Time: Friday, 13 August
Place: New York City
Lora, Pen, and MacHeather are real and are used with permission.
The Faer Hibernian Foundation is fictional and belongs to the Celtic Glow Worms.
[Friday 13 August, afternoon]
It had to happen some time.
Last May, Pen and MacHeather made Lora and me an offer we had to refuse... to run The Fiendish Glow on a continuing basis. We both had lives, we told them -- lives which, despite the machinations of the Faer Hibernian Foundation, could not be picked up and relocated to Toronto at the drop of a hat. So Pen moved as much of her business as could be, north of the US border, MacHeather started spending more time at the Glow and the Shrine.
Since the Glow's contract requires at least two Glow Worms to open and to close, one or another of us would have to head up any time either Pen or Heather had to be out of town for some reason or another. Usually, that "someone" was either Lora or me. The Glow had turned out to be mildly successful, with the result that we could write our flights off as legitimate business operating expenses.
All of the Glow Worms had expected to be on call during late August, when MacHeather would be taking a month-long retreat from her duties to finally wed her "daerlin Chris o' th' bonniest knaes e'er tae hae war'n a breaccan faile". I'd even managed to clear a few days' telecommuting to keep up with the ever-burgeoning pile of tasks at the day job and convince the other half that he really didn't need me to help him clear his apartment of everything he had to go through and triage in order to pass New Jersey State inspection. However, I hadn't expected the call message to come through this quickly -- or for it to be delivered with FLASH priority, in person, by a Faer Hibernian Foundation chauffeur waiting to drive me to LaGuardia's Marine Air Terminal and the Foundation's private Beechcraft.
The sealed envelope the gloved chauffeur placed in my hands contained a single word.
War.
breaccan faile : "great kilt". The older style of kilt, formed by centering and pleating twelve yards of body-width fabric over a belt, laying down upon it, and buckling the belt around the waist. The part of the fabric that lies above the waist can either hang down over the belt, or one corner can be brought over the shoulder much like the current plaid, or can be brought over one's upper body to serve as a coat or a rain-break. It looks best on Big, Beautiful Men...
The State of New Jersey requires the inspection of apartments in buildings with four or more residence units. Brenda and her SO are both packrats, and there's a lot of stuff they needed to truck out of his place in order for it to pass inspection...
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NEXT
STORY: HOME AWAY FROM HOME
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