Everyone laughed, but his suggestion gave me an idea.
“Ooh,” Celestina said. “I want to go.” She swung her head to her mother. “Can I? See them in concert? It’ll be awesome! So? Can I?”
“No,” Alexis said firmly. “Heavy metal music is…” She looked us over, “the music of the devil!”
“What?” I asked, appalled by her ignorant insinuation. “That’s such BS.” I stared at her, waiting for a response. Getting none, I said, “Sure, we all love metal, but so does Lady Gaga and Carrie Underwood. Are they evil? I also love pop and country. Brandon likes jazz and R&B. Kendall? Alternative and rap! And Nolan? Blues and classical music. You see?” I stared at my sister. “How many classical music fans are devil worshipers? Or jazz fans? The next time you criticize someone, you better know what you’re talking about.”
“What about bands like—”
“We’re talking about us! We might have heavy guitars and pounding drums, but the melodies I write are the same heard in pop and country music.”
“Whatever,” she said, noticing her hand shaking. She placed her free palm over it, acting as though she’d twisted it and massaged the pain away. “But she’s still not going. It’s too dangerous. My shift will start soon. I need to get to work.” Having finished kneading her hand, she should have relinquished it. She didn’t, meaning she feared it would continue trembling, which in turn meant that she had an addiction that needed a fix.
“What about your lingerie line?” asked Brandon. “When do you spend time on that? Or is that all bogus?”
“I have a partner.” She grinned, revealing that she did little to justify whatever profits she made from the business. “I design the products. He handles the rest.”
“So, he takes care of the finances, promotion, merchandising, taxes—”
“Works for me,” Alexis said with a buoyant smile.
I nodded. “Translation: You use mind control to trick him into working for you.”
“A nice gig,” Brandon said, “if you’re okay with raping someone’s mind to force them into doing something they don’t want to.”
“I didn’t force him to do a thing. He wanted to run a business. I gave him a business he could run almost single-handedly.”
“You’re a mind-reader,” Brandon said. “Worse than that, you push thoughts into people’s heads.” He turned to me. “You trust her?” Then he looked at Kendall. “How about you?”
“Blind trust,” Nolan said, holding Alexis’s gaze. “That’s what no one will give you willingly until you’re worthy of it.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Celestina said, cringing at the admission. It appeared that she feared retribution for acting out, but that she took some pride in having aired her feelings.
Alexis’s grin widened to the point of giddiness. “You’re all wound up so tight!”
I’d had enough of her lackadaisical attitude. I stepped up to my sister, grabbed her forearm, and led her across the living room and through the hallway until we entered my bedroom. I shut the door behind us. I sensed that she was about to underplay my reaction, so I flung her a few feet away to show that we all took the situation seriously.
“Taking this a little too—”
“Quit with the nonchalant crap.” I heaved for air and found it difficult to keep my emotions in check. It seemed that occurred every time I had a disagreement with my sister. Few others could rouse such ire from me without trying, but my sister did so with ease.
“What’s got your—”
“Lingerie in a bunch?” I finished for her. “Have you fought vampires before today?”
“No, but I don’t—”
“Has your mother died before?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “How dare you—”
Based on my sister’s response, my suspicions were correct. Alexis feared that our mother had died, but she didn’t truly believe it had occurred. That explained how she had acted so unaffected, so disconcerted.
“She’s gone,” I said, trying to get her to accept the truth.
“I never saw—”
“Proof? Why would I lie to you? What would I gain? If I lied, you’d come after me. You’ve already killed me once.”
“Exactly!” she snapped. Her tone was as icy as the bolts of fury she could send my way at any moment. “You’re not afraid because…you’ve already died.” She searched my eyes and after a few moments, she realized something she didn’t voice. Instead, she almost hesitated to say, “You don’t know what that means.”
Her fragile tone sent a shard of fear down my back. “What do you mean?” My sister’s uncertainty vanished all too quickly, as though she hid what she’d learned, fearing that speaking the truth would result in placing her at a disadvantage.
Of course, such trepidation sent my nerves galloping. I was eager to discover what she preferred to keep to herself. Yet, if I inquired about that which she spoke, Alexis would shrug and act as though nothing significant had crossed her mind. And if I pestered her for an answer, she would grow obstinate and remain emotionally unavailable. Therefore, I acted as though she’d lost her mind. Since she figured I was dim-witted when it came to the magical world, I could only gain by continuing to lend that impression. So I continued with the conversation before it took this strange turn.
“A few days ago, you saw Zephora, or our mother as you probably see it, admit that Grams was beside me in spectral form. She knew that only I saw her. So, are you saying that she was hallucinating?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Let’s assume Delphine was still alive at that point—”
“Because she was.”
“Fine. Moving on. You knew she could communicate with our ancestors on the other side.”
“So?”
“Isn’t it unlikely that she would be hallucinating…if she contacting witches beyond the veil on an everyday basis?”
Her one-shouldered shrug was an unspoken admission.
“You still think I’m lying to you?”
She snickered. “I killed you. Why should I trust you with…anything?”
