Her dad set dinner in the center of the table as they all took their seats. The fried chicken, greasy and crisp, burnt at the edges, smelled so good Freddy fought a desire to drag the whole bird onto her plate. Sudden movement at the window made her pause, but it was only a large crow taking off from the fence.
Her dad, Colin, watched the crow until it disappeared before he joined them at the table. He flipped a piece of ashy blond hair away from his eyes and smirked at Freddy, a dimple under the curve of his mouth.
With a blond, a brunette and a redhead, her family was a joke waiting for some kind of punch line, and Freddy was constantly amazed how many people asked her if she was adopted. Freshman biology had finally supplied her with the lovely information that red hair was a recessive genetic trait, which was how the blond and brunette could end up with the redhead daughter.
Her dad swallowed his first bite and tapped his fork on Freddy's plate to get her attention. "Fancy some training, kiddo?"
Mom immediately set her fork down with a sharp clink. "She has a C in geometry. She needs to study."
Spirit sinking, Freddy's body instinctively braced, already anticipating the coming fight.
Dad's lips turned back in a stretched, stressed smile. He stared at Mom but said nothing. The too familiar tension between her parents built higher with every passing moment, and it echoed inside Freddy, locking her muscles, making her nauseous.
The moment stretched then Mom lowered her eyes. "Go ahead and train if you want to, baby."
Freddy glanced suspiciously at both her parents. "But homework always trumps training." What about the rest of the fight?
Mom dug a bit of white meat from the chicken bones as Dad finished his drink in one long swallow. Each one avoided her eyes, the meal passing with nothing but mechanical conversation, the gentle clatter of utensils on dishes and the sound of chewing. The silence was almost as bad as the fight would have been. Freddy's nerves wound tighter and tighter as she worried when the fight they had sidestepped would erupt again between her parents.
Dad rose first from the table and tossed his soda can into the recycling bin with a muted clunk. With a sigh, he stepped into the garage.
"Hey." Freddy wiped her mouth with a rough paper napkin, and threw the remains of her dinner in the trash. "I think the obtuse triangles can wait."
Dad grinned at her and sighed with what sounded like relief. "Quarterstaff or archery?"
Freddy so didn't feel up to hefting a quarterstaff. "Archery."
Mom stood. "Are moms welcome, or is this daddy-daughter time?"
Grinning, Dad held the garage door open and beckoned to Freddy and Mom. He carried the homemade wooden target to the backyard, Mom dug out the bows, and Freddy counted the arrows.
The house might be disheveled and run-down, but her parents maintained the backyard. A riot of red roses swirled with peachy accents nestled against the fence. An aged nectarine tree huddled in the far corner. Dad put the target in front of the stubby tree and walked back, counting out fifty paces to mark the firing line. All chivalry, he offered Freddy the first shot.
She fell into her shooting stance as she stepped over to the firing line. She raised her bow and pulled her string back in a textbook move, her drawing hand level with her chin, the arrow's fletching inches from her face.
Freddy's chest, fortunately for archery and unfortunately for everything else, was a measly A-cup, so she could fire the bow parallel to her body. When Mom shot, she had to tilt her bow and fire across her hip--or risk losing a nipple. Freddy wished she could have a problem like that.
With a sigh, she forced herself to focus on her aim. She had enough trouble shooting against Dad without getting distracted worrying about her body, or what a certain hot Guy might think about it. She relaxed her drawing fingers and let fly.
A delighted glow started under her skin as each of her arrows struck the target just shy of the second ring. A Good Archery Day.
Dad patted her shoulder. Sticking his six arrows in the ground, he stepped up to the firing line. Falling into a perfect T-stance, he cradled his arrow between his fingers. A true master, her dad nocked his arrow and fired all in one fluid movement--a maneuver Freddy herself was still trying to perfect. His shaft sailed home short of a bull's-eye, but he tsked and tutted, never happy with anything less than center hits.
As Mom moved forward, she smiled at Freddy. "Did you invite everyone for the party Saturday?"
Freddy nodded, her mind suddenly humming. Her seventeenth birthday three days away. How could she have let that slip her mind? Visions of her coming party danced in her head, and she bounced on her heels. Twirling her bow between her hands to burn her excess of happy energy, she tried to decide which of her mom's fabulous shoes she should plunder for the party.
