by Mia Marshall
“After I roasted him like an oversized marshmallow,” I corrected, not allowing the euphemism. I might be an unstable, unpredictable bundle of future homicidal psychosis, but at least I was an honest one.
“Yes, that. I had his apartment cleaned of any questionable evidence. They found nothing you wouldn’t expect to find in the apartment of a young man with a predilection for inebriation.”
“It’s the new millennium. Just say he liked getting drunk.” I didn’t even know where the words came from. Never before would I have considered being irreverent with Josiah. Long before I’d known he was my father, he’d still terrified me.
Somehow, over the past month, I’d stopped fearing this man. He was still far more powerful than I was, but I also knew he wanted one thing no amount of power could provide. He wanted my acceptance. In my own way, I held the reins, and that lessened the fear I’d once felt for him.
The raised brow he turned toward me suggested he was well aware of the change of tone, though I had no idea what he made of it.
“So we have no idea who has access to the drugs that are keeping our children from changing?” Carmen called to us, drawing our focus back to her.
“Pamela can’t shift, either?” I asked.
She shook her head, and I saw that her predatory gleam wasn’t simply that of a woman seeking answers. It was the look of a mother determined to do whatever she needed to protect her daughter. Though I knew, realistically, that she hadn’t a chance of taking on Josiah and winning, at that moment I wasn’t sure I’d bet against her.
“Is she in the same state as James?” I asked her.
She shook her head, a slow, mournful movement. “No,” she said. “It’s worse. So much worse.”
It was a full house. James’s entire family gathered in the living room. Will and Celeste whispered together in the corner, their faces drawn and somber. Will looked deep in thought, and his wife appeared to have aged ten years in the last week. They cast worried looks at Carmen, entering behind us. More than anyone, they knew what she was feeling now. Mac joined them and began speaking in the same low tones, learning all he could about what had transpired while we were crashing into the lake.
Brandon slumped into the sofa, studiously ignoring everyone around him. This included Dana, who sat next to him, casting the occasional nervous glance my way. The poor thing looked overwhelmed by the tension that infused the room. Several times she almost appeared to think of something worth saying, then changed her mind at the last minute and let silence continue to reign.
Eleanor sat alone. From the armchair in the corner, she watched my mother’s attempts to heal Pamela with a combination of interest and distrust. I imagined her efforts looked like a ridiculous form of faith healing to those unfamiliar with the abilities of waters. My mother, for her part, roundly ignored Mac’s aunt. While Eleanor had reluctantly accepted Sera’s and my help, that didn’t mean she trusted all elementals—and given elementals’ general attitude toward shifters, perhaps rightly so.
I’d never heard my mother speak ill of shifters, because I’d never heard her say a word about them. Until today, I’d assumed she’d been, like me, ignorant of their existence, but she looked pretty damn comfortable sitting in their cabin now, working on one of their daughters. It was just one more lie, one more way she’d kept me ignorant about just how large this world truly was.
I couldn’t blame Eleanor for not trusting her when I was also unable to do so.
Unexpectedly, Simon was also present, having hitched a ride with Carmen. He sat easily in one of the side chairs, legs curled beneath him while he deliberately cleaned his nails, seemingly immune to the tension surrounding him on all sides. His eyes widened when he took in my disheveled state, and I realized no one had told him about the accident—or about Vivian.
“Everyone’s okay,” I told him immediately, before he could panic. “Vivian’s in surgery now for some internal bleeding, but the doctors aren’t concerned. Sera’s phone’s out of commission, but I spoke to the hospital directly.”
Simon looked unconvinced. With a terse nod, he pulled out his own phone and escaped to the relative privacy of the front porch, needing to confirm my report.
I turned to watch my mother work on Pamela. At first glance, she didn’t appear to be doing anything. Her eyes were closed, and one could be forgiven for thinking she was taking a power nap. I knew better. I tentatively sent out my magic, letting the tendrils ease toward her, finding where her power danced across Pamela’s skin. She then reached deeper, sending the threads into Pamela herself, gently touching the water that ran in her blood and animated every cell of her body. She was reading the girl’s entire history.
