Mis-Spelled

by Stacey Alabaster

  I didn’t mean for the following to slip out quite so harshly as it did. “I noticed that you missed a few shots.” Bit of an understatement there. In fact, if Teddy had sunk even half as many of the goals as he had attempted, then the Swift Valley Rangers would have won by quite a lot. But nope. Eighty percent of his shots had bounced off the rim. The loss wasn’t totally on him, but a lot of the fans would be blaming him for the shocking defeat.

  He looked a little sheepish but not totally embarrassed. So he hadn’t taken too much offense at my comment, then, which surprised me a little—either this guy had no ego, or he was a total sociopath and just pretending to not be bothered by a woman insulting his skills on the court.

  Which meant he could easily be lying about having had a good night’s sleep the night before.

  “Just an off performance tonight, then?”

  He shrugged and said, “Well, center wasn’t always my position, you see. Still finding my feet a little—quite literally as well as metaphorically, when it comes to the court.”

  “How long have you been center for?” I asked him, glancing around to see if Vicky was on her way back. I could really have used the backup right then.

  For the first time, there was a hint of discomfort on Teddy’s face. I had finally hit some kind of nerve with him. He shrugged a little uneasily and looked at the floor before he spoke. “Only since Eamon left the team . . .”

  “You mean—ever since he died?” I asked.

  Teddy shook his head ever so slightly. “No. After the argument we had a month ago, he stormed off the court and said that he was never coming back. And to be honest, I never tried to make things up with him, because I benefited from him being angry at me. I got to take his place.”

  I frowned and tried to clarify. “So, Eamon was the original center player before you?”

  Teddy nodded and now looked incredibly sheepish. “I used to spend most of the game over there,” he said, pointing toward the bench. “But I always thought that if I could just get my chance out on the court, then I could show everyone what I was capable of. You know, make my kids proud of their dad.” He looked up at me. “My boys think it’s so cool that their dad gets to play for the Rangers now, even though he misses half the shots he takes.”

  Well, more than half the shots, but I didn’t point that out just then.

  So, Eamon was the one who had been getting in the way of Teddy making his kids proud of their daddy. I wondered if maybe Eamon had been threatening to come back to the team. Maybe Teddy had to ensure that his promotion from the bench to the court was a permanent one.

  “Teddy. Was there any chance you might have been going back to the bench?” I asked as gently as I could. That night’s performance certainly suggested it.

  He shrugged. “Without Eamon, I am the next best choice. But . . . I have to admit something to you, Ruby. Because you are special, and I trust you. I did purposely make things difficult for Eamon during his last few weeks. I told him that the others on the team didn’t want him back either, which wasn’t true. It’s not the sort of person I am deep down, and not the sort of example I want to set for my kids.” His face looked pained. “I regret it so much, Ruby. If I could take it all back and make it all up to Eamon, then I would.”

  But I wasn’t sure that I believed his sentiment.

  This was all starting to make a lot of sense. I told Vicky what he said as soon as I met her outside the stadium. She quickly put her phone down and listened, shivering in the air that was far too cold for this time of year.

  “Maybe he didn’t want Eamon ever coming back and taking his position,” I said as we reached the car in the parking lot. I was just glad to be out of the noisy stadium and into the fresh breeze, even if it did mean that I was one step closer to being back at home.

  Vicky didn’t totally buy that. “I dunno. He didn’t seem that invested in the game.”

  Yeah, but I was starting to think maybe that was just what he wanted us to think. I mean, could anyone really miss that many shots when they were a decent-enough player to at least make the bench? It didn’t make sense to me. It was almost like he had played badly on purpose. Something about that guy just wasn’t right—and it wasn’t just the fact that he’d had six kids by the age of thirty-one.

  We got to the car, and my hand froze as it hovered over the door handle. As though it wasn’t letting me enter the car, because the next stop was home. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go that time of night.

  Vicky was staring at me. “Are you going to unlock the car for us? It is freezing out here.”

  Maybe there was another reason I wasn’t telling Vicky what was on my mind. I was scared that if she found out, she would feel differently toward me. That she might not understand, or she might not think that I was a “real” witch anymore. Not a purebred like everyone in the coven had always thought, but more like some sort of mongrel breed who knew nothing about her heritage. I knew how funny some witches could be about that kind of thing. Elitist. It might even be why my mum had spent so long covering up the truth.

  Vicky got a notification from the Activate app and quickly opened it. A message from a super-keen admirer who wanted to know what she was up to right then and there. “Maybe a late-night date wouldn’t be such a bad idea . . .”

  “It’s ten-thirty. I can’t let you go this late. It won’t be safe,” I said, finally opening up the car door. I looked up at the moon and thought about Mum staring up at it while we were down by the lake. Was she staring at it now, wondering about me and what was going to happen to our relationship? Maybe she wasn’t my biological mother, but I had still inherited her love of the moon.

  Vicky was starting to get cranky. Arguing back that even though it was late, she could look after herself if she went out. I realized the real reason I didn’t want her to leave. I needed to tell my best friend the truth about me. She could take me or leave me, but I needed to tell her.

