Wildcat Fireflies

by Amber Kizer

  Between Tens and me, Custos’s loyalty was clear. She liked me. A lot. But she stuck to Tens like corn syrup.

  “Weird.” I’d never seen her behave with anything other than the utmost deference to Tens. It wasn’t like I didn’t know she was capable of being scary and physical—we hadn’t met in the best of circumstances. I would forever chill thinking about her howl and growl in the Colorado snow.

  “Her hackles rose and she barked at something behind me.”

  Nocti? Perimo? I hated that my first thoughts went to the big, bad evil rather than a squirrel or an unlatched window shutter.

  Custos wandered over and licked my hand, carefully getting every corn bread crumb and speck of honey off my fingers.

  “Go on,” I prompted Tens. “What was it?”

  He dished up seconds, continuing to eat between explanations. “In the low light, I saw a wrought iron fence and the shadow of an estate in the distance.”

  “What was she barking at? Was there a person?”

  “I didn’t see anything. No one. Not right away. And then”—he leaned forward like he was going to deliver a punch line—“she wagged her tail and what looked like a huge raccoon ran by, up a tree.”

  “A raccoon?” I snorted, grasping Custos’s face and kissing her nose. “Custos is scared of a wittle, itty-bitty raccoon?”

  Tens stopped me. “Worse. I thought it was a coon, but turned out it was a long-haired cat. Huge cat.” He smiled.

  I clucked my tongue. “She chased a cat like a regular dog?” If she had, that would be the only quasi-normal thing about her.

  Tens scratched Custos’s butt while I rubbed her ears. She moaned and whined in ecstasy. It was nice to be good for something. “That’s the oddity, that’s when she relaxed.”

  “Course she did.” I take it all back. Our Custos never does anything normal.

  Tens finished eating and carried our dishes to the sink. He ran new soapy water, grabbed a clean dishcloth, and stared out into the night. “I want to take you there, see what you think. I don’t know what to make of the place.” When he turned to me, the furrow was back between his eyes.

  “You’re worried.”

  “A little. But there’s more.” He said it as if he knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next.

  “More?” I braced. What earthquake is coming now?

  He paused, deliberating.

  “Spit it out.” I walked over and faced him. “Just say it.”

  “I had a conversation with Joi while you slept this evening.”

  “Okay?” Not the worst thing I imagined.

  His expression turned apologetic, then defiant. “I know you hate it when I know things, but I can’t help it. I can’t turn it off. I wish I could. But even she noticed.”

  The rest of this conversation was not going to be pleasant. I agreed with everything I knew he’d say and it pissed me off. I hated my physical weakness. I’d gained so much strength since my birthday, but I wanted more.

  He softened his tone. “You’re not ready to work a full day. I can feel how torn you are about finding the other Fenestras, and at the same time wanting a life that’s normal, or at least has the regular parts, but I don’t think—”

  “I’ve made a lot of progress.” I felt like I needed to point out that I was better. Taller. Stronger. No longer in constant pain, no longer bruised unexpectedly, or too ill to eat.

  He held my shoulders and gazed into my eyes with the sincerity of wisdom. “That’s true, but it’s not going to happen overnight, Merry.”

  I hated knowing he was right. My rebellion was directed firmly at the powers bigger than Tens and clearly more all-knowing than me. “I know—I took a vacation today into the ordinary and I liked it, but I know.”

  He stepped back, but didn’t break his hold. “What do you mean, you know?”

  I leaned my forehead against his heart. “We can’t waste time playing at having jobs and making friends and forgetting.”

  He growled, “I’m not talking about forgetting.”

  “No, but I am. It’s tempting. So tempting.” Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. “I thought as soon as I learned my powers, got my mojo, that I’d be healed and whole and ready for anything. That we could date, and have fun, and save the world while being teenagers.” I envied the teenagers in movies who had friends, went to school, and worried about college, prom. I would never be that. Have that.

  “But you’re not ready to juggle all that.” Tens held me.

