Isla's Inheritance

by Cassandra Page

  When we arrived home, Nana announced her intention to have an early tea and go to bed. I didn’t feel up to a long evening of being sociable with her when she seemed so reserved with me. It was especially noticeable given she questioned Sarah about her plans for her birthday, and about her recent grades, with bright curiosity. Part of me wanted to wail like a petulant child that it was my final year of school too, and that she’d just missed my birthday. But I stayed silent, helping my aunt in the kitchen.

  I was surprised when Nana turned to look directly at me when she finished her meal. “I’ll give you your birthday present tomorrow, if you don’t mind. I’m exhausted.”

  “That’s fine.” I forced a smile.

  She turned to Aunt Elizabeth, effectively dismissing me. “Thank you for tea, dear. If you’d be so kind as to show me to the washroom so I can freshen up, that would be wonderful.”

  “Sure.” The two of them left the room, chatting quietly.

  “Well, that was rude,” Sarah muttered to me as we tidied up, pitching her voice low so it wouldn’t carry over the clinking plates and cutlery.

  I shrugged, although I agreed with her.

  “I wonder what crawled up her butt and died.”

  “I don’t know. She seems to like you though.” I tried to look on the bright side. Maybe Nana would avoid me and I’d be able to concentrate on Jack’s and my secret mission to help Dad.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “If she keeps ignoring you so much I’m going to say something to Mum.”

  “Don’t. Please. I don’t want to start something. Maybe she’s just crabby after such a long flight.” I didn’t believe it, though.

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Her present for you better be good. Like a car or something.”

  “I already have a car,” I said with a laugh.

  “So? One for weekdays and one for Sunday best.”

  But, to Sarah’s disappointment, there was no sign of any present the next morning when Nana emerged from her—my—room, dressed and groomed.

  We ate a quick breakfast as a family; Nana gave Ryan the same polite but thorough questioning she’d subjected Sarah to the previous day, asking him what he did for a living, and whether he was considering further education or had a girlfriend. The answer to the last two questions was no. She disapproved of his passion for painting, which reassured me a little: it was nice to not be the only grandchild in the doghouse.

  When she wasn’t looking, Ryan rolled his eyes and grinned across the table at Sarah and me. Aunt Elizabeth glared. He ducked back, as if he were a vampire and she’d brandished a crucifix at him.

  “Shall we visit David this morning?” Nana asked when the meal was complete, sipping the last of her tea.

  Aunt Elizabeth nodded, looking across at her children. “Will either of you be coming with us?” No need to ask me, of course.

  My cousins both looked reluctant, but after a moment Sarah nodded back. “I will.” She squeezed my hand under the table, an unspoken declaration of support.

  The drive into the hospital was familiar by now, but I still stared out the window of my aunt’s car as though it were the most interesting thing in the world, listening with half an ear to the conversation going on in the front—talk of members of the extended family from England, whom I knew by name only. Sarah rode in the back with me, trying to look interested whenever Nana glanced back.

  Once we arrived, Aunt Elizabeth and Nana went in to see Dad, while Sarah and I stayed in the waiting room. I didn’t like the delay, but it would have been rude to make Nana wait to see her son after she’d travelled so far. And, to be honest, I didn’t want to be the one with her when she saw him for the first time. Before she’d arrived yesterday I wouldn’t have thought I’d mind, but after her cold attitude to me I wasn’t sure how I’d cope if she started crying. Or whether she’d welcome any comfort I provided.

  After about fifteen minutes Aunt Elizabeth came out and nodded to me, sitting down with Sarah to watch daytime television. Sarah mouthed “good luck” as I pressed the buzzer.

  I’d visited the ICU so often in the past week that I knew most of the nurses, by face if not by name. The nurse who let me in that day was a hirsute man named Carter. He greeted me as I used the hand sanitiser, beckoning me over to the desk.

  “Good news,” he grinned, teeth flashing whitely behind his beard. “The doc said he’s going to move your father out of intensive care and onto a ward.” My stomach did a flip. I must have looked stunned, because he hastily added, “That means they think he’s stable.”

  “Has he shown any signs of waking up?” I knew what the answer would be, but I asked the question every time I arrived.

