“You’re not getting enough sleep.”
She looked like she was fit to spit herself. “It’s not sleep I need,” she snapped.
Creation is an act of defiance. Whose, it’s hard to say. Unwanted pregnancies happen all the time, and if you’ve the mind, you can end ’em. But Maggie’s a special case. I’ve known it for a while. My grandmother told me, before she passed away.
Maggie moved in two houses down the street, and let her grass go to seed the first summer, which is high on the list of mortal sins as far as my Gran was concerned. But there are worse sins—barely—and she sent me along to check things out.
Turns out Maggie, being single, was in that constant state of exhaustion that also comes with being newly parental, and, as she put it, either the grass went or she did. Given that Maggie has eyes to die for (and a temper to die by), I thought it was a fair trade, and after introducing myself, I trudged on back to Gran’s place. And then trudged back to Maggie’s with a lawn-mower. I’m not that fond of gardening, in case I hadn’t made that clear, but there are forces of nature you just don’t ignore, and Gran had decided that this particular woman needed some help.
After I added a new layer of burn to the upper side of my arms and face, I asked my Gran why she was so interested in Maggie. And the old woman gave me The Look—oddly enough, it’s pretty much the same as Maggie’s—and then launched into a bunch of stuff that made me wish I hadn’t asked.
“Mark my words,” she said, after saying a whole lot of them, “Maggie is special. She’s the mother.”
“The mother?”
“The mother.”
Given that we live in a neighbourhood which is more or less over-run with kids of all ages, colours and volumes, this struck me as a tad woo-woo, even for Gran.
“Gran,” I said, sitting down on the porch steps so she could comfortably tower over me, “what’s so special about this mother?”
“She,” Gran answered, with a sigh that indicated she didn’t think much of my intellectual faculties, “doesn’t have much choice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gran shook her grey head, and her face wrinkled as she pursed her lips. “You think about it,” she told me. “You’re not always going to be this carefree. You have to know things.”
That one caught me short. “Gran?”
“That’s right,” she said, pushing herself up out of her chair. “I won’t be here forever, and when I’m gone, no one’s going to do your thinking for you.”
I remember thinking, at the time, that that would be a bit of a relief.
Asking Gran a question always involves a certain amount of humiliation, because to her, they all seem stupid. It’s like she reads answers that are written across your forehead, only you’re illiterate, even when she gives you the mirror. She’d spent the day working in the herb garden, and smelled of crushed bay leaves and smoke. But that aside, she was on her throne, and waiting with less patience than she usually did.
I used to think of the pipe she smoked as an affectation, a way of making her seem even more weird than she already was. I was younger then. Not even my memory can encompass that fact that she must have been younger as well; she never seemed to change. Even her clothing seemed to weather the passing of fad and style.
“All right, Gran,” I told her, taking my seat on the stair, “I’ve been thinking.”
“And?”
“I’m stupid.”
She snorted, smoke coming out of her nostrils as if she were a wizened dragon. The ritual of emptying her pipe stilled her voice for a few minutes, which was its own kind of mercy. I don’t smoke pipes, but I have a fondness for them anyway, probably because of her.
“I’ve talked to Maggie,” I told her. I didn’t tell her how much I’d been talking to Maggie; it wasn’t her business.
But her eyes narrowed. “So what.”
“She’s not that fond of men at the moment, but it seems like she has a reason.”
Gran snorted. “That’s it?”
I shrugged. “She’s got two kids.”
“A boy and a girl.”
“Pretty much.”
“And a cat.”
I’m not a cat person. “And a cat.”
“Good. And?”
“A messy house. A better lawn. A job she hates just a little bit less than she’d hate welfare.”
Gran inhaled. Exhaled. Frowned. “You’re right,” she said, spitting to the side. “You’re stupid.”
“I said that, didn’t I?”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t.”
My turn to shrug. “So what about her makes her the mother?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t exactly ask.”
“But she didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
Tobacco ashes flew as she gestured. It was a pretty rude gesture for an old lady, and I dodged a few stray embers. “And you couldn’t tell.”
“Obviously.”
She grabbed her cane, and I thought she might hit me with it. But she didn’t. “Then maybe she doesn’t know,” she said. Using it, for a moment, to stand. It was the first time in my life I thought she looked old, and I didn’t like it. “She’s the mother,” she said quietly, “because she was born to be the mother. It’s a responsibility,” she added, with a trace of sarcasm. “And a duty.”
“Well, she’s certainly had the kids.”
“She had to. You ask her who the fathers were?”
“I got the impression she wasn’t going to say.”
“She can’t.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t know.” Not exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from your grandmother—at least not in that tone of voice. Tired voice, not judgmental. “She might think she does. She’d be wrong. If she’d never touched a man, she’d still have had those kids.”
“She did say something about birth control. No, I’m not going to repeat it.”
“She’s angry about the kids?”
I shrugged. “She’s angry about being alone with them, if I had to guess.”
