“I know that,” Loki screamed. This time, he decided to let go of Axel before he fainted between his legs. He was too young to die in such an embarrassing way.
Then, a miracle happened. The crow let go of Loki who crashed down on the floor, listening to the bird squawking louder.
Loki whirled back and saw the crow heading to the window it came from although it knew it couldn’t pass through.
Next to Loki, Fable was screaming too; a long uninterrupted piercing note that hurt his ears and should have broken glass, had Fable’s spell not been protected by it.
Cute girls screaming. Awful. Awful. Awful.
She held her trembling hands to her sides, showing her tiny veins, unable to stop as if she had seen a ghost. Before Loki turned to see what she was screaming at, he saw Axel finally picking himself up. But when he looked in the same direction Fable was looking in, he bent like a dying plant and fainted respectfully and silently on the couch.
The crow was so scared from whatever Fable was looking at that it kept banging its head against the window until it broke, and escaped the madhouse on Breadcrumb Street. Then Fable fainted as well. Even the spiders were scared and crawled out the windows.
What was scaring everyone so much?
Loki turned to look at what caused the horror, feeling like the last man on earth to survive the apocalypse.
But Fable had seen a ghost. A scary ghost with its head cocked to the side, checking Loki out. It floated two inches above the floor.
The ghost smiled at him. It seemed that all ghosts and vampires were fond of Loki lately.
Loki smiled back reluctantly at it, saying, “Hi… mom?”
***
The fact that Loki’s mom saved them by scaring the crow away made Loki gorge on food like Axel. He needed to eat and re-energize himself to handle the ridiculous amount of scare trauma he had been through in the last few hours, plus the embarrassment his ghostly mother had caused him.
Having a ghost mom made it harder for Loki to believe he was the greatest Dreamhunter in the world. Even his reflection in the mirror wouldn’t believe him now.
All the people I like are scary, mom, Fable, and Snow White. Did I say I like Snow White? Of course, not. I didn’t just say Snow White. I must’ve imagined saying that.
Well, Loki couldn’t deny there was something about Snow White that was terribly attractive, like a nagging girlfriend that he couldn’t live without; but, nah, he didn’t like her, no staking way. In fact, she got on his nerves, and he was vulnerable to her charms every time they met.
It escaped Loki how Axel, Fable, and him gathered around the table, eating dinner with Babushka who had cooked for them. He only remembered fainting next to Axel after he’d said ‘hi’ to his mom—pile’m up mama.
When he woke up, his mom had changed into an almost human-looking form with a few scars and slashes here and there. It was one of the few times he’d seen her look like most mothers do, almost.
Now that she looked a little more human, it felt good to have a mom he could introduce to his friends without being embarrassed—or frightening them. Axel and Fable being weirdoes who lived in a weird house in an even weirder town helped a lot, too. They adored Babushka, and she double-adored them.
As Babushka stood cooking in the kitchen, Loki noticed that she had altered her ghostly appearance to looking as if she had a little chubby belly and lovely full cheeks. She was wearing an apron, and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, only missing some locks, some parts burned out, but that was much better than when she first arrived at the Candy House. Fable had given her a pair of oversized glasses, homey rabbit flip-flops, and let Bitsy help her with the cooking—he came walking with a bowl full of spoons and a fork on his back.
Loki liked looking at his relatively new mother. She actually had a caring motherly smile—altogether she was missing one of her front teeth—and had the most beautiful grey-blue eyes.
Way to go, mom. How did you learn to change like that? And why didn’t you ever cook for me?
No matter how she looked though, it still didn’t make her human. She was as dead as the chicken she cooked for them; ice cold and pulse free, but at least she was available, unlike his father whom he’d never met, which reminded him to ask her about something.
“How come you appear whenever you want to, mom?” Loki said, watching Axel devouring a chicken wing as if it was going to somehow teach him how to fly.
“I don’t know, sweetie,” she said, watching Axel and Fable, making sure everyone liked the food. “I told you. I suddenly got the feeling as if you were calling me.”
“So you have no control over this?” Loki remembered she told him the same thing in the Cadillac.
“I told you I still need to learn a lot. It just happens. I’m here now. That’s what matters.”
“But you won’t be for long. You always disappear eventually,” Loki said.