Ann Aguirre - Mortal Danger

Blackbriar might be under a cloud, but for the rest of my imprisonment, it didn’t storm. The silence made me uneasy, however, and things were lonely at school, as Davina and Jen were MIA. I hoped that meant they’d persuaded their parents to send them elsewhere, at least for a while. I checked my messages, but there was nothing in my inbox.

Vi was still around, at least. Tuesday night, we talked on Skype. “How are the dreams?” I asked.

“After I sent off my college applications, they totally stopped. Must’ve been stress.”

I suspected it had more to do with burning my second favor, but relief cascaded through me so hard, I got a headrush. “I need to send my stuff in, deadlines are approaching.”

“I figured you’d be done already.”

“No, I’m still putting the package together. I can’t get my essay right.” Truth was, I hadn’t even tried to write one.

“Don’t let it paralyze you. Just pick a theme and run with it.”

“Thanks. I’ll see if I can get everything out next week.”

We chatted a little longer, then I disconnected to get ready for bed. When I went to the bathroom, I left my bedroom door cracked, but when I came back, it was closed. My heart skittered in my chest like it was full of mice. For a few seconds, I stood in the hall, staring.

“Something wrong?”

I spun to find my mother standing behind me. “No, I was just thinking.”

“About how ill-considered your behavior has been lately, I hope.”

“Obviously.”

Normally she wasn’t good at picking up sarcasm, but both brows went up. “Edith, you haven’t been yourself this fall. Do you want to talk to a specialist?”

I had no idea what she meant by that. “A psychologist or a brain doctor?”

“Whichever you think would be most helpful.”

The secrets I had locked in my head would only land me in the psych ward, if the shrink pried them out of me, and an MRI couldn’t solve these problems. So I shook my head. “Sorry, Mom. I think the college admission process is getting to me.”

Any mention of university usually diverted Mom into a lecture, but she didn’t take the bait this time. “Do you have a minute to talk?” She sounded oddly tentative.

“Sure.” Bemused, I followed her into the living room. Before sitting down, she made us both a cup of tea.

“I feel like I don’t know what to do with you anymore.”

“That’s an ominous beginning. I’ve been more trouble than usual lately, but—”

“I don’t mean we’re on the verge of shipping you off to boarding school.” She fiddled with the fringe on the afghan dangling from the back of the couch. “It’s hard for me to say this, but I perceive I haven’t been what you need, emotionally, as a mother.”

Oh Jesus. A year ago, I would’ve loved to have this conversation with her. Now it was too late, though not for the reasons she feared. I fidgeted, picking up a pillow and clutching it to my chest, as if stuffing and fabric was a shield for awkwardness.

“You’re fine,” I mumbled.

“That’s nice of you, but it’s not true. I thought if we sent you to a good school and let you form your own emotional attachments while giving you space that would be enough. I can see now that it wasn’t.”

Part of me wanted to ask where this epiphany was before I ended up on the bridge, but I swallowed it along with a sudden ache in my throat. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

Her face fell, but she soldiered gamely on. “I want us to have a better relationship, a closer one. We have science in common, at least. I don’t know much about your new interests, but I could stand to be more physically fit. Maybe we could work out together? There’s a nice facility at the university…” She bit her lip, sad and hopeful at the same time.

Nice olive branch, Mom. I could either accept it or set it on fire. Since I hadn’t run in the morning since the creepiness started, I nodded. “We could go a couple of times in the afternoon and then maybe on Saturdays?”

“I’d like that. And … I wouldn’t hate it if you have time to teach me some things about doing my face. For parties?”

No more fugly red lipstick, Mom.

“That would be fun.” Not a word I typically used to describe anything related to my mother. “You’re an autumn, you know.”

Her unshaped brows shot up. “I’m a what now?”

“One step at a time.”

She wore a tentative smile, and I studied her. Her hair was a frazzled russet, badly in need of a good cut and some deep conditioning. For as long as I could remember, she had worn it in a messy knot. She was round, but not seriously overweight; she had the body of someone who didn’t move around a lot, understandable given how much of her time she spent writing on whiteboards and poring over legal pads.

“Would it be all right if I hugged you?”

For some reason, that choked me up. Tears rose to my eyes as I set aside the throw pillow. “You don’t have to ask. You can, anytime you want.”

I wish you did it more.

She smelled like lilac talcum powder when she reached over and squeezed me around the shoulders. “Your father and I love you very much. And we’re so proud of you, Edith.”

Exhaling in a shaky rush, I put my head on her shoulder. Her lumpy cardigan scratched my cheek, but it was a good five minutes before I moved. “Let’s hit the gym Thursday afternoon, okay?”

Mom actually looked misty when she nodded. “I’ll meet you there. We can swing by and grab takeout for dinner afterward, give your dad a break from cooking.”

If I was teaching her about hair and makeup, then I should ask to trade. “Maybe, if you have time, you could show me something about electrical sockets? And plumbing?”

“I’d be glad to. A woman should never—”

“Depend on a man if she’s capable of learning how to do something herself.”

She looked so surprised when I finished her sentence, then she burst out laughing. “It’s good to know I haven’t been shouting my wisdom down a well all these years.”

“Nope. Night, Mom.”

Wednesday was a good day, maybe because I was happy, and I just … didn’t think about the problems squatting on the horizon. Even pawns on a chessboard needed a day off now and then. I pretended I had Pandora’s box inside and shoved all the horrible feelings into it. On Thursday morning, Davina came back to school, and it astonished me how relieved I was. I wove through the crowd toward her.

“You back?”

Glumly she nodded. “I talked my mom into letting me see a therapist, but the traitorous bastard said the best thing for me was to get back on the horse that threw me.”

“Huh?”

“Coming back to school will prevent me from forming some kind of aversive phobia.” She yanked down a pink sign-up sheet with more than a hint of violence. “Oh, look. Allison’s gone wheels-up with her coup d’état and tryouts are tomorrow afternoon. I haven’t practiced at all , so I’ll be lucky to be mascot, after three years of taking their shit. God, sometimes I hate them so much.”

“Why didn’t you just make new friends?” I asked.

“Russ,” she said miserably. “God, I’d liked him since I was a freshman and he barely knew I was alive.”

“You don’t have to go out for the squad. Let Allison have it.”

She shook her head, wearing a ferocious frown. “Screw that. If I don’t make it, then it’s like I wasted all of that time and she wins.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Try out with me.”

I cackled, until I realized she was serious. “Why, to make you look better by comparison when I fall on my butt?”