The act was simultaneously intimate and dangerous, and exactly the sort of thing that had caused me to reject my own healing ability. After I’d ceased training with my mother, I’d only attempted it one other time, when there’d been nothing to lose. The last time I’d reached into someone’s body, I’d tried to force life back into the corpse of a newly dead woman. It hadn’t worked, and I hadn’t tried it since—but I still carried the memory of that woman’s dying blood. I had enough ghosts in my head. I didn’t want any more.
My mother, however, was a full water, and she was an artist. I’d never known her to have any emotional difficulties with patients—or with anyone, for that matter. She opened her eyes when she felt my magic whisper against hers and nodded once in acknowledgement. “I’m glad you are here. I would like your opinion.”
I walked toward her and the teenage girl laid out on the living room rug. I took a moment to appreciate that it was fluffy, white, and made of fake fur. Those bears, I decided, just pretended to be tough. Inside, they were a bunch of softies who ate fruit and decorated with synthetic fur.
To look at her, Pamela was at peace. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing, while shallow, was regular. She had the same glowing skin as her mother, and there was no hint of pallor beneath its rich tones. She was dressed in a clean pair of pajamas and a heavy robe, and one would never guess the trauma she’d likely experienced over the last couple of days.
“Did you make her sleep?” I murmured.
She nodded, absently. “She was quite agitated when she arrived. This seemed the best solution.”
“Did you read her clothes already?”
“They’d done as you asked and kept the clothes in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, but I found nothing, not even a hint of Pamela. It was almost as if they’d been washed right before she was released.”
I grumbled at our lost chance. She might as well have been returned naked, as James was. “Have you found anything unusual in the sweat? Anything chemical?” It was as difficult to describe my memory of Brian’s mixture as it was to describe a scent, though I asked the question more as a matter of form than anything else. If she couldn’t shift, it was a safe bet she’d been given the same thing as James.
My mother placed her hand at the hollow of Pamela’s throat and carefully drew one small drop of water through the skin. She handed it to me gently and waited.
“It’s the same,” I confirmed.
“Her body’s been put through the wringer,” she said quietly, her words meant only for my ears.
“Any idea where the blood loss came from?” I asked.
“Here.” She pointed to a cut several inches long behind Pamela’s left ear. She hesitated, and I thought it had less to do with me and more to do with a living room full of shifters. “I think someone hit her on the head to knock her out, and it opened this cut. Nothing bleeds like a head wound, so it would explain the blood you found at her house. And this,” she indicated a pinprick on Pamela’s neck, “is where they inserted a needle to drug her.”
I opened my mouth to ask who could sneak up on a shifter and closed it just as quickly. It had to be either someone she knew or another shifter. No wonder my mother didn’t want to speak of it openly.
“She has bruises and cuts over her entire body, and something in her neurological syst
em feels off. It feels like it’s still struggling to adapt to some new, invasive presence.”
“Like a virus?” I asked.
“I wish I could tell you what it was, but I do not understand these shifter brains. They’re so messy.” She spoke the final word with a whisper of distaste. My mother did like things to be tidy. It really was a wonder she managed to not only tolerate my chaos, but love me in spite of it.
I felt an unexpected softening toward her, which I quickly beat back. I knew I loved her, and I didn’t expect that to change in the foreseeable future. That didn’t mean I was ready to forgive her.
“Do you need a control, Fiona?” I started visibly and let out an undignified squeak. Once again, Carmen had appeared seemingly out of thin air.
“There’s a reason some cats wear bells, you know,” I muttered.
Carmen wisely chose to ignore me. “A control brain,” she repeated. “I’ll have similar neural pathways as my daughter. Would that help you identify what’s been changed?”
“It will,” my mother said, her face thoughtful. “I’ll have to put you to sleep, as well.”
Carmen shook her head vehemently. She was putting a lot of faith in my mother, but even her trust had its limits. “I’ll be fine,” she insisted.
