by Gloria Craw
Her strong, confident voice cut through the silence of the room. “It comes at a price, though. We would have to work with the others again. They hold a lot of bitterness and resentment toward us. I know many of you resent them, as well. It would take patience and perseverance, maybe decades of it, to resolve our feelings about one another.
“Of course, the biggest consideration, the one I know weighs heaviest on your minds, is that we would lose some of our autonomy. We would have to abide by what all the clan chiefs decide. We would be part of something bigger than just us.”
I rubbed a kink out of my leg, thinking things were getting super confusing. Phoebe knew a lot about the state of her clan, but she was really laying it out there for someone who was only hostessing the meeting.
“I’m young,” she continued, “but I’m Robert Truss’s daughter. You knew him. You respected him. A friend asked me recently why I cared about our family business so much. I told her I care because my father taught me to. He taught me to look at the whole picture and not to make selfish decisions.”
Her voice broke with emotion. “I love this family, but we’ve been selfish. Making decisions out of fear is selfish. Refusing to change out of stubbornness is selfish. Refusing to forgive is selfish.
“What you do now will affect our clan for generations. We are dewing like the other clans. We are the children of Atlantis like them. Our kind has survived this long because we’ve tried to work together.”
It was starting to make sense to me, and I couldn’t believe what was happening. Phoebe was making a bid for clan chief!
“You should know up front, if I’m appointed to lead I’ll end our quarrel with the other clans. The Truss will become part of the whole again, because I know in my heart that’s the right thing for us.”
The applause in the room started slow at first and then got louder.
“We have one candidate present,” a male voice said. The tone of his voice indicated he was in charge of whatever was going on. “We’ll call for a vote of appointment now.”
I was running out of time to disrupt the meeting like Spencer and Katherine wanted me to.
They didn’t know anything about Phoebe, but I did. She was smart, opinionated, and had a good heart.
Most importantly, instinct told me to trust her to do the right thing. Even knowing I was a spy, she’d fought her disgusting uncle to keep him from killing me. I’d betrayed her and her clan, but she didn’t want revenge. She wanted the greater good. She wanted peace.
I had a choice to make, and it was a three-way gamble. I could disrupt the meeting like I’d been asked to do, let Phoebe take her chance at getting the appointment, or help her get the appointment.
Deep down, I was sure she was right for the job. She might have had enough votes to get the appointment on her own, but I was going to help her anyway.
“Thaddeus and Jasmine, do you vote to appoint?” the man asked.
Concentrating, I felt for Jasmine’s mind and then searched for the strand of shared consciousness deep within it. I formed the thoughts, This girl will be the best clan chief for us. I vote yes and painstakingly wrapped it around that collective strand of thought, so it would affect all the Truss in the room.
My chest caved and the air was pushed out of my lungs as the energy for my final effort left me. The force created when it came back toward me caused momentary blindness and terrible pain behind my eyes. Struggling to stay upright, I listened for the answer.
“I vote yes,” a man’s voice rang out.
“Yes,” a woman’s voice followed.
“Charles and Lydia, how do you vote?” they guy in charge asked.
Over and over, the votes came back as yes until he said, “It’s unanimous. Phoebe Truss has been appointed clan chief.”
Loud applause broke out.
I breathed a sigh of relief. My cloaking had worked. I carefully let the door close between me and the celebration in the next room.
I sat still in the dark for a few moments, allowing myself to recover some strength. Then I pulled myself up to the counter and waited for my head to clear. Hoping destiny was on my side, I walked slowly out of the room.
I’d made my first executive decision as a clan chief, and I didn’t regret it.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I was in the back corner of the Shadow Box looking for something to give Alex for Christmas when the chime above the door sounded.
“The moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived, Lillian,” Ian announced. “I’m here to flatter and entertain you. Maybe I’ll dance with you, too.”
“Do you want a book thrown at you?” she replied.
I chuckled. One day he was going to get a real emotional rise out of her. I hoped it would be a positive one, and she wouldn’t actually hit him with something.
“I’m looking for a supercute, supersmart, super-tall girl,” he said. “I heard you had one. Would you point me in the right direction, please?”
“I’m in the humor section,” I replied.
He came around the corner, strutting like he was the king of the world. His eyes lit up when he saw me, and before I could prevent it, he pulled me to him and started spinning me and then leading me in a waltz.
“What are you doing?” I wheezed.
“Shhh…try not to ruin it,” he replied, starting to hum “Deck the Halls.”
When he was nearly too dizzy to stand anymore, he let me go and leaned against a bookshelf.
“What’s up with you?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.
“It’s December twenty-third and school is out. Everyone should be dancing, even Lillian, though she’d let hell freeze over first.”
“I didn’t know Christmas was such a big deal for you. Theron said human holidays don’t mean that much to dewing.”
“This year, I have someone to give a gift to, and she’s not my first cousin or sister-in-law. I’m planning to celebrate my brains out. What are you doing back here in the deepest, darkest corner of the store?”
