Voice Of Sufferers > Fantasy > Sunshine Read Online

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Sunshine Robin McKinley 223960K 2023-08-29

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To Peter,

e Hey, am I lucky or what?

PART ONE

It was a du to do but it wasn't that dumb There hadn't been any trouble out at the lake in years And it was so exquisitely far from the rest of my life

Monday evening is our h another week Sunday night we lock up at eleven ora few national holidays) is our day off Ruby comes in on Mondays with her warrior cohort and attacks the coffeehouse with an assortear that would whack Godzilla into suble-trackstaff for help in giant lethalcreature matters Thanks to Ruby, Charlie's Coffeehouse is probably the only place in Old Tohere you are safe from the local cockroaches, which are approxi when they canter across the cobblestones outside

We'd begun the tradition of Monday eveningout of bed at four a Our first customers arrive at six-thirty and they want our Cinna as Your Head and I am the one who makes them

I put the dough on to rise overnight and it is huge and puffy and waiting when I get there at four-thirty By the time Charlie arrives at six to brew coffee and open the till (and,the outdoor tables down the alley and out to the front), you can s One of Ruby's lesser minions arrives at about five for the daily sweep- andand I a to persuade stiff, surly, thirty-hour-refrigerated dough that it's time to loosen up

Charlie is one of the big good guys in h of a raise when I finished school (high school diploma by the skin of lish teacher) and began working for him full time that I could afford my own place, and, evenme have it

But getting up at four am six days a week does put a crah as Mom pointed out every tiet up at four-twenty) At first Monday evening was just us, Mom and Charlie and Billy and Kenny and me, and sometimes one or two of the stalwarts fros had evolved, and noas pretty much any of the coffeehouse staff anted to turn up, plus a few of the custoot older the standard ofthat featured a es" we opened a bottle of chane)

Charlie, who doesn't kno to sit still and likes do-it-yourselfing at horadually knockedmob could mill around comfortably But that was just it - my entire life existed in relation to the coffeehouse My only friends were staff and regulars I started seeing Mel because he was single and not bad-looking and the weekday assistant cook at the coffeehouse, with that interesting bad-boy aura fro a few too many tattoos, and no known serious drawbacks (Baz had been single and not bad-looking too, but there'd always been so a little off about him, which resolved itself when Charlie found him with his hand in the till) I was happy in the bakery I just soet a little farther out

Mom had been in one of her bad moods that particular week, sharp and short with everyone but the customers, not that she saw the the paperwork and giving hell to any of our suppliers who didn't behave I'd been having car trouble and was coe bill to anyone who'd listen No doubt Mom heard the story more than once, but then I heard her weekly stories about her hairdresser more than once too (she and Mary and Liz all used Lina, I think so they could get together after and discuss her love life, which was pretty fascinating) But Sunday evening she overheardup after five days away, and Mom lost it She shouted that if I lived at home I wouldn't need a car at all, and she orried aboutto stop drea that Mel and I wanted to get married, which hadn't been discussed I wondered how Mo of the re - which is to say the ones that were still alive - with their hair and their Rocs and Griffins (even Mel still had an old Griffin for special occasions, although it heed oil) and their attitude problems They never showed up in force at the coffeehouse, but she'd notice the she'd expect me to have

The obvious answer to the question of children as going to look after the baby while I got up at four a hours as I did, especially since he'd been promoted to head cook when Charlie had been forced - by a ate so or drop dead of exhaustion So househusbandry wasn't the answer But in fact I knew ot round this When one of our waitresses got pregnant and the boyfriend left town and her own family threw her out, Mom and Charlie took her in and we all babysat in shifts, in and out of the coffeehouse (We'd only just got rid of Mom's sister Evie and her four kids, who'd stayed for almost two years, and one mom and one baby seemed like pie in the sky in comparison Especially after Evie, who is professionally helpless) Barry was in second grade now, and Eulars, and Emmy still waitressed for us The coffeehouse is like that

I liked living alone I liked the silence - and nothingold ex-fare of a federal park, with one round to look at the place the old lady - very tall, very straight, and a level stare that went right through you - had looked atPeople (she said this like youVomit) because they kept bad hours and made noise I liked her immediately I explained huet up at four am to make cinnamon rolls for Charlie's Coffeehouse, whereupon she stopped scowling isterially and invited me in

