My Thanksgiving Faux Paw

by Renee George

  "Hey, Tabs," I said with mild irritation. I remembered being annoyed that she was interrupting my time with the boy I liked, but my adult self thought of Tabitha Holloway fondly. She'd been my best friend since we were five. "Do you need something?" I asked her.

  The corners of her eyes crinkled, and her lips pursed. I'd hurt her feelings. "Did you want to go get hot cocoa? Jacoby just made some fresh."

  Jacoby was her father. I rolled my eyes at her then glanced at Moonbell for approval. "Only babies drink hot cocoa," I said.

  "Oh. Okay." Her lower lip trembled slightly. "Maybe next time."

  "I don't remember this happening," I told Jack. "I kind of remember her asking me about the hot chocolate, but I don't recall being this awful to her." In my current life, I couldn't imagine being that way with Chav, or really any of my friends.

  "What is it they say about history being written by the winners? I think memory is a lot like that as well. We tend to forget or misremember when we do things that stray from what we consider our own moral code. Our brain rewrites those moments and sometimes does away with them completely.”

  What he meant was, people tended to revise the moments in their life where they might have been the bad guy. Tabs and I had grown apart during my teenage years, and from that small interaction, I was certain it was my fault.

  "I wish I could tell her I was sorry," I told Jack. "She deserved a better friend."

  Jack nodded. "I get it." He looked around. "This place is pretty busy. How many people live here?"

  "I don't know?" My little hands were inexpertly weaving the cornhusk into what looks like a misshapen bowl. "About a hundred or so."

  "Here, Sunshine," Moonbell said, reaching an arm around me. He pulled on one of the husks. "If you pull this tighter it will curl for the sides."

  I giggled.

  "Shoot me now," I told Jack.

  "I think it's sweet," he said. "The boy was pretty smooth."

  "He was the cutest boy in the cult, and he had his pick of girls."

  "But he chose you," Jack said.

  "Yeah, he chose me." Until he didn't. I didn't know why I was still so mad at him. My life had turned out better than I ever dreamed. I looked at Moonbell, and his deeply dimpled cheeks. He'd made life bearable at the commune. Maybe it was time I let go of my anger. If he had come with me, I would have never found the life I was truly meant to find.

  "Sunshine! Yoo hoo!" I heard a woman yell.

  I clucked my tongue with disgust. "Hide me," I whined to Moonbell. "It's Rhonda."

  "She's not so bad," he said.

  "Yeah," I said to him. "Not so bad."

  Cripes, I just said whatever I thought this guy wanted to hear. "I really don't remember being this way," I told Jack.

  He chuckled. "Wow, I can't believe Mom had dreadlocks."

  "I told you." And double wow, she looked so young. I always thought she looked so old when I was a teenager. Ancient even. But she wasn't. She wore a bohemian maxi-dress cinched at the waist, showing a really flattering figure. She didn't wear any make up but didn't need to. She was beautiful.

  Fifteen-year-old Sunny got up from the table, embarrassed that her mom was walking toward her and Moonbell. She did not want to talk to Rhonda in front of any of her friends. Especially not the boy she adored. "I'll see you tonight," I said quickly and quietly to Moonbell.

  He nodded. "See you then."

  When I reached my mom, I said, "What do you want?"

  Her smile faded. "Jerry is waiting for us to have a picnic in the pasture."

  "It's too muddy," I told her.

  "Jerry has gone through a lot of trouble to make us a nice meal," Rhonda said. "And it would be uncharitable to flake on him."

  "I think it's uncharitable to make me sit in a yucky wet field, eating stale bread and leftover soup." Oh my gosh, I'd forgotten about leftover soup. It was basically, a week's worth of leftovers thrown into a pot on Saturdays. Sometimes it was tasty, but most of the time, it had reminded me of what I thought prison food would be like.

  "You're going," she said.

  "Fine," I told her. "But I won't like it."

  "I wouldn't expect you to," Rhonda said.

  I jerked my hand from Jack's.

  *****

  "Are you sure you're not manipulating my memories? I remember some of this, but I don't remember Rhonda sounding like a human being. And I definitely don't remember her wanting to hang around with me unless she was showing me off."

