“What has he done this time?” Clotho asks.
“We shouldn’t ask the child to tell on her father,” Lachesis says softly.
Atropos makes a rude noise. “The child came here to tell on her father. Let her talk.”
Clotho peels a long strand of green mask off the side of her face. “I would rather get back to relaxing. Can we hurry this along?”
She looks at me.
I shrug. “I’ll talk as fast as I can.”
“Better yet,” Lachesis says, “give us the setup.”
“We’ll divine the rest,” Atropos says with something like a sneer.
So I remind them about me and Brittany and Crystal giving up our magic and going to live with our mothers.
Clotho says to the others, “Really, we should have come up with a better solution.”
“It wasn’t our solution,” Lachesis says.
“You girls claimed you wanted it,” Atropos says. She seems kinda hostile to me. The other two seem to take me in stride, but Atropos glares at me the whole time.
Does she feel like I took her job—hers and not theirs? Because I didn’t even know the job I had was hers until now. Maybe I should say something.
I grab my ankles and lean forward, about to say just that, when Clotho snaps, “Setup, remember?”
“Yeah,” I say, and then I tell them about my promise not to think about magic and how we’re trying to be normal mortals, and how we’re not supposed to have contact with each other except on Saturday—
“That’s a silly rule,” Lachesis mutters.
“Let the girl finish,” Atropos snaps.
—and how Daddy can’t see us at all because he interferes. Then I get to the part where he magically appears today, and as I start to tell them about it, Clotho waves a hand.
“We’ll watch from here,” she says.
So for the second time in a single afternoon, I watch myself live a part of my life. Then I watch me watching my baby self and I begin to feel really dizzy. It’s like looking through a series of mirrors, only instead of getting a clear sense of myself, I get no real sense at all.
But the Fates stare with great fascination. After the whole flashback within a flashback happens (Mrs. Fiddler would be proud of me, remembering and illustrating that term [although probably not in any way she ever imagined]), Lachesis waves an arm and the action freezes.
“Your father does realize how badly he comes across, doesn’t he?” she asks.
“Oh, puh-leeze,” Atropos says in a good imitation of me (at least, I think she’s imitating me. She can’t be imitating Alicia Silverstone [my heroine] from Clueless, can she? Can she? Jeez, that freaks me out even worse).
“It’s Zeus,” Clotho says. “He just wanted the child. He wants her to know he wants her, even though he treated her mother shabbily. He assumes her loyalty is with him, not with her mother, and he might be right.”
I don’t like being discussed like I’m not there. “My mom is cool,” I say, even if that’s not entirely true. I mean, she’s cool for a mom. And I’m starting to feel sorry for her.
“Besides,” Lachesis says as if I haven’t spoken, “Zeus really doesn’t care about what other people think. He only cares about what he wants.”
“Strange that he always wants his children, and then doesn’t seem to do a good job of raising them.” Atropos looks at me when she says that. She’s trying to make me mad, and it’s working.
“I know all that,” I say, even though it’s nice to hear some of my suppositions confirmed. “I’m not here because Daddy came to see me or because he showed me what he did to Mom.”
All three Fates look at me. Blue, green, and black eyes—all focused on me. I can feel that silly blush rising, and I almost, almost, waste a wish on getting rid of it.
But I don’t.
Not yet.
“I’m here,” I say a little softer, “because of what he did after.”
“After?” Clotho asks as if she doesn’t want to know.
“After he showed me all that stuff,” I say, and I’m about to tell them when Lachesis waves her arm again, and the scene starts up, like a movie just taken off of pause. I didn’t know you could do that with real life—or at least, with real life memories—which might’ve made my life easier (just a little) when I was an Interim Fate.
Anyway, this time, I stare at the Fates, not at me. (Besides, I could’ve combed my hair and my shirt is wrinkled in the back [which makes me tug it down now and run a hand through my hair] and I look kinda dorky even though I didn’t mean to. Who wants to watch dorky?) They’re watching pretty intently, and then when I tell Daddy off—or kinda tell him off—Lachesis actually applauds.
Clotho frowns at her, and Atropos frowns at me. My stomach turns. That queasiness is back.
Then, finally, we get to the drop of magic part, and that’s when I say, “That’s what I’m here about. I’m not supposed to have magic.”
Lachesis snaps her finger and the image of me (just me by then) disappears. She gives me a sad look. “Your father is a master manipulator.”
“And he has violated I don’t know how many rules,” Atropos says.
“He’s not supposed to present himself to mortals anymore,” Clotho says.
“We’ll have to take this up with the Powers, since he’s out of our sentencing purview,” Lachesis says.
“But that’s not why I’m here either,” I say.
“You didn’t let us finish,” Atropos says with a snarl.
“Go ahead, child, tell us exactly,” Clotho says kindly.
I smile at her, thankful that at least two Fates seem to be on my side. “I want to know what to do. I can’t tell Mom…”
And then I go through all the arguments I’d been having with myself before I got here.
“…and so that’s why I came to you,” I say.
“For advice?” Lachesis asks, like that’s unheard of.