She made a good point. How many people would trust me if they were in Alexis’s position? And to think that I’d been struggling with an inability to completely trust her! I would have been better off by distrusting Alexis from the moment we met at her strip club yesterday.
Her hands started quivering, so she locked one hand around the other to stop it from shaking. “Are we done?” she asked with a bored expression. “I have a job to get back to. You know, a child to support?”
“So who’s going to watch her while you’re gone?”
“She’s thirteen! She can take care of herself.”
This from a woman who regarded Celestina as an immature ten-year-old. Furthermore, I hadn’t seen sufficient evidence to consider her less mature than her age dictated, so I had no problem with her remaining home alone. But since my sister obviously regarded her as too inexperienced to remain by herself, why would she suddenly have no qualms about leaving her unsupervised?
Those uncertainties heightened my mistrust.
“So again,” she said, “are we done?” Without waiting for a response, she spun around, opened the door, and walked out. When she entered the living room, she said, “I’m sure Aunt Serena will cook you up something for dinner before she goes to that concert of hers. Respect your Aunt’s property. I took on an extra shift tonight, so I’ll be home later than usual.”
“But,” my niece said, “why can’t I—”
Alexis swiped a hand through the air, silencing her. “No!” She reached the door, opened it, stepped out, and shut it behind her.
Celestina turned toward me. “So can I go to your show tonight? I promise, I won’t get in the way. You won’t even know I’m there. I just want to see a rock ’n’ roll show!”
Her eagerness sounded so harmless and inquisitive that I wanted to approve her request, but like it or not, Alexis was her mother. She had raised Celestina, and ha
d obviously earned the right to dictate where her daughter would spend the night.
Not hearing my friends respond, I hurried through the hall and entered the living room. “I’m sorry, but no, you’ll have to stay here.”
Celestina’s eyebrows knit together as she turned to glare at me. “Why? You know I won’t get in any trouble. So why not?”
“Your mother said—”
“But she left,” my niece said, her tone taking on an edge. “She’s not here. You are.” Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “You’re my aunt. You get a say.”
“Your mother is responsible for—”
Celestina slammed her fists against her thighs. She stomped her right foot into the carpet, and the ground thumped, sending a rippling aftershock across the rest of the floor.
Startled, I stared at my niece as my peripheral vision picked up that my friends looked to me to respond to that outburst that shook the ground. The last time my niece acted out, she’d pinned me to the wall. Fear penetrated my bones at the possibility that she might respond in an even more forceful manner than she had before, but I couldn’t imagine Alexis relenting to her daughter whenever she didn’t get what she wanted. In those instances, she probably maintained a stoic, impenetrable expression while laying down her instructions without fear that her daughter would abide by them.
I needed to retain some semblance of control, while maintaining a sense of self: remaining caring and considerate. “Do I want you to come? Yes, of course. I’d like nothing better than to have you see us perform. But you need to stop acting like a child throwing a temper tantrum.”
“I’m not a child.”
“So stop acting like one.”
Celestina pulled her arms behind her back as though trying to reign in her anger.
I held her stare. “If you want to be treated like an adult, act like one.”
Her furious expression transformed into one of benign sorrow as she looked down at the floor. “I just wanted,” she said in a low voice, “to see you on stage.”
A cynical person would have suspected that Celestina was trying to manipulate me based on how her emotions had managed such a quick turnaround, but I saw a young woman battling to balance her frustration and excitement. “Sometimes you have to handle rejection before you can be accepted. Does that make sense?”
Celestina looked into my eyes while trying to grasp my message. Having received it, she lowered her shoulders as she stared at the floor. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Now, I’ve been working with Kendall and Brandon for three years on our music. When we weren’t studying, we were playing at bars and clubs all over the state. Tonight, we’ve got a huge opportunity, our biggest show yet.” I glanced at Nolan, grateful to find belief in his eyes that I was handling the situation gracefully. “But Nolan just became a member of our band. We need to spend time rehearsing before the concert. Otherwise, everything we’ve worked for might fall apart. The way the music industry is nowadays, we can’t afford to fail. We can’t let anyone think we became popular because of our stage show and not what really matters, our music!”
Celestina wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Whatever,” she said, sounding like her mother.
“I’m sorry you can’t see us.”
“It’s fine. Whatever.”
Lulu appeared at my legs and looked from me to Celestina and back again, as though telling me I needed to instill confidence in my niece. So I went over, knelt down in front of her, and grasped her arms. “I never had a mother. And I just lost Grams. She was someone who meant…”
My voice cracked, making it impossible to complete my sentence. I steadied myself. “Well, you’re mother doesn’t like me very much.”
Celestina met my eyes. “Well, duh, Aunt Serena. She killed you.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess that qualifies as…hatred.”
“Ah, yeah.” Moisture in her eyes made them twinkle.
“What I’m trying to say is...you’re the only family I’ve got.” I grasped her arms tight and, feeling an uncomfortable amount of emotion take hold of me, I pulled her into a hug.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” she said. “It was stupid. And mean. I was angry. I didn’t mean it.”
