The Silent Strength of Stones (13 page)

“Probably not your favorite thing,” she said. “Thanks for suffering for me.”

“What if they make him sick?” I said. I remembered a vet had once told me you could make a cat sick with aspirin; remedies that worked for people didn’t necessarily translate for other animals.

Evan muttered, “I can stand them, but they sure taste awful. Next time I’ll just chew up some real mint.”

Megan popped a mint herself, then said, “So you want to know who I am?” to Evan.

“
Ruf!
”

She glanced at me.

I shrugged. “That was a yes.”

She sat down so she was face-to-face with him. “Well,” she said, without looking at me, “I’m the leftover girl—you know, the one who’s best friends with the prettiest girl that everybody’s interested in. They dance with me when they can’t get to her. But their focus is always somewhere else.”

He licked her face.

“I’m sorry,” I said,

She looked up. “No, I didn’t mean you.”

“But that was—
^;
”

“At least we had a real conversation,” she said. She was stroking Evan’s fur without paying attention. “Which reminds me. About that bathing suit ...”

“Oh, yeah.” I went to the rack with swimwear on it and pulled out the suit I’d told her about last night. It was sexier than I had remembered, French cut high on the hips and with a daring dip in back, with black crisscross straps. Not a very big scrap of material.

“Wow,” she said, eyebrows up.

“Yeah,” I said, turning it. The Lycra rainbow swoosh sparkled. “Maybe not what you had in mind?”

“I think I’ll try it on,” she said. “You have a fitting room?”

I showed her into the downstairs bathroom next to the kitchen, where there was a decent mirror. It wasn’t too much of a mess, just a few of Granddad’s things—his shaving equipment and some of his medicines on the counter.

When I went back out front, Evan was standing at the door and looking out. “You want out?”

“Look.”

I peered out in the direction he was staring and saw a dusty maroon Kharmann Ghia pulling into the motel driveway. “So?”

“Strange energy,” he muttered. “Trouble.”

The car drove back toward the office and out of sight. We heard the engine turning off.

“Let me out, Nick.”

I opened the door and he dashed out. After a glance toward the back where Megan was, I followed Evan around the edge of the store, watching the car.

A woman was wrestling a suitcase from the backseat. She got it out onto the asphalt, then slammed the car door and straightened, smoothing a hand down the small of her back. I ducked around the corner and peeked from the safety of the storefront.

Her dark hair was short now, and she was skinnier than I remembered, but I knew her. Mom.

5. Shocks to the System

I edged away across the storefront from the corner and sagged down onto the varnished wooden bench between the newspaper vending machine and the door, my hands pressed against my stomach, my eyes not tracking.

I had always figured that if I ever saw Mom again it would be by my choice. When I was ready, I would study all the letters she had sent me, triangulate the postmarks (there was never a return address on the outside of the envelope, never even a name, I suppose because she thought Pop would censor the mail, which he might have done if he knew she was sending letters; but the mail came when either I or Mariah was watching the store—a good thing, because Mom’s handwriting was as recognizable as ever), actually read the contents in case she put clues to her whereabouts inside (I assumed there wouldn’t be a return address inside, for the same reason—Pop might track her down), and detect where she was. I would go to her community, establish myself in some secret identity—dye my hair, grow a mustache, get colored contacts—and study her life from a distance, deciding for myself if I ever wanted to talk to her again. I would be in charge. I could be bitter and angry and removed if I wanted to, and sneer at her; or I could decide I’d let her know I was okay and that I’d finally gotten away from Pop, if she even cared.

The depth of preparation in this scenario surprised me. I hadn’t realized I had made these plans, but they had the bittersweet taste of thoughts often cherished in anger.

And now, of course, my choices were gone.

I don’t know how long I sat there.

“Snap out of it, Nick,” Evan said. I blinked and looked at him. My hand was cold. I glanced at it and realized it was wet, probably with his spit, so he’d been standing in front of me for a while and had tried other ways of waking me.

My stomach still hurt. I let go of it and worked my fingers. They were stiff.