  “No. It could happen any time, though. Don’t lose hope.”

  “I won’t.” I smiled. The expression felt strained, but not for the reasons Carter was probably assuming. The idea of having to perform fae—was “magic” the right word?—on my father made me tremble every time I considered it. What if I made things worse? Dad might be unconscious but at least he was stable, and the hospital was taking care of his physical needs. But I knew he wouldn’t wake up on his own and, although we’d never discussed it, I was sure Dad would never choose to continue as a vegetable. He’d want me to take the risk. He’d believe in me.

  Taking a deep breath, I shoved those worries under a mental rug and crossed the ward to where Dad lay, with Nana sitting at his bedside. The nurse station was unoccupied.

  Holding his hand, Nana ignored my arrival—or maybe she hadn’t heard my tread over the constant machine noises. Her head was turned in his direction with unwavering focus. Standing next to her, I shuffled my feet and wished the ICU had chairs for more than one visitor per patient. Biting my lip, I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She looked exhausted. Pity melted my irritation at her. It must be hard to see your child like this.

  I cleared my throat and spoke as though my father could hear me. “Hi, Dad. Did you have a good evening?”

  I went through this ritual every day. The nurses had told me to talk to him normally—or at least as normally as I could manage. Nana blinked and looked up at me with a frown, but I ignored her. “I brought you a new CD,” I told him, showing him the case as though he had his eyes open. “It’s a compilation of Queen songs. Do you want me to put it on?”

  The only answers were the beeping and sighing of the machinery. “I’ll take that as a yes. You really should wake up and choose for yourself, you know. Otherwise I might start choosing dance music. Or opera.” I placed the headphones over his head, covering one ear but leaving the other uncovered so if we talked to him he would be able to hear us. Hypothetically. Once the music was playing softly, I arranged the cards on the shelf, feeling awkward.

  I normally filled Dad in on things going on at home or on the news, such as how Australia was doing in the cricket—although I hadn’t told him about Jack yet. I wanted to, and when he woke up I would, but I wasn’t comfortable discussing the stranger aspects of my life in such a busy room. The hospital also had a psychiatric ward, and I wasn’t angling for an admission.

  But the main thing that had happened since I’d last seen him was the arrival of his mother and her disapproval of me. Given she was sitting in the hard plastic chair beside me, that didn’t seem like the wisest topic. So I stood there, silent and self-conscious.

  “How were you getting on with your father, Isla?” Nana asked then. “Before his illness, I mean?”

  I looked at her, confused. She matched me stare for stare, blue eyes intense. “Fine.”

  “You moved in with Elizabeth and her family six years ago. I thought you might have had a falling out.”

  “I moved because of school.”

  “And you still see him regularly? Get on well?”

  I took a deep breath to try and keep the rising irritation out of my reply. “Of course.”

  “Oh?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “He gave me a car for my birthday,” I said, and then wanted
to kick myself. I didn’t need to prove to her that my father loved me, or that I loved my father. And mentioning the car made me sound selfish.

  “Elizabeth said you had a fight with him the day before he fell ill.”

  “So?” I couldn’t keep the frown off my face any longer.

  “What was it about?”

  He thought I might be turning into a supernatural being like my mother. It turns out he was right. “It’s private.”

  “Do you think this is the time to be keeping secrets?” She indicated Dad with a gesture and I realised what she was hinting at: that I might have something to do with his condition, or know something that may allow him to be healed.

  The fact the latter was true did little to dampen my ire. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “Just that I’m sure David raised you to be an honest child,” she replied, folding her hands in her lap.

  “He did.”

  “Well, then.” She said it as though it concluded the argument.

  “Yes.” I looked across the room; Carter was watching us with narrowed eyes. I lowered my voice. “Trust me when I tell you that the argument we had isn’t relevant.” It was even sort of true. “I’m going to go tell Sarah it’s her turn to come and see him.”

  I kissed Dad’s grizzled cheek. “I’ll see you later. I love you.”

  Carter looked up as I stalked past his desk. “Everything okay?”

  “Not really,” I said, cleansing my hands. “My father’s in a coma, you know.”

  My black humour earned me a flicker of a smile. “I know.”

