(and the blood that ran through her was lovely alumna blood)
“How are you enjoying your mother’s old hometown, Rowan?”
Rowan shrugged and Izzy frowned. Rude. She tried to stare the child down, but the girl turned her attention to the dog, stroking him. The dog had dropped his head and was glaring at Izzy, his upper lip curled.
Back off, dog. She grinned to show her teeth.
“Rowan, answer Mrs. Riley,” Paula said firmly.
“It’s good,” Rowan said, without looking up from the dog. “What’s wrong, boy?”
Izzy chuckled, her laugh a tinkle. “I have Tansy in the car. He must smell her.” At the sound of her name, the cat on the seat beside Izzy raised her head and got up in a stretch. The stretch ended as she placed her front paws on the dash and peered out through the windscreen at them all.
“A co-pilot.” Sanderson Keyes laughed. “Gusto sticks his head out the window. He’s useless as a navigator.”
Izzy looked at Gusto. Another dog. A beagle, if she wasn’t mistaken. Just what the neighbourhood needed.
Rowan tugged on Old Tex’s leash and brought him closer to her, pulling his head into her stomach. She muttered to the dog, “It’s okay.”
Something was peeking out through the fur on his throat. Izzy squinted to see what it was. “Old Tex seems quite taken with you, dear. It’s nice to have an animal friend, isn’t it?”
Hearing her voice directed at the girl, the dog turned his head abruptly once again. The thing around his neck was red.
“What’s he wearing there?” she asked.
Rowan reached down and touched it. “New collar,” she said. “My grandma made it for him.”
Izzy’s eyebrows went up. “Really? How crafty of her.” Inside she could feel a slight panic. “Can I see? Audra is always making lovely things … And where are you all headed so early?” She put her arm out the window and waggled her fingers for the girl to bring the dog closer.
“We’re just walking the dogs,” Paula replied. “We might take Rowan to the river. We’ve gone near, but we haven’t gone down to the banks yet.”
Rowan stayed where she was. Izzy waggled her fingers again and looked sternly at the girl, her face a mother’s face, commanding. Rowan stepped towards the car, tugging on the leash. Old Tex took a couple of steps too and then dug in, baring his teeth. He barked, angrily, loudly.
“Oh my,” Izzy said.
Paula was on him. “Tex!” The dog looked up at her reproachfully, his teeth still bared, but clearly not at her. “Stop!”
He ducked his head and stopped growling, but he would not cave in to Izzy. Gusto watched his new friend carefully for some sign.
“It’s the cat, I’m sure,” Izzy said. “That’s all right. Nice doggy.” Tansy, serene, never took her eyes off Old Tex.
“Sorry, Izzy,” Paula said.
“Oh, no worries. I’d better get a move on. It was nice to see you, Paula. You and this darling here”—she indicated Rowan—“are coming to Marla’s tomorrow evening, right?”
“Yes, we’re looking forward to it.”
Rowan looked sharply at her mother and shook her head, barely perceptibly.
The rebellious child. Their saviour.
“Well, enjoy yourself this morning. It sure is a lovely day.” Izzy put the car in gear, called a friendly goodbye out the window and drove off. She checked the mirror, watching the five move on. Only the dog looked back at her.
Izzy’s smile was completely gone. The dog. The dog was a problem.
She pulled over to the side of the road, opened the door and got out. She bent over and looked at Tansy, sitting up on the passenger seat. “Get rid of that dog,” she said.
The cat gave a stretch and picked her way over the seat, then jumped down to the road. She flicked her tail goodbye and ran into the trees towards the river.
Audra struggled to clear the fog from her brain. Whatever Tula had done to make her sleep before she left, it hadn’t been painful. It may have been an act of kindness, but she doubted it. Tula did not have the imagination for kindness.
She did know that Paula hadn’t come to visit today. The hospital was silent as the grave. Tula was noticeably absent too. But for how long?
When she’d woken, she’d tried to call for Tula, though her throat was parched, her tongue fat with dehydration. She’d opened her mouth to call and—
the sound that came out of her was that of an animal. She could guess which one.
