“We need to get you new clothes,” she said when they were done eating.
“On it,” Jared said. “I’m going down to Value Village.”
“Admirable,” Mave said. “I respect your commitment to re-consumerism.”
“It’s more of a commitment to my bank balance.”
“I have a counter-proposal.”
“A what?”
“Why don’t you come to my shop? I could get you a discount.”
“No.”
“All the clothes are locally made,” Mave said. “No sweatshop children. Fair—”
“No.”
“Jared.” She peered at him over her glasses. “My stubborn little bean.”
“I don’t like being dressed. I don’t like it when Mom does it.”
“Think about it,” she said. “Please?”
“Okay,” Jared said.
“It’s extra sage-y in here today,” Mave said. “Were you smudging again? How much grounding do you need?”
“Sorry.”
“No, no. Just wondering how your first day of classes went.”
“Well, Struan had a wonderful time and he wanted me to tell you that.”
“Hmm,” Mave said. “He’s texted me twenty-seven times. The voice mail is full. Facebook pokes and comments all over my wall. If carrier pigeons were available, I’d have a flock pooping on my balcony right now.”
“Can you guys leave me out of your relationship?”
“We had one dinner and danced a bit. That’s hardly a grand affair.”
“Just sayin’.”
“Noted. Would you consider taking a look at the clothes?”
“No.”
“I could strangle you.”
“As long as you don’t dress me, go for it.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine. By the way, your roast last night was excellent. Have you considered becoming a chef?”
Jared shrugged. “Too much drama.”
“Sweetie,” Mave said. “Health services are all about the drama.”
“Not the technicians.”
“Maybe not the lab work. But any time you deal with people, especially sick people, you have drama.”
“Mave.”
“I’m not allowed to have an opinion?”
“You’re not allowed to beat me over the head with your opinion.”
She laughed. “You’re surprisingly witty.”
“Um, thanks.”
“Sorry. I was raised with backhanded compliments and can’t seem to break the habit. I meant to say you’re funny.” She went back to her laptop and he went back to his cell.
The ghost in the bathrobe walked through the wall as if Jared hadn’t spent an entire afternoon trying to ghost-proof the apartment. Jared gritted his teeth and wondered if he’d done something wrong with the warding or if it was just his supreme lack of magical ability. His mom would not be surprised. Embarrassed, maybe. Bathrobe pointed to the TV and then lifted the sleeve of his bathrobe and impatiently tapped his watch. Jared gave his head a little shake. Bathrobe mimed despair, falling to his knees and raising his hands like a preacher.
“Khan!” he shouted. “Ahan, an, an!”
“What are you staring at?” Mave turned her head and scanned the room.
“Just thinking,” Jared said.
“About?”
“You know, stuff.”
“I’m missing season one, episode twenty-two, ‘Space Seed,’ ” Bathrobe said as he got up and wandered over, “with Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, the first appearance of Khan. Come on, Jared, it’s eight on my top ten original season Star Treks!”
Jared bent his head over his phone and typed: Emote somewhere else, Captain Kirk.
“Yeah, you’re a riot,” Bathrobe said, peering over his shoulder at the screen. “A real frakken’ comedian.”
18
On Thursday, Intro to Physics was a large class with a professor who wasn’t dating Jared’s aunt and so didn’t try to make awkward small talk. Their first assignment was about roller coasters. Random, Jared thought. He looked up the lab schedule and chose one on the same day as the physics class so he wouldn’t have to make extra trips out. He signed up for a biology lab three hours after his Tuesday class. He wished he knew which lab Rayne and Evan were going to so he could avoid them. He’d really thought college would be less like high school. He wanted to print off some resumés in the library but needed to buy a swipe card first. When he went to the ATM to get money, he noticed his bank account was down to double digits.
Ping. Sophia texted: You’re welcome. It seemed like a waste to just leave it in the garage. Enjoy.
Ah, Jared thought, the Vespa.
