Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson (ebook voice reader TXT) 📗

“Fair enough,” Charles said. “I could loan you some power.”

Jared shook his head. “Sorry, that doesn’t feel right to me.”

They sat in a long, strange silence. Jared wasn’t sure if he’d offended the Wild Man.

“Good,” Charles said. “You have the right instincts, Baby Trickster. If you ever get tempted to borrow, know that it irrevocably changes you.”

So it had been a test. “That’s bad, right?”

“It’s like getting into a teleporter and accidentally mixing your DNA with a fly.”

“What?”

“The movie with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. The Fly. Classic horror. I can see we’re going to have to do a movie night. It warps you, is what I’m trying to say.”

Linda paused in her channel surfing to vape smoke circles, trying to get smaller ones to go through her big ones. One of the dudes complained about the canned laughter, so she picked up the remote and changed to The Shopping Channel, which was having a limited-time special on Dr. Ho’s neck massager. Jared finished the jug of alder bark tea. Charles said he had lots of alder bark, and they went into the kitchen. Charles pulled a large zip-lock bag from the freezer, full of little rolls that looked like cinnamon sticks.

“Start with two sticks and adjust to taste. Use glass, never plastic. Pour boiling water over them and let them steep. Not too long or it gets extra bitter. Keep it in the fridge.”

“Thanks, man.”

“You’re welcome, Baby Trickster. Sophia’s blowing up my phone. We better wrap up.”

He held out his hand and they shook.

“Save next weekend,” Charles said. “We’ll work on your wandering organs.”

“I dunno,” Jared said. “Mom and Gran might nuke us all before then.”

“Yup,” Charles said.

7

THE DARKER STARS OF HEAVEN

Sophia offered him a spare bedroom in her bungalow in West Van but didn’t push when he said no. They dropped her off first at what Jared would call a mansion, then the driver took him home. Traffic was slow even this late in the evening. Twinkling cherry brake lights sparkled on the Second Narrows Bridge. Mave sleepily answered the buzzer; among the things Jared had lost was his key. Walter waited to drive off until Jared waved from the living room window, as he’d been instructed, just in case David was lurking.

“You okay?” Mave said.

“The session was good,” Jared said.

“Don’t push too hard. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Be gentle with you.”

“Mave,” Jared protested, but it was kind of nice to be worried over. Even if he was putting her in danger from magical and non-magical assholery. “Love you.”

“Oh, you do know how to change the subject.”

“Lots of practice.”

“Has your mom contacted you?”

“No, but she flipped out on Sophia about Granny Nita coming.”

Mave grimaced. “Ugh. One crisis at a time, please.”

She kissed his cheek and went back to bed.

But worry soon took over his brain again. He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling with a creeping feeling of dread welling up. He turned on the desk lamp. He sat on the floor. He laid his hands on the place where his ghost friends had gone through, but the portal painted on the floor, which led to the pocket universe inhabited by dolphin people, had gone quiet. Jared wasn’t sure who had opened it or why. The laws of physics were slightly different there, so ghosts were more solid. Dent had gone through with Shu, an old ghost of a little girl who had been bound by a sorcerer to protect a family that included Jared’s cousin Eliza, whom Shu had guarded against Eliza’s ’roidy spaz of a father, Aiden. Shu was the one who got that asshole killed, using so much power in her curse, she faded. Once she entered the dolphin world with Dent, she’d healed, but when the magic in the apartment faded, the portal had closed, trapping them. Jared shook his head over it all.

“Abracadabra,” he said.

Maybe the alder bark tea was caffeinated. Maybe he couldn’t sleep because he didn’t want to dream about the coy wolves dying or Georgina watching him.

He wondered if David was still hanging around in the shadows. His mom had been pretty fake around David, all modest and coy, not rocking the boat because they’d been flat broke and she’d been sick of being a waitress. The tips at the North Star had sucked. She’d had to peel the tobacco out of used cigarette butts to roll smokes to get her nic fix. David wanted things a certain way, and if she complied, he showered her with presents and money. Jared was not a part of David’s picture, so Jared mostly stuck to his room or hung out at his friends’ places when David came over.

He’d trash-talked David to Nana Sophia in his messages and texts. He hadn’t mentioned his mom being rescued from the bill collectors, just the highlight reel of David wanting his vegetables steamed al dente and acting as though his mom had murdered the Pope when she didn’t get them just right. The uptick in skinless chicken breasts and fat-free dressing. The ironing that made his mom moody in a way that Jared read as homicidal. Normal men would pick up on those signals and scatter, but David was sending his own signals.

One day after school, Jared’d showed his mom an English paper with a surprise B. His mom had kissed his cheek, ironically miming pride, then wiped her lipstick off his face, and suddenly Jared had felt himself being watched. Like when the assholes at school were sizing up the newbies. He hadn’t returned the look. Flattened his expression.

“Imagine what kind of mark you would’ve got if you’d tried,” David had said.

Jared had shrugged, still not looking, but from the corner of his eye, here came the shape of David. His mom announced a need for Taco Tuesday, which put David off enough that Jared could slip up to his bedroom, close the door on their arguing and