Cate Tiernan - Strife

“Wow.” Mary K. looked at me as if to say, “Isn’t that crazy?”

“I know,” Alisa went on. “The doctors say it was a really bad virus and that the worst of it just had to pass through my system before I could start getting better.” She looked at me meaningfully. “But the fact is, they don’t really know what made me sick—and now they don’t have any idea what made me better.”

The way she was staring at me made me uncomfortable, and I looked away, out the window. Did she and Mary K. think that I’d cured her? But I hadn’t. “Alisa, I—”

“Anyway,” Alisa interrupted me, “I just wanted to say thank you. For coming to visit me in the hospital, I mean.” She looked down into her lap and stroked the tiny red-and-white bear. Even though she was better, I still sensed a sadness in Alisa. I wondered about the family problems Mary K. had mentioned before.

“You’re welcome,” I said softly. I reached over to squeeze her arm. She seemed so down, and I still felt this weird protectiveness toward her. I wondered if I was starting to get maternal urges or something.

As I touched Alisa’s arm, there was a crash. Alisa jumped. We all looked up to see that a framed photo had fallen off the mantel across the room. Frowning, Mary K. jumped up and picked it off the floor. “That’s weird,” she murmured, holding up a photo of our family around the tree last Christmas. “Must have been a draft.”

I stared, frozen. There was no reason for that picture to fall off the mantel. No reason, that is, except the strange telekinetic incidents that had been following me. But that was Ciaran, I told myself. And Ciaran’s in custody. He can’t be doing this to me.

Was it possible that it was just a weird accident? Maybe I was making something out of nothing. If it had happened anytime before the past couple of weeks, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. It was just that so much had been happening lately. . anything even vaguely out of the ordinary seemed suspicious.

Mary K. gingerly picked up the broken glass that surrounded the picture. As I watched her, I had a more frightening thought: What if it wasn’t Ciaran who had been behind those incidents? What if it was someone else— someone else who was after me, and still on the loose?

“Um, I’d better get back to my homework,” I blurted, standing up. “Alisa, I’m really glad you’re feeling better. I hope I’ll see you back at school soon.”

“Thanks.”

As I left the room, my eyes fell on the photo. Mary K. had propped it, still in the broken frame, on an end table while she picked up the glass. I shuddered when I saw how it had broken. Deep cracks had formed that set Mary K., my mom, and my dad in one section. In the other section was me, alone.

I sprinted back up to my room.

But before I even had time to think about what had happened, Mom knocked on my bedroom door. “Do you have a minute?” she called.

“Sure,” I said as my mom opened the door and walked in, holding a sheaf of papers in her hand. I sighed. I could smell a lecture coming on. I knew what the papers were—it was the extra-credit assignment I’d written for Mr. Powell. He’d just handed it back that morning, with an A—that meant the full twenty points of extra credit. I’d been so excited about it that I’d left it out on the kitchen table for my mom to see, but now I remembered. She hadn’t been so thrilled that I’d chosen to write about the persecution of witches. No doubt she wanted to tell me that this wouldn’t be an appropriate application essay for Saint Anne’s.

“Morgan,” my mom said as she settled at the edge of my bed, "I like to think I’m a reasonable person.”

Usually, I said mentally. But I didn’t say anything out loud; I just nodded.

“That’s why I—” But she couldn’t finish. She just looked at the paper and shook her head.

“Look, I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said finally. “I just left it out because I thought you’d be glad that my grades are coming up.”

“I know,” my mom said slowly. “And you were right—I am glad.” She flipped through the paper. “This is very well written, Morgan. You must have done a lot of research for it.”

“A lot,” I agreed. “But it’s not hard when you’re researching something you’re really interested in.”

My mom nodded and pursed her lips. “I always told you girls that I’d never stand in the way of things you were interested in,” she said. “At the time, I thought that was such an easy promise to make.” She looked down at the paper again. “Morgan, I think your father and I made a mistake when we considered sending you to Catholic school.”

For a moment I thought I’d misheard her or hallucinated or something.

“That was the wrong solution,” my mom went on. “I guess we—or I guess I—just overreacted. I. .” My mom stopped to take a deep breath. “I hope you know that I’m just afraid for you, Morgan. I love you, that’s all,” she finished in a whisper.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me. She was serious—no Catholic school! Thank the Goddess! And with that wave of relief came a rush of love and gratitude for my mom, who was putting aside her fear and allowing me to explore something she didn’t understand. I leaned over and took the paper from her hand. “Thank you so much,” I said softly. “I know Wicca frightens you. But it’s part of me, Mom. I can’t change it.”

My mother was silent for so long that I thought perhaps I’d upset her. But finally she said, “You’re right.” She sighed and shook her head. “Morgan, I’m your mother, and I want you to be happy. I was concerned when I saw your grades suffering. But now you’ve shown me that you’re bringing them up. You’ve even proved that your interests and your academics can peacefully coexist.” She looked at me. “I don’t want to be the kind of mother who tells you what to believe. I swore to myself that I’d never be like that, and I intend to keep that promise. No matter how hard it is.”

I leaned over and hugged her, breathing in the light, sweet smell of her perfume. It occurred to me how much I had missed her—how much I had missed my whole family—in the last few weeks. Now I was safe, Ciaran was in custody, and I had my family around me. I felt warm and happy. My mom kissed me on the forehead. “I think that this hard work deserves a little reward,” she said. “What do you suggest?”

I lifted my eyebrows and grinned. “The end of my grounding period?”

“How about a phone call?”

“Good enough,” I said quickly, scrambling out of bed. Dagda let out a mew of complaint.

“Where are you going?” my mom asked.

I turned and grinned at her. “To go call Hunter.”

“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Well, tell him I said hello.”

“I will,” I called over my shoulder as I practically ran down the stairs. I couldn’t wait to tell him the good news about Alisa—I couldn’t wait to tell him everything. I was in such a hurry as I punched in Hunter’s number on the cordless phone that I messed up twice. I took a deep breath and tried again.

Hunter answered on the first ring. “Morgan, I’m so glad you called,” he said.

I laughed for what seemed like the first time in weeks. I hadn’t spoken to Hunter in days, and his voice seemed delicious to me. It was true that the mind melds we’d been having were great, but there was something so comforting about hearing his voice on the phone, so normal, that it almost made me giddy. “I guess there’s no point in trying to surprise you with a phone call,” I said lightly. “Guess what! No Catholic school!”

There was a moment of quiet on the other end of the line. For a second I wondered whether he’d heard me. “Morgan, love, that’s brilliant. Is it because you’ve brought your grades up?”