  Jack narrowed his gaze at me. "Sunny, seeing is believing. Why don't we go to the part where you had your first vision? Think back to that moment."

  I gave him a skeptical look. "Will a vision in a vision make things super weird?"

  "Seeing my mom with dreads has thrown me straight past weird and into bizarro-land," he said. "It's so strange seeing her so young and healthy."

  I heard the pain in his words. "I'm sorry, Jack."

  "Can we try again? Please. There's a reason your mind took us to that day."

  I nodded. I wondered if he would like the Rhonda he saw when I took him back. She'd been so excited by my vision, that she'd turned me into a side-show commune attraction. I thought to the moments before my vision. I'd been sitting in the women's tent, and we were all sitting cross-legged and saying, "Whoosh," as we made flowing gestures with our hands from our inner thighs toward the smoky fire pit. The flames and smoke were supposed to take any bad juju our bodies had created up and out of our lives.

  Jack took my hand and then we were there.

  "Some of these women aren't wearing shirts!" he said. His eyes nearly popped from his head when he saw Rhonda sans top and no bra. He quickly averted his gaze and stared straight into the fire.

  "Need some brain bleach?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said with all seriousness. "I need a whole truckload."

  I snorted. "Now you know what it's like to see your parents naked." I looked over at Rhonda and had to admit that she had nice boobs. Small and perky.

  I found myself biding my time, waiting for my moment when the tent would really get cloudy, so I could escape to be with Moonbell.

  "Take the hand of the person next you," Lizabet Elderberry, a gray-haired woman with wiry curls ordered. She was the oldest in the group, a leader of sorts, and I was pretty sure Elderberry wasn't her real last name. Some of my friends used to call her Lizardbutt Dingleberry.

  Or maybe it was just me.

  Anyways. I took Jackie Townsend's hand because she was to the right of me, and that's when it happened.

  The air is cold, the railing damp. I can hear the water rushing below. The rain for the past week has picked up the current. I want to fly, soar over the mountains, and be free. Death would be the ultimate freedom. Isn't that what we always say? What comes will come, and in the end we will be free.

  I laugh. I am drunk and high, and I can fly. I pull myself up, holding tight to the uprights as my feet cling precariously to the slick railing.

  "I feel so alive!" I scream, hoping the words will make it true. "So alive."

  "Hey!" I hear a boy shout. "Someone go and get help. He's going to jump."

  "Don't do it, Pete!" I hear another boy say. It's Moonbell. They are at the bridge.

  When I came to, I was outside the tent, and Rhonda was holding my hand while Lizabet patted my forehead with a damp rag.

  "The smoke must have gotten to her," the gray-haired woman said.

  "Pervy Pete," I muttered. "Pete."

  "What about Pete?" Rhonda asked me. "Did he touch you? I swear to Mother Earth I will fucking kill him."

  "I don't remember her cussing like that," I told Jack, who was on the other side of me holding my hand and craning his neck to look as far away from Rhonda's breasts as possible.

  "She can be feisty," he replied. "Your vision, it was so disorientating."

  "Tell me about it." I looked at Rhonda. "I saw him on the bridge. He's going to jump. I saw him. You have to save him."

  "Saw him?" Lizabet
asked. "Like in a vision?"

  I nodded as my headache eased. "Some of the boys are at the swinging bridge. They're coming to tell you. Pete is about to fall into the river."

  Just then, Lollipop Danvers came running into our camp. "He's going to jump!" he shouted. "We need help."

  Rhonda looked at me. "Sunshine. You have the psychic gift," she said. "I never thought." She brushed hair away from my face. "Oh, my sweet angel."

  "Maybe she is an angel," Lizabet said. "A guardian angel."

  "I'm going to take her home," Rhonda said. "Can you get up?"

  I nodded. Jerry ran to us. A swell of emotion filled me when I saw him. His long hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he wore ripped up jeans and a T-shirt he'd tie-dyed himself. "Is Sunny okay?" he asked. Gosh, he looked young, too. He had kind eyes, and I remembered how calm he'd been even when Rhonda and I were at each other's throats.

