So what if she smells even more like crocuses than the actual crocuses I crushed a few hours ago? So what if she’s so gorgeous, it’s mind-boggling she’s anybody’s mom, let alone mine? So what if the circle of her hug felt like the warmest, safest, strongest place in the world? It’s all a trick, and I have to remind myself of that. At her core, my mother is selfish, vain, and completely egotistical.
“Bestemor is doing really badly. Not that you even bothered to go check on her.” My words grit out through my clenched teeth.
She crosses her sliver-bangled arms over her chest and rubs them like she’s trying to break a chill. “I know she’s been a little off—”
“A little off? She’s lost her mind! And just when she was back to normal, I screwed it all up.” Oh, humiliation of all humiliations, I feel my chin start to jerk up and down. No! I cannot cry in front of her.
“Has it been that bad?” Mom looks at me with such a concerned Mom face, I have this split second where I want to pour my heart out and trust her to fix it all. Then I come to my senses.
“Worse.” It comes out like a hiss. “I need you, we need you, but not as a mom or a daughter. We all know you’re not very good at being either one.” My mother looks like she might protest, but she clamps her jaw tight instead. “I need you to make me the most powerful shieldmaiden you can, and then feel free to leave.”
My mother’s pretty face drains of color and she gulps like a fish. “What?”
“Let’s stop with all the pretending. I know what I am, no thanks to you, and using my weirdo powers almost killed me today.” Her eyes go wide, and I feel a single ping of regret for exaggerating, but it goes away instantly. I could have possibly almost died. “Magda Balto offered to help me, but I don’t know if I can totally trust her.”
My mother’s eyes zero in on my face, and she looks at me with more concentrated interest than she’s shown at any other moment in my whole life. Straight A’s, a science fair honorable mention, multiple tap and jazz recitals, my poem’s selection for All State at the Lodi Teen Arts Fair in fifth grade; none of it made her sit up and notice. But Magda Balto, her old nemesis? Now she’s all ears, and I regret not taking Magda up on her offer solely because I lost a golden opportunity to royally piss my mother off.
“What did Magda have to say?” She paces toward me, intent.
“Nothing,” I mumble. I step to the side and try to move out of the line of her sight. “Just that my powers could hurt me if I wasn’t trained. And that she didn’t know I was mixed blood. That’s all.”
“Didn’t know you were mixed blood? Like you’re some half-breed freak? And as if she didn’t chase Ryuu like a crazy woman the minute he came to town! She practically died of jealousy when she found out we were together.”
I roll my eyes and hope she notices, but she’s far away, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. In her mind, she’s probably reliving her glory days as the prettiest girl in Lodi with the coolest boyfriend, zooming around in some hot little car, wreaking havoc, and screwing up without a care in the world.
Until I came along and blew all her fun out of the water.
“Look, I need help. I need to know how to use my powers, I need Loki back, and I need Bestemor well again. When all that happens, you can go back to making pottery in Nebraska or whatever.”
She tilts her head and purses her perfect rosy lips. “I weave. On a loom. In Colorado.”
“Whatever.” I would never describe myself as an angsty teen, but my mother manages to bring out the worst in me.
“And who’s this Loki? Some boy?”
“No. Loki is my fox. My grandfather in Japan sent her to me.”
Mom was busy examining one of Bestemor’s little dog statues. She drops it on the mantle with enough force to crack its ceramic foot. “Ryuu’s father sent you a fox?”
“Loki. Only they call her Kaji. When Sakura came here, she wanted me to give her Loki. I said no, and she’s been harassing me, trying to force me to give her up. Today I embarrassed her in gym, and when I got home, Loki was gone and Bestemor was sick again.”
“Sakura? Hina Kochi’s Sakura?”
Now I have my mother’s full attention. It’s crazy that I had to lose my grandmother, my fox, my sanity, my crush, and control of my life to get it, but I have it. “Yes. My cousin, Sakura.”
My mother’s eyes turn wild and her hair seems to fly back around her face. Her voice vibrates with an energy that rocks through the entire room. “Oh, hell no. This is war.”