Judas goat
On her arms was a spattering of coarse hairs, white and long. It might not be noticeable to others yet, but if it got any thicker …
She had no idea how far this would go. Misplaced, unbidden pieces of thought ran through the space between her ears where cognition used to be. Snippets of songs, conversations she’d had years before, headlines. Oddly placed and terribly distracting. She had to concentrate. She had to act.
Paula hadn’t come to see her yet and she had no way of knowing why. Had she left town, or had something happened to her or Rowan? Had she simply forgotten to come? That was unlikely.
She had to do something before Tula came back. She wriggled up to a sitting position and looked around the room.
Under other circumstances she would have been confident they would not do the sabbat without her, but they were desperate. There were things you could invoke. She was sure Izzy had thought of something. Or one of the new bunch. The young ones were a clever lot.
No, it all hinged on Paula. She was the thirteenth.
That couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it.
Audra looked around the room for something, anything, to enchant. There was the closet with her things in it. She went over the items that might be in her purse: makeup, shopping list, pen—Aren’t you glad you use Dial? Don’t you wish—
Pen. Pen. Audra struggled to get the thought back. Pen and notebook. Keys? No, she’d given them to Paula. There was a safety pin stuck in the lining of the bag for emergencies, there was her chequebook, her wallet.
The heart monitor was still in the corner. There was the table beside her
(what was in the drawer?)
on which stood the water jug, some plastic cups, the vase and flowers Paula and Rowan had brought her.
Audra closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding; she was breathless and losing focus again. She let her head fall back against the pillow and listened. There was nothing to hear. She was still alone on the floor.
There was nothing in the room to work with.
She looked at the flowers, a cheap bunch from the grocery store—more sweet for that, somehow. Rowan had walked in with them, but had Paula held them?
Mom, smell
She thought Rowan had taken them from Paula and put them in the vase, the vase procured by Tula. Izzy had been there.
(had Paula held them?)
She tried to remember. Rowan hadn’t come in right away. Paula was holding the flowers. She’d buried her face in them, then held them out
smell, Mom
They would have to do.
The vase was about four feet from where she lay, maybe a little less. Audra’s joints felt so unyielding. She felt confined in unfamiliar flesh that was sprouting stiff little hairs up and down her arms
(and who knew where else her chest was itching even if she didn’t want to think about it)
There was no help for it. She leaned forward and tried to shift herself along on her bottom, moving an inch at a time. Her leg joints were as rigid as her arms; only her neck seemed fluid. She led with her neck and got her body as close to the edge of the bed as she could. She leaned, but the vase was just out of reach. A fading daisy dangled; she swiped at it with a heavy and unwieldy hand and caught it, toppling the vase. Water spilled across the tabletop.
Startled, she yelped, but managed to grab a handful of the flowers, a mash of daisies, carnations and baby’s breath. A single fern clung to the tangle of stems, and she snatched it with her other hand.
<
br /> Audra clutched the flowers. She called every name she could remember, the sounds coming out of her mouth guttural, animal, unintelligible. But, she hoped, they would know what she meant. Amid the stray memories and other mental intrusions, she began her chant, each syllable a pain and a relief, her heart broken yet full.
A simple command, delivered to her daughter amid chaos. She had no idea if the message would get through: Go home. Leave. Don’t stay. Leave. Go home. And so on and on, as long as Audra could stand it.
The worst thing they ran into along the riverbank was a large deadfall they had to navigate. Erosion and time had set the tree on an angle and then, probably after a heavy rain, the whole thing had pulled up and fallen forward. The roots had left a hole in the eroding bank, thick ropy tendrils spreading out at the end of the tree in a spray. Even then, some still clung to the earth, buried deep.
The dogs solved the problem with the least amount of fuss. Gusto followed Old Tex’s lead when he jumped arthritically into the water and paddled slowly around to the other side of the tree. Paula worried whether Old Tex would make it back to the shore, but Sanderson pointed out that swimming was probably easier on his old bones than trotting along the cement sidewalks he was used to.