“Trying to find a gift for Alex. I’m pretty sure he’s regifting me the snow globe I brought back from the airport when we left Colorado.”
Ian pulled out a book called Farts. “How about this one?” he asked.
I shook my head. “He’d enjoy it too much. I’m hoping to find something a little less his style.” I ran my hand down the shelf until my eyes fell on one I thought would work, Cat Expressions: What Your Cat Is Saying to You. I flipped a few pages. It was basically a picture book of sweet, fuzzy cats in various poses. It was exactly the kind of thing my brother would be embarrassed to own.
“Found it,” I said, handing the book over for Ian to see.
“Do you want him to get beat up at school?” he asked.
“That would be a bonus.”
Ian draped his arm over my shoulder as we walked to the front, where Lillian was typing on her computer. She looked fierce with the Santa Claus pen I’d given her tucked behind her ear.
“Will you lock up?” she asked. “I’m bidding on a very interesting horticulture book from the eighteen hundreds.”
“If that’s interesting to you,” Ian remarked, “you don’t get out much.”
“I don’t.”
Ian rummaged through the selection of candy on the counter while I turned the sign in the window to Closed.
Mr. Brown, the soon-to-be-former owner of the Tiny Cup Teashop, was locking his door for the last time. He patted the handle once or twice, then turned and walked away under the streetlights.
It made me sad. The Shadow Box would suffer the same fate, and I still hadn’t adjusted to the idea.
“What’s wrong?” Ian asked.
“It’s hard to watch so many of the shops close up.”
“Businesses are like people,” Lillian replied. “They get old and die.”
“That’s a cheery way of looking at things,” Ian muttered.
I went around the counter to count out the register.
�
�You’re still coming to the compound tonight, right?” Ian asked me.
I nodded. “I need to swing by my house first to wrap this book for Alex. Then I’ll head over.”
“Connor invited half the school to come over, and just a heads-up, my parents are back, too.”
I paused in the middle of counting the fives. “I thought they weren’t coming back until the first of the year.”
“You’ve known them long enough to understand their plans are always changing.”
He was right. But the idea of seeing them again made me nervous. The last time we’d talked it hadn’t gone so well. Spencer had been furious with me for allowing Phoebe to get appointed clan chief. Katherine wasn’t so much angry as she was confused by what I’d done. I’d been mad at both of them for keeping so many secrets.
The last thing I’d said before leaving their house was that I wanted it all in writing. From my position as a clan chief, to finances, to any extended family I might have in other clans… I demanded it all be written down.
Katherine had emailed me the next day, apologizing for how things happened and promising when they got back from their business trip, they’d go over everything with me.
I wanted to be forgiving, but the wound was still fresh. Seeing them that night might be too soon.
Ian took my hand. “It will be okay. They feel bad about how they acted. And anyway, I’ll have your back.”
“Thanks. I’ll be nice to them so you won’t get grounded.”
“Funny, McKye. Funny.”
I started counting money again.
“You’re invited to dinner at my house tonight,” Ian said to Lillian.
“Um-hum,” she replied.
“My dad and I will swing by next week and move the exercise equipment out of your back room,” he continued. “We’re going to set it up somewhere in the compound so Alison can continue training without being in your way.”
“Um-hum,” Lillian muttered.
“We can load any boxes you need moved while we’re here.”
“Um-hum.”
“I think I’ll do a naked tap dance on the counter.”
“Um-hum.”
“How does she tune me out like that?” he asked.
“It’s one of her many talents.”
With his elbows on the counter, he looked up at me. “Do you want to see me do a naked tap dance, Alison?”
I put a rubber band around the tens. “No, but thanks for the offer.”
“You’re missing out. I just came by to tell Lillian she’s invited to dinner. I’ve got to head out. Dad and I are going to get a tree.”
He left humming “Joy to the World.”
Lillian closed her laptop.
“Did you get the book you wanted?” I asked.
“Not this time.”
I wrapped a band around the last of the bills and put everything in the bank bag. “Sometimes I think it’s the thrill of the hunt you like, not so much the books.”
“No. It’s the books.”
“You heard Ian say you were invited to dinner, right?”
“I can’t go. I’ll be packing. I’m leaving for Ystad tomorrow morning. I’m going to look at my new house. I signed the official paper of ownership yesterday.”
“You bought a house without seeing it?”
“It seemed nice online. It has enough bedrooms, and it’s close to the sea. That’s all I care about.”
“Do you have a picture I can look at?”
She pulled a real estate photo up on her phone. I’d been expecting a cottage type of house, but what she’d bought was more like a villa. There were gold wheat fields in the background with gray seagulls flying above, just like she wanted.
“Who else have you invited to stay with you?” I asked. “The place looks enormous.”
“I figured you might come, and if you did, Ian would visit. He can only stay for three days, though.”
Three days was quite a generous allotment of time for Lillian. “I’ll make sure he understands,” I promised her.