Well, I couldn’t remember anyone doing it with me and Brittany and Crystal either, but we were just kids. These guys are the real deal, as the saying goes, besides which, they have all this experience.
“We can’t give you advice,” Atropos says.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because this is your problem, child,” Clotho says.
“Obviously, your father feels that he can seduce you with your old powers. Is that correct?” Lachesis asks.
I shrug, even though I was tempted just a few minutes ago, to use that wish to get rid of my blushing.
“Because you do realize that the first one is free, right?” Atropos asks.
And I recognize the slang. She does watch movies.
“You mean, if I use this drop, he’ll give me more magic?” I ask.
“And expect you to use it,” Clotho says.
“Until you’re horribly compromised,” Lachesis says.
“And the Powers have no choice but to bring you back to Olympus,” Atropos says.
“You’d be in your father’s control all right,” Clotho says.
“But believe us when we tell you that petitioning for the return of powers is harder than getting rid of them,” Lachesis says.
“There’s a chance you’d be here without much magic at all,” Atropos says and actually smiles.
I shiver. I’ve seen how some mages treat people without magic. It’s not pretty. (And I’ve been guilty of doing some of it myself. Only I can’t think about that now. I can’t think about any of it.)
My blush is growing worse. “You think Daddy would do that?” I ask. “Why me?”
“No offense, child,” Clotho says.
“But it’s not personal,” Lachesis finishes for her.
“He only wants you because he can’t have you,” Atropos says.
“Again,” Clotho says.
“Like before that fire,” Lachesis says.
“You have to know he was just waiting for a moment like that,” Atropos says.
“So that he could take you away
from your mother,” Clotho says.
“He’s nasty that way,” Lachesis says.
“But he soon tires of new playthings,” Atropos says.
“So he’d forget about you once he has you,” Clotho says.
“What do I do?” I mean to say that really calmly, but it comes out like a cross between a whine and a moan.
Lachesis leans her elbows on the side of the pool. She smiles at me. “There’s a good way out of this,” she says, “if you only do what you do best.”
“What’s that?” I ask, sure Atropos will never tell me. So I look pleadingly at Clotho.
But Atropos is the one who answers.
“It’s pretty simple, kid,” she says. “Just think.”
SIXTEEN
THE NEXT THING I know, I’m back on my bed. My pillow’s in the middle of the floor and the white chair is too close to the bed, but otherwise, there’s no real way to tell that Daddy’s been here or that I got whisked off to the Fates.
Except for my headache.
I grab the pillow and hug it to my chest. Just think. How sarcastic can Atropos get?
I flop back on the bed. From down below, I hear some banging in the kitchen, which means that Mom must’ve gotten home. She probably thinks I’m still mad at her, because I didn’t yell hello when she got here.
I have no idea how I’m going to pretend I had a normal afternoon.
Just think.
Think.
I did think. That’s how I got to the Fates in the first place, and they told me they can’t help me.
I close my eyes.
But they did tell me that the Powers won’t notice the magic use until it gets egregious. So maybe I have a few chances to solve this thing before that.
My bedroom door creaks open. I sigh and open my eyes. Mom stands in the doorway. She looks a lot older than she did in that flashback/memory/whatever. She’s got lines under her eyes, and they’re not laugh lines.
They’re sad lines.
“I know we’re supposed to knock,” she says. “I’ve just been worried about you all afternoon, and when you didn’t say hi…”
I open my mouth, preparing to lie, but what comes out is, “I have a headache.”
“Have you taken anything?”
“Hmmm?”
She frowns at me, then smiles a little. “Of course you haven’t. Come with me.”
I sigh, shove the pillow aside, and follow her into the bathroom. Where she proceeds to explain aspirin, Tylenol, and a bunch of other drugs to me like I’m going to need this stuff.
Which sort of terrifies me. What kind of culture needs all of this to survive?
One without magic, of course. One that can’t just will a pain away, but has to live with it.
The same fear I felt with the Fates engulfs me. I sit on the toilet, and Mom puts her hand on my forehead.
“You’re not too warm,” she says.
Why would I be too warm? What don’t I know about being here? Probably as much as I don’t know about everything else.
Just think.
I am thinking and I’m not coming up with anything. Mom grabs one of the plastic cups she has in a little dispenser near the sink and fills it with water. Then she hands me two pills.
“This’ll help,” she says.
It won’t, but I humor her anyway.
“Now lie down for a while,” she says, “and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
Is this what being maternal is? Is this what moms do in the mortal world?
I have no idea. I wonder if Mom does either. I mean, we’re both figuring this out together.
“Daddy wasn’t very nice to you, was he?” I blurt before I can stop myself.
Mom freezes in the act of putting the Tylenol away, one hand resting on the door of the medicine cabinet, the other clutching the white bottle trimmed with red.
“Why do you ask?” she says, her expression neutral.
I can’t exactly tell her what happened—I won’t, not yet anyway. I guess I need to know how she feels about him before I do.
“I dunno,” I say. “I was just thinking about it, y’know, and looking at the smoke stain.”