Chapter 18
I thought having an absentee mother was bad. I had no idea what it would be like to have her home. If Loki were here, I’d wish my mother back into the distant mountains of Colorado before her military general tactics kill me.
“It can’t be that bad, sweetie.” I hear Vee flipping through a book as she snaps her gum on the other end of the phone line, not a care in the world. Me? I’m so sore and exhausted I can barely move. “I mean, she’s helping you, right? She’s going to get Loki back and find some way to deal with Sakura?”
“That’s the plan.” I roll my aching shoulders. “But she’s kind of a bully.”
“I miss you at school.”
Mom invented a disease and got some quack doctor to sign off on it, so I’m being ‘home schooled’ for a few weeks. My mother, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to worry if my grasp of derivatives is steady enough to get me a passing grade in calculus. All she cares about is crafting me into the shieldmaiden of her dreams.
“I miss you, too.” I sigh. “Remember that Lifetime movie we saw about the mother who became obsessed with having her daughter win that pageant so she could relive her pageant days through her daughter? And she winds up going crazy and locking her daughter in a janitor’s closet so she can steal her spotlight on the big day?”
“Yeah! Was that one on again? No wonder you can’t get a grasp on derivatives. Turn. Off. The. TV.”
“No! I wasn’t watching it. I’m living it!” I grip the phone hard in my hand.
Vee’s gurgly laugh is that of a girl whose parents are nauseatingly normal and caring. “Sweetie, are you sure you aren’t exaggerating a teeny bit?”
“All she talks about are her glory days as the hottest shieldmaiden in her coven. And she’s working me to death. I had to offshoot 318 force-based energy attacks.” If I thought my little showdown with Sakura was draining, I had no idea what the word meant. I now know what it feels like to have my eyeballs sweat. “She won’t let me out of her sight. And I think—” I put my hand over the phone and tiptoe to my door, then check up and down the hall. When I tell Vee the next part, it’s in whisper. “I think she wants to use my powers. I think she’s going to challenge Magda or something.”
“That’s a little insane. Sweetie, you called her here to train you. You knew it would be hard. Now she’s doing what you asked. I know she’s let you down in the past—”
“This isn’t about that!”
“And I know it hurts to open up to her. I guess that’s why you’re imaging that she has ulterior motives. But maybe she just wants to help you. Maybe she’s just trying to make up for all the time she lost when you were a kid and she wasn’t there for you.” Vee’s voice takes on that same sing-song cadence the school librarian’s had when she read us Charlotte’s Web in elementary school.
“You’re a good person. The best person I know. But you’ve got it all wrong. My mother is so wrapped up in herself she doesn’t see anybody else. That’s who she is, and I’m not saying that because I’m so hurt or so paranoid. Okay? Ohmygod, I hear her coming, gotta go.” I chuck my phone under my pillow, realizing I’ve made a crappy case for my lack of paranoia.
“Wren, I asked you to meditate on your shield wall. Two hours ago it still had a good dozen weak points. How do you expect it to stand up against any witch worth her salt, let alone another shieldmaiden?” She leans against my doorframe, blonde eyebrows raised high.
I pull my mouth into a tight line. “It�
��s been two solid weeks. Sometimes sixteen hours a day. When will I be ready? I’m exhausted.”
She tilts her head back and laughs a real evil laugh. “Exhausted? Oh, please! You just started and you’re giving it about fifty percent, which is why it’s taking so damn long. Why can’t you focus?” She shakes all that freaking wild, perfect golden hair like she can’t comprehend the full extent of her disappointment in me.
“Why can’t I focus?” I tap my finger on my chin and pretend to mull it over. “Let’s see, shall we? I’m failing most of my classes since you won’t let me look at any of my schoolwork. I lost both my jobs, and the money I have in the bank is almost gone. I haven’t seen Vee face-to-face in over a week. I haven’t seen Loki, and I have no idea if she’s safe or in danger. Jonas—” I stop and clear my throat. “Jonas and his aunt are still bothering me.” It’s a lie, but it covers my near slip-up. She can’t know how much I miss him, what he means to me. And then the clincher. “And Bestemor is losing weight, strength, her mind. Everyday she’s weaker and less alive, and it’s like you couldn’t care less.”
