Well-dressed people crowded the living room, having dragged the kitchen chairs to form a circle with the couches. Some of them were white, some were Native, some of them were face types he had no idea how to categorize. He didn’t recognize any of them except Gwen from the Sartorial Resistance, who sat in the recliner, scowling. All the people looked equally grim.
“No. Absolutely not,” one of the white dudes said. “I’m tired of hiding behind indigenous rights. This is about the complete and total denial of our carbon footprint on this—”
“We get that! God,” Gwen said. “But we need to have one strong, unified voice!”
“So shut the fuck up?” the guy said. “Is that the subtext? Keep your flaky-ass opinions about the Anthropocene to yourself?”
“Stop making this personal. I’m saying we—”
“Good evening, Jared,” Mave said. “Everyone, this is my nephew.”
Jared was in the middle of trying to tiptoe to his bedroom. The people in the living room swung their heads around and he froze.
“Hey,” Jared said.
“This is the co-op board for the store,” Mave said.
People muttered hello then started talking amongst themselves. Mave got up and came over to him.
“Sounds tense,” Jared said.
“The revolution needs snacks,” Mave said.
Jared grabbed some clean clothes from his bedroom. When he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, he paused. His hair was plastered down on one side and spiking up on the other. Had he been walking around like this? He hadn’t realized his hair was getting so long. He went back to his room and got his clippers, then carefully buzzed his head over the sink.
He let the shower pound his back, the spot between his shoulder blades where he held his tension. He scrubbed his head to make sure all the little hairs were off. He stood under the water for a long time.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Mave was alone, staring out the window. Jared joined her on the couch. She took his hand and held on.
“You okay?” Jared said.
“Thinking,” Mave said.
“About what?”
“The things we do for what we believe.”
“Is everything okay?”
“There’s a protest camp starting up soon. I’m probably going to get arrested. Civil disobedience. Catch-and-release. I might be sued.”
Jared laughed, sitting back. “Man, I thought I was done bailing people out of jail.”
“Oh, I think I have more arrests than Maggie.”
“Pleeease don’t tell her that,” Jared said.
“What a family,” Mave said.
When Jared checked his marks online, both the physics and biology labs hit the low nineties. As a thank-you, he pirated the first season of a British science fiction show called Red Dwarf, which Dent had mentioned a couple of times. After Mave retreated to her room to write, Jared plugged the flash drive with the pirated episodes into the TV. He told Dent he could do a marathon if he wanted. Dent became very shy, fading until he was a wisp. Then he solidified and happily sat on the recliner, ignoring Jared for the rest of the night. Dent’s occasional snicker echoed through the apartment.
Kota texted him: So hung. & not in the good way.
Jared stared at the message. He tried to feel detached and instead felt annoyed.
Sorry, Kota texted him.
And then, after a while: Not my shining moment.
Kinda mad at you, Jared finally answered. WTF, dude?
Sorry.
U ok?
Sober 1 hour & 6 minutes. Feel like death. After a few minutes: U still there, Jared?
Still here.
Sorry. Again.
We all have crap moments.
Pissed at Hank. Took it out on you. Amends? Has to be cheap or free.
Someone knocked on the apartment door. It was Barbie dropping by with freshly made bread. She squished Jared’s cheeks and thanked him for the bannock. “Come to dance practice this Sunday.”
“I’ll try,” he said.
“I’ll send the boys to remind you,” she said.
“It’s not really my thing.”
“Your culture is important. Make it a priority,” she said. “I promise there’ll be snacks.”
Pat and Sponge clomped down the hallway with Barbie’s kids clinging to their legs. She told her children to get off their uncles and they said they needed to go and hop on their beds, like old times. The kids ran out and after a few minutes they heard Hank, his voice carrying through the walls, yelling at them to behave. The brothers dug through Mave’s fridge and started assembling sandwich ingredients on the counter. Barbie rolled her eyes.
“You’re welcome back at my place any time,” she said to her brothers. “I hate to see you scavenging like this.”
“Yeah, thanks but no thanks, Hitler,” Sponge said.
“We’re enjoying our carefree bachelor life,” Pat said.
“Goodness, you boys would try the patience of a saint,” Barbie said. And then, as the brothers carried their sandwiches towards the door, “Come back here! Now. Clean up your mess! Don’t make me raise my voice!”
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. At the end of his shift, the Donut Hole manager offered to put him on the books.
“I dunno,” Jared said. “It’d be hard to wait for cheques.”
“Suit yourself,” the manager said.
That Saturday morning, Jared was making himself an omelette when Olive phoned him. She was at a garage sale up the street and needed help carrying a kitchen table back to her apartment. He said no problem and turned off the burner, shovelling down his eggs before he headed out the door. At the end of the street, Jared paused in surprise. Dent and Shu were hopping over trees. Which would look a lot more Matrix-cool if they weren’t shrieking like kids in a bouncy castle.
“I’m ignoring the ground!” Dent shouted.
