Trickster Drift

by Eden Robinson

  Sarah wandered into the bedroom, holding a plate of shepherd’s pie. She hopped on the desk and munched away, staring at her plate. The fireflies circled above her, slow and quiet.

  “This is Gran’s recipe,” Sarah said with a full mouth.

  “She taught me a lot about cooking.”

  Sarah took another forkful, studying the room. She was close enough to touch. At the same time, the weird-ass jumpsuit was causing snarky remarks to bubble up in his head. He knew if he said any of them, she’d mock his Normcore clothes and his unblinking adherence to the great god of sobriety clubs.

  “Your mom sounded wrecked,” he said. “But I don’t know her.”

  “You really don’t.”

  “You can stay here if you want.”

  Sarah stopped chewing and studied him.

  “As friends,” Jared said. “Strictly friends.”

  “I’m thinking of hitchhiking up to see Gran.”

  “I have money under my mattress,” Jared said. “Take it. Fly up. Bus up. Don’t hitch, please.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “I don’t want you dead.”

  She hopped off the desk and stood beside him again. She seemed near tears again.

  “Are you okay?” Jared said.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “How I screwed up? Again?”

  “We all screw up. We’re human,” Jared said, thinking that he should tell Sarah about Lex, but then, they weren’t even together.

  “He said we could put a love spell on you. You’d be helpless and would teach me anything I wanted.” She sighed and stared up at the ceiling. The fireflies said nothing now, spinning sluggishly.

  “I assume you didn’t?” Jared said.

  “It was kind of rape-y. So I couldn’t finish it. Probably wouldn’t have worked ’cause I don’t have any juice.”

  “I’ve never stopped loving you,” Jared said. “That was never the problem.”

  Sarah’s lip curled and she gave him the side-eye she always gave him when she thought he was getting too emo. Some things didn’t change. She could try to put love spells on someone but couldn’t talk about love itself because that was emotionally controlling or some bullshit.

  Jared sighed. “Mom put heavy-duty warding on me. The second you finished the spell, you would have activated it.”

  “I wish your mom liked me,” Sarah said. “You know, enough to teach me some stuff.”

  His mom wasn’t going to waste her time babysitting Sarah through her first spells. Mostly because she found Sarah annoying.

  Jared lifted his bare foot. “See the missing toe?”

  Sarah looked down.

  “That’s what happens when you don’t have a lot of power and you mess with magic. You get eaten alive. Or your fireflies get eaten alive.”

  “You’re such an ass,” Sarah said.

  “I like breathing, so I’m not going anywhere near magic. The end.”

  “Can you still see them?” She looked up to the ceiling.

  “Yes.”

  “Are they saying anything?”

  “No.”

  “Why you?” Sarah said. “Why not me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She reached into her pocket and scrolled through her phone. “There’s a seven-thirty flight. It’s pretty pricey.”

  “Take the money,” Jared said. “I have more in the bank.”

  “Sometimes I think I love you. Part of me does. The rest of me wants to push you off a building.”

  “Ha. I knew this was really about the fireflies.”

  “Such an ass,” Sarah muttered.

  “I didn’t ask to see them.”

  “Okay, Epic-y McDenial, let’s pretend you didn’t just save my fireflies from whatever the hell was eating them. Let’s say you’re just a normal Joe Blow. How do you explain your bedroom?”

  “What about it?”

  “The cave of creep?” She looked around. “Yeah, totally normal. Jesus, Jared. I have goosebumps being here. Something’s in this apartment. It’s close. It’s dangerous.”

  “It’s a ghost,” Jared said. “He’s okay. Kind of a TV hog, but he’s fine.”

  Dent called out from the recliner: “She’s talking about the thing in the wall, you moron.”

  “Jared,” Sarah said. “How can you be so clueless?”

  He decided to switch the topic. “What’s your mom going to say when you show?”

  Sarah said, “I’m hoping having family around will stop her from making a scene. As long as she can pawn me off on someone else, we’re golden.”

  “Testify,” Jared said.

  “Don’t make this about you,” Sarah said.

