by Ким Харрисон
Worried, I ate the last spoonful of marshmallows. I listened carefully to the silent house, and once I was sure my mom wasn't coming, I picked the bowl up and drank the sweet milk. My spoon clattered into the empty bowl and I sat back with my coffee, not yet ready to move from the security of memories that muffled my thoughts of the future. There was a small red cloth bag at the back of the table that held the charms my mom had deemed necessary for my Halloween costume. It didn't seem to matter anymore. Unless David's lead panned out and I nailed the demon summoners, I'd be manning the door instead of partying tomorrow. And wearing sexy leather to give candy and cherry tomatoes to eight-year-olds had absolutely no appeal.
I sipped my coffee and stared at my phone, willing it to ring. I wondered if I should call Glenn. If my mom was answering my phone, he wouldn't tell her anything.
My hand was reaching for the phone when the comfortably familiar pace of my mom's steps came from the front of the house. I pulled back. No need to worry her more than our coming conversation would. I still had to ask her about reversing a forget potion.
"Thanks for breakfast, Mom," I said as she bustled in and headed for the coffeemaker. She'd been looking for a coat for me, and I could hear it tumbling in the dryer to air out. "I really appreciate you letting me crash here this morning."
She eased herself into the chair across from me, setting her coffee mug gently on the linoleum table, whose pattern was faded by time and scrubbings. "I don't get to be Mom much anymore, especially when you won't tell me what's wrong," she said, her eyes on my two red-rimmed bites, and a stab of guilt made the sweet milk on my tongue go tasteless.
"Um, sorry," I said, shifting my empty bowl away from her sharp gaze. I felt sick. Memory potions were illegal because they didn't break cleanly. Unlike amulets and ley line charms, they created a physical change in the brain to block the memories, and physical changes couldn't be reversed with salt like chemical changes could. I needed a counter-spell.
Gathering my courage, I blurted, "Mom, I need to reverse a memory potion."
Eyebrows high, she looked at my neck again. "You want a Pandora charm? For who?"
She wasn't nearly as mad as I'd thought she'd be. Heartened by that as much as her knowing there was an actual name for what I wanted, I winced. "Me."
My voice had been pensive, and hearing my guilt, my mother's face grew almost scared. "What do you remember now that you had forgotten?" she demanded.
Cradling my coffee in my hands, I tried to warm my soul. The furnace was on against the cold afternoon, but it wasn't able to touch the chill at the pit of my being. My fingers traced the lines of Kisten's bracelet. It was all I had of him—that and the pool table. "Being bitten by the vampire who killed Kisten," I whispered.
Her entire posture melted, and sighing with forgiveness, she reached to take my hand. Her frumpy dress made her look middle aged, but her hands gave her away. I wished she'd stop living like she was nearing the end of her life. It hadn't even started yet.
"Sweetheart," she said, and I pulled my gaze to hers to see it pinched in compassion. "I'm so sorry. Maybe you should forget about it. Why do you even want to remember that?"
"I have to," I said, wiping my eye and pulling out of her reach. "Someone killed him. I was there." I blinked fast, trying to rein in my emotions. "I have to find out. I have to know."
"If you made yourself forget, then you won't like what you find," she said. An old fear unrelated to me simmered in the back of her thoughts, showing in her face. "Let it go."
"It was Jenks—" I started, but she took both my hands, stopping my words.
"Tell me," she said suddenly. "What were you doing when you remembered? What triggered it?"
I stared at her. A hundred dodges flitted through me, but nothing came out of my mouth. And as I sat there, it suddenly occurred to me that I had been spending so much time with my mother these last three months not because of her, but because of me, fragile after Kisten's death. I lost it then, dropping my head onto my folded arms on the table and choking the tears back. This was why I'd come running to my mother, not some stupid charm I knew she didn't have. I had thought with the right spell I could help Ivy. I had thought I could help myself. But now, I couldn't help either of us. We had gotten what we wanted, and it set us back further than if we had let it alone.
