8
Vampires are expert travelers. Because of the many perils that traveling poses for the undead, they prepare for all contingencies.
—A Guide to Traversing the Supernatural Realm
Mama Ginger was a bizarre, bulbous woman with bright bottled-red hair and an unfiltered cigarette permanently attached to her bottom lip. She did not welcome us into her house, and not just because it was after midnight and we’d awoken her from her “beauty rest.” There was apparently some ugly history between Jane and Mama Ginger, something about Mama Ginger’s attempts to sabotage Zeb’s wedding to Jolene and subsequent attempts to make Jane’s life more difficult after she realized that Jane (a) would never be her daughter-in-law and (b) was a vampire. It took Jane using something she called the persuasion voice for her even to let us through the entryway.
“Jesus, Mary, and Jerome!” I cried, backing away from a side parlor entirely populated by Precious Moments figurines. No matter where I went, their sinister oversized eyes followed me. I desperately wanted to turn my back, but I knew the moment I did, one of them would attack me from behind with a tiny porcelain machete.
Mama Ginger had a multitude of health problems that set off my alarm bells. Her heart was under stress, and her lungs were damaged from what I imagined was years of steady smoking. The conditions combined were enough to make me lean against the wall, Precious Moments be damned, so I could construct a shield between Mama Ginger’s energy and mine.
By the time I was able to focus on the conversation around me, Jane was questioning Mama Ginger in earnest.
“How could you just walk into my shop and take something from me?”
Mama Ginger sniffed. “Well, if you hadn’t been so rude, I might not have taken it.”
“So your criminal behavior is my fault?” Jane asked frostily.
“Don’t you take on airs with me, Jane Jameson. I knew you when you were still in pigtails.”
“I’ve known you for a while, too, Mama Ginger. You need to remember that.”
“This is getting nowhere,” I shouted over their shouts of “Don’t you threaten me, missy!” and “Calm down, you thieving whackaloon!” “Look, I don’t care that you took it, Mrs. Lavelle. I just want it back. Could you please tell me what you did with it after you took it from the shop? If your information leads to my finding the plaque, I am willing to make it worth your while.”
Jane protested rewarding Mama Ginger’s larceny—loudly—but I shushed her. Suddenly, Mama Ginger’s wounded dove persona melted away. Her eyes narrowed, her expression calculating. “How much?”
“I won’t discuss specifics until you either produce the plaque or share your info.”
“Why would I show my hand early? How do I know you’ll pay up?”
“I’m a woman of my word, Mrs. Lavelle. I’ll give you what you’re owed.”
“Not much of an enticement.” Jane snorted. “She knows what she’s owed.”
“Jane!” I hissed, shaking my head vehemently. I turned pleading puppy-dog eyes on Mama Ginger. “Please, Mrs. Lavelle.”
“It’s nice to know some young people still have pretty manners.” She sniffed. “My Zeb should have married a nice girl like you. Not that redheaded hussy . . .”
Jane growled. “Watch it, Mama Ginger. You’re already on thin ice. Now, what happened to the blobby acorn thing?”
Mama Ginger made a study of her talon-like fire-engine-red nails. “I may have mailed it . . . to Georgia . . . as a wedding present to my cousin Hubert.”
“You used a shoplifted item as a wedding gift?” Jane exclaimed.
I didn’t think Jane had much room to judge, regifting-wise, but I also didn’t think this was the appropriate time to point that out. And suddenly, I realized. “Georgia,” I said. “As in the abbreviation GA? Georgia.” But Jane was too busy staring holes in Mama Ginger’s head to note my amusement. “Well, I’m happy to know my nana wasn’t a Gaga fan. Life makes sense again. Sort of.”
“Hubert loves squirrels!” Mama Ginger exclaimed. “His wife, Mindy, wrote the sweetest thank-you note. Well, it was e-mailed. But they loved it, you could tell!”
“You are double-banned!” Jane exclaimed.
* * *
I persuaded Mama Ginger to give me Cousin Hubert’s phone number for a small fee and on the condition that Jane had to leave her house while I conducted my business with Hubert’s wife. Mindy was sweet as peaches and clotted cream about the “misunderstanding” with her wedding gift, until we started discussing a price for its safe return. Let’s just say that any buy money I saved locating the candle for free had been spent. But I was grateful that Mindy had simply chucked the gift box containing the plaque into a closet and forgotten about it, instead of disposing of it or regifting it, as seemed to be the secret custom around here. Jane, by the way, called through the window that I should demand that Mindy text-message a digital picture of the plaque and a dated newspaper to my phone, to prove that she still had it, before I promised any money. Mindy huffily complied and then informed me that I had until five P.M. the next day to come pick it up before the price doubled.
