Why are you crying?A voice inside my head that wasn’t mine cooed.
“No, no, no!” I shoved my hands on my ears. I tore my eyes away from the portrait and raced for the stairs to my bedroom.
I flung myself down on my bed, throwing my pillow over my head, wishing I could block out everything. My aching thighs and core reminded me that I was an awful person, that if my parents were looking down on me from Heaven, they’d be horrified by what they saw.
Sinner. Heathen. Witch.
I shouldn’t care, since I didn’t even believe in Heaven, but I loved them and I missed them and I caredso goddamn much?—
Beside my bed my phone vibrated, creeping its way toward the edge of the table. I was in no state to talk to anyone, but when I picked it up to flick it off, I noticed Kelly’s picture on the screen.
She’s been trying to talk to me for days and I’ve completely neglected her.
Yet another sin.
I wiped my face with my wrist and clicked the phone.
“Maeve?” Hearing Kelly’s voice made my body shake and fresh tears pool in the corners of my eyes.Get a grip, Maeve.
“Hey, Kelly.”
“Are you okay? You sound a little choked up.”
“I—” My voice caught.So much for getting a grip.“I’m not okay. I was just thinking about Mom and Dad.”
“Oh.” Silence on the other end.
“I just…” I sucked in a breath. “Do you believe they’re up there, in Heaven, watching down on us?”
“You know I do.” Kelly’s voice was guarded. She was still a Christian, and we’d never been able to see eye-to-eye on that.
“Do they see everything? What if they see something that upsets them? Do angels even get upset? What if they discovered something that made them realize they were wrong to love me?”
“Maeve, where’s this coming from? You don’t even believe in angels, so what—” Her voice rose a pitch. “Don’t tell me, you did something Mom and Dad wouldn’t approve of. Omigod, did you sleep with one of your gorgeous tenants?”
One of them? Try four of them, all at the same time.But no way in hell could I even begin to tell Kelly that. I couldn’t even form the words. “Yeah.”
“I knew it! What was it like? Who was it with? No, let me guess – the blond Aragon?”
No. Not Arthur. Arthur knows that I’m tainted by evil. He doesn’t want to touch me.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I sniffed.
“Okay,fine. But what are you worried about? You had sex before and you never got upset.”
“Mom and Dad weren’t dead then.”And I didn’t know I was a witch and paintings didn’t talk to me and my father the evil fae king wasn’t trying to destroy the world.
“That’s right. They’redead. And you’re over there living it up with hot guys and a big house.”
“That’s not true.”
“Of course it’s true. That’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, Maeve. You deserve that. You were always the one who was going to be an astronaut and do amazing things. Everything you did was perfect – your perfect report cards, your perfect artwork, your perfect abstinence. If they’re looking down on you,they’re just going to think everything you do is as perfect as before. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“They never thought I was perfect.” I thought back to all the fights we’d had over my pursuit of science, over that time I protested against the school board teaching creationism, and when they found that Richard Dawkins book under my bed and grounded me for a week.
“They did. I heard them praying for you all the time, that you’d turn your passion toward the Lord. But at least they prayed for you.” Her voice hitched.
“Kelly, no. Don’t think that. You were their real daughter. They loved you. They didn’t pit us against each other.” I’d always thought she was the favourite. After all, she was the biological daughter, the one who never caused any trouble or said blasphemous things – the perfect little Christian girl.