Evan said, “She’s checked in.”

“What?” Panic wavered my voice.

“She went into the office, and a little while later she came out, grabbed that suitcase, and took it to room four, which she unlocked using a key with a metal dangle. She checked in, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, God.”

“Who is she, Nick?”

“My mother.”

“How very interesting,” he said. “She’s warded.”

He had said something like that about Willow yesterday, and Lauren had used that word too. I remembered that Lauren had defined it, but I couldn’t remember exactly how. “What does that mean?” I asked.

“Means that the surface she’s presenting isn’t what she really looks like. I don’t think she’ll expect you to recognize her. Unless she knows that you can see more than most people ... how long since you’ve seen her?”

“Four years.” If she looked different to most people, that explained how she could check in and not alert Pop to her being here. My mother, in disguise. Just like I had planned to be when I caught up to her.

My mother.

Evan asked, “How old are you now?”

“Seventeen.”

He cocked his head, studying me. Then he looked away. “She may not know you can see through things like that. So don’t let her know you recognize her.”

I felt a little snick in my head.
You say bleed and I bleed.
Somewhere in my brain I was preparing to act as if I didn’t know my own mother.

Served her right.

“Nick? Nick?” The voice came from inside the building.

I jumped to my feet and went into the store with Evan on my heels.

Megan was wearing her clothes and holding the swimsuit.

“God, Megan, I’m sorry,” I said. I had forgotten she was there.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I had to study it for a while before I decided I could stand it. It’s a new look for me. Doesn’t feel quite right.”

I stopped thinking about Mom and let store mode take over. “Did you want a second opinion? I didn’t mean to leave you all alone in here, but we had to check on someone who drove up to the motel.”

“Stop by the pool this afternoon and give me an opinion then, you and Evan both. And you better wear a suit, too, and not one of those three-piece-with-vest types. What do I owe you?”

I told her and she pulled more cash out of her tiny purse and paid me. She stooped and kissed the top of Evan’s head, then breezed out of the store.

“You going to take her up on that?” Evan asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t—what about Mom? What is she doing here? How could she be ... warded? Do you think—” Did she want to come home? Did she want to take care of me and Pop and Granddad again? Why would she be disguised if that was what she wanted? What else could she want? What was I going to say to her?

The morning she had left, I woke myself up because I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t even know Mom was gone, but I could hardly breathe. Pop had to call Doc McBride. The doc had had to shoot me up with a tranquilizer before I could breathe normally again, and I had still felt like somebody cut my chest open and scooped something important out. By the time Pop told me Mom was gone, it didn’t surprise me.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I have to watch Mom. I can’t think of ...” I was having trouble breathing again.

“Calm down, Nick. You’re okay. Take a couple deep breaths. You’re fine.”

I took a couple of deep breaths and felt calm, okay, and fine. “This afternoon is my day off, Evan, but—”

“An afternoon is a day? What language is that?”

“The language of Pop.”

“You work all the other days of the week here?”

“During the season.”

He growled. “When do you play?” he said.

“Most of the winter. At night. In the morning. Saturday afternoon.”

Evan growled again.

The bells rang and Mariah breezed in. “Sorry I’m late. Take off, kid—ai-yi-yi!” She clapped one hand to her sternum and stared at Evan.

“Mariah, this is Evan,” I said quickly. “He’s somewhat tame.”

“He’s growling,” she said in a swallowed voice.

I stroked his head and he stopped growling. “Evan, this is Mariah.”

“She smells like turpentine and oil paints,” he said.

“She’s an artist. She spells me when I take my lunches and covers for me on my half day off.”

Evan sat with his tail curled around his forepaws and grinned at Mariah.

“You are a beauty,” she said, “and you know it, don’t you?”

He yipped.

“I’d love to paint you.”

He laughed.

“Nick, where’d he come from?”

“He’s my dog,” I said, and noticed a waver in my own voice. Silly. I had practiced lying, and ought to be able to do it better by now.

“Where does one get a dog like that?”

“I found him in the woods,” I said, and that part came out smoothly, maybe because it was true.

