by Sara Hanover
Wow. She had planned not only for the night of the auction, but for the day too. Pickup for a light tea lunch cruising down the river, followed by a massage and a custom makeup artist, then dinner at her father’s restaurant, which was stellar in all respects, with American and Japanese pavilions (including those delicate paper sliding screened doors to divide a few rooms, I’d heard). The food got raves. The country club with its golf course, restaurant and spa was a sprawling, high-class destination. From dinner, of course, they’d just trot across the greenbelt to the country club meeting rooms where the bash would be held. I’d no idea if Joanna was sending signals or just thought that girls ought to have fun, but Evelyn needed to have a look at this one.
By the time the third yawn hit me, I’d found two other fairly coherent auction plans and set them aside to text her. I led with Joanna. The screen stayed blank for a very long moment, and then Evelyn replied.
Joanna? Really?
I sent back an affirmative and the condensed version of the date.
Got back a lingering: Hmmmmmm.
Answered: Looks fun.
Another Hmmmmmm.
I keyed Time is running out, you know. Then I followed up with the other two she might consider, because she’d turned down the twelve I’d sent her over the last few weeks.
I could see on the screen that she was still connected, if quiet.
Then she sent WTH. Drop off Joanna’s invite too. Sounds like fun.
I told her I’d do it in the morning and closed the phone down. My work there was done. I put my head back a minute, trying to imagine myself at the auction. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever wanted to go. I remembered daydreaming once that it would awesome to go, knock Carter’s socks off, and be the subject of a bidding war, but that had never really been in the cards. As if he’d ever ask. My plans could go up in flames and, unlike a phoenix, stay in ashes. What filled my mind instead whirled round and round in time with the washer downstairs, as if my thoughts were on spin dry. The professor. My dad. Morty. Brian. Steptoe. Remy. And the mysterious don’t-mention-his-name Malender. Downstairs, the washer let out a tiny melody letting me know it had finished the job, so I tiptoed down, threw everything in the dryer, and let it rip. Wrinkled in the morning was good enough for me.
I feel asleep thinking of Japanese pavilions with cherry blossoms drifting about and Evelyn tripping over the hem of her too-long kimono while firebirds flew in to carry me off into the horizon. I kept arguing with them until they finally dropped me, and that woke me up.
I hate falling dreams. I don’t like the part where your stomach knots up and feels as if it’s gone into another dimension. No slingshot roller coasters for me. If I want to scream, all I have to do is venture outside and let Steptoe pop out of nowhere again.
I fluffed my pillow up. Downstairs, a very low rumble sounded now and then, so deep in tone it sounded primal, as if the tectonic plates of the earth had shifted, and I realized Morty must be snoring. It was kind of comforting, almost like a white noise barrier against the deep night. I settled back in, intent on making it all the way till dawn when another, furtive, very quiet sound caught the edge of my hearing.
I hadn’t been listening, honest, but identified the unexpected: crying, soft and muffled, from my mother’s bedroom. We’d been through a lot together, but she rarely cried. I lay very still, hoping the sounds would stop.
They didn’t.
I slid my feet to the floor, cool and solid under me, and then got the rest of me out of bed as silently as I could. There are floorboards that creak in the hallway, but they can be avoided if you take the right steps, easy to remember on the faded pattern of the worn carpet. Nearly threadbare, its royal red and blue oriental pattern was a mere shadow of what it used to be, but Evelyn and I had discovered a pathway over it that kept it silent. You know, just in case. I traced the way, stopping every now and then to see if my target still showed distress. She did.
Finally, at the door, I took a deep breath. Knocked and opened it anyway, edging inside. “Mom?”
The noise halted and then she said, “I’m all right, honey. Go back to bed.”
Instead I went and perched on the corner of her mattress. “It’s not all right.”
She gave a little, choked laugh, blew her nose and turned on the small bedside lamp. It cast a very faint glow into the dark of the room. I smiled at her face.
My mom cries like a movie star. Her complexion gets dewy, her eyes brim with wetness, and the tears flow in exquisite streams down her cheeks to her chin. She still looks awesome. I, on the other hand, cry ugly. Blotchy, red, bloated disgusting ugly. My freckles pop out. Luckily for both of us, we rarely resort to tears. She reached out and grasped my hand.
“I’m sorry, Mom. About this whole mess. Tell me and I’ll kick ’em to the curb. They can do what they want on their own.”
“It’s not that.”
“Sure it is. It’s wicked strange, and I’ve decided I don’t want to be in the middle of a Harry Potter book. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You’re worried and that’s not right.”
“Well, I am a little worried.”
“See?” I squeezed her hand back. “In the morning, I’ll pack them up and tell them where to go, politely. Like to Washington and stuff. I can’t handle the weird stuff either.”
“You can’t?”
I shook my head vigorously.
“I thought you were solidly in the camp declaring that magic is just science that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
“That’s a saying?”
She inclined her head.
