Father's fingers tightened and released. He did not speak a word, even when I waited long enough for him to take one step back.
“Very well. Shall we continue with our experiment, to see what little Anna is?”
Father did not look happy about it, but he did return to the circle and start back on the symbols where we left off. This time, he did not talk. No one talked. Uncle Don stood next to Mordon, who stood next to Mother as if the two of them had been conversing in between the barbs Father and I had exchanged. Those two seemed to be getting along, at least. Uncle Don was the one who came to stand beside me, and I found that he was the person whose presence I could tolerate. For some reason I was annoyed with Mordon, too. Because he didn't want to get between father and daughter? It was a good plan, I doubted that I'd have inserted myself between him and his parent. Still, I was annoyed with him anyway.
Despite myself, I soon had Skills of the Thaumaturge in my hands, drawing out the symbols Father was drawing on the floor, taking notes on where he started and ended, what the purpose of the spell was, doing close-ups of the smaller symbols. The actions soothed me in a way that nothing else could, and just holding the book in my hands was comforting. I found myself thinking that it knew me better than anyone else, better than even Mordon did. I sometimes used it like a diary, which it didn't seem to mind about, using it to take notes and make observations. It didn't matter if it was an internal debate about the advantages of Bedlam Sleep versus Eyes Closed, or if it was a short rant about the way that I was always tripping over Lilly's shoes by the door. Skills of the Thaumaturge was there for me, every now and then suggesting a spell such as Mary Janes Walk A Mile. Did it have a sense of humor by itself, or was it reflecting my own? I'd never found a satisfactory answer.
Father sprinkled a bag of green pine needles in the center of the circle. No, I realized, it was too shiny and bright to be pine, too flat...was it yew? What did yew leaves look like? I noted the question in Skills of the Thaumaturge.
“Give the child here,” Father said.
Mother had undressed the girl and re-dressed her in a cave spider silk garment. The child looked puzzled by the change in attire. She also bubbled milk froth at her lips. Mordon must have shown Mother where we kept the formula. She watched, eyes blinking, from the center of the too-shiny-to-be-pine needles. Around her neck was a pouch tied shut.
“What's in there?” I asked.
“First spring rain, basil, motherwort leaves, second-season lavender buds,” Mother said.
“A blessing?”
Mother gave a tremulous smile, as if uncertain, but pleased that I'd cared enough to learn some things from her so long ago. A tiny sliver of guilt slid home into my heart, but they still hadn't apologized so neither would I.
Uncle Don led the proceedings from there, with Father as a second. Mordon's brow furrowed as he listened to their chant, recognizing it yet not at the same time. He mouthed the chorus but stopped at the lyrics which Uncle Don alone seemed sure of. It was a haunting, deep tune, a solemn one which brought to mind the old Gregorian monk chants as sung in a stone church where the sounds reverberated off vaulted ceilings.
Closing my eyes, I let myself fall into the rumble of the spell, into the ebb and flow of magic as it rose and surged, receded, gathered, and rushed forward again. Not the way that water moves, the way that earth rolls across a flat plain during a quake, similar yet different to rolling waves. Father's magic was centered in the earth, but I didn't know of Uncle Don. Was he the same? It didn't matter, even my magic mimicked the movements. Building, building, building. It filled the room up to my ears. Then the words blended into each other and the motion of the magic smoothed then stared a slow whirlpool, drawing down and away with a silent, watchful Anna in the center of it all. The lower the magic was, the faster and stronger it drained until there was an audible rushing sound which could have been the men's voices.
Then it was all gone.
The room darkened as if invisible clouds blacked out the windows. My eyes adjusted, and I saw in the circle, suspended above Anna, was a flickering orange campfire, complete with a nest of twigs and logs. It cast shadows on the room, snapping and cracking. Mordon crossed his arms and rubbed his chin, not looking in my direction. Mother was likewise mesmerized. Father and Uncle Don became black silhouettes as the fire became brighter. The light filled the room gradually yet suddenly, blinding.
By the time I was done blinking the pain out of my head, the room had returned to normal and the magic was gone. No one had moved from their positions.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that whatever she is, she isn't human,” Uncle Don said. “And I've never seen that creature symbol before. Have you?”
Father shook his head.
“I haven't, either,” Mother said.
When they glanced at Mordon, he said, “No. Whatever she is, it must be rare. Possibly we think that her kind is extinct.”
“But does this mean Josephina wasn't cursed?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, no. Until we know what Anna is, we can't exclude an inferno curse,” Uncle Don said. He walked to the kitchen, to wash his face. Through the hand towel he dried off with, he said, “I'll have to think about the ramifications of this, Magnus.”
“I know.” Father seemed to have sprouted gray hairs at his temple, salting even his brows. It's funny, how when you're 'young', you never think of entering your prime as meaning that your parents are also leaving theirs. Somehow, it made me feel like a child again.
