“Is he?”
“Can you not call him a little gay boy?”
“Is that offensive?”
“You know it is. And can you call Sarah by her name?”
“Sarah,” Granny Nita said. “She’s quite pretty. Most of her gifts are latent. Are you having sex with her?”
“Oh, my God.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Jared.”
Mave came back with a tray, Sarah right behind her. She put it down on the coffee table and handed her mother a mug. “Behave,” she said.
“Where is your saintly mother?” Granny Nita asked Jared. “I thought Marguerite was in town.” She’s annoyed with you, you silly thing.
“She’s staying at a motel.”
“Is she still living in sin?”
Mave said, “Does the self-righteous pot realize she’s calling the kettle black?”
“Such a temper,” Granny Nita said. “Mavis-Anne, I will pray for you to discover patience.”
“Sarah, now that my mother is here with Jared, you can come with me,” Mave said. To Granny Nita she said, “We have to go warn the neighbours about a girl who’s stalking Jared. She likes torturing elders, so you should be careful yourself.”
“Another stalker? You need to stop collecting them, Jared, they aren’t stamps,” Granny Nita said. “Maybe Mavis-Anne and Sarah should stay here like good girls and wait for the proper authorities to handle this crazy person.”
“If you get tired before we get back, call a cab, Mother,” Mave said.
“I’ve had a good life,” Granny Nita said. “If this stalker finds me alone out front, waiting for the cab, and kills me horribly, I forgive you.”
“You’re such a manipulative wretch.”
“The word you’re looking for is witch.”
“I’m not a sexist snot like you.”
“Witches can be male or female.”
“I’m not getting into a fight with you, Mother.”
“You’re so sensitive, Mavis-Anne.”
“Whatever. I’m locking the door after me. Don’t answer a knock unless you want to be murdered.”
Sarah gave Jared a little wave then turned to follow Mave.
Once the deadbolt clicked, Granny Nita chuckled. “I thought they’d never leave. Now that I’ve got rid of your poltergeist, why don’t we set some traps for your horrible little sorcerer? Some nice, lethal traps.”
Jared gave her the sudden image he was getting from Wee’git, hurt and alone, watching them through the picture window from a nearby tree.
She looked grimly amused, turning her head to peer out the window. You old fool. If you’d ask people what they want instead of meddling in everyone’s lives to “fix” them, so many people wouldn’t be so pissed at you.
Bossy as ever, Wee’git thought. So do what you say when you say it.
Get off the cross. Your help is always conditional on everyone doing what you think is right even as you screw everything that moves.
I’m not the bad guy!
If you’ll only help on your terms, Granny Nita thought, fuck off.
Yeah, you hold your grudge like a baby. See where that gets you. The raven in the tree across the street burst skywards.
“God save us all from well-meaning hypocrites with control issues,” Granny Nita said.
24
ANITA
Last month, you recognized the supervisor who liked to strap your hands. You knew her the second you saw her, still with her bottle blond hair. She’s probably not much older than you, but back then she treated you like you were a toddler, taking a special joy in sending you to bed without supper, making you sit in the dunce corner.
You had been invited to speak on a conference panel exploring safe, respectful ways for adopted Indigenous youth to learn their culture. The woman who used to work for a fucking residential school wouldn’t meet your eyes and you waited until they invited you to do the opening prayer to reveal that you remembered every single whack. She left crying and people were angry with you, wanting you to tame your rage for public consumption. The woman has never apologized. Not once. She probably doesn’t think she did anything wrong. Some people left with her while the conference room buzzed with conversation. Your microphone was turned off.
“What the hell is she doing here?” you asked. “What is wrong with you people?”
The organizer informed you she works for a school board with a large Indigenous population and was only here to “listen.”
“So she’s still sucking off the government tit,” you said, “getting her sick jollies controlling Indians.”
“This should be a private conversation,” the organizer said.
Afterwards, as people filed out, someone handed you a therapist’s card and you wanted to shove it down their throat. You’ve talked until words are meaningless. Give the fucking therapist’s card to that woman. Make her go to anger management. Make her go to a retreat with former students and face the harm she’s done.
She called you intractable back then. Said you deserved worse. You got a cough and they sent you away like a problem dog needing to be put down. They sent you to the preventorium.
That place.
That place.
Hell is a hospital where you are the rat. Where your body is encased in plaster so you can’t fight, can’t move. Your world begins and ends at the mercy of people who think you are a rat. Hell is the Trickster who rescues you, then leaves you, leaves you, leaves you, and when you finally leave him, he comes back pretending to be your son, Wade, and, when you discover his trickery, expects you to forgive like an angel when you are a rat. Your daughters hate you and you know they’re right. You are unforgivable because you are a rat.
Hell is thinking your grandson is not your grandson but your ex-lover in disguise, torturing you again for leaving him. You waited for Wee’git to jump out—surprise! He didn’t seem to understand that every piece of your soul was flayed.
You drove him away, you drove them all away, and Agnetha, Agnetha, Agnetha. Your sister. She’s refusing chemo this time, says she can’t go through it again, and the lupus is slowly shutting her down. Soon there’ll be no more phone calls that last for hours, no more laughing, gossipy moments.
