“I don’t trust you.” Amber slapped Vinnie on the cheek before she could think she should have reigned in her temper a little. But the smile Vinnie gave her in return made Amber’s blood run cold and fear wash over her nothing like she’d ever had before. “Do you feel better now, Mother? Did it make you feel like you might, for once, be a parent to me? You haven’t been. Neither you nor Father were in my entire life. And the last years, the years after he was dead, I found myself thinking that you were the dumbest person I knew.”
“How can you treat me this way? I’m your mother. I gave birth to you.” She looked at Mitch, hoping, she supposed, for something from him. “Do you see this? Do you think she won’t treat you the same way when she tires of you? She will. Victoria is the most selfish person I know. Like when the money ran out? Her father and I had nothing, and she just wouldn’t lift a hand to help us out, ever.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you tried to have her killed.” She asked him what he was talking about. “Millicent has been most helpful in a lot of things. And if you’re thinking of making her pay for this, she’s moved on. And happily too. But she told us of the time you left your daughter out in the weather hoping that some human would come along and kill her. Or the time that you dropped her over the side of the bridge hoping to drown her. She was eight and had, thankfully, taken lessons to learn to swim before that incident. Then there was the time—”
“That’s not fair. She was a drain on our resources. Do you have any idea how many plans we had to change when she was growing up? Finding someone to watch her was a chore as well. People saw our house and decided that they didn’t want to be there, didn’t have any desire to even enter our house.” His comment had her looking at Vinnie again. “You told him we never mowed the lawn or cleaned up? Why would you...? You should have done that on your own if that’s what you wanted. I had no time for such things. Why should we have to keep up our home like the humans do?”
“Because when you live in a human world, they expect you to abide by their rules. Go figure.” Slang. Amber barely understood her only child when she spoke English. But when she spoke the things that were well over her head, Amber wanted to hit her. Much like she did her father all the time. “You aren’t getting into our home, Mother. You’ll never be able to break the spell that’s around it, and more importantly, I’m not going to help you or Father in any way. I can see him now, and I’m no longer afraid of what Mitch and the others can do.”
“You ungrateful child.” Before she could say much more, her mother appeared. That was another person she was sick of, and she wasn’t going to take her crap anymore either. “I’ll have you know I’m not going to take your criticism anymore either. You’ve tried to make me feel bad my whole life, and I will not take it anymore, Mother. Never. To me you are dead.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly fine with me, Amber. You might find it hard to believe, but I wrote you off long ago.” Amber was shocked and it must have shown on her face. “What did you expect, Amber? For me to bow down before you and beg you to let me be in your life? No, I’m too old and too set in my ways to ever do such a thing. Especially for a child like you. And in the event you think to come to my home and try and steal what I have there, you’ll be out of luck there as well.”
“Why? Have you found someone to put a spell on the house that will keep me out? It won’t work on your home, Mother. You’ve already invited me in. In fact, Horrie and I have been going in and out of there for weeks now.” Her mother simply smiled. “Are you going to tell me to stop doing as I please? Do you really think you can?”
“I don’t live there any longer.” Amber told her she lied. “I don’t lie, and I have moved out. The house no longer belongs to me, so your entrance privileges have been revoked as of eight tonight. Just as you were leaving the house with that horrid man you married, the house changed hands and the new owner won’t be letting you in. Just so you know.”
“You can’t do that. Why are you doing this to us? We don’t have any place to go.” Her mother only smiled at her, and Amber turned to Mitch. “This is all your fault. Why did you have to come into our lives and mess things up for us? We had it all worked out, and now it’s all messed up because you couldn’t keep it in your pants.”
The man laughed at her. Not one of those soft kinds of laughs that made you smile, but he threw back his head and roared with it. Birds left the trees over them. Even bugs and other creatures of the night scurried away from the sound, and all she could do was stare at him.