  “Do you know when he’s going to be moved out of ICU?”

  “Probably tomorrow morning, I’d imagine.”

  “Did you tell my aunt yet?”

  He shook his head. “Do you want me to?”

  “I’ll do it. Thanks for looking after Dad while he’s been here.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Aunt Elizabeth looked surprised to see me come out so quickly; Sarah, on the other hand, was standing by the door as though she was expecting it. “My turn?”

  “Yup.”

  While we waited for Nana and Sarah to come out of the ward, I filled Aunt Elizabeth in on what Carter had said.

  “That’s great news!”

  “It is,” I smiled, trying to match her enthusiasm. I was pretty sure her emotion was as forced as my own: she was doing it for my sake, and I for hers.

  Families were weird sometimes.

  It was only a few minutes later that Sarah came out and nodded to her mother, holding the ICU door open to let Aunt Elizabeth slip through. Some of the nurses would frown on her for that but Carter wasn’t one of them.

  After the door clicked shut she slumped in the chair beside me, putting her feet up on the table.

  Even Carter frowned about that. Lucky for her he was on the other side of the door.

  “Weird,” she grumbled. “I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

  “Let me guess. She grilled you about me?”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “She did. How’d you guess?”

  “What did she say?” I asked, clicking the beads on my charm bracelet like a rosary.

  “She asked about the fight you had with Uncle David the night before he got sick. She wanted to know what it was about, whether you and he got on and stuff.”

  “She asked me about it too.”

  “Well, I told her you and Uncle David adore each other,” she growled. “Silly old bat, coming over here and causing trouble. Haven’t you gone through enough?”

  “That’s your grandmother you’re talking about,” I reminded her with a grimace. I agreed with the sentiment, though.

  “She’s your grandmother too.”

  “Yeah.” My tone was unenthusiastic. “I think she’s looking for someone to blame for Dad being sick.”

  Sarah sat up straight, taking her boots off the table, and stared. Her blue-green eyes blazed with righteous outrage. “And she chose you?”

  “She doesn’t know me, remember?”

  “But still—”

  “I know. I think I remind her of my mother. And she doesn’t … she didn’t like her.”

  “Oh.” Sarah thought about this. “That’s dumb.”

  I shrugged. “Not much I can do about it.”

  She pursed her lips. “You could dye your hair pink. Or shave it off. That’d reduce the resemblance.”

  We were still laughing when Aunt Elizabeth and Nana came out of the ICU, packed up to go home. Nana gave me a suspicious look but I ignored it. She believed I had cursed Dad into a coma, but if Jack and I managed to wake him that should relieve her of the notion.

  I hoped.

  After dropping Sarah and I at home, Aunt Elizabeth took Nana to the mall, giving me a welcome break from her disapproving stare. I wanted to talk to Jack, but Sarah hovered around the house, leaving me no opportunity to slip away to the park to wait for him. I’d have to sneak out later.

  It’s hard trying to secretly meet a pointy-eared boy when you’re bunking in with your nosy cousin.

  Sarah and I sat on the back porch, feet up on the balcony railings, relaxing and doing nothing for the first time in what felt like weeks. Hamish was splayed along Sarah’s legs, his front paws hanging off into the air on either side of her calves.

  Saying it was too hot in the shed, Ryan had taken his easel out and put it on the lawn, under the shade of a bottlebrush that grew near the northern fence; the tall tree was dotted with red spikes of flowers that looked a lot like the fat bristles on a bottle brush. Funnily enough. He’d positioned his easel so we couldn’t see what he was working on and warned Sarah not to look. She’d pouted but complied with a knowing smile.

  Sarah often received little pieces of art from Ryan, gifts at birthdays and Christmases—her favourite was a sketch he’d done of her cuddling one of Mrs Wilson’s kittens—so the fact he was working on a painting for her birthday wasn’t a surprise.

  Ryan’s eyes were narrowed with concentration; he carelessly held a paint palette in one hand, which he tapped at with a brush before patting the bristles on the canvas. I’d seen the sketch of the painting, but it was black and white. I tried to guess which bit he was working on. Where did the bright green paint fit into the image?

  He wouldn’t mind if I had a look, but that would be cruel to Sarah. So I stayed where I was.