“Good God,” said Mariah, “what makes you think he’s the least bit tame?”

“Well, he is,” I said, continuing to stroke him. The hair on top of his head was the softest. I scratched behind his ears, and he turned his head against my hand, pushing for more.

“What kind of name is Evan for a wild beast?”

“It’s his name,” I said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Evan said.

“We’ve got to go,” I told Mariah, suddenly worried that Mom would come in and I would have to figure out how to not recognize her. And how not to collapse.

“Have a good time,” Mariah said, smiling. Evan yipped and we brushed past her and escaped into the out.

I ran until the breath burned in my lungs and I could hear the blood pounding in my ears and we were almost to the Lacey’s. Then, remembering my last encounter along this path, I slowed and veered up into the woods, Evan at my heels. Father Boulder’s clearing was up this way, but I wasn’t ready to take Evan there, so I headed for another place I knew, where a forest giant had toppled, leaving roots reaching for the sky, some sheltering a big hole in the ground whose floor I had smoothed and covered with dead bracken several years ago. It was one of my first forts. Occasionally I went back and renewed the floor covering and cleaned out the cobwebs among the roots, but it had been a long while since I had been there.

Evan and I flopped down on the dusty dried fern. For a time I just listened to the breath moving in and out of me, sliding past my roughened throat. Evan lay beside me, nose on paws. After a little while I could smell the dried, crushed bracken under me, and the earth and pines. The sweat on my back and face cooled. I rolled my head and looked at Evan.

He lifted his head, cocked it.

I opened my mouth and words fell out “She left. She didn’t even tell me good-bye. She never said why she was leaving. She sends me letters, but I don’t read them. We spent all our time together. I didn’t know how to live without her. Then she left. At first I didn’t even know how to see without her. It hurt. It took me a long time to get over it. What the hell is she doing here, Evan? I don’t want her here. I got used to her being gone. I want to kill her. I want to talk to her. I want to ask her why she left, but I’m afraid her answer won’t be good enough. How come she knows some of the same magic as your family does?” My breath was getting short again.

“This is upsetting you.”

“It’s driving me crazy. I have to find out—I have to, but I don’t even—I wish—I can’t—” I clutched at my chest, wheezing, struggling for air. If I strangled, Doc McBride would never be able to find me out here.

“Stop thinking about it. Give it a rest. We can work it out later. Forget her for now, Nick.”

Click.

I blinked up at the roots above me, sucked in breath, let it out. I closed my eyes. I opened them. I glanced over and saw a wolf sitting near me, watching me.

After a minute I recognized him. I lifted my arm and looked at my watch, which told me it was about twelve-thirty on a Saturday afternoon. “It’s my day off,” I said to Evan.

“That’s right,” he said. “Your half day.”

“What do you want to do?” I asked him.

“What do you usually do?”

“Go places and look at things,” I said. “I thought ... I thought if you were going to turn me into anything, this would be the best time for me. I don’t have to be anywhere until suppertime.” Sometimes he sounded like he would consider my wishes, and sometimes I wasn’t so sure if he would, but mostly he seemed friendly. It would be a load off my mind if I knew he would restrict his playful ideas about me to a time when it wouldn’t interfere with my regular life. Thought I’d at least give him the opportunity.

“Close your eyes,” he said after a moment.

I closed my eyes, wondering what it would feel like to turn into some other creature. It always looked so painful in werewolf movies, hurting and slimy. I wasn’t sure why movie monsters always had to be covered with slime, or at least be drool factories. Did it have anything to do with the real world? Would shapechanging hurt?

I put my hands on my stomach, wondering if it mattered. What if it hurt so much I couldn’t stand turning back into myself? Nobody would know where I was. Pop would be plenty upset. He would start asking questions. Maybe other people would too.

They could ask all they liked, but I would be a poodle somewhere, maybe out in the wild woods, maybe in the pound. Nobody would ever figure it out. I scratched a bug bite on my shoulder. All I felt was the breath of a breeze tweaking my hair, and the solid earth below the mat of leaves I was lying on.