  And then I told her what had happened with my mum down by the lake.

  “Vicky. I’m afraid I’m not who you thought I was,” I said. “I’m not who I thought I was either.”

  8

  We were the only two people in the kitchen the following morning. Mum had tried not to use too much hot water and had instead used dry shampoo in her hair, which now resembled a bird’s nest. I knew that she was trying, but I barely even muttered a “hello” as I pushed past her to get to my cereal bowl.

  Mum was sitting at the kitchen table with what appeared to be some sort of photo album. I didn’t even know where she had pulled it from. This wasn’t the house that I had grown up in, and I didn’t think any of our stuff had survived the house fire when I was fifteen years old.

  Yet she was flipping through the pages, and I caught sight of myself in my purple school uniform, my brunette hair pulled into two pigtails. “What are you doing with that?” I asked gruffly as I poured my cornflakes into the bowl.

  “I thought you might want to see some photos of us when you were little,” she said with a tiny smile. “There are a lot of nice shots of you and I together . . . Look, here we are on a trip to Queensland. You are laughing here, sweetheart. We’d just been to visit the koalas, and you’d cuddled one and couldn’t stop grinning about it all the way back to the hotel.”

  I remembered the holiday—one of the few we had been on when I was growing up—but I didn’t want to look at the photos. I poured milk into my bowl and sat on the other end of the table, as far away from her as possible.

  Mum sighed sadly and closed the photo album, her head hanging. “Maybe later then. When you are feeling differently.”

  I felt a little bad. She was trying to make things better, I knew that—but it was too soon. And her pushing us to play happy family and take a trip down memory lane only made matters worse. I didn’t want to see any photos that reminded me of the fact that I was not her biological child. Reminded me of all the lies that she had told me over the years.

  I stood up to rinse my
bowl out so that I could leave for the day, but Mum called out after me before I could go.

  “I know I took too long to tell you the truth, Ruby. But isn’t it better to know now rather than not at all?”

  I shook my head. “You should have told me the truth when I was little . . . or never told me. I wish I had never found out!”

  I knew that I was acting like a spoilt teenager when I flounced out, slammed the side flywire door shut and stomped into the yard. I sat down petulantly on the concrete step and pulled my feet up under me. Didn’t my mum understand anything at all?

  Oh boy, I really was acting like I was fifteen years old.

  Vicky quietly came out the side door and sat down beside me, patting me on the shoulder while I cooled down. She had overheard some of the fight but wasn’t clear on any of the details.

  “It does sound like she is trying,” Vicky said.

  “Why are you taking her side?” I snapped back, not meaning to take my hurt out on Vicky or blame her for any of it. She was just the closest one, so she was getting the brunt of it at that moment. The person I was really angry at was . . . well, it wasn’t even Mum. The person I was really angry at was the woman who had left me.

  I glanced back over my shoulder to the inside of the house when I realized that. But Mum was no longer sitting at the kitchen table. It was empty in there. I couldn’t even hear her footsteps inside.

  “I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Vicky said as she leaned over to give me a hug. She was a good friend to forgive me when I snapped at her like that. “And if I had to be on anyone’s side, of course, I would choose yours. I’m just saying, Rubes—give you and your mum some time. And yourself as well, before you say anything too harsh that you might regret later on. Give it some space for you both to cool off. Your emotions are way too heated at the moment.”

  I nodded and took a deep breath. She was right.

  So far, Vicky had been handling the news incredibly well. Level-headed. Hadn’t overreacted when I’d told her the story, just nodded sagely and taken it all in. Even the news of my mother’s deception to the rest of the coven. And since then, she hadn’t treated me any differently or given me any strange looks, like she was trying to figure out who or what I was. I think that was what I had been most afraid of. Maybe because that was the way I had been looking at myself in the mirror recently.

  I just wondered if the rest of the coven would be as understanding as Vicky had been. She had promised not to say anything to any of the other witches yet, not until I was ready. I was protecting Mum as much as I was myself, really, as she was the one with the most to lose and the greater repercussions to face. She had managed to do such a good job of pretending all these years, faking her witchcraft, her abilities, her very bloodline. I wasn’t sure it was fair to give her secret away just yet, even though in a moment of anger, I had wanted to run straight to Geri and expose the lies once and for all.

  I was in the middle of an identity crisis. A real big bad one.

  “Does this mean that I am not a real witch?” I whispered to Vicky. “If I know nothing about my bloodline—how do I know that I’m even a witch at all?”

  “You’re a real witch,” Vicky said reassuringly. “We’ve seen proof of that.”

  But I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I was just cursed. Maybe me deciding to join the coven had been a big mistake. Suddenly, the reason I had never felt like I fit in with the rest of the Swift Valley Coven made perfect sense.

  “Vicky, I need to find her. I need to find my birth mother.”

  Vicky nodded. “Well, luckily, we are the most qualified two people in the world to find out who she is. We are witches. And we are detectives.”

  I nodded. It was time to combine the two.