  “Not yet.”

  Tens smoothed my neck and traced circles along my spine. “Joi’s going to rent us the cottage as long as we need it.”

  “No work?” I glanced up at him.

  “We can work whatever hours we want to. She’ll keep a list or we can come find her and she’ll tell us what needs to be done at the moment. She also asked about your health.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I lied. I told her we were looking for your family for medical reasons. You were adopted and now you’re on the hunt for your genetic match.”

  “That’s a big lie.” I blew out a breath of regret.

  “I couldn’t really tell her the truth, could I?” Sadness tightened his mouth.

  “I hate having to lie.” Really, really, abysmally hate.

  “Me too. Maybe someday we won’t have to.” His tone was dubious.

  “Tomorrow we hunt again for the cat, the girl?” Will I feel something? Will an alarm go off in my head, or will I see flashing lights in the presence of another of me? Will there be an apparent kinship? I feared walking right by her and not knowing her until too late. I tried to remember if I’d recognized Auntie immediately and I simply couldn’t untangle the threads of all of it. The whole trip to her, of learning the truth about myself, was so foreign I hadn’t been looking. “Yeah, vacation over. I’ll check in the journal and see if there’s anything about how to spot another one of us,” I said.

  “Only you would consider working a vacation.” Tens kissed me until my regret faded.

  Last night I slept in a church. It was the first time I’d felt safe in forever. Dear baby, what will I do with you?

  —R.

  CHAPTER 9

  Juliet

  The social worker, Ms. Asura, was due to stop by DG today for her twice-a-month check-in. Recently, she’d been coming more frequently, but never unannounced.

  Nicole grabbed my hand tightly and dragged me into the pantry. “I don’t trust her. You shouldn’t either.” Tension pinched her cheeks and drove the color from her complexion.

  I shook my head in confusion. “Why? She’s nice. Just because there isn’t anything she can do to help us—”

  “She doesn’t try to help, Juliet. She’s never tried. She doesn’t want to know.”

  “You don’t know that; you haven’t been here that long.” I’d never seen Nicole so worked up.

  “Long enough. But it’s more than that. There’s something really wrong going on.”

  I paused. “What do you mean?”

  “We shouldn’t all have the same social worker.”

  “I don’t know that. How do you know that?” Who says? Who cares? Whose rule?

  “It’s not the way the system works. But if that isn’t enough, we should be in school, being kids. This is slave labor. You’re a prisoner. You should be thinking about what you want to be when you grow up, not how you’re going to get Sema fully potty-trained before you turn sixteen.”

  I stopped being a kid a long time ago. “We’re homeschooled.” I wished I believed that. I’d started parroting too well.

  “When exactly? Because I’ve never seen a textbook or done homework or taken a test.”

  I sighed. “I’m taking my GED later. That’s the way it works.”

  “By choice?” Nicole shook her head at me. She gripped my fingers like a vise.

  We both knew I hadn’t gone to real school. School here was bookless. Kirian taught me to read. Another teen I couldn’t picture
taught me the birds and the bees and what to do when I got my period. The elderly guests who could talk, even briefly, gave me other lessons. History. Art. How to sew buttons. How to cure the stomach flu. Decades of life bestowed an expertise they shared gratefully, one that I would never get sitting in a high school classroom.

  Nicole held eye contact with me. “Ms. Asura is not a good person. She turns a blind eye. She likes this place. She doesn’t help.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked, defeated in all the ways that counted. When did I give up fighting for us, for myself? I barely recognized my own soul.

  Nicole didn’t answer, simply stared at me with an expression that spoke for her. What can anyone do? There is nothing anyone can do.

  “It could be worse. There are families that abuse the kids. We could be on the streets or we could—”

  Nicole stopped me with the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “Just be careful. Please? How can she not know what’s going on here? Think about it.” Nicole hadn’t been here long enough to begin the process of acceptance. First there was denial, and anger, and frantic attempts to escape, then resolve and acceptance. I was already past acceptance, to the void of oblivion.