  Mave lent them her bug and he drove Sarah to the airport. They waited in a series of lines, close but not touching or speaking. When she finally got in the security line, she put her hand on the back of his neck and drew him in for a long, slow kiss. Her mouth, her tongue, the warmth of her, the familiarity of it all and the sense he got that this was a goodbye kiss, an end.

  “Be safe,” he said.

  “When you embrace your truth, let me know,” she said.

  He stood behind the roped area and watched her shuffle through the line until she unloaded all her things onto the X-ray machine. She turned and gave him the peace sign. He waved, and then she was gone.

  Sarah texted him later that night. Arrived @ hospital. Doc called the family in. Momz in a hotel. I’m with the uncles.

  Sorry. Wish I could come.

  Wish you could 2. Gotta go. Doc is here.

  Jared got up and made himself coffee. He wasn’t going to sleep anyway. He took his mug onto the balcony. His phone chimed and he saw Kota’s name.

  Mind your own fucking business, Kota texted. Spoiled fucking brat. Go fuck yourself.

  Dude. What did I do?

  Stop fucking texting. Im busy asshole. Some of us aren’t fucking coddled suck ups. Fake as fuck, thatz wut u r.

  Jared put the cell down. The message alarm dinged, and dinged, and then dinged again before it went silent. Jared drank his coffee, holding the mug tightly. The last twenty-four hours had felt unhinged. He picked up the phone. Apparently, Kota had a list of things he didn’t like about Jared and he seemed to be in the mood to share. Jared decided to delete the rest of the texts without reading them. He could take his own inventory. He didn’t need Kota’s help.

  Someone knocked. Jared couldn’t be bothered to answer. He heard Hank stomping down the hallway, crossing the living room. Then the balcony door opened. Hank was in his security uniform.

  “Did you hear from Kota?” Hank said.

  The message alarm dinged again.

  Jared flipped the phone over. Still Kota. “There’s coffee on the counter.”

  “This is literally a bad move, really bad,” Hank said.

  “It’s his choice.”

  Hank looked out over the street. Jared listened to the message alarm dinging and dinging. Hank left without saying anything else. Jared sat on the patio chair until his butt went numb. Then he went inside and watched TV. Eventually, Dent popped back into the living room and Jared switched from news to the science fiction channel. Jared was glad for his company.

  27

  When Jared got home from school that Thursday, an old truck with its hazard lights blinking was parked in front of the apartment building. Random computer and gaming gear was piled haphazardly in the back and on the sidewalk. In the hallway on the second floor, Pat and Sponge were fighting a twin mattress out of a crammed elevator. Hank’s apartment door was propped open and more moving boxes were piled randomly down the hallway and in what Jared could see of the living room.

  “Hey,” Jared said. “Are you guys moving in?”

  The brothers paused, exchanging a knowing look.

  “Hey, Casanova,” Pat said. “Is the weirdo ex still here?”

  “That was quite the outfit she was wearing,” Spo
nge said.

  “Bye,” Jared said, unlocking Mave’s apartment door. So Hank was replacing Kota with the Starr brothers.

  “Bring more bannock!” Pat shouted through the door.

  Awesome, Jared thought. Just peachy.

  Dent was in his spot on the recliner. He didn’t look up when Jared dropped his backpack on the table. “How’d your physics quiz go?” Dent said.

  Jared shrugged. “Seemed fine.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Jared flopped on the couch. “What’s on?”

  “Use your gift of sight.”

  “What crawled up your butt?”

  Dent shushed him. Jared checked his phone. Crashpad had posted about a billion photos of Muriel. Their love must be shared widely. No news from Sarah, Kota or his mom. A new message from an unknown number. He hesitated before opening it. Pictures of himself on the bus home today, hanging on to a strap, staring at his phone.

  Jared raised his head instantly when he heard something rustling. Dent blinked out of existence. The thing in the wall slithered around the living room floor like a lumpy snake.

  “Don’t even,” Jared said to it. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.”

  It came close then disappeared from sight under the couch.

  Jared poked his head over the side and saw it blinking up at him with black eyes, no whites, like a television demon.