My mom crosses the threshold of my door, sticks her face close to mine. “You think you’re such a big, grown-up girl because you’ve been playing house with your grandmother all these years? You have no idea what drove me out of this town or what I had to sacrifice so you could have a better life.”
The blood is pumping through me so hard it blocks my ears and makes it hard to hear anything but the angry bite of my own words.“I don’t? So tell me. Tell me what it was that was so important you left your only daughter. Tell me, Robin.”
She sticks her index finger into my face. “Don’t you call me by my name. I’m ‘Mom’ to you, missy!”
“Why? Because you gave birth to me? Any slut can get pregnant and pop out a kid!”
I know I’ve gone too far even as the words leave my mouth. Her hard slap across my cheek affirms it.
She puts a hand to her lips. “Wren, baby.”
I can taste a little blood in my mouth, and it makes my heart harden, first a shell on the outside, then through the layers of blood and tissue, right to the tiny black diamond core. “Forget it. Just forget I said anything. If you don’t mind, Mother, I need to meditate on my shield wall.”
She presses her hand harder to her lips and whimpers a little, but I know it’s all her own little show. She doesn’t care about me; over a decade of abandonment proves that. I glare at her until she leaves my room, shuts the door, and pads down the hall. Then I collapse on my bed and crush my face into my pillow to stifle my sobs.
When I’ve cried all I can cry, I pick up my phone and dial the number seared into my mind.
“Wren?”
“Jonas?” I swallow hard and wipe away the makeup that’s gooped under my eyes. “I need to get out of here. Wanna do something? You know, as friends?”
“Yeah. I do. I’ll be over in fifteen?”
“Perfect. Can you pull in front of the Pottbergs’? Down the street?”
“Sure.”
I kick off my sweats, pull on cute jeans, and squeeze the girls into my best push-up bra. I put on a low top, redo my eye makeup and lipstick and hop into my boots as I slide out the window. I race down the street, exhilarated that I’m escaping.
My footsteps echo hard on the concrete, and when I make it to the Pottbergs’ I have to sit on the curb and breathe slowly, in and out, to calm my thumping, stinging, tired heart.
It was right here, right in the middle of the crocuses, that Loki told me to wish for Robin. It was that same day that my mother showed up and invaded my life.
Jonas’s truck rumbles to a stop next to me. The engine cuts, but I look down at my hand on the cement instead of up, even when I hear the car door slam shut and his boots clomp my way. He sits close and bumps his shoulder into mine.
“You needed saving?” He puts a hand under my chin and tilts my face gently, so we’re eye to eye.
A smile is the very least I can do, since I’m the one who called him and asked for his saving. “Thanks for coming. I feel a little like I’ve been trapped in some kind of weird boot camp.”
He lets his fingers spread over my jaw for one delicious minute before he drops his hand and pulls at the grass growing new and green between us. “Vee told me your mom’s been pretty focused.”
“That’s a really nice way to put it.” I laugh, a shaky, dusty laugh that is really more practice than fun. “She’s helped me, though. That was the point. I needed her to help me and she did.”
Jonas plucks a few blades of grass and twirls them between his fingers until they crush into a damp green and release the smell of spring into the air. “So she’s helped you with a plan for Bestemor?”
Bestemor. It takes a few seconds for me to answer Jonas because I’m trying to get a chokehold on my urge to weep. “Not with Bestemor. She’s been so bad, Jonas. Just lays in bed, not eating much, cries all the time. I think it has to do with Loki, but I don’t really know. I really don’t.”
His arm swings over my shoulders. I lean into him, letting his bones and muscles soak up the weight of my hopeless unhappiness.
“You’ll figure it out, Wren. I know you will. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”
“You really think that?” I ask into his jacket.
“Absolutely. That’s why I was such a jerk the day of our debate. I didn’t want you to whip my ass and embarrass me in front of the whole class.”
