After a moment or two of waiting on the front step, I finally let out my breath as Chloe put her car into reverse and drove away. Her car slithered down the driveway. The woods crowded around it until the dark devoured even the red glow of the taillights.
I prayed she’d recover with time away from Jonah. Her mind needed healing from the heat, to develop a layer of scar tissue. Not all her memories of Jonah and me were wiped clean but enough that she wasn’t a threat, only a sad, bewildered shell.
A shadow moved along the perimeter of the woods. I recognized that gait. He’d come.
Ward’s tracks sank into the snow as he cut across the property, and he joined me on the step. I reached for his cold-reddened hand. He didn’t take it.
“You should come inside and warm up, gadjo,” I said. “You want me to make some hot chocolate?”
“Hot chocolate, the obvious beverage for people wandering the Wisconsin woods. I might need something stronger.” His teeth gritted and voice tight.
Inside, he stomped the snow off his boots. I reached for his coat, fingers brushing each other, the only touch he was willing to tolerate. He coughed into the crook of his elbow. Jonah limply waved only to lob a pair of auction catalogs from the coffee table.
Ward ducked the magazines flying through the air. “Throwing shit at me now? Creepy bastard. Can’t work any of that voodoo on me—I came from the Christmas Mass. Guess even hellions can get blessed.”
Jonah snickered. “Ow. It hurts to laugh.”
I went into the kitchen to fetch his pain pills as well as the hot chocolate I’d offered. Sweetened condensed milk, regular milk, real chocolate, I mixed it all together in a saucepan with some vanilla, making enough for three cups. Hushed voices murmured over the rattle of metal spoons against ceramic mugs, and I peered around the doorway. Anything Jonah might tell Ward was a hundred times more honest than what he’d voice aloud around me.
Ward crouched on the floor. “How’d you get so messed up? Vayda said you detect people’s energy or something. If that were true, wouldn’t you have sensed Marty?”
“You’d think,” Jonah answered, frowning. “I was at Dati’s desk, tracking shipments and wearing headphones. My guard was down. My mind was on something else, so I wasn’t paying attention.”
I leaned against the wall, a thick knot in my throat. Jonah misused his abilities with Chloe, no doubt, but they failed him the one time he needed them.
“Danny, the guy Marty hangs out with, came up behind me,” Jonah continued in a hoarse voice. “He told me Vayda got in a fight with Chloe. Then he said us Silvers need to be taught a lesson.”
My neck and shoulders cramped. Marty attacked Jonah because of me.
Because I couldn’t stop him from using me to lash out at Chloe.
Because I made Marty into a fool.
Because I couldn’t get a grip on the Mind Games.
I wiped my nose with my wrist. Jonah, I didn’t know.
Another sense crept in, one that refused to accept my guilt. He knew I was listening. “I laughed at Danny. I didn’t know Marty was around, and he cracked me in the head with a table. That son-of-a-bitch got me.”
I edged out of the kitchen and noticed his glass of water on the coffee table. The water bubbled, and steam condensed inside the glass.
“It gets sort of sketchy after that,” he went on. “At one point, Danny got nervous, wanted Marty to be done with me. My arm got twisted, hurt something fierce, and I pushed what energy I could on Marty. I moved him. I wanted him to stop. Danny turned tail and ran. I blacked out after that.”
I handed over Jonah’s pain medication. His dark eyes held mine with silent thanks. For more than merely bringing him a couple of pills.
“Mom watches out for you,” I assured him, maybe because it seemed like the right thing to say.
“Mom, God, something.” For a moment, his chin wobbled, though not from crying. The water in the glass kept boiling. “Marty’s gonna wish he never messed with me.”
***
Ward and I hadn’t been alone together in over a week. His choice, not mine. Now that we were, I didn’t know what to expect.
“What the hell was that with the water?” he asked, closing the door to my room. “How did Jonah do that?”
“He’s mad. Anger always finds a way out. Haven’t you ever been so mad you wished something would break?”
The question caught Ward unprepared. I held out my hand to him, but he pressed his back against my door and reached for the knob. Too much. Step off.
