Because Kylie's a Prat

(updated with the end + changed a little of the beginning bit)

Maddy soaked for a bit longer, listening for signs of Theresa’s unrest. The house was still for once, probably as a result of the beating she’d given it, and there was no sound of a restless little girl. And just when Maddy began to think she’d healed all she could for the night, a bell rang somewhere deeper in the house.

Maddy silently cursed the house for leaving the doorbell of all things in place and gripped the sides of the tub with her now pink and tender hands. Grunting, she heaved herself out of the tub and fumbled for her bathrobe, which she habitually left hanging on a hook that liked to rotate from the back of the bathroom door (where it was now) to the wall next to the sink.

The scratchy fabric on her new baby flesh made her wince. The doorbell rang again. Huffing, she shuffled out of the bathroom, passed through the parlor room with a smile at the curled up lump of quilt and Theresa on her chair, and out into the antechamber, softly closing the parlor door behind her.

The wide window in the front door was made out of old glass that blurred the world outside, but even so Maddy could tell the person insistently ringing was the man who lived next door, Mr. Lombard. No one else would dare wear such a gaudy shade of violet.

Maddy undid the chain and unlocked the door, opening it a jar to peer outside. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, but the horizon was a deep blue that suggested the sun was considering raising any moment now, and that provided just enough light to make out the scowl on the elderly man’s face.

“Hello, Stan,” Maddy greeted, and he boggled at her. It occurred to Maddy that she was most likely still a delightful shade of salmon pink and she had never bothered to fix her hair.

Mr. Lombard got over himself quickly and snapped, “What on earth happened?”

“Oh, you know,” Maddy said pleasantly with a strained smile. “The house has been acting up again. I’ll call someone soon.”

Mr. Lombard tapped his foot with its fancy black shoes and sneered. “Then what was all that screaming and smashing about? You people are so inconsiderate.”

Maddy bit her lip. “Stan, I apologize, but–”

“Just because you can’t control your child– don’t look at me like that, I heard the kid screaming! If you can’t handle a simple temper tantrum, either get a nanny who can or get out of this neighborhood and that god forsaken house.”

Maddy narrowed her eyes, straightened her back, and made a point of peering down at the age-shrunken man. “Theresa is wonderfully well-mannered, thank you very much,” she said tightly. “And I would ask you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

Mr. Lombard’s scowl deepened as he backed away, hobbling with his cane with the wooden falcon’s head at the top that made horrendous noises when he crossed intersections at unsafe times, and the porch creaked beneath him. “I try to show some neighborly concern for you, thinking that maybe your child needed help, and you just sniff at me.” He shook his finger at her as if she were a naughty pet. “No manners! No respect for anyone!”

Maddy thought that he must not have been very concerned at all if he had bothered to get dressed and groomed before coming over, and she told him as much.

He fumed back at her, the wrinkled flaps of skin on his neck quivering. “You’re losing it Madeline,” he cautioned. “The flooded attic, a rat infestation, that summer with all the bees– and now this! You’re falling apart, you and that house.”

“Good morning, Stan,” Maddy answered curtly and closed the door. She watched through the blurred window as he stomped across the porch and down the stairs. Rubbing her temples, she turned back to the parlor, easing open the door and accessing the situation.

Theresa had made herself comfortable in the seat of the armchair in a position only a child could sleep in, with her knees pulled up to her chin and her head twisted up so her cheek was pressed against the arm of the chair. The quilt was draped over her and she seemed perfectly content, her eyelids rippling with dreams and little puff noises coming from her parted lips, but Maddy worried about her baby’s neck and back and knees, and so she carefully gathered Theresa up in her arms, quilt and all. She nearly tripped over the nearly empty tea cup Theresa had left on the floor and walked through the door that should have led into the hall, but instead found herself in the study.

Maddy tsked. She really didn’t have time for this. “Can’t you cooperate just this once?” she said to the wall over the little chest of writing supplies.

Crossing the room, she shifted Theresa around a bit in her arms, cooing motherly things, to turn the brass doorknob to the closet door. Opening it, she found a spare bedroom. This would have to do. She had been aiming to take Theresa to Maddy’s own bedroom to sleep, since although (or perhaps because) she only ever pretended to sleep in it, the bed was quite comfortable. But a bed was a bed was not a chair, so she settled the little child down into it, kissing her forehead as she pulling the thin blanket up to her collarbone and piling the quilt on top of that. Chases were that Theresa would kick them off in her sleep soon enough, but Maddy didn’t want to risk her catching a chill.

Maddy stood and watched her child sleep until he sun finally did decide to peek out between neighboring houses and trees and Theresa deftly flipped onto her belly and threw both the blanket and the quilt from herself in one movement. Maddy chuckled quietly to herself and remembered the mess she’d left downstairs (or maybe it was upstairs now too) and quietly excused herself from the room. It was still in the closet of the study, but the study was now where it was supposed to be, and so she made her way back to the bathroom and the Ax without incident.

“A manticore, really,” she scolded nothing in particular as she threw the Ax over her shoulder, ignoring the protests of her too sensitive skin.

“Now, where’s that room got to?”

(BAAALL'S IN YOOUUURRR COOOUUUURRRRRT)