Freddy snapped out of her giddy haze as Mom cursed. Her dad leaned on his bow and pondered the sky. Usually he helped Mom when she shot with them. Today he seemed too preoccupied. Mom's second, third, and fourth shots all missed the target, and Freddy waited for her dad to step in, the tension building in her muscles as he continued to stand there staring at the sky. Was something wrong with him? Or was he still pissed at Mom?
Dad's head at last came down, but Freddy's nerves still strained with anxiety when he made no move to help her mom. He just looked at Mom under his lashes, so she stopped mid-draw, frowning.
Freddy tried to decipher the unspoken, taut signals they sent each other. No good. She gripped her bow hard enough for her own nails to dig into her palms. She gritted her teeth as she watched her parent's interplay, a sense of powerlessness clawing at her insides.
Mom swallowed and lowered her bow arm to her side, shifting uneasily on her feet. Dad took a breath. "Freddy, we have to…there's something--" He broke off and simply stared at her, his eyes hollow with grief.
Freddy wanted to shake her head, even run away, anything to stop the next words that might come out of her dad's mouth. But she froze, paralyzed by the drawn looks on her parents' faces. Oh, God, they're getting a divorce.
Mom's hand darted forward to grip Dad's arm. He met Mom's eyes, and she shook her head, a strange, pleading look on her face. Freddy's skin seemed too tight, suffocating her, making her itchy and anxious.
He frowned and looked skyward again. After a minute, he turned to Freddy with brittle cheer, "How'd your day go, kiddo?"
Freddy almost fainted in relief. The divorce wasn't real. It wasn't happening. She nearly ran over to bear hug her mom for making Dad change the subject. Dad gave Freddy an expectant look, tilting his head to the side. "Your day? Good? Bad? Ugly?"
Not ugly. Guy Smith's gorgeous face materialized in her mind, and Freddy's finger spasmed around her arrow. The point jabbed her finger, but didn't break the skin. She sucked on her smarting finger to stall for time. A little embarrassed by her silly reactions to Guy, she didn't want anyone--least of all her over-protective dad--to know about Guy Smith yet. And right then, the hottie on the horse was all she could remember about her day.
"Nothing interesting." She shook the sting out of her hand and avoided Dad's gaze.
He scrutinized her a long moment, like he was peeling away the layers of her lies to see the truth. Freddy shifted uncomfortably on her feet, but boldly met his stare, trying to fake him out. Eventually, Dad abandoned his attempt to get any kind of information from a reluctant sixteen year old, and Freddy let her breath out on a sigh of relief.
She didn't talk to her parents much after that, and they didn't talk to each other. Taking turns of six shots each, Freddy and her parents kept firing until full dark.
Freddy's arms turned to putty as the sky got too dark to see, and her stomach started gnawing at her, growling loud enough that her mom noticed and raised an amused eyebrow. After Freddy's last turn, Dad sent her inside while he and Mom put away the archery supplies.
Freddy made herself a peanut butter sandwich to take the edge off her hunger. Mom came in, declaring herself shower-bound and kissed Freddy goodnight o
n her way.
Dad returned from outside and wolfed down the leftover chicken, finishing it in one hearty helping. Freddy sensed her dad watching her, but she avoided eye contact while she ate, hoping she could avoid whatever confrontation was coming. As she drained the last of her milk, she met Dad's eyes across the table. He frowned at her.
She frowned back, shifting in her seat with guilty energy. "What?"
Dad set his fork down with a click and leaned back. "You're not where you should be on your sword work. You're good, but beatable."
She flushed with relief, even as a niggle of worry plucked at the back of her brain. Her body ached, her muscles erupting in hot pain when she was foolish enough to move them, trying to lift something or, God forbid, walk. If she agreed to spar, she'd be lucky to have the use of her arms tomorrow at all. "What does it matter if I'm beatable?" she asked.
He grabbed both plates and put them in the sink, wiping away the food remnants with a long-handled brush. "You need to be able to defend yourself."