Look at your handsome grandson. So earnest. Regret is like a scalpel slicing through pus.
The first letter he wrote you was so carefully printed, little smudges where Jared had taken an eraser and corrected a wrong vowel. The shock of it. God is real, God is real, God is not a small sadist who takes pleasure in your subjugation. God is your grandson writing you a letter to tell you he hopes you are okay even after you were an absolute rat.
You beckon him to you now and you lay your hands on his chest and call on the heavenly host, God, the Creator, to burn the hex from its nest, a ball of hate that frays when it is touched with light. Heal him. Free him from the evil that wants to twist him to its will.
Your heart is an old safe. You pry the rusty doors open, fearing it is empty, but your love is still there and you set it free.
25
QUI VEUT NOYER SON CHIEN L’ACCUSE DE LA RAGE
Jared woke face down on his bedroom floor. His grandmother slept in his bed, mouth open, her bottom denture sliding to the left, giving her a crazed, crooked look. Her power hummed like a radiator with an occasional clank. The tunnels in the walls around him shone like lit paths. How had he never seen them before? He couldn’t sense Aiden anywhere. The entire apartment building was empty of ghosts.
He could see the outline of where the portal had been. Faint, sparkling threads led from him through the floor. He couldn’t touch them, couldn’t pull his friends back from the pocket universe that was and wasn’t in the floor. The world there was juxtaposed with this world. Here, but not.
When he went out on the balcony, he saw Bo
b high in the sky, hovering over him. In the distance, towards West Vancouver, Jared could hear Sophia, her deep thrum now more like bubbling lava.
Sophia, he thought. I’m sorry.
Her attention was instant, a crawling sensation like fire ants marching under his skin.
Trickster, she thought.
She was alone in a funeral parlour looking down at what was left of Philip Martin’s face. A whistle in the air, high and sweet, grew louder as the invisible thing came close and then faded as it flew away.
Philip, Sophia thought, touching his hand.
She was Sophia, but not. Something inside her thought, Even through the embalming fluid, you can smell the flesh.
He told Sophia, I didn’t mean to get Dad killed.
He wasn’t your father, Sophia said.
He still remembered the woman who took him to the movies on her Vespa, her perfect hair and her knowing smile inspiring complete strangers to buy them popcorn. Spider-Man. They’d seen Spider-Man and she’d put her fur cape down to cushion the booster seat and handed him a bucket of popcorn the size of his head.
She gave him a memory: A coy wolf tearing off his human skin to run from you faster. Invisible things whistled overhead. Something slammed into the coy wolf and the back of his head blossomed red, a metallic taste of copper in your mouth as you sank your teeth into him.
We ate everyone that ate Philip, she thought. Now we want Jwasins, their leader.
I want to talk to Sophia.
Her mutts said only you can bring her back. Only you know where she is.
Sophia, can you hear me?
She doesn’t want to talk to you.
I love you, Sophia. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I—
She doesn’t care, the thing in Sophia said. Bring us Jwasins or we’ll stand by and watch the ogress’s new pack kill everyone you love. They know where your mother is.
Suddenly, he was alone in his head, stunned.
* * *
—
Time passed yet no time passed. Jared saw himself sitting on his bedroom floor. Wee’git in his raven form groomed a feather on a branch beside him. Jared didn’t even remember leaving his body, but now he perched beside his father on a branch with a perfect view of Mave’s apartment.
We should leave, Wee’git thought.
What’s happened to Sophia?
Nothing good.
Could Sophia take the ogress?
Yes, Wee’git thought. And then, in the state she’s in, she’d kill your psy— mother and then you. Sophia’s your nuclear option. Jared, get back in your own body and we’ll go to Chuck’s.
I can’t just leave. It’s my fault everyone’s in danger.
Well, bring them.
Even Mom? And Gran?
God, you’re a headache. Yes. Bring all your psychos. Even the damn otters.
I don’t have Chuck’s phone number, Jared thought.
Duh. Go mind to mind. Like we’re doing now.
We don’t have that kind of relationship.
Fine. Give me a minute.
The raven nestled on the branch, tucking its beak beneath a wing. Wee’git twitched. Jared wanted to know where his mother was. He wanted to know if she was okay.
Chuck’s coming with a minibus in the morning, Wee’git thought. Good luck talking everyone into going with you.
Okay, Jared thought. Thank you.
Just get back in your damn body.
* * *
—
“Maybe you can sell it as a retreat,” Sarah whispered. “An intervention but, like, you’re inviting everyone to talk things out in a mansion in Whistler. Or just tell them David’s been seen in the neighbourhood and you need to get everyone out of the way until he’s arrested.”
They sat together on her daybed lit by the bright-blue light from her laptop. She’d taken the whole thing in stride in a way that Jared was getting used to. She seemed stoked to meet a Wild Man of the Woods, especially a vegan one, and had put steel-cut oats, coconut milk and apples in the slow cooker. The combined smell that wafted through the apartment was like a wet paper bag mixed with the tart sweetness of Granny Smiths. Jared felt things shifting, a disturbance in the Force, so to speak, a planets-being-exploded-by-Death-Star level of disturbance.
