A Sorceress From the Future

Chapter Thirty

NINA

Flashback

I could almost smell the gin on him. Friday nights usually meant “out with the boys” meaning I had a whole evening to myself and well, a night full of torture. Usually these nights would end up in a huge bar brawl; his moods would tremendously worsen during such occasions. 

As usual, I had stayed up to monitor my father’s arrival from my cracked window. A quick sweep of our street revealed approaching yellow headlights. My father killed the engine and noisily opened his car door. Swiftly, I plopped myself on my uncomfortable futon and quirked my ears for any staggering or drunk mumbling. I heard the faint sound of keys jingling followed by the jostling of our doorknob, I squirmed further into my futon. 

“Midget? Where are you little midget? I brought dinner!”

Dinner? He never brought dinner. I had been fending for myself for as long as I could remember. It had to be a trick, some sort of gimmick to pull me away from the safety of my room. 

“I said come here!”

I gulped. There it was. The gruff, brusque tone that was usually accompanied by a slap here or a punch there. As if in a trance, I slowly stood up and made my way to the kitchen. Once I arrived at the doorway I paused; I could smell the pungent odor of gin and puke on him. 

“Get in here! I have fantastic news!”

I couldn’t help but squirm when he made his way towards me. It had been a defense mechanism throughout my life. I watched in awe as my father gingerly pulled me towards our kitchen table and sat me down.

Was this it, was he finally going to sell me like he usually threatened to?

“Listen…I met someone…”

“No father! You can’t do this! It’s illegal-“

“Quite you little midget! I will do as I damn well please as long as this is my house and you are living under my gaddam roof!”

“But you can’t do this! You will get arrested-“

In one quick motion, my face was forced to make contact with the kitchen table. My forehead banged the wooden surface so hard that I bit my tongue. For a minute I was extremely disoriented and all I could hear was a sharp, ringing sound.

“Now do I have your attention you ungrateful midget?”

I bobbed my head unconsciously, my hand snaked upwards to massage my face. I stopped midway once I caught my father’s murderous glare. I rapidly blinked to clear the fog in my eyes.

“As I was saying, I met someone tonight at the bar…Her name's Cindy. She’s got a nice rack on her and an average tushy…”

A laugh escaped my throat. I had genuinely thought he was going to say he had found a buyer. But all he had been trying to say was that he had met someone. 

A woman. 

My father had met a woman. 

I tried to hide my excitement.

“Now she has a kid and they will be coming here tommorow-“

“What time? How old is the kid? What will we cook? Can we use plates?”

I squirmed back into my chair as my father lifted his arm preparing the back side of his hand to deliver an excruciatingly painful slap. He stopped himself midway. It was the first time he had done that. Could it be, was my father changing because of this woman? This Cindy? Was I finally going to have a shot at a normal life? Free from abuse?

“Be on your best behavior kid tomorrow or else…I will put you up for sale…”

A shiver ran up my spine, somehow I always believed that my father could, in fact, sell me. Still, I couldn’t contain my excitement. He had actually called me ‘kid’ instead of my usual moniker, midget. Maybe things were going to change after all.

Present

We were lost.

I could feel it in every fiber of my being. Guzman and I had been mimicking Rupert's steps for hours on end. I was quite certain that we had been going around in circles.

“Now if we go through here we will be forced to emerge in front of a dwarf colony and we all know how tenacious they can be. They would surely run us through with their large arrows-“

“I would like to run you through with a large arrow-“

“Wait, dwarves? Tenacious? But the dwarves in Snow White were so adorable-“

“What is a snowwhite?”

“Did you just refer to dwarves as adorable? Those nasty little creatures feed on flesh!”

We all paused, somehow uneasy with the fact that we were lost in an area where flesh eating dwarves could coincidentally reside. 

“It’s Snow White not snowwhite…”

“What’s the difference?”

“Two names, she has two names, Snow then White…”

“Why would someone be called snowthenwhite?”

Frustrated, I threw my hands in the air and turned to face Guzman. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Did you see where he went?”

Rupert huffed his shoulders and crouched down to the ground. He then proceeded to pinch the soil beneath his feet and brought it to his nose, then his mouth.

“Wait!”

Rupert angled his head to face me. He quirked an eyebrow, he was actually waiting for me to explain my outburst. l

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Look, I understand that for some peculiar reason you are taken with Guzman now-“

“Excuse me?”

“But that does not give you the right to ridicule my methods. This is how we catch the scent of the creatures we are seeking."

“What do you mean taken with-“

I never got to plead my case. Guzman reemerged from wherever he had vanished to and grabbed me by the arm. He then tossed me on his back and yelled for Rupert to run. It took me a while to spot what the behemoth was running away from and when I did, I choked out a laugh. An action that I would deeply regret later.

“Is that an actual dwarf?”