Emporium 1

**Chapter 1**

Our story begins with a mysterious Someone who is doing yo-yo tricks. She does various tricks for about a page before another, equally mysterious Something attempts to break down her door. Our mystery woman seems to have been expecting this, as she yanks open the door and demands to know what took them so long.

Huh. Okay.

Our story *truly* begins with Allie, our protagonist, awakening. Allie is a twenty-four-year-old slacker: *“unemployed, friendless, and back home with no prospects.”* She's just lost her job as a research assistant at the Royal Ontario Museum. Charlie and Dmitri, whoever they are, are no longer in the bed when she wakes up. Looks like Allie is a bit of a swinger.

We get a page of Allie musing to herself about her tragic lot in life, and we learn that her family helped her move out of her apartment, and that they're a big family and often do stuff together. Allie is also jealous of someone named Michael *“with his stupid perfect boyfriend and his stupid perfect job.”* There's a couple of pages of background as we learn that Allie's full name is Alysha Catherine Gale, and that during the night, Dmitri had traced a “charm” on her calf. This seems to be frowned on but not expressly forbidden.

We learn a bit about the Gale family. There are normally four or five girls to every boy, and boys are never born first. This makes Allie unusual as she is an only daughter and has an older brother, David. *“He got the Gale that should have been spread out over half a dozen girls,”* according to Aunt Jane. There seem to be a lot of aunts in the Gale family, and don't expect me to keep track of them all.

More about stupid perfect Michael. It seems the family expected Allie to hook up with him, and blames her for the fact that they can't have him in the Gales now. This seems rather unfair given that Michael is apparently gay, but also seems entirely believable.

Suddenly, we meet Allie's cousin Katie, and Katie's younger sister Maria. Maria is unhappy with Allie because she *“has plans for [Dmitri],”* and is upset that Dmitri was sleeping with Allie. And this gets us our first drink for incest, as Dmitri, Allie and Maria are all cousins. \~/ I don't care if they're *distant* cousins; the text never establishes that and it's creepy regardless.

Allie reassures Maria that she only fucked her cousin because *“he's working his way through his list, and I haven't been around much.”* So . . . Dmitri has a list of cousins he intends to sleep with? And everyone is okay with this? \~/

Maria says, okay, Dmitri wanted to sleep with Allie, but why did Allie want to sleep with him? This causes everyone to stare at her in shock, and Aunt Jane say *“Turn down a Gale boy?”* Because apparently, denying sexual access to one of your male cousins is positively unheard-of in the Gale family.

Yeah, that's worth a couple of drinks, I'd say. One for incest, one for sexism. \~/\~/

Allie attempts to reassure Maria by letting her know that they were in a threesome with Charlie (who is of the female persuasion, it turns out). Since Charlie is 26, and thus more than seven years older than Dmitri, this proves that it was just meaningless sex and Allie has no intent of *“making an actual connection with her young cousin.”* How, um, reassuring. \~/

Charlie apparently has some sort of special power, and half the family wants to *“breed her ability back into the lines,”* while the other half argues that such a thing is impossible. So the Gales treat their young folk like livestock; how charming.

There's some opaque conversation about David, and how people are worried about Granddad and how David won't have to take over for him any time soon. I presume this will all become clear later in the book, because for now nothing is really explained. Finally, the scene ends with Auntie Ruby having *“found a broom”* and *“cackling,”* and the implication that she's flying about like the Wicked Witch of the West.

So, the Gales are witches. Incestous witches. This sounds like the setup for a porn movie.

We get a brief interlude with Charlie, who is making her way through the capital-W Wood, a place which makes *“the actual distance between Aunt Mary's porch and Cincinnati irrelevant.”* Shades of the Wood Between the Worlds from the Narnia books. Charlie uses her guitar to find the path, and worries about shadows.

Next, Charlie is back in the normal world, presumably in Cincinnati. She enters a hotel, is needlessly snippy to some random guy in the elevator, and meets Roland, a cousin whom she is supposed to be taxiing back to the family reunion. They talk. Charlie is worried about something *“funky”* in the Wood. Roland is bringing a toy for his three-year-old daughter. The concept of a man loving his toddler arouses Charlie – yes, really – and she considers jumping Roland right then and there, knowing that his daughter's mothers wouldn't care – yes, really. Roland's own desires and emotions aren't considered, I should note. \~/

Also, I'm not sure why Roland's daughter has multiple mothers, but surely it will be explained later.

Roland says something mildly clueless about Charlie's music, which is enough to cool her ardor. *“Sweet guy, but his idea of music stopped and started around John Williams, and usually involved light sabers.”*

As a proud nerd and Star Wars fan, I feel like I should be offended there.

Anyway, Charlie and Roland head home, wherever home is. Charlie tells three of the Aunts that she encountered something new in the Wood, to which they are condescending and borderline insulting, which is just doing wonders to endear me to this family. The argument is interrupted by David's arrival, and Allie notes that he's *“already showing horn.”*

. . .

That had better not mean what it sounds like it means.

There's an unrelated scene of Allie and Charlie walking through *“the Grove*” and by Dmitri, who is rather preoccupied with *“both Marie and either Carrie or Ashley. Without clothing it was almost impossible to tell Charlie's twin sisters apart.”* Yay, more casual incest. \~/ And by “Yay,” of course, I mean “Oh God, why is this happening?”

And suddenly, we are with He. He is wearing glyphs which protect him from discovery and looking down a scope at someone or something with horns. He lines up a shot, despite mentally noting that this is just a recon mission. I shall call He Sniper.

Next scene, and Allie wakes up in the middle of the night. Katie and Charlie are asleep in her bed, but it's not definitely stated that they were having Happy Family Fun Time, so I'll let it go for now. Allie sneaks out of the house, sees a stag *“across the south pasture, at the edge of the woods,”* and decides that *“That explained it.”* She heads across the pasture and finds her grandfather, *“antlers still very much evident.”* So Granddad is (and by implication, all the Gale boys are) a shapeshifter who can assume stag form? We'll go with that.

Allie and Granddad have an opaque conversation that doesn't inform us readers much. It's implied that Gale men fight for position, and while no one really wants to replace Granddad (as family patriarch?), sometimes emotions run high. Granddad offers Allie some Yoda-like advice and they part.

There follows several pages of family stuff, none of which seems to be plot-relevant. Family members collect their offspring and depart, and there's some more reference to casual cousin-banging \~/. David and Auntie Jane have a conversation to the effect that David will have to choose soon or the choice will be made for him. We also learn that *“In my day . . . Gale boys chose by twenty,”* so saith Auntie Jane.

Anyway, Charlie leaves and Allie gets the mail. In the mail is a letter to her from her grandmother, stating that if Allie is reading this, Gran is dead.

**DUN DUN DUN!!!**

Drinks: 8

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