by Gwenda Bond
The red door is about halfway down the block. Mom moves around, which is why I started looking in the market. I rarely tail her to the same place twice. This house is three dilapidated stories of faded maroon, with no pantheon markings. Wide alleys on each side are colonized by thick, curling vines of ivy.
The red paint on the door bleeds onto the edges of the wood frame, sloshed on carelessly.
“She’s your mom,” Tam says, an attempt at kindness. “She’ll be happy to see you.”
I wonder what he sees on my face. “You guys have to stay outside. No matter what.”
Bree squeezes my upper arm. “Promise.”
Oz looks at Justin, then me, and says, “As long as it’s safe.”
We continue down the block. Across the street, the door to the house with the Norse runes on it swings open. A man with a bushy beard stands in the doorframe and watches us. Down the line of marked houses, the doors open, one by one. A woman with kohled eyes and looping golden chains around her neck stares at me from the Egyptian squat, a robed woman with wild curls in the Celtic one, a man with tangled hair in the next…
They track our progress. I focus on the red door until all I see is it, the color of a fresh nosebleed. Everything else fades. And then I’m right in front of it. I check over my shoulder. The others wait, uncertainly, a few feet away. Anzu lands on the street beside them. His claws scrape the pavement as he turns and roars at the gawking oracles. They don’t move.
“Don’t kill anyone, Anzu,” I say.
I turn back to the door, but before I can knock, it swings open. The hand that holds the door has short, ragged fingernails. I assume it’s her. There may only be seconds to make my case. “I’m so sorry to show up like this. But I need to see you, if it’s you, Mom, and if it’s someone else, look, I need to see my–”
“Come inside,” a woman’s scratchy voice says.
The door conceals her, but it’s Mom. I know it the way I know who I am when I wake up in the morning. Without question, without thinking.
Looking behind me, I find the other oracles watching from their thresholds. Bree and Tam frown at me. Or toward me, at least. Oz and Justin watch, neutral. Well, Oz is watching me. Justin has his eyes trained on Anzu.
Beyond the door is darkness, and my mother. I take a breath and go inside.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bree Norville’s best friend disappears inside one of the shadiest places she’s ever seen. The line of creepy oracles lingers across the street, attention trained on the closed red door. That red is the shade of her dreams last night, mixed with ever-lengthening black shadows and stinging clouds of golden sand. She’ll paint the images soon. She wants to get them out of her head. Today’s visit to Enki House will be lined up right behind them.
Her forearms have tiny abrasions from the sand yesterday, from when she lifted them to protect herself. She absently touches a tender place beneath her right elbow. The monster the Sumerians have sent to guard Kyra tracks the movement, and Bree hopes she doesn’t look tasty.
“How can you be so calm about this?” Tam presses her. “She’s been keeping this from us for years.”
Bree is amazed by how little Tam seems to know her sometimes. They were friends, the three of them, since way before Kyra and Tam started dating. She knows a shocking amount about him. There’s a sketchbook hidden in her closet with nothing but drawings of Tam. Long lines to capture his lean body and messy black hair. She draws him in motion, usually advancing some argument at a Skeptics meeting. That’s the best place she has to study him without anyone noticing.
Tam has no way of knowing any of that. Neither does Kyra. He was drawn to Kyra. Case closed. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s not me, it’s you. Friends. Fine.
Except she thought he and Kyra were over, until those scaled nightmares in the tank showed her the two of them. It had only taken a heartbeat to realize when she was seeing – the night before. The light coating of sand on both their clothes gave it away. They were kissing. Again. Not that it matters.
But, still, it bugs Bree that Tam can’t see she’s reeling from everything that’s happened. Including the news that Kyra has a Mom. An oracle Mom. A Delphic oracle Mom. Bree says, “You’re just mad she didn’t tell you. I’m worried about her. She’s barely keeping it together – can’t you tell?”
Tam hangs his head, and she regrets being so harsh. Part of his charm is how intense he is.
