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

But I don’t think, I mean…Mom. Is the thing. And Gran. I don’t think it’s fair for you to be in their lives like this. Secretly.

Wee’git did not respond to this. Why would she need so many Tricksters? What possible use could my sister have for their organs? Where is she? She’s about as dainty as Godzilla, but I don’t hear her stomping around the urban jungle.

I can’t do this to Mom, Wee’git. She…

Maggie and I—we were both drunk.

Mom doesn’t see it that way.

She was going after Sophia’s son. Do you know why you aren’t being overrun by coy wolves? Sophia Martin is hunting them. Now that it’s too late, your mother realizes going after Phil and marrying him ties her to Sophia. Halayts are more dangerous than anything alive. I was trying to protect Maggie from her.

I can’t have you in my life if it hurts Mom.

The silence went on so long, Jared thought he was alone again.

I’ve been trying to keep you alive, you moron.

I don’t hate you anymore.

Goody. How do you think so many coy wolves got human skins? You can’t exactly order them off Amazon. They don’t come standard issue when you’re born, especially for coy wolves.

What if you’re supposed to let me die? What if saving me only makes things worse?

Will you fucking listen to me!

No. I don’t want to hear you anymore.

And he didn’t.

19

THERE’S THIS THING THAT FOLLOWS ME AROUND

Doubts. So many doubts. Jared lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Closing his eyes brought dread bubbling up, but if he moved around the apartment, Mave would wake up and come check on him.

Jared, Jared, Jared, Jared.

Eliza had never shared her thoughts with him. He caught a glimpse of Eliza’s tall, nervous mother with blood on her arm, and then Huey zipped through the apartment, hit Jared on the head and zipped back out. Jared was halfway to the door when he heard the knock, and Eliza’s voice.

“Jared!” she called. Jared, Jared, Jared.

Olive stood in her doorway in a faded flannel nightgown, holding up her hand, wrapped in blood-soaked paper towel. It was bleeding down her elbow, dripping on the hall carpet.

“Sorry. I’m so clumsy,” she said. She tried a smile, but it collapsed.

Her dead ex-husband glided down the hallway, but now he couldn’t get into the apartment, crackling against the threshold. Yay, warding.

“Get away from them, freak,” Dead Aiden said to Jared.

Eliza had run back to her mother and now clung to her. He could hear her wishing, willing the cut to be nothing. Daddy broke the mirror to hurt her.

“Come into Mave’s place,” Jared said.

“It’ll clot soon. It scared Eliza, that’s all.”

Bob emerged from their apartment, waving his arms slowly in an unseen surf, and the ghosts that had been waiting outside vanished. Huey came after him, tooting loudly, but Bob seemed to have grown immune to the whistle.

“Olive?” Mave came into the hall, tightening her bathrobe.

“I’m so sorry, Mave,” Olive said. “I don’t mean to cause a fuss.”

“What happened?” Mave said.

“We should call an ambulance,” Jared said.

“Don’t be silly,” Olive said.

“Let’s get you to Emerg,” Mave said. “Hey, Doodle-bug, can you stay here with Sarah and Jared?”

Eliza nodded, but clung to her mother as they all headed for Mave’s.

Sarah blearily emerged from the alcove and froze as Bob rolled into the apartment; Maggie’s warding zapped, but it didn’t slow him down. As Bob ran the tips of his tentacles up and down the walls, Huey butted him uselessly and Dead Aiden appeared outside their living room window. Sarah’s eyes went wider.

“Let me just get dressed,” Mave said.

Olive wobbled, and leaned against the wall.

You should go with them, Jared thought at Sarah. Sarah? Sarah.

I can’t leave you with that, she thought, not taking her eyes off it.

I’m a Trickster. I’ll figure something out.

Mave, who had thrown on a blue dress, grabbed her purse and car keys. She shooed Eliza away from her mother and Olive slumped against the wall. Sarah put on her coat, flattened herself to edge by Bob and then propped up Olive on one side while Mave held her on the other. When they disappeared into the elevator, Eliza ran to Jared. Bob retreated and then lunged, sizzling like a mosquito hitting a bug zapper when he touched Jared, one tentacle reaching the little girl. Eliza froze, eyes wide, when it touched her.

Dead Aiden banged on the window. “Let me in!” he shouted. “For fuck’s sake, let me in!”

Huey buzzed around, deflecting as many arms as he could as Bob flailed, trying to get to Eliza. She stayed still, dread radiating from her. Her breath hitched as another tentacle hit her, and Jared hugged her to him, trying to shield her. Bob’s arms waved in a frenzy, burning gold whenever they hit his warding.

“Eliza,” Jared said. “I’m going to try to put my warding on you and I want you to tell me if it hurts you, okay?”

Her face buried in his shoulder, she nodded. He remembered the moments when his mom wanted every single bit of him safe, down to the blood, down to the molecules, down to the particles so tiny even microscopes couldn’t see them, down to the void that lived between his smallest bits. Specific always wins over general, she’d told him. General wishes are loose nets and anyone with a specific wish can get around them easily. Sophia had wound fierce love around him like a hurricane, so that he stood in the stillness of the eye with her protection a scouring fury of wind. Sarah’d sent wishes that he be alive and whole, wanting him home, a single firefly seeking him out and circling his head. He smelled apples baking, Mrs. Jaks’s caramel apple tarts, the hopes she’d fed him for a long, sweet life with family and lots of fat babies. Granny Nita he saw pausing on the deck of a ferry, leaning on her walker. She wanted him safe, safe, and her wish came to