My mother looked skeptical, and somewhat unimpressed by the woman’s stubbornness. “We’re discussing the equivalent of non-invasive exploratory brain surgery on a conscious patient. It could be unpleasant.”
In answer, Carmen stretched herself out beside Pamela. She flicked her amber eyes toward my mother. “She’s my daughter.” My mother nodded, understanding, and I felt that damn rush of affection again.
My mother sat at both women’s heads, somehow appearing regal despite her casual, cross-legged pose. She placed one hand on the back of each woman’s neck, fingers pointing gracefully down the spine. She closed her eyes, and the entire room waited.
I, for one, used that time to feel like an absolute ass. I’d known my mother was in town when I’d learned James couldn’t shift. If I’d simply called her at the time, she might have been able to fix him already. I’d been so determined to ignore her that I completely overlooked the help she could provide—and now James and Pamela were paying the price for my obstinance.
Sitting in the house didn’t provide nearly enough opportunity to wallow in my self-loathing, so I quietly excused myself and headed to the front porch. I sat down gracelessly on the steps, in no mood to attempt anything requiring delicacy or lightness of movement.
“Vivian is out of surgery.” I hadn’t noticed Simon already sitting on the porch, but even so, I didn’t jump at the sound of his voice as I did with Carmen. Then again, I never did for Simon. Whenever he appeared, it felt like he was in exactly the right place at the right moment. There was no need to be surprised. “I convinced the nurses to put Sera on the phone, and she assures me Vivian will be fine, and so long as she can immerse her hands in pots of earth, she will be discharged in a matter of days.”
I exhaled, releasing at least some of the fear and anxiety that had been building since the Bronco went over the cliff. “That’s good. That’s really, really good news.”
“It is. And yet you still look miserable.”
“Shut up. I’m happy. There’s just a lot of other stuff going on in there.” I gestured behind us. “I made a pretty big mistake.”
It was a good thing I wasn’t expecting any sympathy, because that wasn’t Simon’s way. “If a mistake was made, do what you can to repair it, then let it go. Or are you berating yourself for that which you cannot change?”
“Hey, this is changeable. I could stop being so stubborn. It’s within the realm of possibility.”
“So is a winning lottery ticket, but I do not suggest you rely on that as a feasible life plan,” he said. “There is always room for improvement, but I imagine your basic nature is what it is. You do know the fable about the cat and the frog, right? In which it is the cat’s nature to kill the frog?”
That didn’t sound quite right. “You mean the scorpion and the frog?”
He shook his head, exasperated. “Do not be ridiculous. A scorpion would be an inferior character to a cat. My version is much better.”
“But doesn’t the scorpion cross the river on the frog’s back? How does that even work in your version?”
He shrugged. “It was a large frog. The point is, while you are unlikely to kill any frogs, you are equally unlikely to stop being unnecessarily stubborn. Plus, you had a good reason this time. Your mother failed you. It is entirely reasonable to hold a grudge, at least for a month or two. After that, it becomes self-indulgent, but for now you are safely in the window of allowed sulking.”
I looked at him, and fought the familiar urge to ruffle his hair and scratch behind his ear. “You do have a way of knowing what to say, Simon. Maybe you should talk to Viv’s mom about becoming a therapist.”
He sniffed. “Listen to strangers moan about their problems all day? Hours of talking in which we discuss things that have nothing to do with me? How tedious.”
“Fair enough.” I let him pretend to be selfish, though I knew otherwise. For those he considered his people, Simon was as loyal and kind as any human or animal I’d ever met, which had made his announced exit all the more unexpected. I’d made the mistake of assuming, now that I’d found friends I wanted to stay with forever and ever, they’d feel the same.
“Are you really going to leave?” I asked. I hadn’t planned on mentioning it, but I found myself unable to stay quiet.
Simon, however, didn’t have that problem. He sat in silence for a long time, long enough that I began to think he was consciously avoiding giving me an answer.
