Chapter 17
Mina’s dad shook her shoulder to wake her. With a shuddering yawn, she blinked up at him looming above her. A furtive movement of her head shot towards the sprites on the top of the bookshelf. One darted out the still open door to check on Sarah. Why else would Dad be in here, but to look for Mina’s sister. But when Hitch came back, it was to motion that Sarah was across the hall.
“Whhaaa?” Mina squinted towards the clock as her dad turned on the lamp. What the freaking heck? It was nearly one a.m. and Hitch confirmed Sarah was in her bed. What? Dad’s eyes were the same color and shape of Mina’s, but they were filled with a fatherly guilt trip.
“Mina, we need to talk.” His deep voice broke the silence of the sleeping house and pulled Mina further awake. Her dad settled against one of the posts of her canopy bed jostling the covers. Mina winced. Talk? Alone with Dad? Without Sarah or Mom as a buffer? But Dad didn’t notice her horror. Her dad’s close-cut red beard and thick shock of hair was responsible for the red curls amidst Mina’s blonde hair. Dad could also be credited for the arch of her brow and the way her ear lobes were a little weird.
Every time she looked at her parents, Mina re-confirmed that she wasn’t adopted. The romance of having parents who wanted her had been a lovely dream for a while during middle school, but she’d given it up. Maybe she’d even recognized that they did want her. But even so, her dad’s broad shoulders, his trim figure, no longer added up to the strongest and best daddy a girl could imagine.
Zizi leapt to Mina’s shoulder as Mina hauled her sleep addled body against the headboard. Anxiety loomed, and she sucked in a slow breath. What parental worry compelled this stupidity?
“Is everything, ok?” She demanded when he just sat there, looking to the side.
“I’ve just gotten back from Blackfish with the grownups, Kitten,” he said.
What was she five? .
“Your mom and I are concerned about you.” He tapped her foot through her bedding. “You came up in the conversation, Hilda, Charlotte, Mike they all mentioned that you haven’t been yourself for a while. Now you’re hanging out with this boy.”
Her dad shot her a frustrated glance thrusting his hands into his hair. “You’ve been so busy, and your mom says you’ve got plans tomorrow.”
Mina held her breath and then carefully released it, trying to hide a scowl.
“Where’s Mom?” Mina masked her irritation by arranging her covers. How she hoped he was going to tell her that Mom would be along with cocoa or chamomile.
“Your Mom is… well she doesn’t want to fight with you Mina. She feels as though you two are always at odds. I thought I might have a better chance of explaining how we feel.”
Mina’s throat lost all moisture.
Obviously, Mom cared too much to be present.
Clearly.
“Ok,” she murmured, crossing her legs and reminding herself to keep her own objectives in mind. They needed to think she was doing well to continue their general lack of attention.
“I’d say I know what it’s like to be you Mina.”
Mina didn’t bother to hide her scowl.
“I’d say it, if it were true. I’d like it to be true. I know what its like to be young and—let’s call it mischievous. Only, things have been changing. This way you have of disappearing, only coming home late, never spending time with anyone we know.”
Mina stared over his shoulder. Disbelief and anger warred inside her. She wasn’t sure what he expected her to say. That she didn’t feel comfortable at home, watching them monitor her like a hawk to ensure she was eating instead of telling her that she was a witch and her magic demanded more calories. How their inability to deal with what they were made it necessary for her to hide what was happening with her; because clearly, they couldn’t be counted on to help her themselves.
He barely talked to her—now he was pretending—she didn’t know what.
To care.
A piece of Mina whispered he was trying, but he couldn’t know what it was like to be her.
It was so very insulting.
“I’m also.” He paused for long moments. “I’m not, unaware, really that your mom and I aren’t very good parents.”
Mina darted her eyes towards his face, forcing back the surge of emotions.
“To you anyway.” He amended, staring at his hands.
Holy freakin’ holies! How was she supposed to respond to that?
“You make it easy, you know. To not pay as much attention. You quietly go about your life and never ask for anything. But that can’t carry on.”