My breath hitched in my throat at her apology for how she’d responded after I’d knocked her mother unconscious. “I know, honey.” I held her, smelling the strawberry-scented shampoo in her hair. “I know.” The scent reminded me of long ago. A time of doing homework with friends at the library and sleepovers and life without responsibilities or consequences. But it seemed that my niece hadn’t experienced that just yet. It made my heart clench at all that she’d lost…without having known it. Rather than get drawn into negativity, I looked to the bright side. Maybe she’d find a way to make friends who didn’t judge her. Rather than submit to cynicism, I forced myself to believe that it wasn’t only a possibility but a certainty. I disregarded her quick emotional transformation, a common occurrence among teenagers, and trusted her response.
“All right,” said Kendall with enthusiasm. “We’re ready for tonight, right?”
“Yeah,” Brandon said, looking far from excited. In fact, he looked like he might vomit at any moment. “I think…I better…” He ran toward the front door, opened it, and jumped out the front door before whipping it behind him.
“Wow!” said Nolan. “Who wouldn’t need that for encouragement?”
I didn’t want to say a word. Now that matters had turned toward our show tonight, my stomach had churned into a ball of indecision. On one hand, I looked forward to the gig. On the other, I feared that I’d soon let down the audience, not to mention our band members. This wasn’t uncommon. Before every show, my uncertainty wavered back and forth and adrenaline always overloaded my system. Some nights, the rush of energy helped me prepare for the show. On others, I felt so sick that I feared that I’d vomit on fans in the front row. Tonight, I could only hope I veered toward the former rather than the latter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Nolan sat opposite me in our cramped dressing room that contained half a dozen chairs similar to those found in the corner of a hotel room. An unobstructed mirror lined the entire wall. I sat in the chair opposite Nolan, who warmed up by playing his acoustic guitar, by which I went through some vocal exercises.
“Kendall’s outside,” he said. “She’s walking back and forth across the alley and instructing herself not to mess up tonight. Brandon’s doing some kind of Kama Sutra to relax.”
“You mean yoga?”
“Yeah. That whole Kama—”
I chuckled at his confusion. “The Kama Sutra is a set of sexual positions.”
“Oh.” A cute smile slowly formed. “Doing that by himself would look pretty odd.”
To get off the subject, I said, “What you said about Celestina really meant a lot to me.”
“She’s a good kid.”
The door opened and a staffer from the venue poked his head into the room. “You’re on in five.” As he closed the door, the cheering crowd shocked us.
“That sounds intense,” I said, anxiety nipping at my nerves.
“Did you see the crowd? It’s packed! I don’t even think the fire code allows that many people in this building.”
I thought he overestimated the excitement…until I let silence intrude upon our conversation. Just as Nolan had said, the crowd was hollering, clapping, and whistling in a cacophony of noise. In order to calm my nerves, I told myself they were only interested in hearing Scrap Mettle play. After all, the headliners hadn’t played together in nearly a decade!
“Scrap Mettle wanted us to open for them,” Nolan said. “Remember, they hadn’t planned for anyone to go on before them until they saw us on stage. They think we’re the real thing. I won’t give them reason to think otherwise.” His eyes appeared calm and confident. “You’re going to be great tonight.”
His faith distilled some of my uneasiness. “Maybe I should start doing some yoga.” I grabbed the maho
gany, handcrafted cane I bought at a secondhand store a couple hours earlier and used it to rise to my feet. It helped remove some of the pain in my right knee, but my hand shook no matter how tightly I held the handle. Rather than concentrate on the anxiety riddling my body, I admired his beautiful face.
“No matter how many vamps or monsters attack us tonight, we’re going to put on a show that everybody will remember.”
He tried to fill me with the confidence that swept through him, but it had the opposite effect; his statement pressured me to live up to his expectations, and I wasn’t sure I could meet those standards. I wish he hadn’t kept talking. His comments left me sick to my stomach.
* * *
Kendall, Brandon, and Nolan had already hit the stage and kicked into our first number: “Nightshade.” The applause kicked so much adrenaline into my system that I didn’t feel any discomfort in my knee, which also settled my jittering nerves. I rushed out across the stage and scanned the more than one thousand people on both the lower and upper levels. They pumped their fists and nodded their heads to the beat. Thankfully, I didn’t see any overly pale individuals in attendance.
Ordinarily, the crowd didn’t arrive to see the opening band. They showed up later to see the headliners. But today, not one seat was vacant. An egotistical musician would have assumed the spectators had come early to see the opening band. That would have put a tremendous amount of pressure on us, but I turned to see my friends playing with smiles as they concentrated on putting on a good performance. Their professionalism put things into perspective. Scrap Mettle had just reassembled after a long absence from the music scene. The fans were enthused to see them, not us.
I grabbed the microphone stand, rocked side-to-side, and let the music guide me. I’d never before performed on such an enormous stage. Granted, it didn’t compare to arenas or stadiums, but our band had always played on cramped stages that offered little in the way of mobility. Now I had free range of a gigantic amount of space, and I tried not to let it intimidate me.
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