“Wow. Still, if you’d seen what I’ve seen . . .” I stopped dead at that one, deciding that shadow hounds in a pack and raven eavesdroppers weren’t going to make her feel any better. Nor would knowing whatever had been big enough and bad enough to do in Morty’s heavy cudgel. “I’m sorry if I worried you. I’ll let them go on this thing on their own.”
“If that’s what you want, but that’s not why I’m . . .” She sniffed and waved her hand clutching a soggy tissue.
“Then why?”
“I miss your father. I know, I know—” She held my hand tighter to keep me from turning away. “You asked. The least you can do is listen.”
My back had gone stiff. “Right.”
“Seeing those clothes of his walking around again just reminded me of when we were both young, and I could trust him.”
I had to do something but without any clear idea of what, I decided to give her a fresh tissue. She took it with a sigh.
“What would you do if he came back?”
I shrugged. “What would you do?”
“Make sure he was clean and sober. I guess that’s the phrase, even with gambling.”
“He’d have to be! He can’t ruin everything all over again.”
“We wouldn’t let him,” Mom told me. “This time we’d know.” She squirmed around in the bed until she sat next to me.
“I don’t know. What if he’s not really even? . . .”
“Still alive?”
I nodded, a miserable knot of something holding back the rest of my words.
“I’d like to say that I’m one of those people who’d somehow know if their loved one is gone or not, but I’m not, and I’m not sure anyone really is.”
“Seems impossible, huh?”
“It does. It’s a difficult world out there. Anything can happen.” She blew her nose again, softly, daintily. It made me grin and she put an elbow to my ribs. “I can’t help it if you’re snotty.”
“Yeah, well. It’s DNA.” I scratched my head. “The professor mentioned he’d had ‘a dealing’ with Dad.”
“Really?” She set her jaw and thought hard. “I don’t think they even knew—no, wait. There was that big cross-college society meeting about three years ago. The professor—doctor, really—w
as giving one of the talks. It was a fundraiser, very academic, a little stuffy. I was very intimidated, but your dad and Brandard got on like a house on fire.”
“Don’t say that.”
“What? Oh. No.” Her face pinked. “You know what I mean. They talked for quite a while. Your dad valued pragmatic intelligence, you know.”
“The professor is a wizard. How pragmatic is that?”
“You never know. Maybe that’s what it takes to make magic.” She smiled a little and dabbed at her nose again. “I’d forgotten that.”
“Morty says the professor is very good at finding things. And people.”
She looked at me. “Really.”
“Besides our friendship, that’s one of the reasons I decided to help him. I was going to ask, before all this—” I waved my hand.
“Do you think it will do any good?”
I shrugged. “And if it does, is it something we want?”
“I really love your father, Tessa. How about you?”
“I did. The other dad.”
“It’s the same dad.”
I shook my head, hard. “No. Not at all.”
She squeezed my hand again. “It’s more complicated than that.”
I stood up. “It shouldn’t be. Giving everything you’ve got for the people you love shouldn’t be complicated at all.” I uncurled my hand from hers. “Anyway, unless you tell me not to go, I’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow.”
“Ditching school?”
“That’ll be the start. Missing a class now and then is practically a college tradition.” Silence followed me as I went to the door and left.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WE BOUGHT FOUR round-trip train tickets online. Morty slapped a black credit card on the desk next to the computer. The name on it: Broadstone Family Enterprises, holder Mortimer Broadstone, and I didn’t hesitate to get the better seats. I’d raised an eyebrow at him.
He’d waggled one of his back at me. “It helps,” he commented, “to know where the jewels hide in the depths of the earth. We Iron Dwarves are rarely poor.”
That boggled my mind a bit. “You’d have to know the current worth.”
“Aye, and be prepared to sit on your stashes a bit. Wouldn’t do to flood the market.” He scooped up the card and returned it to its protective folder before stowing it away in a heavy, tooled leather wallet. The RF folder impressed me, too. This guy lived in the present, unlike the professor. It made me wonder how his wife had gotten stolen. And why he’d depended more on Brandard to get her back rather than conventional means.
Mom got up early, too, and caught me in the kitchen making two pots, one of fresh-brewed coffee and the other of steeping tea. The mingled aromas cheered the kitchen up despite an early mist of dank-smelling fog creeping around the edge of the yard.
“I’m staying,” she told me. “With all the cuts in everyone’s budget, I can’t afford to look like an unsteady faculty member. No missing classes for me until I catch cholera or something. You will be careful?”
I poured her a bracing cup. “Of all of us, I think I’m the fastest runner, and I intend to maintain that reputation. Remember, I’m a hockey striker, I know how to intimidate my way to the goal.”
“Good.” She put in a dollop of honey and whisked the amber goodness about until it dissolved before she put the cup to her lips and sipped gently at it. “Tessa, thank you. I needed this.”
“Must be the Tory blood in us. Stubborn and persistent, rather like the French Canadians. Revolution or not, we still want our tea.”
She laughed. “Something like that, although I wouldn’t bandy that story about here in Richmond.” She wrapped her slender hands about the cup. “Do you really believe their story?”
