by M. Lathan
“Lydia, it’s two in the morning my time, and my house is packed with people who need to know your decision about the treaty.”
“People? That’s a stretch. And did you tell them you’re in my living room bothering me about it? Or do they think you have an in with the janitors in my office? That would certainly be more believable.” Lydia didn’t look up from the papers on the coffee table in front of her as she spoke, aggravating Sophia even more it seemed.
“What difference does it make? Can you hurry?!”
“You want me to sign it or piss on it? I can go either way at this point.”
Sophia sighed and mumbled something under her breath as she disappeared into the hall.
The present Sophia rubbed my back. It felt like she was preparing me for something, telling me to brace myself. What could be worse than what I’d already seen? Lydia shivered and closed her eyes. A child’s giggles filled the air. She lay back on the sofa, with me suddenly in her arms. My wild curls sprawled across her chest. I looked around three years old. Lydia smiled at me as a light strumming of a guitar joined my laughter. She brought her eyes up, and my father was sitting on the other end of the sofa with her feet in his lap.
“Hi,” she whispered. He dropped his guitar and smiled. He reached his hand to my back to tickle me. I laughed as tears streamed down her face.
“Hey, baby,” he replied.
“Because of her powers,” Sophia said, rubbing my back as I stared at the family I didn’t get to have. “…her fantasies would become disturbingly real. She could see you two, even if she hadn’t intended to.”
I refused to cry again. I wanted to be pissed, but it was hard to hate someone so fragile.
Sophia sighed in the doorway of the living room. She came closer, kneeled next to Lydia, and snapped her fingers. A glass of bubbling water appeared in her hand.
“What’s that, Sophia?” I asked.
“A potion. For a clear mind,” she said.
Lydia rolled over with me on the sofa, as if to shield me from Sophia. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “I know it’s not real.”
“We can’t let you have these, Lydia. If you chase her around your office again, I think they’ll have you committed.”
“Don’t drink it,” my father whispered. “We’ll leave you.” Lydia crawled to his lap, hauling me with her. Sophia grabbed her hand and forced the glass inside of it. Lydia kissed my imaginary father, then my imaginary lips. As she downed the glass, Christopher and I blew away like a gust of wind hit us, fading us into nothing.
Sophia picked up the papers from the coffee table – the treaty that saved magical kind, apparently. “Trade,” she said. “Sign this, and I’ll give you the mirror.”
Lydia wiped her face and sat up on the sofa, pulling herself together. “How long can I use it this time?”
“Sign it, and it’s yours to have.”
Lydia scribbled her signature on the treaty and exchanged it for a sterling silver hand mirror. “Christine Cecilia Gavin,” she whispered into it. I moved closer as a smile stretched across her face, like more than her reflection was there.
It was way more than her reflection.
I was in it, stretched out in a bed with the covers hanging off of me. I could see Whitney in the next bed and hear her snoring too. She would have been Abigail then.
“She watched me through that?” I asked.
“Still does.”
I sighed, shaking my head, unsure of how I felt about that – happy that I mattered to her, betrayed because she’d let this happen, or amazed because I’d been right about someone watching me all these years.
“Swear that you won’t take her … take it back,” she whispered, tears falling into her mouth as she spoke.
“I swear.” Sophia stood and tugged on Lydia’s arm. We followed them into her bedroom. Sophia tucked her in as she continued to stare into the mirror.
“Isn’t she beautiful? I love it when they put her in the white pajamas. She looks like an angel.” Sophia um-hummed like she didn’t really care as she dimmed the lights in Lydia’s room.
Her bedroom doors opened into my New Orleans sitting room. I thought it was over, but I saw myself asleep on the sofa with the news blasting in the background.
Sophia opened my door and whispered, “You can come in now.”
Lydia stepped through the door slowly, her face wet and red. “I’ve called you a million times, and you haven’t answered. You promised you’d answer.”