Breath rushed in and out of Mina. She needed it to go on. She needed them to be distracted. Kate and Jase traveling through Eastern Europe wasn’t going to be enough. Jase was going to have to get a random girl knocked up or something.
“Your sisters Kate and Sarah, they demand attention. Jason and Erik—well they…” He trailed off.
How could he say that her brothers were just more interesting? That he just didn’t like her as much? That the truth behind why she was the only neglected child was because he found her irritating?
“You, though, Mina—you’re a challenge. Which is why your Mom and I think maybe you should... Well not maybe,” he said, taking hold of her leg. “We have set up appointments for you with Dr. Seal again.”
Mina stopped breathing. Stopped thinking.
“So a couple weeks reprieve was enough?” Her voice was shaking. “I told you how it made me feel.”
“But it’s supposed to help you, and even your aunts and uncles see that you are struggling. Hilde said that Hailey said…”
“Dad, stop.”
He frowned at her, but he waited.
“I haven’t talked to Hailey since what happened at school, and I don’t care what she says. We haven’t been friends in three years, and her ability to have any sort of insight into my life or my heart is miniscule.”
“You’ve needed to see the doc before. Maybe we should just carry on again, for a while. You’re so thin. How can you be so stressed?”
Mina stared at him, unable to speak. Had he forgotten that other reason for her slenderness? The magic? Had he just said no to magic without ever realizing what it could do to his kids to have untrained, awakened abilities?
“You cause your mother and I more worry than the rest of your siblings put together.”
Was this a sick joke?
“It’ll be better this way,” he squeezed her leg again, as if by one of those fatherly caresses he could make up for what he was saying.
“Mina?” He asked, fake love filling his voice.
She shook her head, reaching out to trace her fingers around the quilt on her bed.
“I thought maybe we could all go this time. You, me, your mom. At least to some of the appointments. We can be adults about this; we can work together.”
Mina swallowed. She wasn’t an adult. She was a month from fifteen.
“Mina you’re scaring your mom. She can’t sleep for worrying. She’s cried herself to sleep every other night for the last few years because of you.”
Mina’s dad reached towards her face, but she snapped her head back. He let his arm drop; his eyes filled with hurt.
Mina ignored the rush of fury. Liar.
“She has too much to deal with, Mina, to spend all her energy worrying over you.”
Mina’s jaw clenched.
“Mina, I want you to be happy. We want you to be happy.”
What he wanted was for her to be as easy to raise as Sarah.
“I want you to be happy in high school, not that I believe that’s possible for anyone. Your mom has held Kate as she cried herself to sleep countless times.”
Mina thought of all the times she cried herself to sleep—alone.
“Your mom and I are just so concerned.” He waited, gazing at her like he was trying to peer into her mind.
The moment lingered on until Mina decided to end it.
“Over what?” S
he asked playing with the stitching on her quilt.
“We’re concerned about this boy.” Her dad looked down at his lap. “We’re just not comfortable with your friendship with him.”
Rage flooded her. He was concerned about Max? Her only friend? The only person who believed her.
“Max!” His name burst from her mouth. Her eyes were held to her dad’s face as if by magnets. Sarah’s door opened; her sister stood in the hall way as ghostly as a wraith in her white night gown.
“Max.” Her father repeated, looking into her face and placed his hand under her jaw.
She barely stopped herself from growling in sheer fury.
“Mina it’s just going so fast.” He let go of her chin.
“What?” Confusion infused her words. Nothing was going fast. Her dad only met Max again today. And even then, it was only for a minute. She closed her eyes; she didn’t want to see her dad’s stupid lying face. Mina combed her hair with her fingers and tried counting to ten. She couldn’t even get to one.
“Mina.” He paused. “Mina, it’s just that you have been so alone. It’s been so long since you and Hailey have been friendly, and you haven’t had boyfriends since that little freckled boy in grade school. You’re too young for a boyfriend. And the doc can help you identify your feelings and your needs, so that you don’t get taken advantage of.”