Before Jane could object, I handed Mama Ginger the cash I’d promised her and lit out for Jane’s car. “I can’t say I’m pleased that you gave the thieving she-troll money, but at least you’ll have another Element in your hands by tomorrow,” Jane said as I buckled my seatbelt.
“The only problem is that my car is held together with duct tape and prayer,” I told her. “It would never make the drive to Georgia and back. Do you think Miranda would be willing to take me? I could pay her.”
“Miranda is out of town on an assignment,” Jane said. “She’s driving some Council member to California. I would loan you my car, but it’s with one of Dick’s people, getting fitted with fireproof seats. I’m relying on Gabriel’s car for transportation.”
“So this is what shit creek feels like, and me without my paddle.”
“It’s not that bad.”
I scoffed. “It’s, what, one A.M., now? I’m completely knackered. The drive to Georgia will take at least seven hours, so if I want to make Mindy’s deadline, I’m going to have to find a car within the next nine hours and make the drive. The only good thing I can say about this situation is that at least it’s Saturday and the clinic is closed, so I won’t have to call in ‘flaky and unavailable.’ ”
Jane patted my hair, but I believe it was to keep me from whacking my head against the seat. “Look, this isn’t a big deal. Dick and I will find a solution. You need some rest before you leave tomorrow. I’ll drop you at home, and by the time you wake up, we’ll have worked something out for you.”
“By the way, are you ever going to tell me what the hell is going on with Dick?” I asked.
Jane shook her head. “It’s not my place. All I can tell you is that Dick is absolutely mortified that you think he’s an obsessive pervert, which is why he is trying to ‘give you space’ right now. Well, to be fair, he is a bit of an obsessive pervert, but not when it comes to you.”
“I’m not sure this is making me feel better.”
“I will say that when he tells you, you’re going to laugh,” she said. I snorted derisively, closed my eyes, and tilted my head against the seat. Jane reached across and clicked my seatbelt into place. “Come on, let’s get you home and tucked into bed.”
“I would protest that I am an adult and capable of doing this myself, but as I mentioned, I am exhausted,” I muttered. “And I just don’t have the energy for false displays of independence.”
“If anyone asks, I’ll swear you put up a mighty protest,” Jane promised.
I opened one eye, giving her a sideways glance. “By the way, fireproof seats?”
Jane rolled her eyes. “I have a teenage vampire living in my house. It’s best not to ask questions.”
* * *
An hour later, I had showered and felt vaguely human as I scrambled to pack a bag for the mini-break to Georgia. It was late, and I was desperate to get enough sleep that I wasn’t entirely addled for the drive. But then I looked at my mobile and saw that Stephen had called twice while I was at Mama Ginger’s. I dialed his number, hoping I could keep the conversation quick and get to bed. That was the appropriate attitude when calling one’s lover from a long distance, right?
Stephen’s tone when he picked up did not bode well for the quick, light interchange I’d hoped for. “Oh, so you finally decided to call me, eh?”
“I’m so sorry, Stephen, I’ve just been so busy. I was really thrown into the trenches on my own today, and I’m exhausted. I wish I could tell you all about it, but I’m on my way out of town. I have to leave first thing in the morning.”
“Out of town? For what? Are you telling me you can’t be bothered to call, but you’ve had time to book a holiday?”
The flinty tone to his voice had my stomach rolling. The weight of fatigue and frustration pressed against my chest, and I just wanted to lie across the bed and curl into a ball. I hadn’t meant to say anything about the trip, but I had no filter when I was tired. If he pressed too much more, I would tell Stephen all about the trip to Kentucky, the Elements, and the shirtless neighbor I may or may not have flirty butterfly feelings for.
“No, no, nothing like that,” I said. “It’s for . . . work. I can’t tell you much about it. Just boring old clinical stuff, really.”
“If it’s just boring old clinical stuff, why can’t you tell me about it?”
I was sincerely regretting that I’d backed myself into a corner with this line of lying, because he had a good point. “Look, let’s just talk about something else, OK?”
