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Chapter 1
A peppershaker fell down. But that has nothing to do with the story.

Miam was hiding in a tree. As soon as the minivan was out of sight, she jumped into the next tree. In this manner, she arrived at her large house.
She checked the mail. Not that she was expecting any- she just wanted to see if the mailman had stopped by. Loki enjoyed putting the red flag on the mailbox up every morning to see if the mailman would put it down every afternoon. They had gone through several mailmen that way.
Miam opened the mailbox. Amazingly, there was a letter inside. She carefully pulled it out with a black-gloved thumb and forefinger. Wondering if she had a lighter, she checked the pockets of her wraparound shirt. She did have one, and she pulled it out, preparing to incinerate the innocent-looking envelope.
Her father walked up to her from the large driveway. “I suppose that that’s the birth announcement and baby shower invitation from your sister. She said that it would come sometime soon.” His hand moved toward the letter. Miam held onto it with white-knuckled (black-gloved) fingers.
“I have a sister?!” She turned to face her father. “I have a sister, and all this time, while we’ve been living in the same house, you haven’t even bothered to tell me that?”
He shrugged his shoulders eloquently, extending a hand for the letter.
Not relinquishing said letter, Miam stalked, fuming, to her side of the manor on the third floor. As she whisked into the bedroom, she set the letter down on her dresser before changing into her casual clothes. Comfortably attired in knee-high lace-up boots, fingerless gloves, mandarin sleeveless top, pants and ninja face mask, she slit open the envelope with one fingernail.
Cautiously pulling out a piece of ducky-yellow paper, she unfolded and studied it. It announced “the birth of Herbert Alec Munch, son of Drew and Nancy Munch (Drew has recently become deceased).” Miam looked up after she finished reading the rest of the letter. Her sister, Nancy, wanted her to visit soon. She had read that in the handwritten section after the generic announcement and invitation. Apparently Nancy lived in Montana. Montana? Oh well, she thought. I can use my helicopter to get there.
Chapter 2
The baby shower was several weeks away. Miam spent that time either at work or learning about her family. For work, she was a ninja, but that was just a general term. She was a spy and an assassin, having trained since childhood at the ninja school that her father kept in their manor.
Her father told her that before she had been born, he had been married to a woman that was not her mother. They had had a daughter named Nancy, whom the mother took back to the United States when they divorced. Miam’s father had then married Miam’s mother, and they had Miam. Her father and mother had a rocky marriage, and her mother had moved away. So Miam and Nancy were half-sisters.
Miam went to the baby shower, where nothing of consequence happened. In fact, all she really did was lean on one of the walls of the small crumbly cottage. Miam, who had never been to a baby shower before, noted that it was quite a fad for the women to huddle over the baby and coo. Disgusted, Miam signed the baby book and left.
When she got back to the manor, Loki greeted her at the front gate, having just propped up the mailbox flag, which the mailman had, in vain, covered in duct tape.
“So?” Loki’s cravat bobbed up and down as he trotted beside her. How she hated that cravat. And the rest of his clothes. They were very stylish, but not the way that he had assembled them.
Today he had on a sky-blue cravat under a midnight vest over a black robe with a white stripe down the side, all under his sun-kissed brown hair that nearly reached his butt.
“So how’d it go?” His brown eyes shone with amusement.
“Nnn…” Miam wrinkled her nose.
“And Nancy?”
An image of a dishwater blonde with a matronly headband, pink sweetheart-necklined teeshirt and a yellow apron covered in chickens and lace popped into her head.
“There’s a reason why my father never told me about her.”
“Oh.” The conversation died then, but Miam knew not for long- as long as it was Loki that she was talking to.
She and Loki had grown up together, gone to Miam’s father’s ninja school together, but halfway through, Loki had quit to become a poet. After that, most of the ninja community disowned him. Miam was the only one that would still talk to him.
That’s why he was living in her house.
After his father had died, Loki was something of a millionaire. But, not wanting to spend his money on trivial things such as food- he saved it. He also knew that he would be horrible at a job of any kind, and he didn’t pay his rent. His landlord kicked him out, and he appeared 20 minutes later at Miam’s front door, complete with duffel bag filled with his cravats, vests, robes, toe socks and fish sticks.
He had stuck his head in the door, looked around, and said, “Wow… nice place you’ve got here! Where’s the butler to take my coat?” He smiled at his half-joke. Miam looked at him with a piercing gaze.
“It’s always the butler.”
Loki invited himself in.