“Sure. When Drake got strung out,” he answered. “I wanted to break things. Sometimes I did.”
“Then we’re the same,” I said.
He gave a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, no, you’re different. Really different.”
I took my scrapbook from my curio cabinet and flopped on my bed, motioning him to sit. He perched near me but still kept a foot between us.
I scooted toward him.
He inched away.
“I won’t bite,” I told him.
“It’s not your bite that I’m afraid of.”
“Come here, will you?”
Winding his arm around my shoulders, I sidled up beside him close enough to nuzzle his neck. At first, his body was hard, not as he was the last time we were in his room, but stony. Then he touched his face to the top of my head, and a breath rose up from deep within him. Full of want in spite of himself. I sank against him where it was easy to remain in the lapping waves of our combined energies.
“Funny how we’re both here because our parents messed up our lives,” I remarked, offering him my scrapbook.
He scanned a few pages. “You’re not messed up, Vayda. Troubled, I’ll grant you that, but you’re not broken. Not like me.”
We could get into a pissing contest, to use Ward-speak, over which of us was more damaged. He had secrets, but I had more. The wind listened, my mother used to say. The wind remembered names. Real names, not ones you faked, not ones that made you jittery because it would be all too easy for someone to expose you for what you really were. A fraud in your own flesh. No matter how long I lived as Vayda Silver, I always feared someone was watching.
“Ward.”
Maybe he heard the way I said his name, maybe it was a coincidence, but he raised those gray eyes to mine. So serious. So full of questions. He was ready.
“You need to know something about me,” I told him.
“Is it that bad?” he whispered.
“Well, for starters, my name’s Vayda Murdock.”
Chapter Seventeen
Vayda
Dad’s on the phone to Seattle. The weather’s ungodly humid, worse than usual for late August in Hemlock. Doesn’t help that the A/C blew, and Dad won’t pay the weekend rates for a repairman. The backs of my thighs are sweat-sticky as I read about the madness of Lady Macbeth for class, but I scan the same lines over and over again as Dad’s phone conversation grows louder.
“Listen, I’m not bending over when the problem’s on your end.” Frustration shortens Dad’s usual languid twang, and his undershirt is damp down his back, the sleeves rolled up to reveal the nicotine patch on his left bicep. “I’ll blacklist your ass in Georgia and the Carolinas—hell, the entire south quadrant of this damn country—if you screw me again. Don’t think I won’t.”
He slams down the phone and cusses a blue streak. Mom murmurs for Jonah to lay out three tarot cards and pads across the pine floor. Her fingers skim the back of Dad’s neck.
“There’s something yummy about a man who’s riled up,” she declares.
“Lorna, the twins…” He trails off, but his gaze intensifies on Mom. A heat more sultry than summer nights radiates between them.
Mom busts out giggling and swats his chest. “You’re horrible, Em.”
After over twenty years with Mom, Dad can open and close his thoughts. Unfortunately for Jonah a
nd me, that means occasionally overhearing things neither of us wants to know about our parents.
I shut my book with a groan. “Mom’s not the only telepath around here, you know.”
She bends over and shoos Dad’s hands from her hips.
Jonah lays out his last tarot card. “Reversed Queen of Swords. Emotions blocking logic.”
“Enough Mind Games, baby.” Mom clears the energy from the cards and wraps them in a leather pouch before placing them inside a drawer. She then tucks my hair behind my ears. Her touch is petal-light while she weaves my hair into a braid. Don’t squint so much, Vayda girl. You’ll get wrinkles. Now give me a hand in the kitchen.
Yes, Ma’am.
Once we cleared the supper dishes from the table, Mom curls up in Dad’s lap on the couch while Jonah and I kneel around the coffee table. A table fan churns out cool air that flaps the four Yahtzee scorecards distributed among us. Mom’s on her fifth Yahtzee. Dad smiles knowingly and squeezes her bare shoulder as she whoops. With her messy up-do and cut-off Depeche Mode shirt, she looks more like an actress in a magazine than a thirty-eight year old mom.