He could hit Sophia up for money and she would give it to him, but then he’d feel like a heel and she’d likely stop responding to his texts. Which would be a simple way to kill their relationship. His mom kept telling him Sophia was someone he should be more careful around.
YOLO, Jared thought. He’d done the things he’d done. You learned and you moved on. Or you lied to yourself and kept repeating the same old, same old. He had a hard time distinguishing between the two. They sounded a lot alike in his head.
The balcony was one of Jared’s favourite places in the apartment, even on rainy, miserable days like this one. None of the ghosts liked it here and he could still get a wi-fi signal, but he could also people-watch. He wasn’t expecting David—he had to have a job, right? a family? hobbies?—but Jared scanned the street as soon as he sat on the rusty iron patio chair. If the weather warmed up again, he’d borrow a grinder and redo the set. At least prime it before winter rusted the legs completely through.
The apartment face was cubed, with the living room sections jutting out so you couldn’t see around them to the other tenants’ patios. Jared could smell Kota’s cigarettes, but he couldn’t see him. If Kota wasn’t calling out hello, Jared didn’t want to barge into his cousin’s alone time. Kota said the Starr brothers escaped their sister’s basement suite (and her kids) by hanging out at Hank’s place. They gamed with headphones when Hank was sleeping, but Kota was left with his bedroom and the balcony to do his thinking.
Jared took a deep breath and texted: Hey, Mom. Having a lil ghost issue here. Warding didn’t work. Can u walk me thru it again?
Well, well, well, she wrote back immediately. Mr. Fancy College Education can’t handle a simple lil ghost. Ha. Told u so. Knew u’d cum crawling 2 me 4 advice.
The gloating went on for the next few texts. Jared sipped his coffee. Information. It’s all just information. I’m not annoyed about hearing information.
After ragging on him forever before outlining the basics of warding again, she asked: u ok if I go wit Richie?
The road trip to his hometown, she meant. Paint wit all the colours of the wind, he texted.
Sumtimes I wanna smack the sarcasm outta ur blowhole so much it hurtz.
Mommy dearest u put the crank in our family car crankshaft.
Sonny boy that makes u the shaft.
Imma complicated man & no1 unnerstands me but my momma.
Ur 2 old 2 b sucking my tit this hard.
TTYL Hallmark.
TTFN lil bastard.
Jared stared at his phone, wondering if Sarah was okay. Then he texted, Ur mom wuz here. Wants u 2 no shez worried.
Blinking cursor, blinking cursor. Maybe her mom wasn’t her trigger the way his was for him. Maybe Sarah had mastered detachment, had left her cares and worries in her rear-view mirror. Hasta la vista, bitches.
Mave’s freezer was full to bursting. At the very top she had three organic free-range turkeys. Their stickers said they were eighty dollars each and had been packaged six months ago. You could keep a frozen turkey for three years, Mrs. Jaks had told him, but past seven months the flavour suffered. They were pretty scrawny for the price, more like gangly chickens than the traditionally chunky gobble-gobbles. He pulled out two and brought them to the kitchen. He cleared out a bunch of wilt
ed veggies from the lower fridge shelf and put the turkeys in to defrost. He chopped up the salvageable vegetables and made a pot of chili.
“Now what are you cooking?” Mave said, coming into the kitchen. She had her noise-cancelling headphones dangling around her neck. She squinted over her half-moon reading glasses as she lifted the lid and sniffed the contents.
“Hey, Mave. How’s writing?”
“You aren’t my personal chef,” she said. “You know that, right?”
“I’m procrastinating. I don’t get my physics homework.”
“Sorry, Jelly Bean. Can’t help you with physics.”
“YouTube solves everything.”
Mave made herself tea, retreated to the bedroom, where she was writing, and came out a couple of hours later to grab a bowl of chili. She nodded at him and then disappeared again. He flipped through instructional videos and landed on one where the guy wore an Einstein wig and punctuated his lecture with fireworks.
“How can you be having problems with Newtonian physics?” Bathrobe said. “That’s like having problems with the alphabet.”
