She came in late last night, but she rarely used the main entry. She preferred the walk-up fire escape. It’s absolutely an illegal practice, but no one ever noticed her doing it or, if they did, they just didn’t care.
This morning, as with many, she heard her family milling about the apartment. They were always up early, bustling about and getting ready for another day running The Emberlaine’s corner bodega, Pithos.
She grabbed a quick bath before heading out to decide if the day’s breakfast was worthy. Her short black hair was easy to care for and she didn’t need any additional adornments aside from her favorite blue and white greek necklace complimenting her icy, crystalline blue eyes.
When it came to most souls, she could take ’em or leave ’em. She had an enormous crush on an iconic fashionista who visited every NYC fashion week but had no idea if there was any reciprocal affection.
Most Emberlaine inhabitants were, in a word, dim, but a few seemed quite special. Georgiana was one of the bright ones and it seemed like she could read everyone’s thoughts. That was surprisingly comforting. Oh, and that one little girl was a real treasure because she precariously balanced the wisdom of a 98 year old medicine woman with the whimsy of the ten year old body she occupied. Most other people failed to surprise, but these two sparkled. Much pondering on this resulted in the hypothesis that these two souls existed half here, half there.
Anthora passed the subpar breakfast laid out for her and continued to the living room window to access the fire escape. Her family had already taken the elevator down and would, no doubt, waste time chatting with Boss in the main hall about entirely unimportant twaddle. As she passed the windows of other apartments, she noticed everything and had big thoughts about it all. At the same time, none of it mattered to her. She paused here and there to collect more information when appropriate but never lingered long enough for anyone to notice. Padding down off the last step, she skittered across the concrete to slip in Pithos’ front door behind a rushing customer popping in to get a coffee in her namesake cup.
Anthora slipped behind the register, lept to the back counter, and then up to the soft pillowed perch atop the wall cabinet where she could watch the day’s comings and goings.
“I see Anthora just got in; seems a little late for her,” said the customer.
“Queen of our domain, she is the real boss here,” her dad said.
“It’s not a bodega without a cat.”
“She’s our direct connection to the gods: keeps us connected to the here and Heaven all at once,” said dad as the bell tinkled over the departing customer’s head.
Dad tossed up a little snip of salmon jerky and Anthora caught it with her claw. He returned to his busy work wondering if he’d ever learn the mysteries of creatures capable of operating on more than one plane of existence.
Sparks 