  Ms. Asura called and spoke with Mistress before bringing new kids. They removed kids at night. The one time I asked about that, Ms. Asura said nighttime was easier on the human psyche for change. Really? It made the rest of us cry rather than sleep. How easy was that?

  I stopped trying to tell Ms. Asura about the kids, about the realities of DG, years ago. I’d long since understood I was on my own. I handled the retribution. But the littlies, the Bodies and Semas of this world, needed someone to stand up for them. Maybe I can try again? To show Nicole the only evils in our world are Mistress and luck.

  We each received ten minutes with Ms. Asura, no first name. I knew nothing about her life. I tried to get to know her when I was younger, but she deflected questions deftly until I stopped asking them. She was the indeterminate age of adult. Her fingers were covered in blingy rings, and bracelets jangled with her every movement, echoing the intricate silver earrings touching her shoulders. Her clothes changed, but her jewelry remained static. Her hair, blackened by dye, was harsh against her pale skin, but gave her an authority I envied. Her cheekbones and nose were perfectly symmetrical, too perfect, and her makeup immaculately applied and maintained. I used to think she looked like a movie star playing at being a social worker. I didn’t waste energy on wondering about that, about anything, anymore.

  “Hi, honey. How are you?” She put her notebook down and embraced me like she’d missed me. I want to believe she does. A cloud of subtle perfume enveloped me with her arms and made the back of my throat close and itch. She held on to me past the moment when I wanted to break away, almost tightening her hold as if she knew to cinch me more.

  “Sorry.” She laughed off the hug. “I’ve just missed you so much. We should go shopping. Just us girls.”

  This wasn’t the first time she’d promised me an outing. I didn’t answer.

  “Tell me everything. How are you?”

  I perched on the edge of the sofa. “I’m fine.”

  “How are you really, Juliet? I’m on your side, remember?”

  I nodded. “I’m …” I searched for the right word, the word I think she wanted to hear. “Good?”

  She relaxed with a sigh of delight. As if any other answer was unacceptable. “And are you doing okay in your studies? With your duties here?”

  “Um, those are good too, I guess.” Studies? What time do I have to study? What subjects? How to clean grout and old people’s poop? How to cook for kids on a budget designed to slop one pig a couple of times a week? How to do laundry in a machine that’s outdated and never quite spins all the water out of the clothes? How to survive on three hours of sleep, five if I’m lucky? These were the lessons I’d learned. And learned well.

  She tapped her pen, ever ready to take a note, though she never did. “Are you prepared for the GED? It’ll be very important when you turn eighteen to be able to get a job. Your headmistress will write you a recommendation, I’m sure, although she did mention to me that you’re resistant to do what she asks. I hate hearing that you’re not living up to your end of the deal, Juliet. It disappoints me.” She pouted.

  I stuttered an apology without knowing why, or what I had to be sorry about.

  “I simply need you to try your best, right? Like we’ve talked about before?”

  I nodded.

  “Now that the not-fun part is out of the way, is there anything you’d like to talk about?” She reached out and patted my leg, my arm. I imagined a mother looking at her child like this—interested, alert, hopeful.

  I bit my lip and picked at my hands. Do I try? Do I say something? Can she really help? “Well, Bodie is having a hard time adjusting. I’m worried about him.”

  She frowned, leaned in toward me. “What specifically should I know? Is he getting sick, or wetting the bed, or starting fires?”

  I blanched. Starting fires wasn’t what I was thinking about, though kids who did that came through here too.

  “No, none of that.” I never mentioned the bed-wetting of any kid. I laundered the sheets, so why did anyone else need to know? “But he’s scared, alone … I think Mistress might be … too … hard on him.”

  She reached into her briefcase and extracted a wad of forms. “Let me dig out the correct form for a report.”

  I swallowed. Panic clawed at my throat.