Rowan ignored her mother’s shouted advice and easily bounded through the mess of sharp branches and heavy limbs to the other side, where the dogs were.
“Don’t get too far out of sight,” Paula called to her.
“Can you make it?” Sanderson asked from close behind.
“I’m okay.”
“Take your time.”
Paula shinnied up onto the trunk, then looked over her shoulder and realized that her ass was in his direct line of sight. He grinned at her and she laughed, a belly laugh that felt good, and a little fluttery too. Butterflies.
Paula scrambled over and jumped down without incident, and Sanderson followed. Rowan had run far ahead with the dogs. Sanderson grabbed her arm lightly when he landed, as if to balance himself. She looked up, his face only inches from hers. His hand slid to her hand and he held it loosely.
“Hey,” he said softly. He smelled clean.
“Hey.”
He looked at her for a long moment, a half-smile on his face. She thought he might kiss her and wondered how she would feel about that.
He didn’t kiss her.
She slipped ahead of him and they picked their way past debris from the spring thaw, sticks and rocks, cinderblocks tied with ropes that went nowhere. A small wildflower poked out of the mud, all by itself. She started to grin; it was a perfect little reminder of—
She was about to say something to Sanderson about the flower, the way it stuck up so prettily through the muck, but just as she opened her mouth, a single word screamed inside her head
LEAVE
Startled, she gasped. She turned to Sanderson. “Did you say something?”
“Not yet. Is there something you want me to say?”
She half smiled and shook her head. “Never mind.”
She stood rooted to the spot. The flower seemed to be begging her to do something, so she reached out for it. It was a little, daisylike thing. She knew the name: brown-eyed Su—
GO HOME
This time the voice was loud, forceful and close. Automatically she looked ahead to where the riverbank curved into the park. There was no one there. Even as she looked, a numbness came over her neck and shoulders. Her head felt suddenly heavy.
“I have to leave,” she said. It came out automatically.
“But we just got here.” Sanderson was beside her now, a narrow strip of grassy bank between them and the water. The water made a pleasant sound, not fast at all, but lapping like a gentle brook in a movie.
“Haven Woods,” she said. “I have to leave Haven Woods.”
“Why?” He put his hand on the smallest part of her back. It gave her a shock, like static electricity. She was very aware of his hand.
“Uh … there are lots of reasons,” she tried.
“You can tell me,” he said. “I’ve been divorced. If it’s money—Hell, Paula, I’ve been in every imaginable kind of financial trouble. It won’t shock me …”
It was hard to think when he was beside her like this. She shook her head. “It’s not that. I wish it was that.” She did. “My mother doesn’t want me to stay.”
“Are you sure? I mean, is she—” The question hung in the air.
Rowan’s voice floated back to them. She was talking to the dogs, her voice deeper for Old Tex, higher for the younger dog.
“—in her right mind?” Paula finished the question for him. She shrugged. The little flower bent in a gust of wind, bounced back and then bobbed again.
leave go leave go
“Yeah. You said she wasn’t well.”
Paula couldn’t tear her eyes away from the daisy.
He turned her towards him. “Hey, look at me for a second.”
She pulled her eyes reluctantly away from
leave go don’t
“She really wants you to go?” His eyes were blue; she hadn’t noticed that before.
“We have this history, you know? We’ve had a difficult relationship. Estranged. Since I … was a teenager.”
He turned her around and nudged her forward along the path. “My feet are getting wet,” he said.
She barely heard him but moved with the press of his hand on her back.
“I remember you just disappeared back then. Did she kick you
out?”
“It wasn’t exactly like that.” Paula’s cheeks burned at the thought of what rumours there might have been, and she hoped he wasn’t looking at her. His hand was still lightly against her back. They both seemed to be moving very carefully, so as not to disturb it.
She took a deep breath. “Do you remember when I left? Do you remember that year?”