It had taken threeout, and that ith Charlie working on her I was still reading the apart the phone calls when Moe were dire This apart ra house, was perfect, and the old lady must have seen I ht up when she opened the door at the top of the second flight of stairs, and the sunshine see room balcony, cut down froarden, still has no curtains

By the tined the leasefast friends, if you can be fast friends with someone who merely by the way she carries herself makes you feel like a troll Maybe I was just curious: there was so obviously some mystery about her; even her name was odd I wrote the check to Miss Yolande No S Just Miss Yolande But she was always pleasant to ht her stuff from the coffeehouse and she ate it I have that doene that I think you have to have to survive in the s it for the money or the hours At first it was now and then - I didn't want her to notice I was trying to feed her up - but she was always so pleased it got to be a regular thing Whereupon she lowered the rent - which I have to ad a car was going to cost - and told me to lose the "Miss"

Yolande had said soon after I arden any time I liked too, it was just her and me (and the peanut-butter-baited electric deer fence), and occasionally her niece and the niece's three little girls The little girls and I got along because they were good eaters and they thought it was thein the world to come in to the coffeehouse and be allowed behind the counter Well, I could re for Charlie But that's the coffeehouse in action again: it tends to sweep out and engulf people I think only Yolande has ever held out against this irresistible force, but then I do bring her white bakery bags almost every day

Usually I could let Mom's temper roll off me But there'd been too much of it lately Coffeehouse disasters are often hardest on Mom, because she does the money and the admin, and for example actually follows up people's references when they apply for jobs, which Charlie never bothers with, but she isn't one for bearing trials quietly That spring there'd been expensive repairs when it turned out the roof had been leaking forin the oods suppliers went bust and we hadn't found another one we liked as well, and two of our wait staff and another one of the kitchen staff quit without warning Plus Kenny had entered high school the previous autu He wasn't goofing off and getting high anya low profile He was also very bright - both h hopes for them I'd always suspected that Charlie had pulled iven htenfor it, but he'd been letting me help him from time to time out back so he knew I could do it, the question hether I would Sudden scary responsibility had worked withto make cinnamon rolls, and he didn't need to feed people the way Charlie or I did either

Anyway Kenny hadn't coht on Saturday nights - and there had been hell to pay There had been hell to pay all that day for all of us, and I went hoht a week of twelve hours' sleep hadn't worked its usual rehabilitation I took my tea and toast and Immortal Death, (a favorite co at the age of eleven or twelve) back to bed when I finally woke up at nearly noon, and even that really spartan scene when the heroine escapes the Dark Other who's been pursuing her for three hundred pages by calling on her de herself into a waterfall didn't cheer , which is my other standard answer to a bad mood, and that didn't work either Maybe I orried about Kenny too I'd been lucky during ht not be Also I take the quality of my flour very seriously, and I didn't think -supply company

When I arrived at Charlie and Mo for Mondayinto a blanket Charlie was popping corn and trying to pretend everything was fine Kenny was sulking, which probablyover, because Kenny didn't sulk, and Billy was being hyper to make up for it, which of course didn't Mary and Danny and Liz and Mel were there, and Consuela, Mo to look like the best piece of luck we'd had all year, and about half a dozen of our local regulars Emmy and Barry were there too, as they often hen Henry ay, and Mel was playing with Barry, which gave Molare, which I knew ood he is with children - it's time he had some of his own" Yes And in another fourteen years this hypothetical kid would be starting high school and learning better, rown-ups crazy

I loved every one of these people And I couldn't take another minute of their company Popcorn and aday tomorrow, and you have only so much brain left over to worry with if you run a fao away like every other crisis had always gone aorn down and eventually buried by an accumulation of order slips, till receipts, and shared stories of the aets up to

But the thought of sitting for two hours - even with Mel's arm around me - and a bottomless supply of excellent popcorn (Charlie couldn't stop feeding people just because it was his day off) wasn't enough on that particular Monday So I said I'd had a headache all day (which was true) and on second thought I would go hoain not five one in

Mel followedwas an ability not to talk about everything These people ant to talk about their feelings all the time, and want you to talk about yours,to discuss Ifbolt, I'm the tallest tree on the plain That's the way it is