"I can." She pushed aside the memory of how she'd frozen when Guy grabbed her. "Look, why are we becoming so fanatical about training? I thought training was for fun. Family bonding." She laughed, trying to keep the mood light, to discourage Dad from any confession he might want to make. "I mean, c'mon, Dad, how likely is it someone's ever going to try and kill me?"
At the sound of breaking china, she half-rose to her feet, her nerves raw and jolting with the noise.
Dad had only dropped one of the plates. "Damn. Stay put while I get the vacuum." He returned and cleaned up the broken dish with jerky, strained movements. A small worry-line creased his forehead.
He's seriously concerned about something. Freddy clenched her hands under the table to keep them from shaking. Something to do with me.
Her parents had kept separate bedrooms her whole life. She'd have to be an idiot not to have realized before this that her parents didn't have the strongest marriage. But she'd always hoped, selfish or not, that she was enough to keep them together.
Dad's anxious look at practice, his aborted confession, this frantic bid for quality time with her…it would be naïve not to let her mind wander toward divorce. Oh, God, were her parents splitting up?
A chill flooded through her blood, tingling along her veins and down to her stomach, hollowing her out, making her sick with worry.
It was very childish of her, self-centered and wrong even, to want her parents to stay married if they weren't happy.
But she'd still do anything to keep her family together.
I'll even endure more sword practice to make Dad happy.
~~~
Once Freddy agreed to sword practice, Dad kept her at sword work with a dogged intensity he'd never had before. Freddy couldn't figure out why he was pushing her so hard. If he wanted more time with her, then this was a crappy way to go about family bonding. If he really thought he was trying to make her combat ready, then why train with swords?
Still, in order to be a good daughter, she spent three hours doing drills in the garage with him. He didn't speak except to give her directions when she assumed the wrong stance or to direct her to a better move for a certain situation.
Eventually, her arms went numb, refusing to obey her brain when it ordered them to lift her sword. Dad almost knocked her head off with an overhead swing but pulled back in time. She collapsed in shock and ended up with a bruised butt instead of a bloody head.
He panted, red-faced and ragged, his shirt stained in sweat. Freddy dripped with sweat, too, and couldn't get off the floor unassisted.
Mom banged through the garage's screen door at that moment with a load of dirty laundry. She paused in the entry with her laundry basket and frowned when she saw Freddy. Setting her laundry down, Mom tugged Freddy to her feet, glaring at Dad all the while.
Freddy cursed herself. Here she'd been trying to make Dad happy and all she'd managed to do was set another fight to brewing. If she could've made her body move, she would have bashed her forehead against the floor to punish herself.
Insides writhing, Freddy decided to retreat and see if that calmed her parents down. She turned to Dad, weary to the soles of her feet and the roots of her hair, gut churning with worry. "Dad?"
He tapped her shoulder. "We're done."
She made good her escape, only pausing in the kitchen to drink a glass of water, each delicious, metallic tasting gulp soaking into her parched throat.
"My lady, please, her birthday is this weekend." The sound of Dad's voice, the pleading tone in it, stopped Freddy in her tracks at the kitchen's threshold.
Freddy's dad sometimes called Mom that--"my lady." The nickname grossed Freddy out, but just then she was so keyed up with worry over their marriage, her dad could have called Mom "Sugarlips" and Freddy would've jumped for joy.
Dad never used "my lady" in front of Freddy--only when he thought she wasn't around. Creeping back through the kitchen, she peeked through the garage's screen door, ready and willing to be relieved of her divorce fears.
Dad sat crumpled on the floor, arms resting on his bent knees, head sunk to his chest. "Sooner or later we have to tell her."
No. No. Catching her own lower lip and biting down was all that kept Freddy from screaming at her parents to shut up. She didn't want to know, but she needed to all the same, so she kept herself quiet even as inside she howled.
Mom stood over Dad, hands on her hips, her mouth tight. "Let it be later." Dad clamped his jaw, but she kept talking. "She's happy as she is. Happy. Carefree. Normal. The truth--it'll destroy her. I can't. I won't."
Freddy shivered, pressing tighter to the door and scrunching her spine so they wouldn't notice her. She had no intention of missing the rest of this conversation--even if she wasn't technically a part of it.