That’s what this was about? He wanted someone to counsel her through having a guy friend? Did he trust her so little?
“So, Mina…” He grabbed her hand, waiting until she looked up at his worried eyes before he continued, “Being so lonely leaves you vulnerable.”
Mina didn’t bother to contradict him, waiting for him to vomit all his paranoia.
“Vulnerable to the advances of those who might take advantage. You’re an innocent plum waiting to be plucked.”
“And you think Max is only my friend because I’m friendless. That he’s planning some sort of Machiavellian scheme to make me his sex buddy?” Her dad choked when Mina said sex.
But he cleared his throat and said, “That’s not a possibility that I can ignore, Mina. I’m your dad. It’s my job to protect you and keep you safe.”
“Then I guess,” she said calmly, “you should have thought of that three years ago when I needed you. You should have figured out a way to get me out of George Dub Middle School and back to where my friends were. But what did you say? Oh, right, it takes several appeals to the school board, and you didn’t have time with your job at the resort and the triplets being so little, and you couldn’t ask mom. Cowgirl up, Mina, you said.”
Mina clenched her jaw to fight back any emotion other than her anger.
“Now, you want me to give up my only friend on the off chance that being neglected by you and mum and ignored by everyone else has warped me into a slut.” She took a jerking, hiccupy breath.
“You have Peter, Ben, Hailey.”
Mina scoffed, yanking the covers back off her bed, slapping her dad’s hand away, and stomping out of her bedroom.
“Mina…” he reached after her, grabbing her hand, but she twisted away. She rushed past the face of her sister to the bathroom where she slammed the door, locking them all out.
Adrenaline fled; she slid to the floor against the door, closed her eyes, and tried to ignore the anger making her skin crawl.
Dad knocked on the door.
“Mina…” he called his voice barely carrying through the door. “Mina open the door. Let’s figure this out. Mina we do love you. I love you.”
His voice cracked.
Mina put her hands over her ears to block the sound of his voice. She felt the vibration of several more knocks, the jiggle of the handle, and finally quiet.
Curling up on the cold bathroom floor, hoping it would numb her rage, she closed her eyes and tried to find her magic.
Chapter 18
A touch of lips against Mina’s ear woke her. A voice breathed, “Meenie, you gonna run ‘way to be a whowe?”
Mina’s eyes snapped open.
What. The. Hell.
Back in her room, coaxed their by the sprites in the middle of the night, Mina had hoped to wake to the sound of her family’s car driving away. But instead, Ams, one of the triplets, peered over the edge of Mina’s bed to where Mina buried her scowl in her pillow. Ams’s chubby face barely reached the edge of Mina’s bed; her gray eyes were swollen and red; her white-blonde hair ratted into a ball at the back of her head.
She could run away. Turn tricks to feed herself. Eventually get addicted to drugs and die in a ditch.
Y’know.
Or not.
Clearly, however, her parents were discussing her as though Mina were incapable of anything else. Why didn’t they just smother her to put her out of her misery? What were they deciding while they cozied it up downstairs? The cover story for Christmas parties, so they didn’t have to confess to their friends that their daughter was a hooker? How long it would take her to get knocked up?
“Meenz izn’t a whore!” Hitch spewed from the top of her corner shelves. A buzzing argument formed the backdrop like a swarm of bees; it joined the sound of ocean winds whipping through the trees, the ever present cacophony of seagulls and the sniffles of Ams.
Ams snorted and blew a bubble of snot. Mina needed to curl back into her dream of surfing with Max and escape this far too real moment. She flopped onto her back, shoving her hair out of her face.
Ams tugged at Mina’s wrist, and Mina twisted around making a face to distract her sister. No such luck. Ams’s fingers, decorated with chipped nail polish, wiped away tears. Ams laid her flushed check on Mina’s neck and mumbled, “I don’t wants you to go way. I wants you to stay forever.”
Mina bit her lip and pet her baby sister’s hair.
“Where’d you hear this silliness?” she asked as if it were all a joke.