There are two very distinct sides to Mel There's the wild-boy side, the h He's cleaned up his act, but it's still there And then there's this strange vast serenity that seems to co The blend of anarchic thug and tranquil self-possessionproof that oil and water can reat on those days that everyone else in the coffeehouse is screaasoline and paint rather than garlic and onions He was absent the oak tree tattoo on his shoulder He was a tattoo-rubber when he was thinking about so or working on could get pretty liberally dispersed about his person on ruminative days

"She'll sheer, day or so," he said "I was thinking, maybe I'll talk to Kenny"

"Do it," I said "It would be nice if he lived long enough to find out he doesn't want to be a lawyer" Kenny wanted to get into Other lahich is the dancing-on-the-edge-of-the--volcano branch of law, but a lawyer is still a lawyer

Mel grunted He probably had e botulism bacteria in three-piece suits

"Enjoy the movie," I said

"I know the real reason you're blowing, sweetheart," Mel said

"Billy's turn to rent the movie," I said "And I hate westerns"

Mel laughed, kissed ently behind him

I stood restlessly on the sidewalk I ht have tried the library's new-novels shelf, a dependable recourse in ti Alternatively I could go for a walk I didn't feel like reading: I didn't feel like looking at other people's iinary lives in flat black and white fro a little late for solitary walking, even around Old Town, and besides, I didn't want a walk either I just didn't knohat I did want

I wandered down the block and climbed into my fresh-from-the-mechanics car and turned the key I listened to the nice healthy purr of the engine and out of nowhere decided itfor a drive sort of person usually But I thought of the lake

When my mother had still beenwith hundreds of other people After my parents split up I used to take the bus out there occasionally to see ran lived - it wasn't at the cabin - but I would get a note or a phone call now and then suggesting that she hadn't seen me for a while, and we could meet at the lake My mother, ould have loved to forbid these visits - when Mooes off comprehensively, and when she went offme, whom she equally passionately demanded to keep - didn't, but the result of her not-very-successfully restrained unease and disapproval made those trips out to the lake ht otherwise have been, at least in the beginning In the beginning I had kept hoping thatreally dramatic, which I was sure she was capable of, but she never did It wasn't till after I'd stopped hopingbut that was later, and not at all what I had had in mind And then when I was ten she disappeared

When I was ten the Voodoo Wars started They were of course nothing about voodoo, but they were about a lot of bad stuff, and some of the worst of theot burned down or leveled one way or another, and there were a few places around the lake where you still didn't go if you didn't want to have bad dreams or worse for h also because there simply weren't as many people to have vacation homes anywhere any more) after the Wars were over and ht on again The wilderness was taking over -which was a good thing because it meant that it could There were a lot of places nohere nothing was ever going to grow again

It was pretty funny really, the only people who ever went out there regularly were the Supergreens, to see how the wilderness was getting on, and if as the urban populations of things like raccoons and foxes and rabbits and deer ain, they started to look and behave like raccoons and foxes and rabbits and deer had used to look and behave Supergreens also counted things like osprey and pine ered species although not so interesting to look at, none of which seeic, or ive ospreys and pine rass bad dreams I went out there occasionally with Mel -ospreys pretty often and pine rass looks like all other rass to me - but I hadn't been there after dark since I was a kid

The road that went to what had been ot out there and went and sat on the porch and looked at the lake My parents' cabin was the only one still standing in this area, possibly because it had belonged tothe Voodoo Wars There was a bad spot off to the east, but it was far enough away not to trouble h I could feel it was there

I sat on the sagging porch, swingingout of entlest lapping against the shore, and silver with ood times here: first with ether, and later on with an to feel that if I sat there long enough I could get to the bottoworse than poor-quality flour and a somewhat errant little brother

I never heard the Of course you don't, when they're vampires

I had kind of a lot of theoretical knowledge about the Others, frolobenet about them - fabulously, I have to say, embellished by my addiction to novels like Immortal Death and Blood Chalice - but I didn't have much practical 'fo After the Voodoo Wars, New Arcadia went froht on the national top ten of cities to live in, siht its own problems One of these was an increased sucker population We were still pretty clean But no place on this planet is truly free of Others, including those Darkest Others, vampires

It is technically illegal to be a vaets e, and rather than being taken in by the vaht word) that created him or her, they are dumped somewhere that they will be found by ordinary hu And then they have to spend the rest of their, so to speak, lives, in a kind of half prison, half asyluuard I'd heard, although I had no idea if it was true, that these ed senseless and then staked, beheaded, and burned - when they reached ould have been their normal life expectancy if they'd been alive in the usual way

