“Hey, leave Joanna alone. She’s nice,” I muttered half-heartedly.
“Yes, dear… she’slovely,”my mother agreed in that singsong voice of hers. “She’s just not for you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. “Could you two focus? We have more important things to worry about right now than my love life. There’s a little boy upstairs who’s seriously hurt, and I don’t know how to help him.”
“Ugh, you’re out of salami?” Theo asked our mother critically, completely ignoring me. I snapped my head to look at her.
“If you want salami, stock your own fridge in the guest house; that’s why we rent it to you. Stop pilfering our shit, you freeloader.”
Theo slammed the fridge shut and leaned against it, glowering at me. “Sharing your deli meat is the least you can do after you have me protecting your damn charity case all day.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
It was minute, but I knew my sister better than anyone. A small twinge of concern and protectiveness crossed herexpression for a split second. Then she wiped it clean, giving me the angry asshole persona she liked to hide behind.
“Some scumbag came in earlier with a bullshit story about wanting to buy an urn, but he seemed more interested in the kid. I told him to kick rocks.”
“Really? What did he look like? Do you think he was Caleb’s father?” I asked. My blood went cold. If it was his dad, that meant they knew he was here. Maybe he wasn’t as safe as I had originally thought…
“I dunno. He was our age. Ripped but gave serious punk vibes. He was wearing all black and had a lip ring and a shit ton of tattoos.”
I frowned. I had been expecting some balding pot-bellied dude in a wife-beater, not someone our age… but I mean, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Caleb’s dad was in his late twenties. Maybe it had been a child pregnancy…
Suddenly, there was a clatter, and the broom we kept by the back door fell to the ground.
We all turned to look at it, startled.
“What the fuck!” Theo exclaimed, looking pissed off. “I’m sick of all the freaky shit that happens in this house.”
My mother, on the other hand, was grinning like a fox.
“Broom fell. That means company is coming.” She sang, turning to tend to her now whistling teapot. Theo and I exchanged a look as she poured herself a mug. “He’s a little later than I thought he would be, but I suppose better late than never.”
“Whatare you going on about now?” Theo asked our mother, who was now rummaging through one of the drawers that I knew she stocked full of random witchy shit. She pulled out a big bag of sage and billowed over to me, putting it in front of me on the table and patting my hand fondly.
“Ryan’s dark angel, of course. Here, sweetie, you’re going to need this. Your dark angel comes with a crowd of rather…unsavoryguests. You’re going to want to cleanse the space around him if you want any privacy.”
With that cryptic piece of advice, she swept out of the kitchen as elegantly as she had swept in.
Theo and I stared after her for a beat before my sister finally shook her head and pushed up off the fridge.
“Well, on that note, I’m going to bed.”
“What? We still haven’t discussed what we’re going to do about Caleb!” I called, but Theo was already halfway out the door.
“Who is this ‘we’you speak of? I told you not to pick up strays. This is your problem,” she snapped, slamming the back door behind her.
I stared after her, fuming mad.
Ms. Thompson’s ghost was right. Shewasa fucking dick.
Whatever.
I snatched up the sage my mother had gifted me and made my way toward the basement. As whimsical and‘out there’as my mother may seem, I had enough experience with her strange advice to know that I would be a fool not to listen. Just because it didn’t make sense to me now didn’t mean I wouldn’t be wishing I had this sage later.
Tucking the baggie of herbs into my back pocket, I jogged down the stairs to the gym Theo built.
Maybe I couldn’t beat the shit out of Caleb’s parents for real, but I could imagine I was while pounding out some combos on the bag.