Sarah’s phone pinged and she glanced at it. “Not your mom.”
MOM, Jared thought, broadcasting as loud as he could. ANSWER ME.
“Ow,” Sarah said, clutching her head. “You moron, she’s trying to be stealthy.”
He wanted his mother to answer him, wanted her here, with him. He even wanted Richie. He wanted not to feel as panicked as a toddler lost in the mall.
“Have you heard from the fireflies?” Sarah said.
“No,” Jared said.
“Fuckers,” she muttered.
“They used me to get Georgina to another universe to keep her away from you,” Jared said. “Now they’re worried about interfering again in a universe that isn’t theirs.”
“Screw their Prime Directive crap,” Sarah said. “We need help and we need it now.”
They both paused as Granny Nita’s snore reached a chainsaw level of decibels then went silent. After a long, sleep-apnea pause, she settled into a quieter rumble.
“Okay,” Sarah said. “I’m done in. Do you want the daybed or the couch?”
“I’m not taking your bed.”
“Your mom can take care of herself, Jared. Justice is with Mave. Neeka’s at Hank’s. Your gran is here. I’m here. You can’t do anything else tonight.”
“Okay,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Night.”
“Night.”
He stood and adjusted the room dividers to give Sarah some privacy. He considered shutting off the lamp, but didn’t. Justice laughed at something and he heard Mave shushing her. He tossed the throw pillows off the couch and lay down, clutching his phone to his chest. It buzzed.
RSVPing a hard fucking no for your breakfast shit show, Kota had texted.
Please, Jared texted back. Please, Kota.
Is your gran going to be there?
Jared bit his lip. Maybe.
Fuck right off and stay fucked.
Please.
Nite.
Maybe he could get Hank to work on Kota. Maybe he could sic Neeka on him. Maybe Kota wasn’t even on the hit list and Jared was just dragging him into danger. It was hard to know, hard to guess, but he’d rather have Kota in Whistler with them instead of being a “la-di-da-ing soft target,” as his mother would say.
Holy God, if there was ever a moment he needed to not drink, this was it. This was literally the there’s-no-problem-that-drinking-can’t-make-worse of all problems. But what he craved was beer and then a bong. Anything to take down the anxiety that made it hard to breathe, hard to lie down, hard to resist pacing. Jared told himself he just had to make it through this moment. And then the next. And then the next.
A bright shape darted by the front window—the pale old sorcerer. Tentacles followed, whipping excitedly. Jared hopped up and went to the window in time to see Bob the Octopus trailing the sorcerer, who noticed Jared watching and skittered down the apartment wall out of sight.
26
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO BREAKFAST
The grey sky hid the tops of the mountains. A cool, lazy breeze stirred the last brittle brown leaves clinging to the trees lining Graveley Street as Sarah and Jared dragged the red iron patio table in from the balcony. Sarah had the right idea with her black hoodie and jeans, Jared thought. A sweater wouldn’t hurt.
Mave shouted at them to leave the balcony door open. Her freshly burnt batch of bacon had filled the apartment with sweet, acrid smoke. After they positioned the patio table in the living room, Justice wiped it down, careful not to get any grime on her shi
ny peach dress and matching furry slippers, and threw a tablecloth over it. Granny Nita was slumped in the recliner, covered with a faded quilt. It was hard to not feel guilty when she was so weak from helping him. Justice asked her if she wanted more tea, but she shook her head and Justice went back to the kitchen. Sarah and Jared dragged in the iron patio chairs from the balcony.
Neeka and Hank hello’d as they arrived holding hands. Hank wore sweats for his day off and Neeka was in her yoga gear, her hair tightly braided.
“Witch,” Neeka greeted Granny Nita as she walked over and sat on the couch.
“Neeka,” Hank snapped.
“It’s a fact, not a slur,” Granny Nita said. “Good morning, Junior. Otter Woman, are you Wee’git’s?”
Hank’s mouth was opening again, when Mave shouted from the kitchen, “Hank, do you have any maple syrup you can spare?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are the Starr brothers coming to breakfast?” Jared asked Hank.
“They have jobs, Jared. You can’t expect them to come play video games and mooch food anymore.” He leaned over and kissed Neeka, nervously glancing at Granny Nita and then his girlfriend. “Back in a minute, babe.”
Neeka watched him go, then said, “Wee’git was the one who trapped our great-great-great-grandmother in human form.”
“The ogress is his sister, Jwasins,” Granny Nita said.
“Jared didn’t mention that,” Neeka said, giving him a dirty look.
“She put a hex on him to keep him silent. I took it off. She’s making transformational skins out of Trickster organs for her pack.”
Neeka frowned. “That’s not possible.”
“It is with enough power and no morals.”
Bob the Octopus descended through the ceiling, beak clicking, golden eyes searching for Jared and clicking faster when it saw him.
“Not now, Bob!” Jared hissed.
Bob shot upwards, clicking.
“You’ve taken Bob as a familiar?” Neeka said to Jared.
“No! No. He’s just, you know, hanging out.”
“Can we get back to the coy wolves?” Sarah asked.
Return of the Trickster Page 21