  She paused and considered my expression with a serious one of her own. “You need to know, I’m obligated to write down any concerns you have and share them with your foster care guardian. I also have to put a copy in both your and Bodie’s files. The thicker the file, the more difficult to get placed in a family; people don’t want children who create problems and controversy. They want malleable, dutiful, cute kids.” She paused, letting her words sink deep. “So I want you to be very careful about what you say to me. Make sure it’s the truth.”

  Her message was clear—continue with the report and life gets more challenging, or let it go and suck it up. I wasn’t getting a family. But Bodie might. Can Nicole and I shelter him more? Can we create a better buffer against Mistress? We had to try. Reporting wasn’t an option. “You’d have to tell Mistress?”

  “If you’re telling me he’s abused, then yes, I do.” She appeared saddened but still primed to take my statement. The paperwork was more important to her than the abuse. “Of course even if you can prove it, investigations take time. When’s your birthday?”

  A tickle behind my ear made me look up, above Ms. Asura’s head, to the back corner of the room. High upon a bookcase full of glass vases and porcelain figurines, Mini flicked her tail. She hissed at the back of Ms. Asura’s head, but the social worker didn’t hear her. Mini seemed to shake her head, warning me to be quiet. I needed more sleep.

  “I didn’t say abused.” The room spun. Bodie would be belted, or worse, for crying to me. I wouldn’t escape punishment either. I backpedaled. “There’s nothing specific, I—”

  She sighed, aggrieved. “I need to know exactly what is going on, if I’m going to protect you. Juliet, I need you to be brave and tell me. Bodie is a handful. Are you sure he’s not just getting a little tough love?”

  I nodded, taking the direction. “She made him clean the bathrooms.”

  “Oh, well.” Ms. Asura put the forms back into her briefcase and shared a brief frowny smile with me. “Juliet, you know that discipline is completely up to the guardians. Even if we don’t agree, cleaning the bathrooms is not abuse.”

  It is when he doesn’t get to eat and is told to use a toothbrush and his own spit. I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. It wasn’t worth it to argue.

  “Juliet, have you noticed anything else? Last time I was here you mentioned finding dead rodents and lots of insects. Any more of those? Did the traps work?”

  Rats, mice, butterflies, and moths floated and drifted
into corners like dust bunnies. The animals seemed to die in places I spent a lot of time, like the kitchen, laundry room, and attic. The bugs seemed to come into the house to die wherever they could.

  After Mistress heard of my complaint to Ms. Asura, she had made me cook and serve a rat to the kids. Now Nicole swept the tailed and winged corpses up and away as quickly as they settled in.

  Mini flicked her tail again, drawing my attention back to her.

  “No, that’s better,” I lied. We’d found a beaver and a couple of stray cats by the back door last week.

  “Oh, good!” Ms. Asura clapped her hands. “See, when you tell me things I can help change them. We’re a good team. Juliet, I want you to be able to tell me anything. I’m on your side.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  I nodded, forcing my lips up. I think she believed that she was helping. I hoped Nicole was wrong. “I know.” I lifted my eyes to the bookcase.

  “What do you keep looking at?” Ms. Asura turned around in her chair to follow my gaze.

  My breath caught, but Mini had disappeared.

  “Just a fly.” Lying. I hate lying.

  “And you’re feeling all right? More headaches? Dizzy spells? Cramps or nausea?”

  “Nope. I’m good.”

  “Great. I just think you’re doing so well, sweetie. You’ll do fine out in the world and that’s all we can hope for. You call me anytime, though, if you need to talk to me, okay? Anytime.”

  I wouldn’t call. I didn’t have her phone number. I’d never had it. I would have had to ask Mistress for it.

  “Okay, I’ll see you in a few weeks. Why don’t you send George and Matilda in, okay? I’m taking them and the twins with me today to place with a lovely family. Oh, before I forget, Kirian sent you a new postcard from Venice. Where did I put that?” She dug around in the pockets of her case and finally extracted a beat-up postcard showing a boat and the canals of Venice.