At the garage sale, Eliza was stoked because she’d found a grimy, kid-sized Frozen fold-out foamie chair, which she clutched like a baby. Jared balanced the rickety, rusty, metal-legged table on his head. Olive carried two chairs, stacked. Dent and Shu leapfrogged over parked cars. On Commercial Drive, Dent took a tumble and landed in the middle of the street. A bus bore down on him and he held his hands up and screamed. The bus passed through him.
“Oh, yeah, I’m dead,” Dent said.
Shu danced into the street and they joined hands and did a silly jig together while the traffic went through them. Jared noticed a jogger on the other side of the street who wore a loose sweatshirt over a yellow jogging bra and yoga pants. She looked Native, had classic high cheekbones and large, dark eyes. Jared thought she was staring at Dent, but she jogged through him when the light changed. Sweat followed the curves of her body. As she passed, she eyed the table, then Jared. He turned his head slightly to watch her jog away until the table started sliding. Olive paused to hoist the chairs back up.
“Kokum got me a Blu-ray,” Eliza said, puffing a bit as she carried her chair. “Want to come watch Frozen with me?”
“Maybe later,” Jared said.
“We’re washing that chair,” Olive said.
“No! You’ll wreck it!” Eliza said, clutching it tighter.
They argued down the street, through the lobby and up the stairs. Jared dropped the table in the dining nook and Olive helped him move the cast iron patio set back to Mave’s balcony.
“I’ll go back to the garage sale and get the other chairs,” Jared said.
“Oh, no,” Olive said. “No. I couldn’t let you. No.”
Jared waited.
“I’d really appreciate that,” she said.
“Right back,” Jared said.
“Are you avoiding the Frozen marathon?” Olive said.
Jared laughed. “You got me.”
“Lucky, lucky, lucky,” Olive said. “Some of us do not have that option.”
Outside, Huey the flying head had joined Shu and Dent’s game
of traffic leapfrog, spinning excitedly between them as they Superman-posed over cars, trucks and buses.
He was watching Huey head-butt Dent as Dent flailed his arms and Shu grabbed his bathrobe, when someone yanked him off the street and into an alley. The jogger in the sweatshirt and yellow sports bra pressed a small knife against his throat.
“Hello, Wee’git,” she said.
29
Jared blanked. He wasn’t sure how long he blanked, but when he was back in his head, the jogger had shoved him up against the alley wall. She flicked the knife against his cheek and tasted his blood. She grimaced.
“Witch,” she said. “And Trickster. So, are you one of Wee’git’s children?”
Jared nodded, touching the cut on his cheek.
“You have his stench,” she said.
Words wouldn’t come. He nodded again, swallowing. Dent flew over them, hooting. Shu cartwheeled by. Huey bounced off the alley walls like a rubber ball. The woman squinted up at them and then back at Jared.
“Where’s Wee’git?” she said.
“I don’t know,” Jared said.
“Don’t protect him.”
“I’d hand him over in a heartbeat if I knew where he was. The last I heard, he was here in Vancouver.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Jared snorted. “No.”
The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “Wee’git has something of mine. I want it back.”
“Yeah, he’s a douche. Good luck with that.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Jared. I have to go,” Jared said. “The garage sale is over soon and I need to get my neighbour’s chairs.”
“You’re going to a garage sale.”
“No, my neighbour went to a garage sale. She bought a kitchen table and chairs.”
“You’re getting furniture. For your neighbour.”
“Yeah.”
She cocked an eyebrow. Jared thought they were done, and tried to leave, but she brought out the knife again.
“She doesn’t have a lot,” Jared said. “Her ex keeps stealing her stuff.”
“Do you like her?”
“She’s a cousin.”
“Family,” the woman said, nodding. “Fine. Let’s go get your furniture.”
“Uh, I can, you know, get it myself.”
“We’ll talk more. Move.”
“Listen, that’s all I know. That’s everything.”
“Move.”
When they got there, the people running the garage sale smiled at them and handed Jared the chairs. The woman walked beside him as he carried the chairs back to the apartment. She got a lot of stares and the occasional whistle, but was either unaware of them or didn’t care. She held the lobby door open for him and then rode with him up the elevator to the second floor. Olive answered his knock, startling when she saw the woman.
“Oh, my,” Olive said. “Jared. Who’s your friend?”
“I’m Neeka,” the woman said.
“I’m Olive. Pleased to meet you.” She smiled at Jared then, taking the chairs from him. “Thank you for being so helpful. I don’t know what I’d do without you. He’s a gentleman, all right. You could do a lot worse.”
Jared felt his face flaming red. Olive made a terrible wingman.
“Come watch Frozen!” Eliza shouted.
“Have fun,” Olive said, closing the door.
Neeka put her hand on Jared’s elbow. “Move.”
They walked down the hallway to Mave’s apartment. Jared pulled out of her grip. She stuck the knife against his side, slicing easily through his shirt and touching his skin. He unlocked the door and she followed him in. She toured the apartment, keeping the knife pressed against him, prodding him when she wanted him to move. She paused at his room, taken aback.
“What is this?” she said.
“I call it my bedroom,” Jared said. “I sleep here. See? It has a bed.”
“What spell did you use?”
