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

the gravel lane that led to the field. The Wild Man of the Woods crashed through the windshield before the van stopped, roaring as he ran towards the ogress. Others threw open the doors, hurling themselves into the ogress, who squawked as they brought her down, feathers flying, legs kicking the air and then going still.

Jared ran for his mother, and found her still choking Mallory, who had gone limp. The knife was on the floor.

“It’s okay,” Jared said. “It’s okay, Mom, she’s dead. Let her go.”

She wouldn’t, though.

Jared picked up the knife and cut his mom’s hand free. She grabbed the knife from him and started stabbing Mallory’s corpse. She started to cry as she stabbed, and then she screamed and shoved Mallory away.

Outside, all went silent. Jared felt the futures with Jwasins in the world ending. He felt his cuts and bruises and bites healing as if they were time-lapsed, closing and forming scars. Felt Sophia’s wishes in the air.

He went to the kitchen and found dishtowels that he used to soak up his mother’s blood.

“We have to get you and Sophia to a hospital,” Jared said.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. You came for me.

Mommy and me, right?

You’re such a Shithead.

He felt Sarah’s fear as she stopped the minivan in the field near where Sophia was lying on the ground, and then their minds met. Jared turned, waiting for the moment when Sarah came through the door.

EPILOGUE-ISH

Sophia pays for Jared to go to a very expensive dry-out and then to rehab. She adopts him into her clan. He spends the remainder of the year in intensive trauma therapy.

Afterwards, Jared lives in Sophia’s West Van home while he studies diagnostic medical sonography. When his magical powers recover enough, he brings Dent and Shu back into our universe. Shu is heartbroken that Eliza doesn’t want anything to do with her because Shu had cursed Eliza’s father (Dead Aiden) and got him killed. Jared finds Shu’s ensorcelled bones and breaks them, which ends her magical bondage, and lets Shu pass over to the Land of the Dead, where her mother is waiting for her. Dent tutors Jared and carries on watching Doctor Who, bonding with Crashpad, who is in the screenwriting programme at the Vancouver Film School. They develop a video game with the Starr brothers, which gets them invited to work at Microsoft.

In his will, Wee’git left Jared his house in Kitsilano. Jared gives it to the otters, as compensation for his father’s bad judgment. Jared keeps the telescope and the pictures.

In her will, Anita left Jared her house and the money from her residential school settlements. He gives the money to his mother and Mave. Neither of them want Anita’s house, so he gives it to Eliza and her mother, Olive.

Maggie takes Richie’s remains back to Winnipeg. Richie’s mother invites Maggie into their coven and she accepts. She is then invited to Inverness, Scotland, to Richie’s great-grandmother’s house to try to break a hex. In the process, she meets and falls in love with a Druid who specializes in divination and owns a robotics research laboratory.

Mave is arrested on Burnaby Mountain, but then the charges are dropped for all the protesters. She finishes her first novel. She and Justice take the summer off and go on the Tribal Canoe Journey 2015 paddle to Tla’amin, and then hit the powwow trail in the Canuck bug.

Sarah goes to study with the Wild Man of the Woods and learns magic and snowboarding.

Hank and Neeka take a break and date other people. After Agnetha passes, they meet at her memorial and end up back together. They shack up, then make it legal after their third kid.

Kota marries his boyfriend and they foster abandoned huskies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I never thought I’d write a trilogy. I’m sending mad respect to the writers out there who write series. This undertaking was made possible by the following people:

Thank you to my literary agent, Denise Bukowski, and the staff of the Bukowsi Agency for their continued support and encouragement.

Thank you to my editor, Anne Collins, and to everyone at Knopf Canada and the Penguin Random House Canada team, especially Sharon Klein.

Thank you to my family and friends for putting up with my griping, stress and general writerlyness.

Thank you to my readers, my fans and my communities for caring about Jared and his journey.

Thank you to the Kitimat Public Library and the Museum of Campbell River’s Haig-Brown Residency for hosting me as their writer-in-residence as I wrote Return of the Trickster.

The author bio (a.k.a. “Mating Calls of the Sasquatch”) was published in the Fiddlehead, Summer Issue 2019.

Mwah. Aunty hugs to you all.

EDEN ROBINSON’s dad was so profoundly disappointed there weren’t any sasquatches in her first two Trickster books that she broke down and phoned the only sasquatch she knew, B’gwus, and asked if she could put her old friend in her Trickster series.

He sighed heavily. “You’re still writing novels? Jesus, sweetie, you might as well be playing bongos for a living.”

Robinson had to admit she was annoyed. It wasn’t as if he made his fortune curing cancer, you know. Son of a Trickster was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Trickster Drift won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. He’d made his money on that stupid “Mating Calls of the Sasquatch” app and here he was, judging her life choices.

But another part of her missed the relationship they’d had in high school, when they’d hung out in their tree fort listening to Depeche Mode on their Sony Walkmans whilst crafting papier mâché replicas of the John Fluevog shoes they wanted, dreaming of a future where they were stylish and famous.