This time my laugh is a little more dressed up, like it’s slipped out of its pajamas and into loungewear. “I would have gone easy on you.” I tilt my head up and look into his face, all golden five o’clock shadow and warm blue eyes asking me, I know he’s asking me, to kiss him.
Or maybe not asking me. Because the minute I get up the courage to lean in, he leans back and asks, “Has your mother taught you anything about being a shieldmaiden?”
I put kissing out of my mind and think shields. My mother helped me master the Jell-o shield Sakura put around us at school. It’s called the boble. She taught me how to cast a wide multi-armed shield around people I want to protect. That’s the tentakkel. I mastered the kind of solid shield nothing can break through, called the diament. The one that I was supposed to meditate on was a type of flex wall that could rotate strength spots. But it’s difficult because when you pull all of your power to one area, you risk leaving a second area underdeveloped.
That’s where my downfall has been. I spread the power unevenly and leave big gaps between the focus centers. My mother has pounded those gaps day after day, leaving me exhausted and bruised.
“Apparently, I’m not half the shieldmaiden she is, and I find new ways to disappoint her every day.” I shrug. “I guess I should be glad. I never disappointed Bestemor like this, so at least my mother is giving me the chance to be a typical disappointing teenager.”
“I’m sure she’s not disappointed in you. I take it from Magda that they were trained by some old-school shieldmaidens, real taskmasters. She probably thinks this is the best way to teach you.” Before I can disagree and cite a million reasons why he’s wrong, Jonas nods his head to the truck. “You gotta be starving if you’ve been training that hard. You want to grab something to eat?”
“Sure.” I reach for his calloused hand and let him pull me to my feet. We’re inches away for a few quick seconds, but he loosens our hands, stuffs his in his pockets, and herds me to the truck.
“You like sushi?” He cracks his window and the cool night air whooshes around us.
“Never had it.”
“You’re half Japanese and you’ve never had sushi?” He smiles with new determination. “We’re going to fix this!”
“Good. Maybe raw fish and seaweed will be exactly what I need to get the smør shield just right so my mom can stop telling me what an incompetent loser I am.” I grip the side of the door as Jonas whips to the side of the road, his face suddenly contorted in shock. “Um, what’s up?”
“Smør? That’s
the shield you’re working on?”
I feel like I’m being interrogated. “Yeah. Weird, right? The ‘butter’ shield.” I manage a weak laugh, but he’s still staring. I clear my throat. “So, sushi sounds really good. Like, now. If you want to drive? Now?”
“I thought you said your mother kept telling you how awful you were. I thought you were some huge disappointment.” The words buzz and strike at me, a swarm of wasps whose hive I’ve just stomped on.
I speak slowly, trying to calm his irrational jump-down-my-throatedness. “Check and double check. Like I said, I can’t do the smør shield, and my mother’s been beating me up over it for the last three days.”
I don’t know if Jonas is actually listening, because he seems invested in banging his head into the back of his seat.
“If you don’t want to do this, it’s cool, Jonas. I thought the whole friend thing was kind of weird anyway, you know, considering, so just turn around. Or you can drop me at Vee’s— ”
“No one can do that shield, Wren,” he interrupts, taking a break from his head-banging to look at me like I just crawled out from under a microscope. “You’re not a failure because you can’t master it. You’re amazing because you can even grasp it.”
“How do you know?” I demand.
“I live with some of the most powerful shieldmaidens in the world. They talk shop. Incessantly,” he sighs. “Magda thought you two would still be perfecting boble this week.”
My laugh borders on giddy. I have officially entered the Twilight Zone, where I’m some kind of super sheildmaiden with all kinds of power, instead of the lowly disappointment my mother kept insisting I was all during training. “Jonas, that shield took me less than a day. It’s ridiculously easy.”
“Show me?” His request is half dare, half order.
My back goes up and I turn to him, one eyebrow cocked in acceptance of his throw-down. “You don’t think I can do it?”
“I’m actually really scared that you can.” He mutters something I don’t quite catch, but it sounds like, “I knew you were trouble.”
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