He gaped at Mom. "What are you talking about? You have to tell her. It's happening on Saturday. You've known about this for sixteen years."
So I was a mistake. Freddy had always suspected her parents had needed to get married. So…her dad had agreed to help raise Freddy but now she was almost grown-up, almost out the door to adulthood, he was leaving Mom, his duty fulfilled. Emotions simmered and boiled inside Freddy, anger tingling and tensing in her muscles even as her throat clotted with grief.
Mom approached Dad and sank to the floor next to him. Her voice was so soft Freddy had to stop breathing to hear. "Colin, listen. I don't want it to happen. I want us all to stay here." Mom looked at Dad, and wet her lips. "Together."
Something flickered over Dad's face, his brows drawing down in an almost pained look. The quick flash of emotion stopped Freddy's breath. Dad's tempted. Her dad did want to stay with Mom. With us. Dad looked at his feet, concealing his expression with shadows. His fists tensed as he sucked in a deep breath. "You do not wish to return to your old life, my lady?"
Huh? Mom's "old life" pre-Freddy consisted of dropping out of high school and playing hippie for two years. Why would Mom want to return to that?
"I don't want to go back. I haven't for a long time." Mom touched his arm lightly--as if afraid he would flinch away. "Could you stop it from happening?"
"It?" The divorce? The hungry, desperate look on Mom's face made Freddy's spine prickle. Are my parents talking about their divorce? Suddenly, she wasn't so sure, but the thought did nothing to comfort her.
"Colin? Could you?"
Freddy watched Dad as intently as her mom did. He finally looked up and his eyes flashed, fierce and somehow frightening. "Yes. I think I can." His voice sounded dull, and his face had emptied of all emotion so he seemed cold, not like himself.
Stop what? Freddy wished she had gone off to shower like a good little girl. She didn't want to know what her parents were talking about; she didn't want to know they were in danger, she was in danger.
And from what? Maybe Freddy didn't really know her parents. Maybe what she thought she knew was only lies. After all, what kind of deadly peril could an artist and an EMT get themselves into?
<
br /> Dad stood and paced the garage in restless strides, raking his fingers through his hair. "Nothing should happen until Saturday. We have enough time; I can get proper protections around the house before then."
Those words confirmed Freddy's worst fears, sending a spiral of pain and grief outward from her gut. My parents are lying to me. And they have been for a long time. She hugged herself and leaned against the doorframe, as emotionally drained by that brief moment as she'd been physically drained by the hours of weapons training before.
"It's been so long," Mom said. "Do you really think it will happen?"
Dad let his breath out in a hiss. "Yes." He patted Mom's cheek in reassurance. "But I intend to keep Freddy safe."
Safe from what? Safe from what? Freddy clenched her fingers around the doorframe, swallowing her screams and her emotions down, her chest tight with everything she was holding captive inside it.
"Good." Mom walked past Dad, toward the door. Toward Freddy's hiding place.
Freddy hesitated, toying with the idea of confronting the two of them. But as her mom approached, Freddy's heart clenched, making her catch her breath on a sob. What aren't you telling me?
Freddy retreated, scurrying as quickly as she could to the bathroom then easing the door shut. Turning the hot water on full, she switched it to the shower at once, then stood there for a long time, letting the water run.
Thoughts cascaded through her mind, nearly drowning her.
Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe they were talking about Dad moving out. She held the edge of the sink for support, resting her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. Or maybe they were talking about something else entirely. Every other option she came up with failed to comfort, because no matter what her parents were really talking about, one thing seemed crystal clear--her family was in trouble.
She didn't know what to think. Or do.
Once the bathroom mirror had fogged entirely with steam from the shower she wasn't using, Freddy finally stripped and climbed in. The scalding water soothed her aching muscles, and with the release of that pain, some of her emotions settled as well. Her parents--whoever they were, whatever was wrong--loved her, that unshakable knowledge was as much a part of Freddy as her right arm and as solid a foundation for her soul as bedrock. Whatever revelations they dish out on Saturday, I'll deal. Even if Dad leaves, we'll still be family. Always.
Heir to the Underworld Page 2