“I know this is hard,” she goes on. “This whole situation is crazy. You know Kyra – she’ll believe it’s all on her shoulders. She keeps secrets, but I don’t think she likes to.”
Tam runs a hand through his hair.
Bree has considered doing the same, many times. “You know, there’s this miraculous invention known as the comb and you can use it on your hair. It doesn’t even need batteries.”
Tam ignores her needling. She holds back a sigh.
“Did you hear Kyra ask him to leave? Just leave here,” Tam says.
Oz clears his throat. Tam frowns at him, and maybe that’s why Bree cares what he has to say. It doesn’t hurt to hear him out, that’s for sure. “What is it?” she asks.
He and Justin are in their navy uniforms like yesterday, shaped by light protective body armor underneath. Those golden wavy-line sun rays are pinned on their shirts.
“I don’t know everything about you guys, but you seem to be close,” Oz says. “So how can you blame her for anything she does right now? She’s alone. All alone. And she will be forever if this goes down the way it’s looking.”
“No,” Bree says, “that’s the thing. We have to make sure she knows she’s not.”
Oz shakes his head. “It’s not the same and you know it. She’s losing her family.”
Tam is angry, probably because what Oz says is right. Somewhat. “How would you know? You’ve probably never been alone in your life. Surrounded by a squadron who tells you exactly what to think. Exactly what to do so you never have to think.”
Bree moves back out of the way, as Justin steps in and pushes Tam’s shoulder. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Justin says.
Justin might be as surprised as she is, from his expression.
“It’s alright, Justin. I don’t care what he thinks.” Oz keeps his tone neutral.
The last thing she expects is Justin to shove Tam again, but he does. “You’ve got the most stable family of anyone here, so stop pretending you know what it’s like.” Justin adds, “For her.”
Too late, Bree wants to tell him. Now she wonders about Oz’s family and about his. Her own? Well, he’s right about that.
Tam continues to frown. “How would you know about my family? Oh, right, you’re spying.”
Justin sighs.
Bree says, “Don’t worry. He loves being spied on.”
“Bree,” Tam says, and he gives her a look as if she’s betraying him. That’s rich enough that it makes her need to sit down. She decides the low wall of the flowerbed on the squat next door will work.
Justin joins her, and so does Tam – on the other side. He’s close, but not close enough. A respectable friend distance. For that matter, so is Justin. Though he at least noticed when she put on makeup. He might notice when she’s freaked out. Oz paces in front of them, always keeping one eye on Anzu.
The monster might as well be napping with his eyes open. He does nothing except sit on the sidewalk, mouth slightly open to bare his teeth at the oracles across the street.
“Why do you think her dad did it?” Bree asks.
“No one has a clue,” Oz answers. “Bronson doesn’t like him, but his record is clear.”
“Spotless,” Justin says. Then, “He’s one of the only scholars that also did successful field time.”
“He was your hero,” Bree says quietly.
Justin’s blond hair is shorter even than Oz’s, his eyelashes just as pale. “No,” Justin says, “a legend, which makes him interesting. He’s not my hero.”
Oz is wh
irling on his bootheel to make another circuit and doesn’t see what Bree does. The way Justin’s eyes flick to his friend. It makes her like them both more, if she’s honest.
“Do you think Kyra knows anything about what he’s doing?” This question comes from Oz, but he’s still turned away and she can’t read anything into why he asks. She considers.
Bree’s known Kyra for four and a half years. They’ve been tight the whole time. Kyra’s never been able to win the competition for her dad’s attention. The fact he’s a super-spy sort of makes sense of that, but if he was so committed why would he go rogue? It doesn’t add up. One thing she’s certain of, Kyra was shocked yesterday about Bronson being her grandfather and about her dad being a Society guy. And she didn’t want him to turn himself in.
“I don’t think he tells her anything important,” Bree says, finally.
“She could talk to us and then we wouldn’t have to sit out here guessing what she knows or doesn’t.” Tam sifts a few shed leaves from the wildly overgrown plants in the bed. “Couldn’t she?”
