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

Afterwards, after everything, his bedroom no longer felt safe. His mom changed all the locks after she’d put David in the hospital and put one on his bedroom door too, but just as he started to relax a bit, he would wake up in the night and see a vision of David nail-gunned to the floor, as clear as if his mom had just pinned him there. He’d moved into the basement when it became clear that this was his new normal. That it was some bizarre PTSD hallucination, and he was close to losing it, lying in bed listening to phantom David scream. The basement had been cold and glum, but David wasn’t there, so it was worth putting up with. He’d never told anyone why he’d moved down there. Who was there to tell?

He realized he felt watched now. His skin crept. He saw a flickering shadow from the corner of his eyes. He didn’t want to believe the thing from the wall was back, the creeping, skulking thing that seemed so interested in him, but he remembered this feeling.

He wanted Dent back instead. He wanted Shu. Dent to make snarky comments that made severely screwy things funny and Shu to scare the ever-loving shit out of whatever was watching him. He remembered that day on the Drive when Shu taught Dent to Superman hop over cars and buses. Their excited shrieks as goofy as you could get, and Huey the flying head following in manic circles. He missed Shu’s zombie face. He missed Dent’s annoyed sighs.

He got up off the floor. Stuffed down his urge to pace and sat on his bed. With creeps, the head fuck was their point. They couldn’t just beat the shit out of you. They had to tell you at lunchtime that they were going to make your face hamburger after school. They wanted you to stew in your dread all afternoon.

When David was first stalking him back in Kitimat, a no-go place was the Jakses’ house. Completely ignoring the restraining order, David had come to the door just once with his expensive haircut, his tailored clothes and his fancy sunglasses and told Mrs. Jaks he was here to pick up Jared. Mrs. Jaks stood dwarfed in front of him, wearing her gardening clothes, raggy blue sweats, an orange sweatshirt and a granny kerchief. She wouldn’t let him in and wouldn’t answer him, so David had yelled for Jared to get his ass in gear or he was going to give the old woman the lesson meant for him.

Then Mrs. Jaks had said something quietly, drawing David’s full attention in a way you never wanted.

But he’d left. After he was gone, Jared had asked her what she’d said.

“The truth,” Mrs. Jaks had replied.

Jared could be cold. He had his shitty moments. But even after David broke his ribs that afternoon, before his mom came home and nailed David’s feet and the soft underflesh of his arms to Jared’s bedroom floor, Jared just wanted him gone. His mom had offered him the nail gun. Nothing in Jared wanted to take her up on that.

The world is hard, his mom always said. You have to be harder.

Maybe he didn’t have what it takes to survive. Maybe he had always been defective, an exploding airbag that, instead of protecting you from accidents, broke your face and sent shrapnel through your heart.

—

The next morning, he and Mave sat together on the couch and it felt surreal. As though he was in a dream or a childhood memory. Mave lounged in her Canucks pyjamas and ratty plaid bathrobe, reading a book. A phone pinged a message alert and she reached into her bathrobe pocket.

“Kota’s finishing breakfast. He wants to bring you to a meeting before he starts his shift. Are you up for another one?”

“Sure,” Jared said.

Mave concentrated on her phone and he could hear the ping of alerts as messages flew back and forth. “Kota’s taken a shine to you. It’s very rare.”

Jared snorted. “He’s enjoying being the non-lapser.”

“He regrets the way he treated you when he fell off the wagon himself,” Mave said.

“We all have our shit moments.”

“True, very true.”

Jared thought, Now or never, and said, “Do you remember your brother?”

After a few moments of silence, he looked over and saw Mave’s eyes glittering with unspilt tears. She’d put the phone in her lap, lips narrowed to a hard line.

“Sorry,” Jared said.

Jared waited as she struggled to regain her composure. He handed her a Kleenex and she wiped her eyes, blew her nose.

“He loved the stars. He taught me the constellations. We used to camp out in the backyard in the summer.” She took another minute with the tissues, and then said, “When Dad would get mean, Wade was there. He was kind, like you. What made you bring him up?”

“Can I share some messed-up family stuff with you?” Jared said. “Are you up for it?”

“Always,” Mave said.

“Phil’s not my biological dad.”

“Get out,” Mave said.

“When we told Sophia, I thought that was the end of our relationship.”

“When did you tell her?”

“Two years ago.”

“Jesus. She’s back, though. And she’s still acting like your gran.”

“She says she missed me.”

“You’re missable.”

“Phil doesn’t believe he’s not my bio dad. He thinks me and Mom are making it up, that we’re kind of batshit.”

“You’re probably the thing in his life he’s most proud of. That’s hard to let go. Do you know who your real dad is?”

“Wee’git,” Jared said. “And I’m a Trickster like him. I really am.”

Mave took a long time studying her hands before she finally met his eyes. “Your mom gets these ideas. Sometimes you have to take them with a grain of salt. Sometimes they’re metaphors for what she’s going through.”

He thought about the different ways he could prove things to Mave, like growing a few feathers. He thought about what would happen to her if she met one of the things that was angry with him. How could she