“If that’s what you want to call it.” Hiram rolls his eyes. “My mother caught me at a weak moment, promising to mend things and help if I moved back, but it was Peter who ultimately finalized my decision. I figured if my parents had changed, I would stay long-term, but if they hadn’t, I would stay long enough to get Antaris together and disappear for good.”
“Have they changed?”
“I thought my father ... but no.”
“People rarely do unless something in their life prompts it.”
“I’m not letting Antaris learn that lesson.” Hiram looks up at the dusky sky. “I’d rather do this by myself, anyway. I’ve been alone for a long time now.”
“You’ve got Peter.”
“I kept my distance because he has a life, a wife who hates me on principle, not that I blame her. I know what it means for a Seerto be openly friendly with an Ellis. He’ll lose credibility in his own community and make the target on his back even larger. I always tell him to be careful. He doesn’t listen.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Unease crosses Veda’s features. “But being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Intrigued, he asks, “Are you alone?”
“In all the ways that are glaringly obvious.”
Hiram understands deep in his bones. “You’re only as alone as you choose to be.”
Veda hums and finishes her glass, pouring herself another. “My dad would say something like that.”
“So you have parents . . .”
“Had,” Veda replies, hollow. “Lost during the Great Vanishing. I was sixteen. It took months to get back home, and by then, people assumed I’d Vanished, too. Our house was gone, had new people living in it, and everything ...” She trails off, staring at her hands before clearing her throat. “Anyway, I had to figure things out on my own until I was eighteen. The Seers in our community tried to take me in, but I refused. I parked our old camper in the woods and lived mostly off the land, like how we used to. I got a job, finished school, and went to college on a scholarship for minors orphaned by the Vanishing. I had to establish my existence because my parents lay low my entire life. My dad made amulets, and my mom’s college covered for her. They were Seers.”
Everything, from the wall around her to her intractable beliefs, makes sense.
“If my mother knew, I doubt she’d have allowed you within an inch of Antaris,” Hiram says honestly.
“You know Seers were given a choice to add their names to the Registration. My parents came from families that kept their Sight a secret for generations. Before I was born, my dad had a vision that I wouldn’t inherit their Sight. It’s not uncommon. They moved to Maine and did their best to remain under the radar, to give me a normal lifewhile keeping their status a closely guarded secret. Hate groups like to ‘rescue’ the Mage children of Seers. It never goes well for those kids.”
Hiram shudders, vaguely familiar with the horror stories. “Where’s the camper now?”
Veda barks out a dry laugh. “Long gone. Sold for my bus ticket to college.”
“You’re resilient.”
“No, I’m not. I was traumatized. Being resilient isn’t a trait; it’s earned through the choices I was forced to make during the worst time of my life. Ihadto keep moving. I didn’t know anything else. I’m not defined by the blows I’ve taken. Life moved on. So did I. For a few years, I thought I was safe. I thought it was over. But I’m back where I started, with my entire life in a bag. Only now, my amulet is dead. It was all I had left of my parents. My dad made it for my sixteenth birthday.”
Hiram is speechless. The hurt in her voice is raw, even now. Especially now.
“But you kept it, right? After the hospital?”
“Yeah.” Veda pulls it out of her shirt. “It’s useless, but I can’t part with it.”
Hiram absently reaches for the blackened stone. It’s inert, but he still feels it watching him ... as is Veda, her expression inexplicable.
He pulls back. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I. For unloading,” Veda says quietly, covering the amulet and tucking it back into her shirt. “I don’t talk about this much. Actually, I avoid it as much as I can.”
“I don’t mind listening,” Hiram says. “I understand you better now.”
Wary as ever, Veda watches, waiting for him to say more, but he lets the silence further melt the ice around them. He looks to the lake, the faintest breeze rippling the water. Crickets chirp as the last dregs of twilight darken into night.
Hiram sneaks glances at her until he catches her looking at him, too.