“I do not know,” he finally admitted. “Though I am glad to be here, I never planned on this becoming my permanent home. It felt like the choice was being made for me.”
I knew there was more and quietly waited. “I’ve never known any other cats,” he said at last. “Though my mother has been understanding and supportive—far more than yours, I might add—I was still adopted, and she is still human. I did not even know other shifters existed until the day I ran into a group of coyotes mid-shift. I was in cat form at the time. It was an unfortunate introduction to my kind, and it taught me a whole new appreciation for my ability to climb trees. After that, I started to seek shifters out, but I never found as many as I would have liked, at least until I moved here. Tahoe appears to be crawling with shifters.”
I nodded. I still felt like a blooming idiot for not knowing shifters even existed during my previous time in the area. The damn furballs were everywhere.
“Carmen and her family might be my only chance to learn more about who I am. Certainly, they are far larger than I am, but the basic anatomy remains the same. She has offered to introduce me to the local cat community. Now, I feel like I have a reason to stay for myself, and not simply because I like my roommates. I am making the choice to stay.”
“Are you moving out? Will you live with the cats?” With those words, I finally named the dread I’d felt ever since Carmen had expressed an interest in my friend.
I’d thought it was because I feared the intimidating mountain lion, but that was never it. I’d feared Simon was drifting away from me, that if he met the cat, he’d have less interest in being my friend. Shame at my own selfishness lay heavy in my chest and brought heat to my cheeks. I didn’t want to be that kind of person.
At least this was a mistake I could still correct. “It’s okay if you do. Really. Just visit us often, okay?” The words were slightly awkward, a forced lightness covering my underlying dismay, but Simon nodded, seeming to accept them at face value.
The door behind us opened, and Eleanor stepped out. She took several gulps of air, then shook herself from head to toe, releasing whatever nerves she was still holding. When she noticed us watching her, she quickly calmed herself and tried to pretend she hadn’t stepped outside to have a low-level freakout.
“F
iona—your mom—she is not normal,” she said.
“I’m guessing she just withdrew blood without a syringe?”
“Yes! What the hell is that about?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Out here, away from the Parlor of Despair that Will’s living room had become, Eleanor looked both lighter and younger. She was, I realized, only in her early thirties, at least a decade younger than her sister.
“She takes a drop or two from several organs and compares them. It’s a way of learning what the kidney and liver are filtering out.” I’d never made it that far in my training, mainly because I’d had much the same reaction as Eleanor to drops of blood floating above the patient’s skin.
“And she can’t do that inside the body?”
“She says it’s easier if she isolates the blood.” I shrugged. “She learn anything yet?”
“She just finished. All she did was shake her head at Carmen and lay down herself. I think she’s napping.”
I knew she wasn’t sleeping, but my mother often needed a few minutes to recharge immediately after a procedure. I nodded and felt an awkward silence descend. I really didn’t know this woman well and had no idea what to say to her while we waited for my mother’s report. Simon showed no desire to help me out, either.
“Have you lived in Tahoe long?” I asked. Small talk, that was the ticket. Especially if the small talk told me whether she might have known Brian and therefore had access to his drugs. My suspects kept refusing to be guilty, and I really needed to find another possibility. Plus, someone had helped James and Pamela escape. It might as well be Eleanor.
Eleanor looked at the towering pines that surrounded her with something akin to gratitude. “I was born and raised here, but I left the minute I graduated high school. Lots of us do that. We think we can get away from the mountains, from the forest. See the world.”
Like Carmen, I remembered. And Pamela, who dreamed of getting out of Tahoe, and James, who wanted to leave his shifter life behind. “Where did you go?”
“Every university in every city I could find. I racked up one degree after another, trying to make a home in libraries instead of the woods. It didn’t work. I lasted as long as I could, but we can never stay away. It’s our blessing and our curse. We belong to the land. I was already heading back when Celeste called me. James was talking about leaving Tahoe, and she wanted me to talk some sense into him, to explain why it could never work. I tried, but there’s no talking sense into a teenage boy.”