She pressed the bend of her arm over her eyes.
“Mommy tolds Daddy that he was a bad-wowd-head and that you was pwobabwy going to weave, and dhen you wouldn’t come home evowh ahgen.” Ams snuffled, her nose traveling along Mina’s neck leaving a sludgy residue.
“Then what happened?”
“Daddy told Mommy somebody had to say somefing, and Mommy said he was stupid ‘gen, dhen Daddy swammed da door and dwove ‘way, and Mommy cwied, and I came up hewe to tew you nots to weave.”
“Stop crying,” Mina whispered, gently patting Ams’s back.
Figured. Mina sat up. “Stop crying.”
“I not gonna stop cryin. Not evah less you say you won’t gos.”
“I’m not going to leave and not going to be a whore, so you’re crying for nothing, silly billy.”
“Pwomise?”
Mina sucked in a breath, let it out slowly, counting in her head.
“Yes. I promise.” She drooped to the side of her bed and then slid onto the floor next to Ams. The day pressed on Mina already; she needed to get away; she needed to think. But how was she going to get past her mom? Mom was probably staked out at the bottom of the stairs.
Mina propped her elbows on her knees and pressed her fists into her eyes.
Behind her, Ams asked Zizi to read a story. Mina had thought Ams imagination explained her seeing Mina’s friends. Only Ams was three, so it was normal. Right? Mina might be the biggest idiot on the planet.
Zizi cleared her throat and lowered her voice. It crept across the bedroom and surrounded her audience, “On the 15th of May,” Ams giggled and crossed her legs settling into story position, “in the jungle of Nool.” The wind morphed into the sound of a jungle. A twitter of a bird there; Ams clapped her hands and was rewarded with the sound of water splashing.
The shadows of Mina’s bedroom made unexpected shapes: the curve of an elephant’s trunk, the swing of a monkey in the tree. They were brought to life by the stalwart promise echoing from wall to wall in a voice too deep for such a small person. Ams sucked in her breath and held still as if distracting Zeez would make the illusion dissolve.<
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Mina stepped closer, sat on the edge of the bed, and let the scene flow over her.
Except she couldn’t sink into it; Mina tapped her pen on the paper, looked up and found Hitch watching her with a careful expression.
One of her aunts and uncles pressured her dad about the doctor visits. Mina wondered if whoever was putting the spell on Sarah was trying to distract them like Mina was. Only they were using Mina instead of Jase, Kate, and Erik.
As the last words of the story took flight, Mina nudged Ams on the bottom. Her sister looked up expectantly, and Mina maneuvered her out the door.
“I went downstairs this morning,” Poppy said, dropping to the desk where Mina fiddled with her pen. “Your brother got arrested last night. By your Uncle Denny.”
“What?” Her voice was a gasp that interrupted the story.
“Drunk driving.”
“I don’t believe it, and I’m not even a fan of Erik.”
“Well, that’s the thing. He was yelling at your Dad that he hadn’t done any driving. That he’d been drinking at the party he went to and slept in his car. Your Uncle woke him up to arrest him.”
“That doesn’t seem like Uncle Denny.”
“It doesn’t,” Hitch agreed as he landed next to Poppy.
“Then your Mom got a call. The triplets teacher said Ams and Annie should be medicated.”
“That’s insane. For what?”
“Something I’d never even heard of.”
“Are you trying to get at something, Poppy?”
“I am saying that maybe your Dad doesn’t believe what he said last night. I think whoever iz placing these spellz is trying to distract the person who keeps Sarah from fully reacting. Since they don’t know who’z stopping her, they’re targeting all of you.”
“That’z evil.” Hitch said.
They looked at each other and shrugged. It wasn’t as if whoever was doing this to them wasn’t evil.
Poppy flew to the top of the shelves where the sprites kept their things.
“Someone did a spell on our house.” Mina whispered. “Someone put a spell on Sarah. Now they’re maybe ruining Erik’s life. This is all just not ok.”
These Lying Eyes Page 16