“You were harassing me. I told you to let me handle it.” So those phone calls had been from Lydia. Wow.
“That lie was awful, by the way. How long do you think she’ll believe that? A witch hunting money that belongs to people she doesn’t know? Really, Sophia?” Her lie was ridiculous, now that I thought about it. I should’ve seen through Sophia. “And … this mess about her being a witch. I don’t understand that.”
“Yes, you do,” Sophia said. “You just don’t want to admit it.”
“She doesn’t have powers, and I dare you to call her a copy.”
“I didn’t say that, but I saw her create fire. That’s why I went there.” Lydia covered her mouth, shaking her head like she didn’t believe it. “I had to purposefully shield my mind around her. I could feel it. She’s powerful.”
I shifted on the sofa, panting in my sleep. Lydia sat next to me and rubbed my cheek.
“I could make this nice for her,” Sophia said. “What if I went and got a friend to stay here with her? I have one in mind. You freed her parents for me. Emma, remember?”
Lydia inched closer, ignoring her. She pulled me to her arms and cradled me like a baby. I sighed, my chest relaxing, breathing more calmly now.
“Mom,” I whispered, like I remembered doing in the dream. The peaceful hell that smelled like her.
She gasped. “Baby!” She kissed me on my forehead, then both of my cheeks. “I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t know about those girls. I didn’t know about your powers. I should have. I’m so sorry.”
Didn’t know? The most powerful psychic woman in the world was claiming not to know how my life was at St. Catalina? Her memories had softened me, but that turned my heart to stone again. I was over it. Over her. The excuses, the lies, the breakdowns.
“I need you to get me into her mind. She’s as blocked as I am, without even trying. I need to see what went wrong. How the powers came back.”
Sophia blew the powder into Lydia’s face. I was dead inside, so I couldn’t laugh when she let her hit the floor. She stepped over Lydia and kneeled in front of me. “Sweet dreams, my love,” she said. She turned off the TV and snapped, probably meeting Lydia in my head.
I was done, I’d been done, but now I refused to let her drag me through any more pitiful memories. Especially not ones I’d lived. Before I could make my demand, Sophia blew the powder in my face again and caught me before I hit the floor.
Chapter Fourteen
I woke up in Paris. My suitcase was on the floor by the bed, my cell phone on top of it. I rolled over and found a note on the pillow. I knew it was from Lydia. Her handwriting hadn’t changed.
Christine, what you’ve seen today, I never imagined I’d have to show you. My life has been one horrible decision after another. The worst of them all apply to you. I know I’m probably the worst thing you could’ve imagined for a mother. That’s why I wanted you to believe in Catherine and Raymond. I wanted there to be these normal people who could only be separated from you by death. Not the truth – that your mother is an awful person who took you from your father and hid you in that horrible place. I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you today and every day I let you sit at that school. I love you more than life, and I am sorry I have never shown you that. I know you are upset, but please stay in my apartment until I find the hunter who came to your house. I’m so sorry, baby. For everything. I love you.
I crumpled the letter and threw it on the floor. Her life was tragic, more awful than expected, but
there were seventeen whole years that she let bad predictions and that Kamon guy keep her away from me. I was alone and out of place because of the powers she’d passed to me. And she’d been so dramatic in leaving my dad. She didn’t fight for him either. Or why couldn’t she just take off and leave me with him? I would’ve at least had one parent. And how could she not have known how miserable I was all these years? She just didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see how awful her decision turned out to be.
I took off the fancy dress and pearls and put on sweats. It was eight o’clock at night and I was beyond starving. I rummaged through her refrigerator and found a lot of prospects for dinner – cheesy pasta, pepperoni pizza, and ranch dip for the tortilla chips on the counter. This was from Sophia. A note that said, Eat up, dear, was taped to the glass casserole dish.
I put the entire thing in the microwave and watched the tiny blue flowers on the glass revolve slowly, images of Lydia in all of her forms intruding.