One of the origins of the Voodoo Wars was that the va Three, islated against, created a lot of vampires that they left for us huanized theenerally do a lot for your personality - that is, a lot of good - and the vampires had chosen as many really nice people as possible to turn, to emphasize their disenchantreens, for exa the Voodoo Wars, and a couple of big national charities had to shut down for a few years

It's not that any of the Others are really popular, or that it had only been the va point about vampires is that they are the only ones that can't hide what they are: let a little sunlight touch them and they burst into flames Very final flae Weres are only in danger once a e froal, but then so are coke and horse and hypes and rats' brains and trippers If you want the anti-Change drugs you can get the a vah) And a lot of demons look perfectly normal Most demons have some funny habit or other but unless you live with one and catch it eating garden fertilizer or old co six inches above the bed after it falls asleep, you'd never know And so you want to count on (I' Three, which everyone does, but "demon" is a pretty catch-all term really, and it can often turn out to mean what the law enforcement official on the other end of it wants it to mean at the time)

The rest of the Others don't cause much trouble, at least not officially It is pretty cool to be suspected of being a fallen angel, and everyone knows someone with sprite or peri blood Mary, at the coffeehouse, for example Everyone wants her to pour their coffee because coffee poured by Mary is always hot She doesn't knohere this comes fro as Mary sticks to being a waitress at a coffeehouse, the govern

But if anyone ever ht they'll be worth more money in a month than the present total of all bank balances held by everyone on the global council There are a lot of scientists and backyard bozos out there trying for that jackpot - on both sides of the line The suys, but it's conceivable that the guys in the white hats will get there first It's a more andexperiood, of course That's another result of the Voodoo Wars The global council claiit scientists probably aren't starting with autopyrocy, however (At least I don't think they are Our June holiday Monday is for Hiroshi Gutterle-handedly, but probably not by being a Naga de his sun-proof hood at an opportuneto think about even a full-blood Naga having a hood big enough, there are no plausible ru cobras for experiments with their skins)

There are a lot of vampires out there Nobody kno many, but a lot And the clever ones - at least the clever and lucky ones - tend to wind up wealthy Really old suckers are almost always really wealthy suckers Any time there isn't any other news for a while you can pretty well count on another big article all over the globenet debating how much of the world's money is really in sucker hands, and those articles are an automatic pickup for every national and local paper Maybe we're all just paranoid But there's another peculiarity about vampires They don't, you know, breed Oh, theypeople Weres and demons and so on can have kids with ordinary humans as well as with each other, and often do At least some of the time it's because the parents love each other, and love softens the edges of xenophobia There are aies (there would be) but there's never been even a half-believable myth about the birth of a vampire or half-vampire baby

(Speaking of sucker sex, the most popular story concerns the fact that since vampires aren't alive, all their lifelike activities are under their voluntary control This includes the obvious ones like walking, talking, and biting people, but it also includes the ones that are involuntary in the living: like the flow of their blood One of the first stories that any teenager just waking up to carnal possibilities hears about male vampires is that they can keep it up indefinitely I personally stopped blushing after I hadI would want in a boyfriend is a permanent hard-on)

So the suckers are right, hule-mindedly committed way that is unlike our attitude to any of the otherVampires hold maybe one-fifth of the world's capital and they're a race incontestably apart Huhouls and la, they're not very bright, and if one bites you, every city hospital eh of you left for you to run aith) The global council periodically tries to set up "talks" with vampire leaders in which they offer an end to persecution and legal restriction and an inexhaustible supply of pigs' blood in exchange for a pro on people In the first place this doesn't work because while vampires tend to hunt in packs, the vampire population as a whole is a series of little fiefdoms, and alliances are brief and rare and usually only exist for the purpose of destroying some mutually intolerable other sucker fiefdo and the more powerful theheadquarters to sit on bogus hus' blood isn't too popular with va offered Cava when you've been drinking Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin all your life (The coffeehouse has a beer and wine license, but Charlie has a soft spot for chalobenet survey of restaurants, listed as the only coffeehouse anybody had ever heard of that serves chaht be surprised how many people like bubbly with their meatloaf or even their cream cheese on pumpernickel)