Rowan sat on the other side of the table and stared at his feet. I glanced around the room, noting again the lack of family photos on the walls. She opened the fridge to get the milk out and I noticed the door bulged under the volume of Tessa and Bianca’s drawings and school notices stuck there.
At least some things were the same.
She launched into a story about the girls’ current obsession with dancing. Tessa had decided she was going to be the next Beyoncé, and of course Bianca had to do anything that Tessa did, so they were currently at their weekly hip hop class. “Tessa’s writing and directing her own play at school,” Mum said, her voice listless, as if that wasn’t an amazing thing for an eight-year-old to be doing. She held up a mug. “Were you milk and sugar? I can’t remember.”
“Milk, no sugar for me. Rowan has the same.”
Mum set an extra mug down on the countertop. She’d either been intending to ignore Rowan, or else she’d forgotten he was there. I wasn’t sure which option worried me more.
Every second I sat in silence at the table weighed on me, pushing my body into the carpet. The family we’d been before The Incident existed only as a fuzzy memory, a dream that felt too unsettling in its perfection. Had we really been that happy? Had the kitchen at Briarwood really been alive with German nursery rhymes and silly games and arguments over who got the last of the chocolate milk? Looking around this barren, dead home, I couldn’t see it.
Mum set down mugs of steaming tea in front of us. She slumped into the chair at the end of the table, as far from us as she could be while still putting on the British pretense of being polite. She talked about the girls and her book club and Dad’s hernia, and her face tightened into the pinched expression she always got when I came over. She filled the silence so I wouldn’t find any space in the conversation to talk about Briarwood or magic or Keegan.
I let her have her delusion for a little while longer, but when I reached the bottom of my teacup, I set it down and steeled myself. “That’s all great, Mum.” I toyed with the chipped rim of my cup. “We came to ask you about something.”
Her pinched expression turned hostile. “Corbin?—”
“The spell protecting the gateway toTir Na Nogis failing, and more and more fae are slipping through. We need to know how that spell works so we can recreate it?—”
“Corbin, that’s enough.”
Rowan cringed at her sharp tone, but I barreled on.
“I know you don’t want to deal with magic, and I’ve respected that. All these years I’ve never asked you for help with anything. But this isserious. They took two babies from the village. We managed to get them back and stop the fae temporarily, but we don’t know what they’re going to do when?—”
“You made your choice when you chose that place and thosewitchesinstead of your own family,” she said this with a sharplook at Rowan. “Your father and I allowed you to throw your life away. Isn’t that enough? Must you poison our home with your bad choices?”
“This home is already poisoned, and this is bigger than me and the coven. You could all be in danger. I don’t know what they’re trying to do. They may come after the girls next?—”
“That’senough. Not another word.” Mum stood up, dropping her mug into the sink with a crash. “If that’s all you came here to say, you can leave now.”
I glanced at Rowan and shook my head.I knew this was pointless. We shouldn’t have even bothered.“Can I at least stick around to see the girls? I promise we won’t mention magic again, either of us.”
Her expression softened an inch. She knew how much my sisters missed me and how little they understood about what had transpired between us to keep me away. “All right. But a single word about magic and you will be permanently banned from this house.”
“Understood.”
Rowan stood up. “Mrs. Harris, may I use the bathroom?”
She looked like she was going to tell him he couldn’t, but I broke in before her. “It’s right down the hall.”
Rowan shuffled off, leaving me alone with Mum. She stood over the sink, her hands gripping the edge like it was the only thing holding her upright. She stared out the window, where a pair of starlings attacked a small bird-feeder made out of an egg carton hung in the fir tree. I stood up, my chair scraping against the linoleum, and went to stand next to her. I placed a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shrug it off.
I braced myself and went in for a full hug.
She sighed - a visceral, terrible sound for all its sadness and finality. She rested her head on my shoulder, but she didn’t embrace me back. Her body felt thin and frail – not the buxom,cuddly woman who’d fixed my skinned knees and baked cakes with me. The Incident had stolen that mother from me, in the same way it had stolen everything good from our lives.
“We missed you at Christmas,” she said stiffly. “I cooked your favorite – roast chicken.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I’d been in Arizona over Christmas, keeping an eye on Maeve and her family. I’d stood in the bushes at the edge of her house like a creeper and looked in the windows at her and Kelly exchanging presents under the tree while her Dad swung his wife around the room in a giddy dance. I’d felt the same pang in my chest then that I was feeling now. “Did you get the presents?”
“We did. Thank you. The girls colored in their books in a day.”
“Good.” I struggled to think of something else to say. So much of my life was Briarwood and magic and Maeve, and she wouldn’t let me talk about it. I hunted around for a subject she could engage with. “I’ve been learning Manx.”
“Manx? You mean, from the Isle of Mann?”
“Yeah. It’s only spoken by a few academics and some revivalists, but it’s got these really interesting diversions from the other Goidelic languages.”