“Don’t think about her,” I ordered myself as I sat on her fancy cream sofa to eat. They obviously planned for me to stay a while. A stack of girl friendly DVDs were on the coffee table. All set in high school. All about love. I popped one in. After the third kissing scene, I wanted to die. I missed Nate so much, even though that ache was nothing in comparison to the hole Lydia left in my chest when she ripped my heart out.
The movie ended with the couple making out at prom. The next movie was eerily similar, just with two pep squads and making out at a cheer-off. I cracked open the chips, still hungry, and covered my plate with ranch dip. Sophia would be proud of my pig-out.
I walked around her home, crunching on greasy chips, instead of starting another movie. This was where Lydia had been while I was hidden in hell – the lap of luxury. Part of me wondered if she’d been sad all of these years, missing her husband and child. The other part of me, the girl I’d tried not to be, wanted to fight her.
And Sophia too. I shook my head, thinking of when she’d cried about letting me stay at school so long. And all the other times the truth was apparent – her laughing at the newscast, getting freaked out about me knowing Lydia was psychic, waiting on me hand and foot.
Sophia was right. My life was down right bizarre. Actually, I’d watched Lydia Shaw breastfeed me today. I’d say that was a little more than bizarre.
Her apartment had four rooms besides the living and dining rooms. I’d slept in her bedroom. I opened the door next to it and shook my head. Lydia needed an entire room for a closet. I counted seven long racks that stretched from one wall to another. Most of her clothes were black. Her heels too. The exceptions were white dresses and suits and one lonely red shirt on the last rack.
The next room was her gym. She had three complicated looking machines, some weights, and a very worn punching bag hanging in the corner.
The last room on the hall was an office. I still wasn’t clear on what she did for a living.
By the look of the office, I’d say nothing. It was too neat and stylish to be used for actual work. I sat in her white leather chair and wiggled her wireless mouse. There couldn’t be anything important stored on the computer because there wasn’t a password.
I clicked on the Internet and searched her name. The web knew nothing about Catherine and Raymond, but everything about Lydia. The first result was about the Nobel Peace Prize she’d received a year after killing Frederick Dreco. The second was a fashion blog that follows her chic style in the press. The third, a conspiracy site detailing a rumored connection to the death of a senator. The comments at the bottom of the page all bashed the author for trying to degrade the woman who saved the world. Hilarious.
Nate was right, she worked for the world, the United Nations, as the Special Defensive Coordinator, whatever that meant. Our names appeared in several of the results together. Leah Grant, the missing girl, and the famous woman.
I rolled my eyes at the screen. She’d been pretending to look for her hidden child.
Before the articles about her heroic acts could piss me off, I closed out the browser.
I spun around in her chair. As I looped around, a picture on her desk caught my eye. It was of Cecilia and Vincent as they walked hand in hand on a beach. Her painful past squeezed at me, forcing my mind to pull the loose ends of her story together. She’d sent me to their home, she never cleared out the studio, maybe she was afraid to go in there beyond clearing blood and bodies. I knew I would be.
“You really wanted to help me, CC,” I said.
“System activated,” the office answered back. “Passcode correct.”
I jumped out of the chair as the left wall opened like an elevator door.
“Whoa.”
Barefoot, I walked behind the wall and into what had to be her real office. Something I’d said opened it. I’d bet it was CC.
Television screens covered every inch of the room. They showed surveillance footage for major landmarks, on a live feed apparently.
The first ten screens were all places I recognized in America. After that, I could only identify the Eiffel Tower. The others were random skyscrapers, mansions, and bridges.
So she … watched things all day. That seemed boring.
The center screen, the biggest of them all, showed a map with blinking red dots. It showed Europe, then it switched to South America, then to Africa.
“What does this track?” I wondered out loud with my hand on the screen.
Then I knew. It tracked Kamon, the man who had cut me out of her stomach in her vision, the man she’d feared would hurt me out of revenge.