After Mom’s third win, Dad heads to the kitchen to pour a pair of scotch and sodas. Game time dissolves, and I pick up “Macbeth” again and wait until I’m sure Dad won’t know I’ve put my feet on the coffee table. He’d have a conniption fit if a scratch marred the finish.
A car door slams outside. A moment later, a woman bangs on the screen door.
“Where is she?” June Forgette, one of Mom’s tarot clients, hollers through a split lip.
Her hair in tangles and her neck blotted with welts, she pushes her way into our home and is stunned. The burled walnut furniture and rugs hand woven by freed slaves, the polished china on display and Antebellum-era drapes. From the exterior, the bungalow with its terra cotta roof is simple. The inside, bulging with items handpicked by Dad’s years in antiques, is worth more than the house itself.
June sets her wild glare on me. “Get that devil’s whore you call a mother!”
“That devil’s whore is right here,” Mom declares behind me. She cracks her knuckles. “I don’t work from my house, June. If you need a consult, be at Antiquaria tomorrow by noon, all right? Gotta take my family to Mass first.”
My gaze slides from June’s grimace to the quirk in Mom’s lips. What is that face? Amusement?
As if snatching a balloon’s string before it flies away, June yanks Mom’s hair and drags her out to the porch. Her hair clip lands on the steps and rattles before coming to a stop.
“Mom!” I scream as the screen door slams in my face.
June hurls Mom down the stoop where she thuds against the clay dirt. Mom scrambles up to her knees and yells, “Get your daddy!”
Before I can move, Dad’s already running out of the kitchen. He descends all four steps in a single leap and heaves his lean frame into June. Dust from the struggle tickles my nose, and a fierce wind bends the cypress tree next to the house so much I fear it will snap.
“This is your fault, Lorna!” June shrieks as Dad struggles to tear her off Mom. “I told Brett you consulted your cards and how you said he’s cavorting with that woman like a pair of barnyard animals! He came at me with his fists, all ’cause of you!”
Mom claws at June’s bony hands. “I didn’t tell you anything that you didn’t already know! It was in your mind!”
Beside me, Jonah hollers into the cordless phone, “Seventy-one Indigo Hill! Didn’t you hear me the first time? We need the cops now, not later!”
My mouth runs dry as the fire pouring off Jonah sucks away any moisture. Even the steamy night has grown arid. Because we live on the outskirts of Hemlock doesn’t mean we need help less soon than the townies.
“I know what you do, Lorna. You’re not like the rest of that gypsy clan ’cross town,” June hisses. “They don’t want you ’cause they know you work with the devil. You were wild growing up, and you’re still wild now. We all should’ve stayed away from you, but it’s too damn late.”
Mom’s hands illuminate with shimmering red. She fires a blast of energy, hurling Dad and June to the ground. Her hair falls in snarls while a sparkle enlivens her.
“Get your ass up, June!” she orders.
June doesn’t have a chance to stand before Mom balls her hand into a fist and twists her wrist, snatching June to her feet by an invisible pull. A jerk of Mom’s neck sharply left, and the doors of June’s ancient Dodge fling open.
I can’t believe she’s doing this again.
“Lorna, stop!” Dad lumbers to his feet. “Let Brett and June handle their matters. Don’t get involved. For God’s sake, don’t do this!”
Mom pushes June into the passenger seat. Dad reaches for her, but she holds up her palm, which swells with a fiery orb. “I’m gonna be fine, Em. You know how it is. Gotta clean up my mess.”
She climbs behind the wheel of June’s car. Ten seconds later, the engine rolls over and Mom drives away, leaving Dad to bang his fist on the trunk hard enough to dent the metal. Tears running down my cheeks, I slump on the steps.
Jonah puts his arm around me. Is Mom gonna go too far tonight?
I can’t answer. I don’t know.
Massaging his bruising hand, Dad takes the phone from Jonah and dials a number. “Rain, you best get out here. I got a problem with Lorna.”