  Rhonda nodded. "She had a vision, Jer. An honest to goodness psychic episode." She grinned with excitement. "She's a hero, you know. She probably saved Pete's life." She slapped her thigh as they walked me back to the yurt.

  I looked at Jack. "Pete saved himself," I told him while Rhonda kept rattling on about what a freaking hero I was, and how special I was. "It turned out when the boys started yelling at him not to jump, he climbed down. My ability has never been practical, and it's rarely helpful."

  I took my hand from Jack's again, and we were back in my yard.

  A coyote pup sprinted across the yard and leaped into my lap. I giggled as he licked my face. "Stop it, Jude."

  "Jude?" Jack had moved a few inches away and was watching with curiosity. "Is this your son?"

  "Yep," I told him. "And your nephew, Uncle Jack."

  Jack's expression softened.

  "Sorry!" Babe shouted from the back door. "I tried to stop him."

  "It's fine," I said. I gave Jude a quick ear scratch and kissed his furry snout before sending him back toward the house.

  "And they just run around like that all the time?" Jack asked.

  "Not all the time, but yes, they do like to shift. From what everyone tells me, the experience feels good." I smiled as Willy's toddler came running out, bursting into cougar form, while still in a diaper. "Get back here, Missy!" Willy demanded, but Missy was already climbing up a tree.

  I turned to Jack. "You can see, can't you, why I don't want to see Rhonda. When I had my vision, she made it all about her. She told everyone and anyone who would listen. Heck, she had people convinced I really was a hero. They used to have me do cold readings all the time, and I'm not a very good psychic, so most of the time I would make stuff up, just to not see the disappointment on her face."

  Jack shook his head. "I could be wrong, Sunny, but I saw a woman who was proud of you. It's her mother who's the psychic, Grammy Sue. Grammy told me once that Rhonda struggled being a null. Someone without ability."

  "Maybe." I shook my head. "There's just too much water under that bridge, pun intended." Missy had jumped down, and now Dawn was in her little coyote form, browner than her brother, but just as cute, and she and Missy were wrestling. "Don't get into the scorched grass!" I told them. "Babe, come and make sure these kids don't get black oily soot on them. Not before dinner."

  Jack smiled.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Moms," he said. "I think you have more in common with Rhonda than you'd like to believe."

  I looked at Dawn. Would she find reason to resent me when she was fifteen? "I don't live in a hippie dippy commune," I said.

  "Neither did I," he said, "but I still went through a phase where I thought Mom and Dad were the enemy."

  "But in my story, they are." I crossed my arms.

  "Foods on!" Chav hollered. "Come and get it."

  Missy and Dawn rolled off each other and high-tailed it to the house.

  Jack and I stood up. "You go ahead," I told him. "But maybe let me borrow your phone."

  He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and unlocked the screen.

  He dipped his head and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "She's in my contacts under Mom."

  When Jack headed inside, I found her number on his phone. My pulse pounded in my ears as I tapped the green call button and waited.

  The woman on the other end answered. "Jack, where are you? Your grandpa said you never arrived at his house." Her voice sounded weak and strained. When I didn't respond, she said, "Is everything okay, Jack? Please talk to me."

  "Rhonda," I said when I could make my voice work. My hand shook, so I pressed the phone harder to my ear. "It's me." For some reason, I couldn't say my name.

  The silence on the other end lasted for only a few seconds. "Sunshine?" Her voice cracked. "I...I..."

  "It's okay." My throat was thick and scratchy. "Jack is fine. He's here with me."

  She was crying now. It was soft, but unmistakable. "Thank you," she said. "It's so nice to hear your voice again. Thank you for calling me."

  "Please don't cry."

  "Rho?" a man asked. "Why are you crying? Are you okay? Do you need another pain pill?"

  "I better go," I told her. "I didn't mean to upset you." I ended the call and sat back down on the bench as twenty years of anger and frustration culminated into uncontrollable sobbing.

  Babe was there. His arm around me. He held me close and rocked me until I could breathe again.

  After, he smoothed the hair from my face. My mother had done that after my vision. It was a thing that people did with the ones they loved. And she hadn't been the best mom in the world, but who was?