That had been six months ago, and he was still pretty much the same. He could sew, though, and that was the reason Miam gave herself for letting him stick around. She never had to mend any of her own clothes, but she had to watch him like an eagle to make sure that he didn’t start embroidering designs on her black ninja work clothes.
Miam was satisfied with the fact that she would never have to deal with Nancy, Herbert, or chicken-patterned aprons again.
The phone rang. Miam was not expecting a call. She picked it up. “Hello. I can easily trace this call. If it’s not important, hang up now and don’t bother me again.” That was her normal answering routine.
“Yes- um- is this Miam?” A female voice peeked hesitantly out from the other end of the phone line.
“This is she.”
“Yes… well… hi, Miam! This is Nancy, your sister!”
“Hello, Nancy.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to visit us this week.” Nancy’s voice was pitifully hopeful, thought Miam.
“No. I’m busy. I’ve got to work.”
“Okay… well, bye, then.” Nancy was crushed. Temporarily. She called one week later to see if Miam was still busy.
She was.
Nancy called a week after that.
After a month of this, Miam’s sanity was starting to shred. She finally gave in to Nancy’s incessant pleas.
Miam felt that she should tell Loki that she was leaving. She figured that he would be swimming, since he wasn’t writing poetry in his bedroom.
She trotted down to the ground floor from the third story, using the spiral staircase in the tower. She looked for the sign on the swimming pool door that says Loki is skinny-dipping. For your own safety, do not enter. Luckily, it wasn’t there.
Pushing the door open, she glided into the pool area. Her dark eyes slid over the surface of the water. She saw nothing. Her eyes reviewed everything again, looking beneath the glare of the morning sun on the water.
Loki lay at the bottom of the pool, his hair waving gently like seaweed around his robe-clad body. His robes flapped, as if stirred by some unearthly wind, against his still, white form. His glassy brown eyes stared up, unseeing, to the surface of the pool that rippled blithely so far above him.
Bubbles trickled slowly out of his mouth, slightly ajar- the last of the air in his lungs abandoning him.
Miam felt like she was in a nightmare- she couldn’t move. Her legs wouldn’t work. Her mouth wouldn’t scream.
Then it all happened.
She leapt into the water, her body a clean arc carving through the air, slicing into the water like a knife.
Loki’s lungs were about to explode, so he pushed off strongly from the bottom. His head broke the surface and he inhaled deep, cleansing gulps of air into his oxygen-starved lungs. He smoothed his hair back from his face and looked around. The door was open- someone must have come in.
He saw Miam lying, crumpled, under the water against the pool wall. His mind kicked into overdrive. Not like this! Oh, not like this! He swam like a barracuda over to her limp form. His strong arms slid around her, lifting her out of the grasp of the watery grave closing around her.
They broke the surface, his head tearing away from the water. He flung his head, his water-shining golden-brown mane flaring from his face. He clutched Miam’s limp, catlike form to his chest as his powerful legs drove them into the pool’s edge. He lay her pale, wet body on the hard tile that reached up to hold her.
Leaping out of the water like a sleek, powerful panther, he cradled her head in a firm yet gentle hand. The other hand strayed to her throat- oh, ivory and palest silk were outshone by her soft, delicately white skin!
He felt for her pulse. Her heartbeat fluttered like a butterfly’s wings- iridescent and shimmering, but so easy to stop forever. Her mouth was barely open, tiny breaths escaping like rose petals blown by an evening breeze, through wetly shining lips. Her eyes fluttered beneath closed, darkly-lashed lids.
His hair gleaming, his muscles taut, he leaned in closer, his arms supporting her arched back. His face nearly met hers- mere inches separated them. Her breath! Slow- slow- even slower! She could not be allowed to leave this world yet- so beautiful- so innocent.
Leaning even closer, her shallow breath blossoming on his tense cheek- now stopping!
He reached out and slapped her briskly across her cheek, startling her into breathing deeply. He stood up and cannonballed into the pool, sinking back to the bottom to resume seeing how many seconds he could hold his breath for.
[he he, I laugh at you hopeless romantics...I see you know, lean, lean, lean in, lean in, drool, ......thunk]
Miam stared at the ceiling for a long time. So long that the little dots on it made pictures of squirrels, cheeseburgers, and old men.
She flopped her head to her left and looked at the pool. Loki was coming to the surface. A rivulet of blood trickled across her forehead, eyebrows and cheek from a gash where she had hit the pool wall. She sat up, glared at him and said, “I’m-going-to-Nancy’s-for-a-week-so-you’ll-have-to-make-your-own-fishsticks.” All said in under five seconds. Thus announced, she lurched to her feet and stalked to the helicopter pad.