“Paint. And it was the guy who lived here before me who painted it. Some dude named Edgar Six.”
“It corrupts the air.”
“Okay.”
“And you sleep here?”
“I do.”
“Reality bleeds here.”
“It’s not that bad once you get used to it.”
“Are you a shaman?”
“That’s a little personal. But no, I am not a shaman. And before you ask, no, I am not a witch. No, I am not a Trickster. I am a human dude.”
She was taller than him, so when she turned him around so she could look him in the eye, she had to bend her knees. She studied him for so long, he felt himself growing both uncomfortable and aroused.
“Your horde of familiars gives you away, shaman,” she pronounced. “No normal human has so many spirits following them.”
“Okay. Whatever. What do I need to do to get you to leave?”
“Come.” She turned abruptly and walked to the living room, where she sat on the recliner. She waited for him, sitting regally, like a queen.
Jared swallowed his annoyance. He sat on the couch. He considered asking her if she wanted a glass of water, because she was still glowing from her jog. Normal people looked oily, but she shone like she’d been buffed. She was very much out of his league. Plus, the cray-cray factor seemed pretty high.
“Who’s your mother?” Neeka said.
“Who’s your mother?”
“Do you want to drag this out or do you want me gone?”
Jared slouched on the couch, glaring out the window where normal people were going about their normal business. “Maggie Martin. She’s from Bella Bella. She’s a witch. You’re probably smelling her protection spells. She says I’m ‘special needs’ magic.”
Neeka frowned. “How did she meet Wee’git?”
“He slept with my gran. He slept with my mom. He tricked them both by pretending to be people they loved.”
“Is your mother Wee’git’s daughter?”
“Ew. No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why don’t you go taste my mom for yourself? I’ll give you her address.”
“Can you hear him? Does he talk to your mind with his?”
He considered lying about it. But decided to go with an edited version. “Not anymore.”
She closed her eyes. Can you hear me?
“Stop it,” Jared said. “I don’t like that.”
Tell him we want our skins back.
He shifted slightly away from her. “What are you?”
“Otter.”
He sprang from the couch and ran. He was halfway to the door when he ran into an invisible swamp and couldn’t push through. He could hear her coming down the hallway. He could sense her behind him. He couldn’t make his legs move. He was stuck.
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, his mind was telling him.
“We have no interest in you,” Neeka said. “Just Wee’git.”
The cave, the cave, run, the cave, he saw bones, he felt them crunch as he crawled down the tiny entrance, blind, the darkness, the cave, the half-human, half-otter bodies, his blood, his screaming, the cave.
“Calm,” Neeka said. “Calm yourself.”
His body turned to face Neeka. She frowned at him. He walked past her, unwillingly, and sat back on the couch. He remembered getting his toe chewed off. He remembered one of them holding a lighter to his flesh. He wanted not to see it anymore. He wanted to wipe the memory from his mind. Neeka sat on the recliner again.
“Those were river otters,” Neeka said.
Otters. Otters like her. Otters in human form. But in the cave, they mashed things up. Human limbs sat randomly on otter bodies.
“We belong to the ocean,” Neeka insisted. “They belong to the river.”
He wanted to hurl. Neeka handed him the garbage can from beside the recliner. He took it and felt his breakfast crawling up his throat. He generally avoided thinking about the otters. He avoided thinking about that night. Lit
tle flashes of memory stole back in his dreams or unguarded moments. But they flooded back now.
She got up and then he could hear her in the kitchen, opening cupboards, and he hoped she wasn’t going to get another knife. He hoped this didn’t turn into a knife thing, where he lost little bits of himself, bled all over Mave’s carpet.
“I’m making tea,” Neeka said.
She’s reading my mind, Jared thought.
“You’re very loud at the moment. It’s like trying not to hear a jet engine.”
He did hurl then. He lost his omelette and kept retching until bile came up. He rested, feeling hollow. His hands shook. Adrenalin. Light-headed. He wished his mom was here. She had no patience with the supernatural bulldozing into her life. She had hexes and curses. She’d tried to teach him, but it didn’t make any sense to him. Magic was another language and he had a tin ear. He barely made it through French classes and everyone told him if you spoke English, learning French was a snap. Something about the structure being similar. Or their origins. The ancestors of languages. Was that a thing? Did languages have ancestors? His throat burned. He wondered if they had any Pepto-Bismol left.
Neeka handed him a cup of tea.
He hesitated before reluctantly reaching up and taking the cup, setting it carefully on his knee.
“It’s camomile,” she said.
“What do you mean, you lost your skin?”
She sat in the recliner. “I thought you had secrets. But you don’t, do you?”
“Not really. I’m not good with magic, so I tend to avoid it.”
“But your life is full of ghosts.”
“Isn’t everyone’s?”
“No. Not literal ghosts.”
“What about the Long Island Medium?”
“The what?”
“You know. That chick on TV who has the hair and goes around hearing the dead.”
Neeka stared at him for so long, he wondered if she was okay. She finally blinked. “I realize you spoke, but the words don’t make any sense.”
Trickster Drift Page 23