She nods. “It was for the best.”
“But it wasn’t fair, was it?”
She puts the bottle away, then turns and rests her hands behind her on the countertop like she’s bracing for the conversation. “Honey, what happened that day is between me and your dad.”
“But it wasn’t fair. He didn’t raise me.”
She actually winces. Then she sighs. “Look, Tiff. Your dad and I have a lot of problems. I didn’t understand what they were when I got pregnant, and I didn’t appreciate the special circumstances of raising a magical child.”
“Because nobody does it,” I say, “not even mages. Daddy bent the rules for his children.”
“Your father doesn’t entirely understand rules,” she says. “And given the amount of power he has had all his life, that makes sense to me.”
“How come you’re sticking up for him?” I ask.
“Because he’s your father,” she says, “and whatever happened between him and me should remain between us.”
“He’s not fair to me either,” I say.
She tilts her head. “What brought this up?”
I shrug.
“Tiffany?”
“I…” I close my eyes. The headache is still there, but Mom said it would take a while for the stuff to work. “I was mad.”
“I know,” she says.
“I was thinking about going home.”
She winces again. “You mean Mount Olympus?”
I nod. “Then I thought about it and realized it wouldn’t be home without Brittany and Crystal and I wouldn’t have my magic, unless the Powers took an appeal, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to come with me.”
“Brittany and Crystal?” Mom asks. I guess she thought maybe I meant the Powers.
“Yeah,” I say.
“So you decided to stay?” she asks and I can see how hard she’s trying to remain neutral and not sound hopeful, but she sounds hopeful anyway.
I’m still a little mad, I guess, because I don’t want to make her feel better right away. “I started thinking about Daddy and how he never notices me except when I’m complaining, and how it must’ve been for you, and how come he bugs me so much.”
Mom opens her mouth to say something, then seems to decide against it.
“If I stay with him, will I be like him?” I ask.
She closes her eyes for a minute, as if she’s gathering herself. Then she opens them and asks, “Do you want to be like him?”
“No,” I say.
“Who do you want to be like?” she asks.
I think of her face as she hands me to him, all that pain, and loss, and how she was willing to do it, even though it meant hurting herself even worse. I can’t understand that. I don’t have any skills for it. Even though I know people who’ve paraded as gods for thousands of years, none of them—so far as I know—have sacrificed anything.
Mom is staring at me.
“I wanna be like you,” I say.
SEVENTEEN
AND THAT’S WHEN it comes to me: Why kids don’t get magic right away.
They have to know how to make real choices. Like Mom did. Daddy had no clue what she was giving up (and if he did, he’s even meaner than I think he is). But I really think he had no clue. Like the Fates say, he doesn’t understand emotions—and if he had magic from the time he was a kid (he did), he’s never had to make hard choices.
Because magic’s a cheat unless you understand it.
The magic Daddy gave me isn’t quite strong enough to spell me to be like Mom, but I could wish I was, and then I would be, without any work at all. But would I be like her then? She had to work to be who she is. Me, I’d wish my way into it, and I would just be a copy, not Tiffany who admires her own mom and wants to be like her.
Is this what Megan said I needed to do
when I had goals? I’d have to ask her.
“Thank you,” Mom says in this strangled voice, and that’s when I realize she hasn’t said anything for a long time. She brushes my face with her hand. I lean into it for a minute, and then realize I’m really tired.
Must be those Tylenol thingies. Or maybe just the afternoon.
“I’m going to lie down,” I say to her.
Mom nods, but doesn’t move. I leave her in the bathroom and go to my room. The bathroom door closes and I hear water running, but it sounds like Mom’s gulping too.
Or crying.
Then I shake my head. Mom’s not a crier. Mom’s too strong for that.
I pull my door closed and flop on my bed. Just think, Atropos said, like it’s obvious what I should do. As if I could make the afternoon never happen. As if…
I sit up. Well, duh.
That’s what I’ll do. That’s what I’ll wish for. But first, one selfish little wish. I’m going to prevent the blushing. I’m going to…
Only I stop that thought. Would Mom do that? Would it be wise to take away a natural reaction?
Instead, I clench my fists and control my thoughts real hard. I think about the wording in little chunks so that I don’t form a complete sentence until I’m ready.
First, I say, “I wish Daddy would stop giving me magic that I’m not entitled to.”
And then I say, “I wish he never gave me that drop of magic this afternoon.”
Two wishes. Two simple, small wishes.
And suddenly, for the third time today, my life flashes before me. Only it’s going in reverse, and I can see it. My talk with Mom, the pills, the bathroom, the door, and then the Fates talking, talking, talking, and then magic vial, and then Daddy, and then the flashback, and then Daddy again, and then I’m lying on the bed, just like I did this afternoon before the whole dilemma started.
And just when I’m wondering if I imagined the whole thing, Daddy pops into my room. Only he doesn’t end up at the foot of the bed like he did before. Instead, his hands part the air and his head sticks through like the fabric of reality around us is just a curtain.
“Why do you do this to me?” he asks.
“What?” I ask.
Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates Page 13