“Her dad just got taken into Society jail and we just found out her mom took off for Oracle Circle at some point. Don’t you get it?” Bree pauses, but Tam shrugs one shoulder. “She thinks we’ll abandon her.”
Tam freezes, something he does when he has a strong reaction to a new piece of information. “Of course.”
Bree takes in the tense set of Oz’s shoulders. He could be her mom on a big story, not having stopped working for twenty hours straight. His eyes are slightly narrowed. He’s worried about Kyra. He stops and stares at the red door. “She’s been in there too long.”
Oz starts toward the door, but Anzu makes a low rumble in his throat. Bree stands. “She wants to be alone with her mother. You’re not going in there.”
“You couldn’t stop me,” Oz says, “if I wanted to.” He glances back at the lion-bird creature. Who might be able to stop him. Or might not.
A messy situation for Kyra to come out to, whichever.
Tam gets to his feet. “She absolutely could.”
Bree can’t believe it. Was that a compliment? Is Tam sticking up for her?
But Tam goes on, “I’m sure her mother would love to run a story about whether new Society operatives are abusing their power.”
Bree’s disappointment is quick, familiar.
Oz directs his next questions at Tam. “Why wouldn’t you go in with her? Doesn’t that make you the world’s worst boyfriend?”
Tam hesitates. Bree can’t help herself. He might betray what that kiss meant. “They broke up,” she says.
This revelation interests Oz, she can tell. Tam clears his throat, “Is there a reason you’re worried about her being in there too long?”
Oz nods. “Hannah Locke was one of us. Before. She was a Society oracle. You know I’ve seen them. They can be… disconcerting.”
“Is that why they’re watching?” Bree asks. She nods her head at the oracles across the street.
“No,” Oz says, “I don’t know what they’re doing besides being supremely creepy.” He steps beside Anzu, perhaps to give the impression they’re together and calls across to them. “Mind your own. Go inside, or there’ll be a raid here. Maybe not today, but soon.”
Anzu must approve the message, because he lets out a sidewalk-shaking roar. Bree doesn’t notice she’s grabbed Tam’s shirt until she has to apologize. “Sorry,” she says and releases it. He has his arm around her shoulder, and she has to step away to get out from under it. “It’s OK,” he says.
The oracles’ response to Oz’s threat is to obey. Door after door is slammed. Bang, bang, bang.
“I bet it feels like she’s been in there a million years,” Bree says, into the silence that’s left in the wake of the symphony of slamming.
“If she’s not out in five minutes, I’m going in,” Oz says.
He’s daring her to challenge him, but she doesn’t. His concern for Kyra strikes her as real. So she agrees, “Understood.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
If someone told me I just passed over the boundary to the fabled underworld – relic-less – I’d believe them. The darkness of the house’s front hall is blinding, and the boards beneath my feet protest each step. I might fall through and into some trap Mom has prepared for me. Stranger things have happened today already.
On that happy thought, the front door shuts with a click.
My eyes adjust, seizing on a slight glow at the end of the hallway. I still can’t see Mom. I say, “Sorry to drop in out of the blue, but I didn’t have a choice–”
She slips past my shoulder, interrupting my nervous apology. “This way,” she says. Her voice sounds too old for her, scratchy as a record.
I follow her creaking footsteps toward the light ahead. Our destination turns out to be a divination room.
Mom keeps her back to me. Her hair is long, darker than mine, and nearly dreaded. She busies herself lighting a few more candles over a boarded-up fireplace. The room smells of must, dirt, sweat. The mingled scents take me back to the day Dad explained to me that I couldn’t be around Mom anymore. The last time she came to visit us.