That thought was an instant jump to the thought that Anna could have been my own child, that they'd be grandparents. And I remembered my earliest memory of my grandparents, thinking that they were gray and old. That my own parents would age and become like their parents was a strange thought. Not an illogical one, I had always known that people would grow old, but I'd never given any practical thought to what that would look like. What it would mean. I felt guilty, as if I were the one aging them single-highhandedly. I gathered Anna up out of the circles, brushing her back free of vegetation, and I prepared to tell them.
“And there's more,” I said, feeling like I was being cruel for adding to their worries. “Since I wrote you, I've been followed.”
Chapter Eighteen
A half hour later we had the room set to rights again. Mother had been the one who had done the cleansing afterwards, and the men made short work of the rug and furniture. Father and Mordon had opposing ideas about how the chairs should be laid out in respect to the couch, and without a debate the sitting area was situated to the equal displeasure of both parties. Sitting in the armchair, cradling Anna in her arms, her lips opening and shutting around milk bubbles, Mother started the proceedings.
“So you're being followed. Do you think it is due to this child?”
I adjusted the gas lights, bringing them up a bit—then a bit more. Following the brilliance of the spell, the room felt dark and gloomy. It could be a simple matter of weariness on my part; I did feel tired. Too tired, in fact, to put up resistance against my well-meaning parents. I rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension that stretched across them.
I said, “Considering that no one has dared to follow me since I made several reporters walk into an invisible wall? Yes, I think it is due to her.” I sat down on the floor, the rug still had little lines in it from Uncle Don's Dust Be Gone shanty. “And I've had interest from Safe Streets campaign.”
It had all happened so fast. I was getting my story muddled already. I started again. “I've told you about how we got Anna. Did you show Uncle Don the letter?”
Uncle Don looked at me and nodded.
“So after that, Mordon and I went through a series of portal jumps to lose the grotesque. There was a parking lot, a show home, and the sea side, if I remember it right.”
“I've burned that trail now, and set out new portals in different places,” Mordon said. “One day I'll have you accompany me, but you were napping and it needed don
e quickly.”
“When did your contact at the Tribune start communicating with you?”
“That was after we got back—no, it was before. Wait.” I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. “It had to have been after. There wasn't any real down time between Josephina and the grotesque. I'd been worried about how Anna would cope with the trauma. So it had to have been after we returned, but it wasn't very long afterwards. And after that, we went to Merlyn's Market for the Midsummer Festival.”
I expected and saw the flicker of annoyance on Father's face.
“To meet up with Leif, Lilly, and Constable Barnes,” I said. “We met Nest—Agnes, of the Kragdomen Colony. She agreed to claim the child was a colony kid, that I was doing guardian duty. That way we could avoid as many questions as we could. Constable Barnes we told the truth to, and Leif and Lilly started on all the proper paperwork.”
“Leif and Lilly Frey? The judges?” Uncle Don asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Continue.”
“So after that, I sent my parents a letter. The letter, there's only been the one,” I added before anyone could ask. “And we cleaned up King's Ransom, and after that I went into the market to start a potions garden.”
“Oh!” Mother's face brightened and it was like we'd just woken up her soul. “Wonderful! What plants do you have? Aunt Linnia and I have to separate plants this fall. We've got—”
“Later, my dear,” Father said.
“Fine, fine. What happened next, Fera?”
“And anyway, I hadn't gotten very far before I was approached by a woman. A Mrs. Shelly Johnson. She said she thought it was terrible what had happened to me. Whatever that means. I should have teased some information out of her before I ditched her, but hindsight is 20/20. Anyhow, she did catch me again buying plants. Had some interesting thoughts on my creature immunity. Seemed to think that 'creatures' and 'humans' are fundamentally different and that they need to have two separate laws.”
Father said, “There are substantial differences.”
“What do you mean?”
“A werewolf loses control of himself during the full moon.”
“I don't know about that,” I said, musing and thinking about one of the vendors who had once told me he was a wolf. “You wouldn't guess on a lot of them.”
“Dirty, scruffy mongrels. Always in the dungeon, and if they aren't, they're soon back.”
“Sure, every race has those types of people. The poor tend to suffer more than the rich.”
“On the surface, they can seem to be like everyone else, but they aren't. They're different.”
“Well, put it like that, I'm sure you become different once you start expecting people to treat you a certain way. Even I'm developing an anti-pure-human stigma, though I'm trying not to.”
“Then it doesn't matter if the difference is bred into the individual or learned over time. There's a difference and it needs to be recognized.”
“But the more we as a culture recognize it, the worse the difference gets.”
I stopped myself from saying another word. Father and I were locked in verbal combat again, and from the uncomfortable expressions of Mother and Uncle Don, they were being polite by not saying anything. But they weren't happy with me. Did I dare to see if Mordon was of the opposite mindset from me? I glanced at him when I couldn't stand wondering any longer. His face told me nothing.