  I dusted off the old book that had been sitting in my desk for months as though it was a book of ancient magic. But really, it was just the coursework from the PI class I had taken when I’d decided I wanted a career change. Eight months ago, I had been in a classroom with a rugged teacher called John who had taught me and the rest of my class everything we needed to know about being detectives. I’d been the best student in the class, diligently taking notes—and looking through my training manual just then, I could see all the notations and additions I’d scribbled down in the margins. As well as the A pluses circled in red pen.

  “Are you done bragging?” Vicky asked with a raised eyebrow as I showed her my perfect marks and attendance over the month-long course. “I thought we had a mother to find.”

  I may have gotten a little sidetracked.

  Tracking down long-lost relatives was a pretty common task for PIs to be given, and it took up a lot of pages in the training manual. John had spent almost a full week training us in the art of finding people who didn’t want to be found .However, in my six-month career as a private detective, I had yet to be given a job like this, strangely enough, and so the first missing persons case would be personal.

  “I feel like I’m hiring myself,” I said to Vicky, who was glancing out the window a little nervously. Pacing back and forward, preparing for her lunch date. We both thought that lunch dates would be a good way to ease back into the whole thing and take the pressure off a little. I’d told her there was no pressure to go through with any of the dates, and that she could bail at any time. “Remember, I’m always ready to make a phone call to say that there’s an emergency with Warren the turtle.”

  I may have been a good student, but that didn’t mean it was translating into actual ability to find a missing person. As a PI, I had subscription services to the most detailed databases—in theory, it was possible to track anyone as long as you had a few identifying details to plug in. Thanks to things such as credit applications, real estate leases, defaults on bills, and signing up for new phone plans, no one was able to stay hidden or anonymous for long.

  I was sitting with my hands hovering above my computer keyboard, trying to come up with one detail I could plug in to the search bar. “Would be great if I knew this woman’s name,” I said with a sigh as I slumped back into my chair. “Maybe I could ring around the adoption agencies and find out . . . of course, I don’t know which adoption agency she got me from, so I will need to find that out first.” I felt like I was going around and around in circles. I rubbed my temples and sighed.

  “You know, you could just ask your mum for some of these details . . .”

  I mean, I guess. But I was stubbornly refusing to ask her anything. Instead, I leaned forward and tried to pull up birth and death records from the day that I was born. I scratched my head. No matches for any baby who fit my description. I was determined that I could crack this case on my own, but in the end, Vicky was right. I shut my laptop with a bit of a bang. She needed to leave on her date. We had next to nothing to go on as far as tracing my birth mother went.

  Even though we were a) witches and thus knew how they operated, and b) detectives and thus had access to personal details about half the population, we still needed that first clue to set the wheels in motion.

  And so I went to ask my mum.

  Mum was just happy that I was speaking to her again, even though there was a slight look of apprehension in her eyes after I told her I wanted to know all the details about how she had come to be my mother. “I can tell you whatever you need to know, sweetheart,” she said, and I could tell from the look in her eyes that all she wanted to do was make things right between us. She was willing to tell me just about anything if it would help. But what she told me was a story I had never expected to hear.

  I settled down in the sofa chair across from her. It had gotten so cold that we’d had to light the wood fire. It crackled beside us, and I felt the heat burn the left side of my face, as I’d gotten a little too close to it.

  I spoke first. “So. Were you unable to have kids of your own? Biologically, I mean.”

  Mum wasn’t that much older than me—twenty-two years older—so I was surprised to even think that by that age, she would have already given
up on the idea of having children of her own. But it seemed like the obvious place to start. I frowned, though, as I waited for her answer. Twenty-two years old was also pretty young for an adoption agency to give a baby to—especially a single mother, which my mum had been all my life. I supposed with the shock of the news, it hadn’t hit me until then how strange some of the details were.

  Mum shifted around uncomfortably in her seat. “Well, no. As far as I knew, I never would have had any trouble conceiving . . .” She looked a little nervous as she pulled at the skirt of her dress and twisted it in her fingers. “To tell you the truth, sweetheart, I never really wanted kids at all.”

  I leaned away from the fire. Blinked a few times. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you adopt me if you never wanted to have children?”

  Mum bit her lip and stared into the fire. “Well, it was sort of . . . forced upon me, I suppose you could say.” She quickly turned her face back toward me as though to clarify. “Oh, but that doesn’t mean I regret anything about what happened, Ruby. Maybe it wasn’t what I was planning, but from the first time I saw you, I knew that I had to protect you. I knew that you were special.”

  I shook my head, feeling dazed, because none of this was making any sense to me. “What is this first time that you are talking about, Mum?” I asked her. “You mean the first time that you saw me at the adoption agency?”

  “Oh, no, Ruby. I thought you understood that by now. There was no adoption agency.”

  “What? Then how did you end up adopting me?”

  She shrugged a little and stared into the fire again. We both heard the banging of the front door to let us know that Vicky was home, and I could see that Mum was about to use that as an excuse to leap up and suggest that we finish this conversation at another time. “Mum. No, we are finishing this now,” I said, staring at her until I was sure that she wasn’t going to try and get up. “How did you adopt me?”