  "What's going on?" Babe asked when a few quiet moments had passed. "Tell me, sweetheart."

  "I have to go to Arkansas," I told him. "My mom needs a bone marrow transplant."

  Chapter 8

  Two weeks later...

  "Are you sure you want to do this?" Rhonda asked. She was in the bed across from me at the hospital.

  "I already took the five-minute shot of that stuff to make my white blood cells multiply last week, so this should be a piece of cake." It had taken less than a week for my results from the cheek swab to come back a match to my mom. I wondered if what Brother Wolf did to me would maybe give Rhonda a few more years once the transplant was completed. I hoped so.

  Jerry came in the room. "You two need anything? Juice? Gelatin? I hear red is their specialty."

  Rhonda smiled, but I had to admit I was freaking out a little. I'd met with my parents the weekend after Thanksgiving, and we'd all done a lot of talking, a lot of crying, apologizing, and forgiving. And in so many ways, I was glad that Jack had come into my life and brought us back together. But they hadn't been a part of my world for so long, I didn't know how to act around them. I hoped it would get easier with time.

  Jack showed up with an old woman with purple-auburn hair. She had green eyes like Rhonda and me, and her smile lit up the room when she came in with him.

  "Sunny," she said. "You're as beautiful in person as you are in my visions."

  "You've had visions of me?"

  "Of course, I have." She hobbled past Jerry to my bedside and took my hand. "I knew this day would come. I knew you would save my Rho."

  "Mom," Rhonda said. "Stop that. You're going to scare Sunny off." She'd stopped calling me Sunshine, and I was glad. I wasn't that girl anymore.

  "It's nice to meet you, Sue," I said to her.

  "You call me Grammy Sue," she insisted.

  "Okay, Grammy Sue."

  She cackled and gave my hand a firm squeeze. "You're a sweet girl."

  Jack glanced around the room. "Where'd Babe go?"

  I said, "Down to the cafeteria for some decent coffee."

  "Hah!" Jerry shook his head. "If he's waiting for decent coffee in this place, he might never return."

  Jerry, Rhonda, Sue, and Jack had an easy repertoire that I envied. I'd missed so much by leaving my parents behind, but I'd also gained a lot. Maybe I'd had to lose my biological family so I could find the family of my choosing. Looking ba
ck, I wouldn't have changed a thing, because if I had, I would not have Babe and our two beautiful kiddos. And now I was in a room with my mom, dad, brother, and grandmother. So surreal.

  "Hey, when this is all over, and you’re well again," I told Rhonda, "Let's make plans for next Thanksgiving. Babe and I will come here." I waved my hand. "As long as you let me make the stuffing."

  Jerry, without hesitation, said, "It's a deal. Can you bring the rest of the food as well?"

  "Jerry!" Rhonda protested, which started a whole conversation on her lack of skill in the kitchen.

  Babe snuck in amidst the debate. He kissed me so soundly my kittens sat up and purred. "You ready for all this?"

  "The bone marrow donation or the new family dynamic?"

  "Both," he said.

  "I'm not sure I'm ready, but I am truly thankful."

  The End

  Note from Renee George:

  Happy Thanksgiving Readers,

  I am so grateful to each and every one of you. I hope the holidays are filled with family, food, and festivities.

  XXOO, Renee George

  I Want Your Hex - Chapter One

  Hex Drive Book Three

  "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Saturday’s man.

  stake me a vamp as fast as you can.”

  Old Saturday Dudes Nursery Rhyme

  “Screw those assholes.”

  Drag Jones, RMCA Field Agent

  The damp night air clung to my skin like a spider's web I couldn’t peel away. An extremely loud rapid-fire of hard clicks blasted over my head. I dropped to the mossy floor of the Mark Twain Forest in southern Missouri, my hands sparking with defensive magic. I clicked my tongue piercing, a silver barbell, against my front teeth, a nervous habit that, if I had been a human and not a witch, could cause real dental damage.

  "Calm down, and quit doing that," the big, burly beast of a bear-man, affectionately known as Time Bomb, said. "It's a tree frog."

  I stopped clicking my piercing but didn't get up. "Aren't they tiny? I swear that noise had to come from something huge!"