I couldn't look at my mom, but there was the scrape of her chair on the linoleum, and an ugly bark of a sob escaped me when her hand landed on my shoulder. Damn it, I had to grow up and be safe, stop reacting when I should be acting. I had to live with a vampire without even the cushion of pretending there would ever be a bite between us, which just might send Ivy away. I wouldn't blame her. But I didn't want her to leave. I liked her. Hell, I probably loved her. And now it was done. We couldn't go back and pretend that there was anything ahead of us.
"Rachel, honey," my mother whispered, close and gentle, with the scent of lilac soothing me as much as her voice. "It's okay. I'm sorry you're confused, but sometimes souls are meant to be together, and the gears just miss. Ivy's a vampire, but she's been your best friend for over a year. You'll find a way to make this work."
"You know?" I warbled, lifting my head to find a shared sorrow in her expression.
"It would be hard to miss those bites," she said. "And if anyone other than Ivy put them there, you'd be in the morgue identifying a body, not sitting in my kitchen pretending nothing is wrong." I blinked up at her as she shifted my hair and made a worried face at my neck. "Jenks called this morning and told me what happened. He worries about you, you know."
My lips parted and I drew out of her reach. Great, who knew what he told her? "Mom."
But she only pulled out a chair to sit beside me, her hand still on my shoulder. "I loved your father with all my being. Don't take potions to forget. It leaves gaps, and then you don't remember why you feel the way you do. It makes things worse."
I hadn't administered it to myself, but that my mother had taken a memory potion was news to me. "You used one?" I asked, wondering if this was why my mom was so nuts, and she turned her lips in, biting them, clearly trying to decide what to say.
"Oh, hell, who hasn't?" she said, then grew sad. "Once," she added softly. "When it got really bad. They never last forever, and there is no charm to bring it all back. The spell to reverse it was lost before we migrated to this side of the lines. Trent might have it, but getting an elf to share spells is like getting a troll out from under a bridge."
I wiped my face, the tears gone. "You know he's…"
She smiled, proud of me, as she patted my hand. "Tell me if you get that stingy boy to let you into his library. Honestly, you think he'd have some respect for our family, but he acts like you're the enemy, not his saving grace."
"Whoa, hold up." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then shifted it back forward to hide my neck. All thoughts of Kisten, and Ivy, and everything, were shoved to the back of my mind. "I'm not Trent's saving grace. He's a murdering SOB. I put him in jail once, and I'd do it again if I thought it would stick."
My mother grimaced, her fingers sliding from mine when she drew back. "Small wonder he doesn't like you. You have to stop that. He's going to have something you want someday."
Like a Pandora charm? I exhaled, slumping back into my chair. "Mom…," I complained, and she lifted one eyebrow.
"Life is too short to not be with the people you love," she said. "Even if it scares you."
She was back to Ivy. "Mom, I'm not going to let Ivy bite me again, even if we did okay." She took a breath to speak some words of wisdom, and I interrupted. "Really. She lost it for a minute, and then I made things worse when I remembered Kisten's killer attacking me. I thought—" I ran my tongue along the inside of my lip. "I thought his murderer had bound me, but he didn't." Thank you, God. I promise I will be good. "It ended okay, but I can't do it again," I finished, my throat tight. "I can't risk it…anymore."
A smile of relief creased my mother's face. Her eyes went bright wi
th unshed tears, and she gave my hand a squeeze. "Good," she said. "I'm glad you feel that way. But just because you can't share blood with Ivy doesn't mean you have to end everything with her. She's been too good for you. Made you grow up a little. I like her. She needs you, and you're better with her than without."
I stared as I tried to figure out what she was saying.
"I know I haven't been the best mom," she said as she let go of my hand and looked out the window. "But I'd like to believe I raised you to think for yourself, though you do precious little of it sometimes. I trust you to make good decisions when it comes to the people around you." She smiled. "And what you do with them."
Just where has she been the last ten years? My decisions suck dishwater. "Mom."
"Marshal, for instance," she said, and I stared, shocked. She knows about Marshal?