Jared could feel a chill where the ghost was standing close to him. By the time he walked into the kitchen, opened the drawer with the sage and sweetgrass, and then turned around, the living room was empty again.
Justice dropped in with fresh bread, hot from the oven. She brought it into the kitchen, attacked it with a bread knife and then handed Jared a couple of slices slathered in margarine. He hopped up on the counter as she wrapped the loaf in a plastic bag. Justice said, “Is Maamaan writing?”
“Yeah, she’s been going hard since this morning.”
“Thank God. This is her first go at a novel and she’s been a bear.”
“Want some chili?”
“Is it veggie?”
“Mostly.”
“Sorry, I don’t eat meat. Thank you for the offer, though. You’re very thoughtful.”
Jared shrugged. “It’s just stuff from the fridge.”
“We all meant to help Maamaan with her bookcases, but you actually put them together. Her apartment looks sane again. That’s all you, Jared.”
Jared swung his feet.
Justice cleared her throat. “Did Maamaan tell you she leaves for her conference in Banff on the nineteenth? The Starr brothers are helping me move an armoire into her bedroom while she’s gone. We could use another pair of arms—will you still be here?”
Jared shrugged.
“It’s very heavy,” Justice said. “It’s one of those monstrous antiques I inherited and it’s just sitting in my storage locker. My grandparents redefined ostentatious.”
“How big is this thing?” Jared said.
“Big,” Justice said. “I’ve cut it in half and shortened it so it will fit up the stairs.”
“How’re you bracing it?”
“You sound like Hank’s mini-me. Next you’ll be asking me about load-bearing walls.”
“Hey,” Jared said.
“Trust me. Hank grows on you.”
Jared fought not to roll his eyes.
He dozed on and off through the night, uneasy. Normally he would have gone for a run to blow off some steam, but he didn’t want to risk an encounter with David. But his insomnia was more about Sarah being missing, about where she was, about his inability to do simple homework in the first week, the sixty-five dollars left in his bank account, all of it together, none of it, his own frustration and his strong desire to just chuck it in the fuck-it bucket. Stop trying so hard to be something he obviously wasn’t. Jared sat up and reached for his phone.
The corner of the room darkened. All the painted heads on the wall blinked at the same time then turned to stare at the corner. They mouthed words Jared couldn’t hear. His body felt heavy, as if he’d swum a long way in the ocean and was trying to pull himself out. He had an urge to hide under the quilt like a kid, but he couldn’t. The stain, a dark-grey shadow, took the shape of a bony arm. The fingers tapped the wall as if testing for a weak spot. The heads vibrated, blurring.
“Jelly Bean,” Mave said from outside his door. “Are you awake?”
The shadow retreated. The heads stilled.
What the hell is that? Jared wondered.
“Jared?”
“Come in,” he said. He couldn’t move yet.
She paused in the doorway.
“Can you turn the lights on?” Jared said.
She reached over and flipped the switch. Jared squinted and then he could move. He sat up, breathing hard.
“You okay?” she said.
“Bad dream.”
“I’m going to do the morning shift at the Sartorial Resistance and then I’m on the teachers’ picket line this afternoon. Text if you need anything, okay?”
“ ’kay.”
She smiled at him. “I made coffee. It’s on the counter.”
“Thanks.”
“Mwah,” she said, blowing him a kiss.
She left and he went over to the corner. A black dot was on the wall. He had no desire to touch it, so he went and got a ruler from the desk. He scraped at the wall, but the black dot didn’t budge. It shivered. He leapt back. The painted faces all frowned at the same time. The thing in the wall poked a finger through the dot.
The warding really hadn’t worked. Jared watched the shadow finger wiggling like a worm.
He picked up a bundle of cedar branches from the other corner of the room and placed it over the black dot. The shadow shivered then pulled back from the wall. Jared went to the junk drawer for a hammer, banged in a small nail and hung the cedar branches over the dot. The painted face nearest to him tumbled happily, smiling and winking.
