I could give one of my earrings to the driver.
I’ve never taken a bus anywhere before.
I know I am waiting—but I don’t quite know if I’m waiting for that bus…
Or my mother to come get me.
Or a car to skid off the road and strike me dead.
I just sit here, hunched, my tailbone already aching from the pressure of the metal bench, the tears softer now, but still falling.
The downpour is so dense and violent, smacking the road, pelting the metal shelter, that I don’t hear her approach.
I don’t hear the rainboots soft on the wet road, the rustle of a coat, the screech of the umbrella.
So when Mother comes around the metal wall of the shelter, then slips under the safety of the roof, I flinch with the fright—and the bag slips over the pillow pressed onto my lap.
I hug my arms tighter around the lumpy overnight bag, then draw up my knees. For leverage, the heels of my shoes dig into the edge of the bench, locking in my huddled position.
I slide my gaze to Mother as she shakes off the umbrella then sets it aside to lean on the plastic partition. Unhurried, she slips onto the bench, so close to me in this small shelter that our arms touch.
For a while, Mother sits. She says nothing.
Neither do I.
Together, we watch the rain batter the road.
Minutes pass, long and quiet minutes, before Mother finally speaks, and her voice is almost drowned out by the noise of rainfall on the roof—
“I believe the bus of the day has been and gone.”
I stare at the road, wet and sleek, freshly repaired potholes darker than the grey.
“The next should come by tomorrow,” she adds.
I’m not so sure she’s telling the truth, or that she would even know the bus schedule—but that’s irrelevant.
Because we both know that if it was to pull up right now, I wouldn’t get on it.
Just like I don’t get on any of them whenever I run away.
Like Mother knows but won’t say, what will I do without my family?
Where will I go on that bus, once I figure out if I have to pay, how much to pay, and if earrings are an acceptable form of payment?
All the times I have come here, sat in this shelter, a packed bag on my lap, in my arms, never—not even once—have I boarded the bus.
When I was only thirteen and was fleeing from my new life at Bluestone because my father refused to have me homeschooled, Mother followed me to the shelter. She sat beside me for a long while. Then she told me I won’t ever get on the bus, because out there—without my family—I am in danger.
‘It’s a foreign, dangerous world out there.’
She told me I don’t know the krums, what they are really like, how their world works, and that if my magic ever triggered around them, the krums would harm me, torture me, burn me. But she also told me that, at home, I am loved, accepted for who and what I am.
‘Home is the only safe place in the world for you.’
Mother says none of that now.
No words of comfort, no false masks, pretences of love, of care, of protection.