"He's nice," she continued, gazing out the window at nothing. "Too nice to be anything but a rebound guy, but he'd be good for you. Bless Kisten's undead soul, but I was never too keen on him. Two vampires in one room with a witch is asking for trouble. Now, two witches and one vampire…" Her eyes danced. "Does Ivy like him?"
God, just kill me now.
"Ivy knows she can't give you everything, you know," my mother continued as if I wasn't blushing so hard I could set hell on fire. "She's wise beyond her years for being able to put aside her jealousy like that. It's so much easier when everyone understands you can love two people at the same time." She flushed. "For different reasons and in different ways."
For a moment, I couldn't speak, trying to process that. There were too many potential problems lying in wait for me to ask. "You know about Marshal?" I finally got out.
Touching her hair as if flustered, she rose and went to the fridge. "He came over about noon to see if you were all right."
Swell. He was here?
My mother pulled a butterscotch pie from the fridge. "We had a nice talk about you and Ivy," she said as she set the pie on the counter and got out two plates. "We talked about a lot of things. I think he understands now. I sure as hell do. He is coming off a bitch of a bad girlfriend. That's why he likes you."
"Mom!" I exclaimed.
"No, you're not a bitch," she cajoled. "I meant that you're excitable and fun. He thinks you're safe because you're not looking for a boyfriend." She laughed with a knife in her hand. "Men are idiots about women sometimes. When a woman says she's not looking, that's when she is."
"Mom!" They talked about Ivy and me? She asked him about his girlfriends?
"I'm just saying that he's like you, in that he gets bored if a relationship is all roses and hearts. It doesn't help that he likes to rescue pretty women. That's probably why he looked you up. He doesn't want a real girlfriend yet any more than you do, but he's not going to sit at home and watch TV. He's taking you out today. You both need a break."
"Mom, stop!" I exclaimed again. "I told you not to set up dates for me, and especially not with Marshal!"
"You're welcome, sweetheart," she said, patting my shoulder. "Get this little fling over with so you can move on with your life. Try not to hurt him, okay?"
I stared at my hands circling my coffee mug, speechless. This was not good. "How did he know where I was?" I asked, depressed. Little fling? I so did not need a date right now.
"Jenks was with him."
I exhaled long and slow as I pulled my fingers from worrying at my new bites. That would explain it, I thought. The soft scrape of the serving knife on the glass pie dish was obvious and she silently put two slices on plates and licked the serving fork. Still silent, she set the largest piece before me. "Jenks said he knocked Ivy unconscious by accident. It didn't sound like a sleep charm," she said, her voice sharp with accusation.
Embarrassed by my failed attempt at tweaking charms, I shifted my plate until the pie was pointing at me. This wasn't a topic I really wanted to explore, but it was better than Marshal. "I was trying to modify a sleep charm to give Ivy some control over her blood lust, but she lied to me about trying them out, so the last batch was too strong. Jenks overreacted by hitting her with it in the first place. We were fine. We had everything under control." By the time he showed back up, that is, I finished silently.
My eyes came up to see only interest in my mother's gaze. She set a fork in front of me. Her plate in her hand, she leaned against the counter, looking years younger. "You're starting with a sleep charm as your base?" She smiled after seeing my nod and pointed her fork at me. "Well, there's your problem. If you're trying to break the hold her instincts have on her actions, you need to make her hyperalert, not sleepy."
I wedged a forkful of pie into my mouth and chewed in thought. The rich tang of butterscotch was sharp, and I ate another bite. Pie for breakfast was one of the perks of a crazy mom. "A stimulant would work better?" I mumbled.
"Guaranteed."
Confidence emanated from her, but I wasn't convinced, and I cringed at the thought of what would happen if it didn't have the desired effect. Besides, it didn't matter anymore. I was going to be the model roommate and never trigger Ivy's blood lust again. That is, if she didn't get mad and leave, ticked at all the time she had wasted on me. But if she stayed, she might someday want a little something to take the edge off….
My mother came to sit across from me, her eyes on her pie. "Throw in a lot of crushed lime. Citrus sends everything deep, and you want to stimulate the complex thought processes, not the surface ones."