  The screen door rattled open behind us, and Aunt Elizabeth and her mother came out onto the balcony. Hamish leapt off Sarah’s lap, his claws scraping my cousin’s skin; Sarah managed not to swear, biting her lip. I gave her a thumb’s up.

  “I’ve got your birthday present, Isla.” My grandmother sat, putting a small box on the table. It wasn’t wrapped, and the logo of the shop was on the side: a place called Neve’s, one of the local alternative shops that sold everything from tie-dyed clothing and handmade, imported trinkets to incense and jewellery.

  My surge of disappointment—and, I have to admit, lack of surprise—about her not having bothered to bring me something from England was matched by my curiosity about what my straight-laced Nana could have found in such a shop. What was she doing in one in the first place? I didn’t even like those shops that much: some of the rings were pretty, but the incense made me sneeze and the clothing wasn’t my style.

  Sarah, on the other hand, was a loyalty card-toting member of Neve’s.

  Eyes narrowed, Nana slid the box across the table.

  As soon as I took it, I knew she was up to something. I could feel a subtle twisting in my stomach, a faint warmth in my fingertips when I stroked the glossy cream-colored cardboard of the box. But the feeling was nowhere near as strong as the wrenching nausea I felt when I came close to touching iron.

  This was a test, albeit one more subtle than the one my father used when he’d dumped an iron sculpture into my lap.

  “Go ahead, open it,” Sarah urged me.

  “Yes, Isla, open it,” my grandmother said, her eyes bright and col
d as chips of ice. I hated her a little bit right then.

  I lifted off the lid, revealing a pretty but rather strange necklace made of small, silvery-grey beads, each one no bigger than my little fingertip. The surface of each bead was glossy, dark rather than reflective. “Oh. Thank you.” I smiled. The twinge of nausea grew a little stronger, but was still bearable. Whatever the necklace was made of, it wasn’t iron.

  “Oooh, pretty.” Sarah leaned in to look over my shoulder. “Haematite.”

  “What’s that?”

  My grandmother answered. “It’s iron oxide. In mineral form.”

  If I’d had any doubts, her words shattered them. She knew what my mother was. My heart ached. What if, instead of assuming I was tainted, my mother’s daughter, she’d understood and opened herself up to questions? The things she could tell me, things I wanted—no, needed—to know…

  The thought made me miss my father with a pain that tightened my throat and burned the back of my eyes. He had concealed the truth about my mother, but he’d agreed that day, in the parking lot, to tell me everything about her. I still believed he would, if he could.

  And he loved me. I wasn’t sure this woman did. In fact, I was pretty sure she didn’t.

  “Do you need help to try it on?” Nana continued, oblivious to my train of thought.

  “I’m good.” Bracing myself for a reaction, I reached into the box…

  And almost laughed with relief. All I felt was an increased warmth in my fingers, like I was holding them near a candle flame, and another incremental increase of nausea in my stomach—but, again, still bearable. Worse nerves had rattled beneath my skin before my first date with Dominic.

  Nana’s face fell, a curious mixture of disappointment and confusion, when I fastened the necklace around my throat and smiled, genuinely this time. It rested against my skin, warm but not painful. Except for the nausea, it was sort of pleasant. It would be better than a scarf come wintertime. I turned to Sarah. “What do you think?”

  “It will look great with that black shirt you’ve got. The one with the silvery lines through it?”

  I nodded. “I think so too.” I stood and walked around the table to Nana, bending to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for such a thoughtful gift,” I said, possibly laying it on a little thick. “I’m going to put that shirt on.”

  Inside, I ducked into the bathroom and snuck a quick look in the mirror, lifting the necklace to make sure my skin wasn’t reddening or doing anything else alarming. It all looked fine, and I heaved a sigh of relief. Nana would need no explanation if I had an “allergic” reaction, but I wasn’t sure what she’d do next. Drag me by the hair to the hospital and demand I undo whatever I’d done, probably.

  Awkward.

  I went into my bedroom, dodging around the suitcase to get into my wardrobe, and retrieved the shirt Sarah had mentioned. I slipped it on and went back out onto the porch with a sigh.

  Chapter Thirteen