“Bedtime, my sweet,” Sophia said at the door. She didn’t mention I was snooping in Lydia’s office. She laced her fingers through mine and walked me to the bed.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Working. She’s always working. Keeps her mind clear, without my help.” I lay down on her pillows then shoved them away. I didn’t want to let her scent drive me insane, or drive me to love her – I wasn’t sure which would happen. “Are you ready to talk about things?” I shook my head, and she tucked me in. “I’m sleeping on the sofa, right in there, if you need me. Do you want anything now? Perhaps the chips you left in the office?”
“Okay.” She snapped, conjuring my ranch-covered chips. She dimmed the lights, and I thought of something to ask. Something I’d wondered about since I met her. “Sophia…”
“Yes, love?”
“You’ve always taken people in who needed you. Why not me?” She sat on the bed. It was silent for a minute.
“I knew you’d ask me that eventually,” she whispered. “Working for her was never my plan. All of the agents I had connections to were killed. I was desperate enough to go to her and demand that she help me, and she ended up needing me as much as my family and I needed her.” She let her tears fall without wiping them and bit down on her trembling lip. “They have no idea who I work for. Gregory knows but no one else. I’ve kept the two biggest parts of my life separate. I’m sorry.”
I adjusted my head on my arm, my makeshift pillow, and Sophia stood like that was enough of an explanation. It wasn’t. And it wasn’t a reason to cry. It was something bigger. Something obvious.
“You were afraid of me. Lydia Shaw’s copy should be rude and violent, right?” Her breath caught, and she covered her mouth.
I turned over in Lydia’s bed, trying not to cry. Sophia had actually believed what I’d feared about myself for years. That I was evil and dangerous. I still didn't know if I was or not. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep her family safe from me.
“I judged you from what I saw while Lydia watched. She saw her little baby, but I saw a little girl who never said anything. Or laughed or played. I never called you a copy ever again, but you fit what I thought one was. It’s a stupid bias I shouldn’t have had, dear. Copies are people, and even though you’re not one, I shouldn’t have let fear stop me from loving you and taking care of you.”
She was crying so hard that her words
blended. I remembered a moment where I’d seen a hint of fear in her eyes – when I’d grabbed her hands in my room and she’d almost pulled away.
“I wasn’t even planning on meeting you now. She’d been planning to take you from school days before I did. She was trying to get things together, and like always, I was just trying to get her to go to work and do her job and keep things going for all of us. Selfish, like I’ve always been when it comes to her personal life and you. She’d missed several meetings already. Kamon had heard about it. I volunteered to watch you to avoid a disaster and happened to fall in love with you that night in the kitchen. Dear, I understand if you hate me now. ”
I refused the dramatic cry pounding against my chest. I pulled Lydia’s comforter over my head, trying not to think of her watching me through a magic mirror and crying in this very spot.
“It wasn’t your job to raise me. I don’t hate you,” I said. “I just want to be alone. Goodnight.”
She whispered it back, still crying, and left the room.
I fought the urge to sleep brought on by sadness and the oranges lingering in this bed, not admitting to myself that I was waiting up for Lydia. I stopped staring at the clock at eleven. In New Haven, mingling time was ending. It was the perfect time for someone to bang on my door for a laugh, and Lydia was working. She would have missed them bullying me, probably like she’d done for years. I lasted until three AM. Either I’d missed her between then and when my eyes popped open at eight, or she never came home.
Sophia hovered over me without talking as I crawled out of bed and washed my face. She walked me to the dining room for breakfast. As she sat my plate down, I looked into her bloodshot eyes. She looked like she’d been crying all night.
“May I sit?” she asked. “She doesn’t usually let me.”
I slammed my hand on the table, rattling the glass, a lifetime of anger shooting out of me in a moment. I was surprised everything around me didn’t shatter or catch fire. “I’m not her!” I screamed. I took a deep breath, sinking into my chair. I certainly sounded a lot like her just then. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.