She took the bank bag from me and put it in her gigantic purse while I went to hang my work apron on its hook.
“Oh,” she said, pulling something out of her purse. “I got this for you. It’s a Christmas present.”
It was wrapped in plastic shopping bag.
“You didn’t need to get me anything,” I said.
“I know.”
I opened the bag and found one of her precious old books. It looked a lot like the Thane history I’d almost gone blind trying to read over the past few weeks. I turned to the first page and saw a vine and flowering wreath on it, the signet of my clan.
“I found it among some other things at an auction,” she explained. “I don’t know how it escaped getting burned. The seller said he picked it up in France last year. He thought it was a fairy-tale book, but it’s a story about your clan. Now that you’re interested in learning about our kind, I thought you might like to have it.”
I turned some more of the pages. “It’s lovely, but it’s written in French.”
“That’s a good reason to learn to speak French.”
“Fair point,” I replied.
“You should get going,” she said. “It’s going to snow.”
I doubted it. There were clouds in the sky, but it rarely snowed in Vegas.
“I know what I’m talking about,” she insisted. “I’ve lived two hundred eighty-two years. I feel it in my bones.”
I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, which she probably didn’t like, grabbed my jacket, and said, “Merry Christmas, Lillian. I hope you love your new house.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
My house smelled like pine trees and gingerbread. Mom was in the kitchen, mixing something I didn’t want to know about.
“Hey, you,” she said. “How was work?”
“Good. I mostly helped Lillian sort through things for a clearance sale.”
She wiped her hands on a towel and pulled a tray out of the oven. The cookies on it were burned.
“Where did you say she was moving to?” she asked.
I hadn’t said, and I didn’t want to, in case she went looking for Lillian to question her when I had to disappear. That’s not important I put into her mind.
She moved on to a different subject. “There’s more mail on your desk for you. You’ve got quite a stack of college applications building up.”
She handed me one of the burned cookies. It was hard and bitter. I chewed and swallowed anyway. “I’ll sort through some of it before I go over to Ian’s house.”
She nodded. “You can take some cookies over when you go.”
“I’ll try not to forget,” I lied.
Mom was right. The desk in my room was piled with envelopes. I’d been putting off the inevitable, but the time had come to sort through my mess.
My method was simple. I kept applications for schools east of the Mississippi River and threw the rest away. I hated it, but the fact remained I needed physical distance from the McKyes. Fortunately, I’d get to come back for holidays and breaks. I’d be able to call, text, and Skype, too. I planned to make the most of all those things.
After filling my trash can with the rejected applications, I wrapped the book I’d bought for my brother and took it downstairs. When I put it under the tree, I saw his gift for me. He hadn’t put it in a box or anything. He’d just put some wrapping paper around it and taped it down in a few places.
The shape was a clear giveaway that it was the snow globe I’d given him with two penguins on springs that wiggled back and forth when you shook it.
Looking at it made me sad. Snow globes would probably always stir up memories of the last time I’d seen Nikki. The end of her life had been awful. No one deserved what she’d gone through. I’d once considered her my mortal enemy, but she’d saved my life when no one else was around to help. Whether she understood she was helping me or not, it didn’t matter. I was grateful.
I talked to he
r parents when I got back, but I didn’t tell them how her beauty had faded or how her mind had gone and would never have come back. Some things they just didn’t need to hear.
It was a tragic ending, but at least I was able to give them some closure. They could be sure Nikki wasn’t suffering anymore. How they forgave destiny for what she’d gone through I didn’t know, but they were moving on more quickly than a human family would.
That’s how it was for my kind. Don’t mourn what you can’t change…unless you’re Theron or me.
I packed up my gifts for my school friends, Connor, Felicity, and Ian and headed for my car again. I’d almost made it out the door when my mom caught me. “Don’t forget the cookies,” she said, handing me a plate of them with an envelope on top. “And here’s another letter that came in the mail. Be back by eleven. We’ve got a lot of last-minute shopping to finish tomorrow.”
Holding my bag of gifts and the cookies in one hand, I stuffed the letter in my pocket with the other.
“I’ll be back by curfew,” I promised.
I was in my car ready to back out of the garage when I got a text from Theron. In town. Meet me at Pet’s Pancake House it said.
The joy I felt at the idea of seeing him surprised me. We hadn’t communicated since Ian and I left the cabin. I thought about him a lot, though.
I texted him back. Be there in ten minutes.
The pancake house was crowded, but it wasn’t hard to find him. His slow, steady vibration was easy enough to follow.
“You really like to eat at classy places, don’t you?” I asked, sitting across from him in a booth.
“Ahhh…how I’ve missed the way it makes my skin crawl when you sneak up on me,” he said with a big smile. “Get over here.”
We stood up and hugged each other. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said, sitting back down.
I did the same, and my pants stuck to the vinyl again. “Man, I hate syrup,” I grumbled.
He just laughed.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were on house arrest until the end of the summer.”
