“No more than two or three at a time,” the doctor insisted. “She’s lucid but has a lot of confusion and memory loss. You need to be gentle.”
“Mum and Uncle Robbo,” Kaito said. “You’re her children, so you go first. Erika and I will go after.”
Right after Cheryl and Robert were led away, Jason was suddenly back without any of the family having noticed him arrive.
“Jason, what is going on?” Erika asked.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked.
“Jason, what’s going on?” Ian asked. “I have no idea who these doctors are, I’m certain they’re lying, and the whole debacle is shady as a long autumn dusk. Why are they suddenly cooperating?”
“Have Uncle Robbo take Nanna to stay with him,” Jason said. “I’ll pick up Emi and take her back to my place. Once you’re done here, bring Hiro, yourselves, and Dad to my place. It’s at the marina; Hiro can show you. I’ll explain everything. Really everything.”
“I’m not sure I want Emi to be part of that,” Erika said.
“She already is,” Jason said. “She knows more than you do.”
“Jason, we’re her parents,” Erika said fiercely. “That should have been our decision to make.”
“I know,” Jason acknowledged contritely. “I acted on impulse, sorry.”
Kaito looked on, excluded, but didn’t speak up.
“I’m going,” Jason said to Erika. “I’ll see you soon. Can you call Amy and tell her I’m coming?”
“How did you know Amy has her?” Erika asked.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve got magic powers.”
Jason walked from his car parked out front to Kaito and Amy’s front door. It was a house he had visited almost every day of his childhood, and approaching under current circumstances left him with a sense of alienness from the mix of old and new feelings. He sensed a similar swirl from Amy’s aura, inside the house. She had apparently seen him arrive, so he waited by the door instead of knocking and she opened it.
“What did you do to me last night?” she asked. “I wasn’t just imagining it, right?”
“No.”
“So, what was it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Well, not without some convincing, but that will have to wait.”
“That’s what you’re giving me? You really weirded me out, Jason.”
“Well, you threw my heart into a woodchipper, carved my family in half and sent me spiralling into years of depression during which I basically scuttled my whole life.”
Her gaze drifted over to Jason’s car.
“Your life seems to be going alright.”
“That didn’t come cheap, Amy.”
“So, you’re rich now?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean, Jason?”
Jason untucked his shirt and lifted it up to reveal a torso covered in small scars, plus one thick, savage one extending diagonally across his abdomen.
“Jason, what the hell happened to you?” she asked as he dropped his shirt back down.
“You know the saying about not knowing who you are until you’ve walked through the fire?”
“Yeah.”
“I found out who I am.”
“And who is that?”
“Someone who doesn’t get to live a quiet life.”
He stepped back, looking around at her home.
“I wanted this to be you and me, Amy. Why wasn’t I good enough?”
His morose expression transformed into a sparkly eyed smile as Emi came pounding down the stairs before Amy had a chance to respond.
“Uncle Jason!”
He caught his niece in a hug.
“Ready to go see my houseboat?” he asked.
“Is it all mouldy and gross?” Emi asked.
“No, it is not,” he said indignantly.
“Boo,” Emi jeered.
“At least wait until you see it,” Jason complained. “Say goodbye to your Aunt Amy.”
“Bye, Aunt Amy,” she called at they set off for his car. “Uncle Jason, tuck in your shirt. You look unemployed.”
“I prefer to think of myself as independently wealthy.”
They started walking across the front yard to Jason’s car and Amy called out after them.
“Jason.”
“Yeah?” he asked, pausing and turning around.
“I know I did everything wrong,” she said. “How badly I hurt you. You didn’t deserve that just because I didn’t know how to end things. I really am sorry.”
“I know,” he said.
Her memory of his impish grin went back longer than most things she could remember. When he flashed it for her briefly, it wasn’t the same. He looked at her with the cold eyes of a stranger.
“It just doesn’t matter anymore,” he told her.
“Come on, Uncle Jason,” Emi said, tugging on his hand.
“I do not look unemployed,” he merrily complained to his niece, letting himself be dragged towards the car. “I look like a dashing man about town…”
32
LOOKING DOWN THE POINT OF A SWORD
“So, how are you doing after yesterday?” Jason asked his niece as Shade drove them towards the marina.
“It’s weird,” Emi said. “I kind of like having this big secret.”
“Well, it’s time to let your mum and dad in on the secret,” Jason said. “Do you think you can help stop your mum from throwing me in the ocean?”
“No promises,” Emi said with a laugh.
“I need to introduce you to some of my friends,” Jason said. “They’re a bit strange, but I think you’ll get along.”
“Strange how?”
“Strange like magic. First is my friend Shade. He’s made of shadows.”
“Made of shadows?”
“Yes. He can also turn into a car.”
Emi started looking around the car interior.
“Yep,” Jason said. “We’re inside him right now. You can say hello, if you like.”
“You want me to talk to your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Like in that terrible TV show Pop keeps trying to make me watch?”
“It’s not terrible,” Jason said. “You know your pop had me watch it when I was a kid and I loved it.”
“It’s a DVD box set, Uncle Jason. It might as well be chiselled on stone tablets.”
“If you will be more comfortable, Miss Emi,” Shade said, “I am happy to initiate the conversation.”
Emi jolted in her seat.
“You don’t need to be worried about Shade,” Jason said. “He’s very nice. He’s been a good friend, even if he does occasionally keep things from me.”
“If I had told you about the World-Phoenix token,” Shade said, “you would have gone and gotten yourself killed even earlier.”
“What do you mean killed?” Emi asked.
“See?” Jason said. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“I thought the idea was to tell them everything,” Shade said.
“Yeah, but the order we do it in is kind of important, Shade.”
“Uncle Jason, what does your car mean by getting killed?” Emi insisted.
Jason could sense from her aura that the slight strain of worry in her voice was only a shadow of her true fear. After getting her Uncle Jason back, the thought of losing him again shook her to the core.
“It’s fine,” Jason said, patting his chest with both hands. “Look at me. Here I am, nice and alive.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“And you’re too clever for my own good,” Jason said. “Let me tell you about my other friends. Taika is really nice; he’s fairly normal.”
“Taika like the director?”
“This one doesn’t make movies, although he is from New Zealand. Then there’s Gordon.”