says she picked the name as she watched the sun dip below the horizon on Venice Beach. She had hoped that my name would give me passion and fire to live a good and moral life. I also think she’d hoped that I would inherit her brilliant red hair. Really, all it had given me was an unhealthy interest in anything that burned. And I spent my life known as Scar.

Fortunately, my name was not as scary as my sister who was named Kali Queen after the Hindu Goddess. And she lived up to her name. Her anger and will to destroy a constant wonder to my mother who was as gentle as a summer breeze. Her voice had always been too loud, her movements filled with barely contained violence, she was a whirlwind of destruction. My mother sighed and muttered more of her platitudes about needing war to know peace. She was the destroying angel, so lovely, so beautiful. Her hair long and smooth, the color of honey, her eyes a soft gray, so pale that there was barely any color there. She was small and lovely, her limbs long and graceful. So, when she broke something or someone, it was totally unexpected.

I had spent much of my life cleaning up her messes. I felt deeply responsible for her and for her crazy actions. Maybe it’s because I’m older… Of course, I’m only older by eleven short months, but I am older. As my mother and I watched Kali on her pathway of destruction, she would pat my hand and say “thank God she has you. She will always need you to take care of her.” And with those words, my mother cemented in my heart the need to always watch over my self-destructive other half.



Chapter 1

Anna sat across the table from me holding five cards fanned out in front of her surveying the hand of Spite & Malice spread out between us. She sighed heavily. “I don’t know how you always win, your discard piles are a mess.”

“Ah, Anna,” I said smiling ruefully at her comment. “They are only a mess to you.”

“I know,” she sighed throwing her cards face down on the table. “But really, I’m done losing to you for the day.”

“Fine,” I said stretching out and grabbing the pack of cigarettes resting between us. “So, what should we do tonight?”

“Marcus is working, so we’re stuck here.” Anna said reaching for the Zippo lighter I’d just dropped on the table.

“Not stuck, just staying in.” I said hating to hear the bitter bite to her voice.

“Unless someone is willing to watch Matilda, we aren’t going anywhere.” Anna said pushing up from the table and wandering over to the fridge.

“Well, we can stay home with Tilda and order in.” I suggested.

“I am so sick of ordering in.” Anna said pulling a beer out of the fridge. “I just want to go out. Go get sushi and plum wine. Go dancing or to the movies.”

“I know,” I said listening to her daily rant. Since the birth of Matilda, Anna had one constant complaint; she didn’t have her own life anymore. She missed her job as a cocktail waitress. She missed the fun of going out the bar every night. She missed the regulars, the celebrity of being the favorite waitress in the hottest bar in town. She missed being a big deal.

“I just didn’t realize…” she began.

“I know.” I said sighing.