With Mom gone, the air is empty, inert. I clean up the abandoned Yahtzee game. No more games tonight. Jonah waits by the window, peeling back the curtains each time he thinks headlights brighten the driveway. The buzz of the coffee grinder breaks the silence. Numb and acutely aware we need to decide where to go next—Vermont sounds promising, I overheard Dad suggest to Mom last week—we wait for something to breathe life into our phantom-state.
“Lorna, what mess are you in now?” Rain calls as he enters through the backdoor.
Dad emerges from the room he and Mom share down the hallway. “She’s gone, trying to fix things with June. This won’t end well, Rain.”
My godfather’s tanned skin pales. “You let her leave?”
Dad lowers his head. “You know damn well Lorna does what she wants.”
“Only ’cause you let her work you over. You always were whipped by her.”
Dad presses his lips together. The last time he and Rain argued about Mom’s abilities, they didn’t speak for a year. If tonight’s bad, how long will it take before they talk again?
“Dati tried to stop Mom,” Jonah intervenes.
Rain holds up his hands as if to calm the room. “Your mama’s a right handful. Takes a hell of a man to corral her. Old Em tries mighty hard. She’ll be fine. A nutter like June can’t hurt her.”
The words are hollow.
After forty-seven prolonged minutes, Mom’s silhouette appears at the end of the unpaved driveway. Slimy oil, an impermeable layer of filth, wrenches my stomach the closer she comes. She pauses outside the screen door, and when she enters, I gag on her energy.
Something has decayed and adhered itself to her.
Her olive skin is freckled with crimson dots. Both her hands crackle with a residue the same shade as rusted iron. Crying out, I run to the bathroom to escape the rot. Jonah chases me and shuts the door. He throws up a barrier around us to stop Mom from eavesdropping. I raise my own wall to reinforce his.
“She’s gone mad,” I say.
“She needs us. Dati says we never turn our backs on family.” I don’t answer, and he growls, “If it were you, she’d be out there taking care of you without question.”
“There was blood on her.”
“Which is more important—the blood on her skin or her blood in our veins?”
I don’t have a response. No matter what she does, she’s my mother.
I don’t want to go back into the living room, but I do because I must. Mom curls in a ball on the floor. Dad hunches beside her, his forehead resting on h
er shoulder. The pain flowing off the two of them buckles my knees, profound and shattering.
Rain leans against the sideboard under the front window. “Lorna, I’m your lawyer. The police can’t question me. Spousal privilege protects Em, and they ain’t gonna call your kids to the stand. You’re safe. So what in God’s name happened at the Forgettes’?”
Mom puts a hand on each side of Dad’s face. “June’s dead. Her brains blew out all down the front of me. Brett sent her to bring me to him. He thought I tried to hurt him by telling June to walk away from him, same thing I’d told her for years. Except this time that man had a gun.”
Her face crumbles, and she howls like a trapped hound. “He shot her! Right in front of me! Right in front of their boy! Her blood sprayed all over!” She examines her stained hands, tears trailing down her cheeks. “This is June’s blood! After that, I had no choice but to save myself. I’m not leaving you and the twins.”
Dad removes his glasses and presses the heel of his palm to his forehead. He pulls her into his lap and rocks back and forth, holding her. “Oh, God, Lorna! What’d you do?”
Dad’s agony reaches across the heat to thump hollowly against my heart. Mom rubs her knees as she draws them to her chest, her focus on a painting of workers in a Georgia tobacco field. “Brett had the pistol. He was out to kill me. I found his thoughts, turned his gun around.”
Jonah slams his fist against the wall. “Mom, you didn’t!”
“Baby, that man was gonna kill me. What could I do?” Mom stretches her hand out to Jonah, and he hesitantly takes it. I don’t know that I’d be strong enough to touch her if she reached for me. She breathes hard, talks fast. “Brett Forgette has a hole in his thigh and is telling the police I put it there. I aimed for his head, and I would have put that bullet in his brain and had this mess be done. It’s my bad luck that bastard flinched.”
There it was, what I always knew about my mother.
She would use her Mind Games to murder if given the chance.
A Murder of Magpies Page 16