“I don’t know. It’s like finding out that the aliens have landed and there’s been one living next door to you for years. Although Palmero the younger has always been kind of freaky, so maybe that one’s true, too.”
The rack of copper pans over the stove began to sway back and forth rhythmically. We both looked at it, and looked away again. It clattered to a stop.
“Do you believe in magic?” She hid part of her expression behind her teacup.
“Not quite yet. I mean, I’ve encountered some things I definitely can’t explain, but I’m not ready to rearrange reality yet. I keep asking myself, how can that be? Sometimes I tell myself it’s more on the order of mental energy like telekinesis and stuff. You know, science that can’t be proved yet either.”
“Too bad.”
I quirked a look at my mother. She smiled over the lip of her teacup. “Really. Everyone should have a touch of magic in his or her life. The great mystery. An intrigue. An unknowable you might want to chase down for the reveal. Some things will always be beyond you, but there are those you might be able to unravel. Why give up on the impossible at such a young age?”
“I gave up on the hope I could fill an inside straight.”
“There’s that, of course, and knowing what we do of your father, I can’t blame you. But this is a different kind of gambling, this is magical. Spiritual,” she put in, as if words had failed her.
There was that word again. I shrugged. “I do the best I can,” I offered. I added, for a second time, “I vow I’ll be careful, and I definitely have my running shoes on.”
She glanced down. “A little bit worse for wear.”
“There was this hound dog—”
“I don’t want to know.”
“You really don’t.”
She leaned over and hugged me, hard. Then she stood up, gathered her leather satchel from the old oak buffet in her office, and left for work.
Morty already had his phone out and was punching in numbers. “I’ll have a car here for us. An SUV,” he added, evidently in response to something he’d seen on my face. I swear, it wasn’t fear. Exactly.
Brian entered the kitchen with his mouth stretched in an enormous yawn. “I don’t know which one, but one of us is not getting enough sleep.”
“Which one?”
He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Me or the professor.”
“Oh-kay.”
His hand curled immediately around a coffee mug, and he began to mix his milk and sugar into the pour. “I sleep, or try to, but the professor is awake, trying to remember. His mind is like a squirrel in a cage, going around and around. Every once in a while, he finds a nut of information he wants me to know and shoves it into my mind. It wakes me up. Sometimes it even hurts.” He sat down with a long-suffering sigh.
“Would you rather be ignorant then?” Morty leaned against the threshold in the kitchen, which groaned faintly as he did.
“It’s not like I have the option. I’m here. I want to live. It seems that the only way I can do that is to know who I was, and quickly. I just wish it didn’t make my head throb.”
I slid a plate holding a waffle covered in peanut butter and the syrup bottle in front of him. “Eat. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.” I watched him try to decide which hand to use with the fork. The professor had been markedly right-handed, like most of us. Or had he? Had he grown up in an era when natural left-handers were forced to become righties because of superstition? While I struggled with that, Brian sighed and grabbed the utensil in his right hand, the syrup bottle in his left, and laid waste to the waffle.
“Is it that bad? Being two in one?” Frankly, the thought horrified me. Brian’s strapping beauty definitely caught my eye, but I could almost hear the professor word for word sometimes when he talked. That creeped me out.
Brian thought about it with a mouth crammed full. He swallowed. “When he comes to the front and takes over, I mostly go to sleep. He can be pushy that way. He’s resting now because he had a busy night. The idea of going to Washington riled him up.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
&nbs
p; “Because he wants to know what it is we’re looking for and he has no recollection. He’s frustrated. I think that once we get there, his mind will thaw. I mean, it’s like looking for the exact word for something but every time you try to think of that word, it just slips away.” Brian waved his fork around before stopping long enough to lick the peanut butter off it.
“He needs to chill then.”
“No kidding, huh? He’s smart but stuffy.”
Morty made a sound, which might have led to words, but the toaster popped up again, and he dedicated himself to filling his plate with fresh waffles and snagging the syrup out of Brian’s hand.
“Whereas you talk like me. Sometimes.”
“I listen. I learn. It’s all about survival.”
“Ever wonder how many times you’ve done this before?”
Brian scooped up some syrup with the side of his finger and licked it clean. “Now that seems rather personal.”
“And hello, Professor.”
Brian’s eyes gleamed. “Hello indeed, young Tessa. Been making plans?”
“Trying to. You and your teen body need to eat so we can leave.”
He licked the corner of his mouth tentatively. “We appear to have been in the process. I’ll try to get our speed up, however.”
“You do that.” I crossed the room and busied myself with a bowl of cereal, trying not to look as creeped out as I felt. Truth to tell, if and when the time came that Brian’s phoenix ritual could be finished, I might lose the professor altogether. I knew I’d miss him. And what if he held a chance to find out what happened to my father? Would he pass that on to Brian, or was that a talent only the experienced could develop? What if the chance to find my dad disappeared forever on the day the professor did? The thought bothered me so much I almost forgot to pour milk over my crispy pops, breakfast of field hockey champions.