“Don’t guess. It makes you sound—”
“Stupid. Yeah, I know.” I chose the next words with care. She was still gripping the cane. “How did you know?”
“That’s probably the first smart question you’ve asked all day.”
Given that the rest of them had to do with lawn care, a thing she generally despised, this wasn’t hard. “Does that mean you’ll give me an answer?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
I waited her out. Have I mentioned she loved to talk?
“I’m the crone,” she said at last.
“And that makes me the maiden?” I couldn’t keep the bitter sarcasm out of my voice.
“You?” Neither could she.
Having retreated back into the realm of idiocy, I waited, cheeks burning some. “I guess that’s a no.”
“Big damn no. You think I’ve taught you how to tend a garden all these years for nothing?”
No, because you’re a sadist. Smart me, I didn’t say it out loud. She rapped my knuckles anyway.
“I’m getting old,” she continued.
I didn’t point out that she’d always been old.
“And I’m getting tired.” She sat down again. “And the damn pipe keeps going out.”
“Gran—”
“There was another mother,” she said at last. “And the maiden, which is definitively not you, so get that thought out of your head.”
It wasn’t in my head any more. “Another mother?”
“The mother,” she told me quietly.
“What happened to her?” Because it was pretty clear that something had.
“She died.”
Thanks, Gran. Guessed that. “When?”
“When I was younger.”
“You weren’t the crone then?”
“Damn well was.”
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “War,�
� she said at last, her eyes gone to blue. “She lost her son.”
“Lost him?”
“He died.”
“And she couldn’t have another one?”
“No.”
I frowned. “The kids are special, too?”
“The children are the mother’s. They define her. She always has two.”
“How did he die?”
“I told you. Pay attention. There was a war. He was in it. He didn’t come back.”
“And she died?”
Gran nodded quietly.
“Her daughter?”
And shrugged. “Her daughter buried her mother.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Then what—”
“It’s been a long time,” Gran continued, “since there was another mother.” She got up again. “Better that I talk to her, since you’re so useless.”
“Gran, Maggie’s—”
She rapped the porch with the cane tip. “You going to get out of my way, or am I going to have to go through you?”
I got out of her way, and trailed after her like a shadow. I liked Maggie. I didn’t want to subject her to my grandmother without offering a little cowardly moral support.
Gran snorted at the grass. Emptied her pipe on it and shoved said pipe into her apron pocket. Then she marched up the walk, which was short, and knocked on the door with her cane. It opened. No one was behind it. I hate it when Gran does that. Then again, I hate it when she does anything that defies rational explanation.
She walked into the small vestibule. It was littered with the debris of two children; coats, boots, shoes, a smattering of dishevelled and empty clothing, a dirty stroller. “Margaret?” she shouted, standing in the center of the mess as if she owned it.
Maggie came out of the kitchen, frowning. Connell was on her hip. She saw me, and the frown sort of froze.
“This is my Gran,” I told her.
And lifted. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, extending a hand. Her left hand; her right hand was full of baby, and she had nowhere to put him down. Mags is pretty practical.
Gran took it in that iron grip of hers, but instead of shaking it, she turned it up to the light, as if to inspect it. The frown that Maggie had surrendered, Gran picked up. “This won’t do,” the old woman said, in as stern a voice as she used on the racoon who had the temerity to inspect her garden.
“What?”
“What’s this ring?”
“Detritus.”
“Good. Take it off.”
Maggie shot me an ‘is she sane?’ look. I shrugged.
“It’s a wedding ring,” Maggie told Gran.
“I know what it is. Why on earth are you wearing it?”
Maggie shrugged. I knew the shrug. It was nine tenths bitterness and one tenth pain, and I personally preferred the former.
“You aren’t the wife,” Gran said, in her most imperious voice. “You’re the mother.”
“Funny, that’s what my ex said.”
Gran ignored her. “This is the boy?” she asked. I started to say something smart, and thought better of it. At his age, it was hard to tell.
“This is my son, yes.”
“And the girl?”
The ‘is she sane’ look grew a level in intensity. “My daughter is in the backyard digging her way to China.”
Gran nodded, as if the answer made sense. Given that she’d raised me, it probably did.
“Well, he looks healthy enough.” She pushed past Maggie, and Maggie looked at me. I shrugged. Gran made her way to the sliding doors of the kitchen and took a look out. “So does she.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Give me the ring,” Gran said.
“Yes she’s sane.” I added. “Mostly.” I held out my arms for Connell, and Maggie slowly handed him to me. He was pretty substantial, and he was squirming, but he wasn’t angry. Yet. Hands empty, she looked at my Gran, and then looked past her to me. She took off the wedding ring slowly, twisting it around her finger as she did.
Her expression made it clear that she was humouring the old lady for my sake, and I’d owe her. Given that I took care of her lawn, I figured we were even. Stupid me.
Gran took the ring and held it up to the kitchen light. Snorted, moved toward the sliding glass doors, and held it out to sunlight instead. She swore a lot. Closed her fingers around the ring, as if exposing it to light at all was a sin.