"Okay," I said, my gaze flicking to my disguise charms. She was the expert. "Thanks."
Her smile widened, and she became almost teary. "I want to help, honey. I'm sorry if I've been so odd in the past that you felt you couldn't come to me."
I smiled back, feeling warm inside. "I'm sorry, too."
She reached out and patted my hand. "Marshal is worried about you. I'm glad you're being honest with him about how dangerous your life is. More honest than with me, I hope."
Here we go. More guilt. "I didn't want you to worry," I almost whined at my pie. God! I hated it when my voice did that.
Giving my closed fist a sharp tap so that her wedding ring hit my knuckle, she withdrew her hand. "I know how deep in the shit pit you usually are, but tell him before he starts to really like you."
"Mom!"
She sighed then, following it up with a glum "Sorry."
I hid behind a bite of pie. "I'm okay," I mumbled. "We're doing okay."
Again she smiled, becoming my usual mother once more. "I know you are."
We both looked up when the doorbell rang. "That would be Marshal," she said as she rose and tugged her sweater straight. "I told him I'd have you up and ready for your date by three thirty. You still have time before you have to be back on hallowed ground, and a distraction is just what Dr. Mom ordered."
I looked at the pie, then picked up the half I had yet to eat. "Mom," I protested around a full mouth as I followed her down the hall, "I can't. I have to go home and prep for a run. I've got a lead on who might be summoning Al, and I'm going to lean on them tomorrow. Besides, I'm not ready for a boyfriend."
My mother stopped in the long green hallway, surrounded by pictures of my and Robbie's lives, images of the past that she drew strength from. I could see a masculine shadow moving outside on the steps, but my mother put herself right in front of me, filling my world. I was unable to look away from the old regret in her eyes.
"That is exactly why you need to go out with him," she said, her grip on my shoulder tightening to keep me silent. "Prep your spells later. You're strung out to the snapping point, sweetheart. You need to do something different to give your mind a rest, and Marshal is a good man. He's not going to break your heart or take advantage of you. Just…go do something with him. Anything." Her mouth quirked. "Well, maybe not anything."
"Mom…," I protested, but she stepped quickly to the door and opened it. Marshal was waiting, and he took us both in, his attention going back and forth, comparing us as we stood side-by-side. Flustered, I set the p
ie on the top of the hall bookcase and wiped my hands on my jeans. I didn't think it was the pie that had his eyebrows so high. My mother and I looked a lot alike, apart from our hair and how we dressed.
"Hi, Mrs. Morgan," he said, smiling, and then said to me, "Rachel."
My mom smiled like the Mona Lisa, and I rolled my eyes, seeing his big-ass SUV at the curb. "Hi," I said dryly. "I hear you met my mom already."
"Marshal and I looked at your baby pictures while you were sleeping," she said, then stepped back. "Come on in. We're eating pie."
Marshal glanced at the half-eaten slice above our heads and smiled. Cracking his neck, he stepped in just far enough to shut the door. "Thanks, Mrs. Morgan, but if I'm going to get Rachel back to the church before sunset, we really need to go now."
"He's right," I said, not wanting to endure an hour of humiliation at my mother's hand. Besides, the sooner we left, the sooner I could apologize for my mom and he could make his escape. I wasn't going on a date when Ivy was home thinking she screwed up again. She hadn't. We had ended the entire freaking mess in success before Jenks screwed it up. But that didn't mean I was going to let her break my skin again. I had to stop saying a decision was good just because it made me feel better. But being good, really good, really sucked.
"Oh!" my mom chirped. "Your coat. I think you left your bag in the kitchen, too."
She hustled down the hall, and Marshal looked over my shoulder when I heard the dryer door open. I shifted in the reflected green light of the hallway, uncomfortable not knowing what they'd talked about. My pie sat over us, and I wondered if he'd mind if I ate it.
"I'm really sorry about this," I said, sending my attention down the empty hall. "It's my mom's mission in life to find a boyfriend for me, and she doesn't listen when I tell her to stop."