I am thirteen on that day, my birthday, a little more than a year since she left. It’s one of those summer days so hot the air boils. Dad and I are in the backyard, lighting candles on a sad saggy cake he made himself (the effort he’s made thrills me, though I never admit it to him). When I spot Mom coming out of the alley, my heart soars. I run to meet her. And she starts to talk, an endless stream about me, about how fate has driven us apart, how it’s my fault Dad drove her away. Dad tries to get between us, but I cling to Mom’s heavy skirts, unable to let her go. Her eyes are rimmed with heavy kohl that melts down her cheeks as she snarls at me. I throw my arms around her, and inhale the smell of sweat and sadness. Dirt and dust. Dad pulls me away.
I blink, coming out of the memory and back to this room, with her so near.
The last candle lit, she turns. “Let me look at you,” she says.
I swallow and step forward. I wait for her to start talking about me, like she did that day, but she simply drinks me in. So I do the same.
The dress she wears is black, long enough that it brushes the floor. A few threadbare spots are visible, revealing her shoulders, her arms. I would know her face anywhere. Even with her eyes rimmed in thick kohl, with her lips pale and cracked. Even with all those things, it’s her. A stranger who I will always, always know.
Mom says, “He brought me pictures. Of you. Sometimes.”
“I hope they weren’t school pictures.” They make us wear blazers and we generally look like anything but ourselves for those.
She throws her head back and laughs. “My funny girl,” she says, as a tear slips from her eye and smears the kohl more. “You’re wearing one of Henry’s shirts. I remember when he bought it. It was at a music store.” She worries at her lip with her finger. “Closed now.”
I take the fabric of the Ramones shirt in my hands. “This is Dad’s?” All he’s ever done is yell at me for playing them – or any music – too loud. The possibility he gave this to me for a reason, that maybe there’s one thing on earth besides ice cream sundaes we both like and it’s the Ramones, makes me feel both closer to and further away from him at the same time.
“Oh yes. He was a bad boy. A bad Society boy who snuck me into dark clubs. When we first met, we were always going out, dancing.” She spins in a slow dreamy circle, then jumps up and down once, pogo-style. Her feet thud on the floor. I hold out a hand when she stumbles out of it, but she only smiles, her skirt clutched in her hands as if she’s a little girl. “We went dancing like that, not really dancing.”
They met at work, is what they always told me. I guess it’s the truth. But the idea of them in clubs together rivets me. The image of my dad in some music shop buying a band T-shirt. I can’t imagine him doing anything remotely like that now. He’s so serious. But that was before he got himself locked up on a charge of treason.
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Mom continues to swing her skirt around her legs with that eerily innocent smile.
“Mom,” I say, “we need to talk. It’s about Dad.”
“We are.” She winks and says, “I’m only making conversation and…” She lets go of the skirt, troubled by a word she can’t find. I brace for the flood of terrible things to start, but she surprises me again. She says, “Please. Sit. You have come for a reason. A need to talk.”
The candlelight barely reaches a table and two chairs at the far edge of the room, probably for clients. She sweeps a hand toward them. As I get closer, I can make out what else is in the corner. A third wooden chair sits empty beside a shrine nearly as tall as I am. Seemingly random shiny objects are stuck to it, mostly bottle caps and shards of glass, and several empty liquor bottles rest on the small flat ledge beneath. In the center is an image of Legba with red beads glued on for eyes.
I search for any connection Mom might have to him, especially after what Oz said about her having once been an oracle who used Apollo’s cup. Do gods get angry if their oracles change allegiance? Whatever the case, it makes me uneasy. I choose the chair that puts the shrine to my side, because I don’t want my back to it.
Mom takes the one opposite. She lifts her skirt out as she lowers into the chair. Once she’s seated, she tilts her head back, mouth open like she drinks this stale air.
Divine madness. It’s permanent. You know that.
“You probably noticed Dad didn’t bring you groceries yesterday,” I say.
“Was that just yesterday he was here?”
“No,” I say, “he didn’t come by yesterday.”
“Oh, but he did. He wanted me to know he might be going away for a while. It was time.” She stops and taps her fingers against her chin, like we’re discussing the weather. “You’re supposed to be going away too. But here you are. That’s not good, Kyra, not good at all…”