  “I’ll call Huey,” Jared said. “Get. Get out.”

  The thing slithered back to the wall and crawled in, a dark lump of sadness. Jared felt his own waves of loneliness and abandonment. He let the feelings sit in his gut. The thing watched him, waiting.

  And that was the great irony of his life. People he hated, the ones who wished him harm or users who wanted something from him—those he couldn’t shake. While the people he actually liked vanished like a mirage shimmering in the heat, a hopeful oasis that disappeared as soon as you got close.

  Someone banged on the apartment door and then opened it.

  “Jared!” Pat shouted. “We need a third for a pickup game!”

  “I’m studying!” Jared lied.

  “Come on!” Sponge said. “Take one for the family!”

  He wouldn’t mind a break from the apartment that wasn’t meetings, work and school. He grabbed his hoodie and followed them down the hallway. Sponge shoved Pat out of the apartment. His brother shoved him back. They snickered and shoved each other until they got out of the stairwell, where they took turns shoving Jared down the first floor hallway.

  A nearby school had some basketball courts and they played three-on-three with some dudes the Starr brothers seemed to know but didn’t introduce. Jared hadn’t played basketball since tenth-grade gym class, he’d been more of a track and field guy, but no one here played really well and when everyone got tired, it devolved into tripping and pushing.

  Jared stopped dead when he noticed the silver Lexus was parked in direct sight of the courts. David studied him, sipping a takeout coffee.

  The other basketball team scored and the brothers shoved Jared around, cursing him for being a speed bump. David raised his cup. Jared suddenly understood his mother’s love of guns, the great equalizers. All he wanted was to play a pickup game without having some shitty excuse for a human being smirk because he’d ruined Jared’s night.

  “Sorry,” Jared said to the brothers, glad they hadn’t noticed anything.

  “You cooking anything?” Pat said.

  “I’ve got some leftover shepherd’s pie,” Jared said.

  “Forgiven,” Pat said.

  “Come on, Space Cadet,” Sponge said. “Dinner waits for no man.”

  * * *

  —

  Back at the apartment, once Jared unlocked the door, they pushed past him in a snickering tumble like puppies.

  “Hey, Aunt Mave!” the Starr brothers said.

  She looked up from her plate at the table. She wore a deep-blue blazer with a long scarf. “Hello, boys. I hear you’re my new neighbours. Barbie must be heartbroken to lose her roomies.”

  “Yeah, she’s all torn up she can’t dump her rug rats on us any time of the day or night,” Sponge said.

  “What happened with Kota?” she said.

  “You missed the big showdown,” Pat said. “Kota’s hanging with the party people again. Him and Hank had it out in the lobby when Kota came to get his stuff.”

  “Hank’s feeling is hurt,” Sponge said.

  “Oh, dear,” Mave said.

  “We heard you have ingredients assembled into food-like substances,” Pat said.

  “Help yourself,” she said. “Wash your dishes when you’re done, please.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” they chorused.

  “Wanna come over to Grandma’s house after supper?” Sponge said.

  “What?” Jared said.

  “From his selection of furniture,” Pat said, “we believe Hank is secretly a ninety-three-year-old grandma.”

  After supper, Jared followed the brothers over to Hank’s apartment, which was filled with mismatched second-hand furniture. The couch was heavily floral and worn through on the edges of the cushions. A fifty-inch Samsung TV sat on a clunky thrift-store end table. Beneath it, cables sprawled like a black nest to laptops and game consoles. Beside a virgin Xbox One, a tricked-out Xbox 360 burned blue when it was turned on, like the neon underglow of a street racer. Sponge handed him a controller with obvious DIY modifications.

  “Yeah, I’m not a modded bitch,” Jared said, handing it back. He’d never liked people who used cheat modes to win and had no intention of being one of them.

  Pat deepened his voice to Vader depths: “Come to the dark side, Luke. We have jitter mode.”

  Their Grand Theft Auto V opened normally, but instead of seeing the game from the point of view of Michael in all his menacing and muscled glory, in his place was a giant brown Care Bear with a picture of a cupcake on his chest.