“Of course,” he said. “It was just after David Riley’s accident. I had nightmares about that for months.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “David Riley, and my dad too. They both died that year. A few weeks apart. It was a horrible time. My mom and I just wandered around the house like ghosts. My dad was everything to her, to me too.”
Sanderson lifted the hand from her back, wrapped it gently around her neck under her hair and gave a reassuring squeeze. It felt so wonderful that she thought she could stop talking then, and maybe never talk again about anything.
“You poor kid,” he said.
Hardly a kid anymore. “It was so awful, all of it. Every day some new kind of pain. I don’t know what you know about David and me”—she faltered, and caught her breath for a moment. “But he was my boyfriend. And my dad—I was close to my dad. And they both died. Just like that. I—I don’t think I could even talk the week after it all happened. I just remember staying in my room, coming out at night to wander through the house. We didn’t put the lights on. My mother wouldn’t answer the door. Not even when it was Izzy Riley, who of course was going through her own hell.
“Anyway, maybe my mom couldn’t stand it. One day she told me that she had decided to send me away to school. That she thought I needed to get away.”
“Maybe you did,” Sanderson said gently.
She shrugged. “Maybe I did.”
They walked for awhile, the bank less soggy when they came out from under the shadow of the trees to where the sun was able to break through.
“Anyway, I went away to school and I guess she didn’t want me home again. I only came back once, when Rowan was really little. When we saw her at all, she came to the city.”
“And you never talked about why you were sent away?”
“My guess is, she couldn’t stand to have me around without my dad there. Maybe she blamed me.”
“Paula—”
“I’d asked him to bring me something from the bakery. His car went off the road just before he got there. Maybe if I hadn’t asked him to stop—”
Sanderson turned her around again, to fa
ce him. “You can’t do that. Accidents happen all the time. It’s horrible, it’s awful, but it wasn’t because of you. Right?” His eyes held hers. His hands on her shoulders were warm.
Up ahead, Rowan came running into view waving a long stick, the dogs following her and barking. They broke eye contact and turned to watch her where she had stopped at the edge of the bank. She waved at them with the stick, smiling broadly, the two attentive dogs at her feet. They waved back.
Paula finally said, “She sent me away because I was pregnant. I think she was ashamed.”
Beside her, Sanderson was silent.
“So Rowan and my mom have never been close.” Her mouth opened and she might have added something, but Rowan squealed. They both looked up to see Gusto launch himself into the air trying to reach the stick, which Rowan was holding just out of range.
Paula let go of a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and Sanderson turned her back towards him again. She felt shaky and frightened about having revealed the biggest secret of her life. The only secret that mattered.
He leaned down and kissed her. “Please don’t leave,” he said.
Rowan watched Mr. Keyes kiss her mom. She was a little bit pissed off
(jealous)
but mostly what she felt was a kind of dread. If her mom started up with a man they would be stuck here forever. But, on the other hand, it’s not like this was Andy. Andy had been a Number One Creepoid. Her mom didn’t have great luck with guys. Her own father, for instance. Where was he? Dead.
Mr. Keyes, of course, was alive, and Ro actually liked him. He made her feel … normal. He was a normal guy. The kind of guy you could complain to about crappy things at school, and he would say dad things like well, you just ignore those girls. They have nothing good to say. Or, if you wanted to go on a ski trip to Quebec, the kind of guy who would say, you betcha! here’s the money.
Normal. But a normal guy who had just bought a house in the neighbourhood might want to stay here. A normal guy might want his girlfriend to stay here. And the thought of staying here made Rowan’s stomach hurt worse.
She wrestled the stick out of Old Tex’s mouth—which wasn’t too hard—and both dogs danced around her, eyes never leaving the stick. She’d deked them out a couple of times, but they were no longer falling for that. They knew she was about to throw it into the water. Finally she did, and both dogs plunged in, their paws working furiously as they raced to get to it. They looked funny and she laughed, forgetting for a minute that her stomach was sore and her back kind of hurt. She’d thrown that stick pretty far, though.
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