“Shelly Johnson wanted to know details on what happened in Mordon's shop. I wouldn't tell her anything. So I don't think she knows as much as she claims to know.” My comment went out into the silence, a change in topic which was awkwardly executed and seemingly rejected. “Then I saw you guys. And here we are.”
The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and shut with a bang which made all of us jump, and like a shot through the dark, there came Lilly's voice.
“Here we are! Help me get the place ready.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lilly and Barnes stamped up the steps, both gaping at the top when they laid eyes on our visitors. She smiled, recognizing my parents all at once.
“Magnus! Fera's mom! It's been ages, how are you guys? What have you been up to?” And with that, Lilly dumped her armful of packages into Barnes' hands and ran to hug both my parents. She didn't listen to their responses, and she didn't notice the way Father stood frozen solid as she squeezed him in an embrace.
Lilly held him at arm's length, noticeably startled to see how he'd aged since she last saw him. My father stared right back at her. Open affection was as strange to him as it was to me. Barnes watched the room with an amused twitch of his handlebar mustache.
Lilly continued, “I didn't know you were coming, you should have burnt me a note. Oh, gosh, I can't believe I forgot to invite you guys to the shower! It was all so last minute, you know, and I'm not very good at thinking of people unless I've got a list already made out. I'll add to it now.” She dug into her clutch purse and produced a journal which was physically larger than the purse itself, and put pink ostrich pen to paper. “Magnus...Fera's mom...and sorry, who are you? Uncle Donald....yes, you're down now, too. Who else can I add?”
“Lilly!” cried Leif from the bottom of the stairs. “Come get this mess out of the doorway, please.”
“You remember my brother Leif? Yes. We're throwing a baby shower for Fera. It's so lucky you showed up in time to put it together. Fera's Uncle Don, do you think you could send these invites out to whoever you think might want to attend? The party's set for tonight. Like, in a few hours. Seeing how Fera has a baby already, it seems mean to make her wait to use these.”
“Lilly, who are you talking to?” came Leif's voice.
“Leif, it's Fera's folks and her uncle.”
“What did they come for?”
Lilly looked stumped. “You know, I didn't ask. Why did you show up?”
Father checked his annoyance while Uncle Don laughed and went downstairs to help Leif clear the way. Mother explained why they'd come to Barnes and Lilly, though Lilly didn't appear to be listening while she pulled vibrant crepe paper streamers out of a bag. Nothing unusual in the party decorations—matching pastel paper tablecloths, tubes of glitter which we would surely be finding for months to come, a plastic punch bowl equipped with bathtub duckies made of ice. Nothing unusual until Lilly unfolded a paper lantern and it erupted into fireflies. The streamers shone like falling stars in its light. So as they were putting the lanterns and streamers up in the center of the ceiling, I had to admit to myself that it was pretty cool, actually.
The fold-out tables with paper table-cloths held a sheet cake, cupcakes, and punch bowl as well as the brunt of packages tied up with pale string. People started to enter the house, bearing various finger foods on platters. Amongst the more interesting of the assortment were tiny sandwiches which had been cut with cookie cutters to make flowers and doves in flight, and there was a watermelon half which had been stuck all over with fruit skewers.
People swarmed us within minutes, coming from thin air.
When Denise saw the watermelon with fruit skewers, she no sooner had walked through my french doors than she exclaimed, “It's an edible porcupine!”
I had to admit, it bore a certain resemblance.
“Inside forms, children,” Nest said out of habit as she followed after Denise. As far as I could see, they didn't bring anyone younger than Denise. But from the Kragdomen Colony there came Denise, Nest, and Enaid who said her husband was away today. For once, Enaid looked peaceful and friendly, softening her crisp creek bones and making her look a bit more like Mordon.
Mordon held the door open and asked after someone else. It was a tall, lean woman who had the same hair and eyes as Mordon and struggled with an infant of her own. Mordon's sister. I'd seen her often enough that it was embarrassing that I didn't know her name.
Mordon did the introductions. “This is Agnes, one of the Elders. And my mother, Enaid, presiding Lady of Kragdomen. Aeron is my father, he cannot be here. This
is my sister, Nieve. And Denise, Fera's student. These are Fera's relations. Her father Magnus, her mother Maggie, her uncle Don. And the members of our coven, Constable Barnes and Market Judges Lilly and Leif Frey.”
“It is good to meet you,” Mother said.
“Yes,” Nest said in her best old-lady voice which always meant she was up to something. “How interesting that despite Feraline's attempts to break from tradition, we meet for the first time to honor an infant.”
Was there a corner I could hide in? Mordon found this funny, but it shocked my parents, who looked to me as if to accuse me of having premarital relations. I might as well, if I was already paying the price for it. If it wasn't for Anna sleeping solidly in my lap, I would have given thought to slipping away while I still could. Enaid hadn't found it too funny, either, but Denise slung her arm over my shoulder and said, “Got to enjoy fate.”
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