  “Woah,” Jared said. “How’d you do that?”

  “Barbie’s a total Nazi,” Sponge said. “We had to mod the crap out of GTA so we could play it in front of her kids.”

  “What does that mean for the strip club?” Jared said.

  “Things get furry,” Pat said.

  “There’s a trampoline,” Sponge added.

  Mave’s bedroom door was closed when he got home and her bedroom light shone under her door. Writing mode. Jared broke out his biology textbook and reread this week’s assigned chapters on the couch. Dent ignored him. He weighed his options over and over. How do you get your stalker off your back? He didn’t have an answer that didn’t make his life worse. His phone pinged and he glanced at the display. Sarah had sent him a picture of her hand over her gran’s hand.

  Gran’s a tough old bird, she wrote. Still kicking. Unconscious but not giving up.

  Glad you get 2 say goodbye.

  Mom says hi.

  Hi 2 your mom.

  Olive phoned him, asking if he could watch Eliza while she went grocery shopping.

  “I don’t want to drag her out to Metrotown on the SkyTrain at night if I don’t have to,” Olive said.

  “Mave’s got her bug back,” Jared said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you borrowed it if you put back the gas you use.”

  Olive hesitated. “Really?”

  “That little terror can’t watch Frozen,” Dent said.

  “I’m sure,” Jared said.

  Mave looked up from her bed when Jared poked his head in her room. She pushed her noise-cancelling earphones down around her neck and then said it would be no problem if Olive borrowed her car. She waved him away, and then put her headphones back on, staring intently at her laptop.

  Olive carried Eliza over. Her daughter had her stuffed snowman in a death grip. Jared gave Olive the keys. Eliza ignored Dent and curled into a corner of the couch. Olive kissed her, and said she’d be back soon, then tucked one of the throw blankets around her daughter.

  After Olive left, Jared asked, “You okay?
”

  Eliza nodded.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes welled up and her lips trembled.

  God, he had no idea what to do. “Wanna watch Frozen?”

  She pulled the blanket over her head and Jared could hear her sniffling. Dent’s shoulders crawled up to his ears. “Put the damn movie in,” Dent said.

  Shu appeared, eyes boggled and angry. She only calmed down when Eliza poked her head back out and propped it on her stuffed Olaf so she could watch the TV. The zombie ghost girl sat on the couch near Eliza then. Dent flickered. Shu touched his hand and he solidified.

  “Thank you,” Dent said.

  When Olive got back, she and Eliza lounged around the couch. Shu and Dent held hands as she guided him through the floor, sinking slowly out of sight. Dent laughed, flickering, but Shu zapped him and the ghost stabilized. Jared considered taking a shower, but the distance between him and the bathroom seemed vast. Screw it, he thought. He wasn’t going to die if he stank for a night.

  Olive stroked Eliza’s hair. “I forgot what it was like to look for parking. But it was very hard to lose Mave’s Canuck bug.”

  Jared laughed. “I didn’t know she liked hockey that much.”

  “Oh, like is such a weak word for what Mave feels about anything.” Olive looked down at Eliza. “Would it be okay if we spent the night?”

  “Sure,” Jared said. “Is everything all right?”

  She smiled unconvincingly. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  He could hear Mave and Olive whispering in Mave’s bedroom, but not what they were whispering about. Jared sprawled on top of the quilt, considering his phone. He wanted to see if Sarah had written anything more about Mrs. Jaks, but he didn’t want to deal with Kota’s messages yet.

  Shu and Dent slowly emerged headfirst from the ceiling above Jared’s bed.

  Dent’s eyes were wide. “This is so freaky.”

  “Can you get out of my ceiling?” Jared hissed.

  “My God,” Dent said. “It’s full of stars.”

  28

  No one followed Jared to or from his Friday meeting. No one he could see, anyway. When he got back, Mave’s hallway was filled with unfamiliar shoes and he could hear urgent voices. He sighed. All he wanted to do was take a shower. He was not in the mood to meet or talk to anyone.