“Can you talk?” Jared said.
They remained silent. But as he stood there, he felt a wave of warmth, like seeing someone you love, a pleasant afterglow. They liked him, he thought. They wanted him to know he was welcome here. Then the faces on the wall went still.
Yeah, he thought. I don’t know what to do with that.
* * *
—
As he was sitting on the balcony with his homework, he saw a little boy stop below him on the sidewalk. He recognized the spiky, burnt hair and very tanned skin: Cedar, Georgina Smith’s wolf-in-training grandson. Cedar scowled up at him.
You made Granny cry, Cedar thought at him. You’re mean. I don’t like you.
Jared looked up and down the street, but no adults seemed to be with Cedar, who was probably five, maybe six.
I can hunt alone, Cedar thought.
Let’s see what your gran says, Jared thought at him, lifting his cellphone.
Mom’s here, stupid. She lets me go out by myself. I’m a big boy.
I don’t see her.
She’s bringing my sister to the doctor.
Jared’s mind was filled with images. He felt Cedar’s impatience with his mother and his baby sister, screaming in a baby buggy—his mom wanting him to come into the bathroom with them to change her diaper. Cedar had kept his fingers in his ears and refused. The baby had pooped so much the smell filled the waiting room and people moved away from them.
Jared recognized the walk-in clinic around the corner. He felt the explosion of fear as Cedar’s mother realized he was gone. Her panic made her baby screech.
He’s here, Jared said in his head, hoping she could see Cedar on the sidewalk.
She screamed, Come to me now, and Cedar took off running.
Tattletale, Cedar thought at him.
Jared closed his textbooks and went inside. His hands were shaky from contact with Georgina’s family, from Cedar, from his mother and her panic.
They aren’t in your life, he told himself. That’s not your crazy.
He wore his best T-shirt and jeans to hand out resumés. The frazzled-looking manager at the Donut Hole sat him down in the corner, asked him a few questions and then phoned his reference, Bianca, in front of him. The guy was old, hunched and sweaty. He didn’t offer his name. He wore a battered gold name
tag that said Manager.
After he hung up, the manager said, “I can train you for the doughnut fryer position at 3:30 a.m. tonight.”
“That’s it?”
“Minimum wage. Three nights a week, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Six hours a shift. No overtime. No benefits. I need someone right now. Take it or leave it.”
“Am I being paid for the training?”
“Yeah. Of course. I’ll see how you do tonight and we’ll go from there.”
“Great. I’ll be here.” Jared hadn’t expected to find a job right out of the gate.
Mave was in her bedroom with the door closed when he got home. He checked the turkeys defrosting in the fridge. Still pretty frozen.
His reflection in the bathroom mirror was pasty. He left the light on in his room when he crawled into bed. It didn’t feel like even a few minutes later when his alarm went off. He made himself coffee and left Mave a note, giving her his work address. He went to the balcony and scanned the street before he went downstairs and walked to work.
The manager didn’t want Jared coming through the front door; he had to go around the back and ring the buzzer to be let in. The job was mostly lifting sacks and buckets of ingredients into industrial mixers. The manager seemed to think the process was complicated, because he kept explaining things. But the recipes were straightforward. It wasn’t like Jared had never deep-fried food before. Glazing and sprinkling took no brainpower whatsoever. You found a rhythm and kept going until the batch was done. But he nodded, listened and kept his mouth shut. At the end of his shift, the manager paid him in cash.
“Let’s keep this under the table,” he said.
Jared passed out on his bed in his work clothes. He woke Saturday near supper and went to heat himself a bowl of chili. He checked the turkeys, which were almost thawed. He’d brine them tonight before he went to bed and roast them tomorrow.
Mave was watching TV. She inhaled deeply as he passed. “You smell like deep-fried heaven.”
“Mmm,” Jared said.
“If you need a job, we have a stock-boy position at the Sartorial Resistance.”
“No, thanks.”
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