“What’s wrong with the ring?” I asked.
She opened her fist.
And I saw it up close, for the first time. It looked different than it had when it had been a flash of gold on Maggie’s finger. It was bumpy, but gleaming, more ivory than golden, and its pattern was a twisted braid.
“Not a braid,” the old woman said, pursing her lips coolly. “A spiral.”
“A . . . spiral?”
“This was fashioned,” she continued coldly, “from a Unicorn horn.”
Maggie stared at us both as if we were insane. But she didn’t immediately reach out and grab Connell, so insanity of our kind wasn’t immediately dangerous.
“It’s a binding,” Gran continued quietly. “And part of a binding spell. I’ll take it to study, if you don’t mind.” It was like a request, but without the request part. She marched out of the kitchen, ring once again enclosed in her leathered fist.
When she’d also slammed the front door behind her, I looked at Mags. “Sorry,” I said.
“That’s lame,” she replied. But she rubbed her finger thoughtfully, looking at the white band of skin that had lain beneath the ring for years. “She’s a strange old woman,” she added.
“Tell me about it.”
After the loss of the ring, things changed with Maggie. I didn’t notice it all that much at first, which gave Gran several opportunities to wax eloquent about my intelligence. But shedding the ring, she seemed to shed some of her helpless, bitter anger. She wasn’t as constantly tired. She even helped with the yardwork, although it took much longer with her help than without it, because Connell could crawl into everything, and Shanna insisted on helping too.
Connell discovered that dirt melted when you put it in your mouth. He wasn’t impressed. Maggie picked him up with affectionate disdain, helped him clean out his mouth, and put him down again; he was already off on another spree of discovery.
She became happier, I think. Stronger.
And then, one day, when the Winter had come and everything was that white brown that snow in a city is, she invited my grandmother over. I came as well.
We sat down in the kitchen—all meetings of import were to be held there—around a pot of dark tea. Too bitter for me, it seemed perfect for Gran. Maggie herself hardly touched it.
She said, “I know I’m biased,” which was usually the signal for some commentary about her children, “but sometimes it seems to me that my children are the most important thing in the world.”
“It seems that way to all mothers,” I said. “About their own children.”
But Gran simply nodded. Quietly, even.
“Was that ring really made from a Unicorn’s horn?”
“What do you think?”
She shrugged. “I think that once I was willing to let it go, I was happier. But there are a lot of men—and women—who could make money telling me that.”
Gran nodded. “Too much money, if you ask me.” Which, of course, no one had. Before she could get rolling, Maggie continued. She chose all her words carefully, and she didn’t usually trouble herself that way.
“I feel,” she continued softly, “as if, by protecting them and raising them, I’m somehow . . . preserving the future.”
Again, not uncommon. But something about Mags was, so I didn’t point it out.
“That I’m somehow helping other mothers, other sons, other daughters.”
Gran nodded broadly, and even smiled.
“Which makes no sense to me,” Maggie continued, dousing the smile befo
re it had really started to take hold, “because it isn’t as if other mothers aren’t doing the same. Protecting the future.” Smart girl, Mags. “And it isn’t,” she added, with just a hint of bitterness, “as if other children aren’t dying as we sit here drinking tea.”
“We aren’t the arbiters of death,” Gran said quietly.
“What in the hell are we?”
“You’re the mother,” Gran replied. “I’m the crone.”
“And the crone is?”
“Knowledge. Experience. Wisdom, which usually follows. Not always,” she added, sparing a casual glare for me.
“You said I was the mother.”
“You are.”
“For how long?”
“Good girl!”
Gran can be embarrassing at times.
“Who was the mother before me?”
The old woman’s eyes darkened. “You’re the first one in a long time.”
“Why?”
She spit to the side. “If I had to guess,” she said, with just a trace of fury, “I’d say those damn Unicorns have been up to no good. Again.”
“You mean there were other mothers?”
“Like you, but not as strong. I should have known,” she added. There is nothing worse than Gran when she’s feeling guilty.
“What happened to the last one?”
“She failed.”
“How?”
“Her son died.”
Maggie closed her eyes.
“Wasn’t her fault,” Gran added. “But it doesn’t matter. Her son died, and she died as well. Left a daughter. It should have passed on, then.”
“It’s like a public office?”
Gran shrugged. “Sort of. It should have passed on. Maybe it did. I’m not as sharp as I used to be.”
“But you’re older. Isn’t wisdom—”
“Shut up.” She lifted her cup, drained it, and thunked it back down on the table top. “Even the old get tired. Especially the old.” She hesitated for just a moment.
I didn’t like the sound of the silence.
“I’m better at hiding than I used to be,” she finally said. “And I never answered your question.”
“Hiding? From what?”
“You’ll find out, girl. And that’s a different question. You’re the mother until your children are old enough to have children of their own.”
The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told Page 39