“What are you up to over there that you’re not telling me about, Nola?” he demanded.
“What are you implying?” I shot back.
“I mean, this sudden offer of a mysterious job you’d never mentioned before, the urgency of leaving right away, the fact that this hospital you claim to work for doesn’t have you listed among its nursing fellows. I want to know what you’re really doing over there and who you’re spending your time with!” His voice rose to an angry shout. That shocked the hell out of me, because at that time of day, he was at the office, where he rarely ever showed emotion, much less lost control of it.
“You’ve been checking up on me?”
“You gave me no choice!”
“You did have a choice. You could have believed me.” I should have dialed down my righteous indignation, the logical part of my brain knew that. But somehow the fatigue and the fact that he was accusing me of something I had successfully resisted so far—cheating on him with Jed—fueled the irrational portion of my brain and its control over my verbal faculties. Ignore the fact that he’s right not to believe you, Nola, it told me, and that you were quite tempted to kiss Jed the other night. You have every right to be virtuously indignant! Virtuously!
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” I told him. “If you don’t trust me, that’s your problem. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I’m tired of coming last in your life, Nola. You need to make our life together more of a priority.”
“We don’t have a life together, Stephen. We have your life and my life, and occasionally they intersect.”
“And whose fault is that?” he demanded. “I’ve done everything I can to lure you away from that circus you call a family. And you fight me at every turn! I’m only doing what’s best for you.”
The use of that phrase and his superior tone, as if I were a naughty child he had to steer, struck a long-buried nerve deep within me. A hot, angry bubble burst forth from my throat in the form of “I don’t have time for this. I’m going to sleep now, because I am exhausted. You would know that if you asked me one single question that had to do with my day or my work or even how I am. All you ever ask is why I had to come here in the first place and when I’m coming home. I’m sick of it. Don’t call me anymore. If I decide that I want to talk to you again, I might call you.”
On the other end of the line, he gasped. “You don’t mean that.”
“The hell I don’t.” And then I hung up.
I clapped my hands over my mouth, shocked at the words that had just spilled from my lips. Their tone, the sound of my voice, had sounded so much like hers that it frightened me to my soul. The wretched, angry altered state of it, as if I was barely hanging on to the faculties that kept me from strangling the nearest bystander. I let out a stifled little sob and swiped my hands across my eyes. The memory of that voice sent waves of panic and distress through my belly, to the point that I bent at the knees and worked sincerely at not running to the bathroom and throwing up.
I focused on breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth. I pictured that spare white room that hadn’t been so successful with Jane’s Ouija die experiment and willed a feeling of peace and calm to spread from my chest to my arms and legs, to steady my hands. I exhaled loudly, forcing my fingers to scoop up the neatly stacked pile of clothes and stuff them into my overnight bag. Then I added toiletries and a Dakota Cassidy paperback I’d picked up at the shop.
Satisfied that I’d completed the task, I stripped and slid into bed without bothering to shower. My stomach was still roiling. I pressed my face into the pillow and prayed for it to settle. The dark room and exhaustion finally led me to an uneasy sleep, with thoughts of my mother creeping into my head.
* * *
I was twelve. I was running home from school, my “grown-up” plain Jansport backpack bouncing against my spine as I kept my face tilted to the late-afternoon sun. Pretty, popular Katie Jordan had asked me to her big sleepover birthday party at school that day, and I desperately wanted to go. I was already coming up with a logical, well-constructed argument for why Dad should allow this, even though he didn’t know Katie or her parents very well and was pretty strict about that sort of thing. My ace in the hole was that my best friend, Allie Noonan, was going, and Dad often caved to parental peer pressure when it came to Allie’s privileges.
Just thinking about that afternoon, I could feel the warm rays of light on my face. I could feel the weight of the backpack against my shoulders and the way the sun caught my long dark hair, much longer than it was now. I was so happy, giddy at the possibility of being Katie Jordan’s friend, of climbing the social ladder a bit and escaping the dreaded curse of “middle-school nobody,” that my chest ached with it.
I nearly tripped coming up the steps to our house, which was a frequent occurrence, what with my coltish limbs and oversized feet. I called out to my dad before I even got the door open, but the moment I walked in, I could sense a chill in the house, a weight to the air that made it harder to breathe. My good mood deflated immediately. My mother was back.
A silly, babyish part of me wanted to drop my backpack and run for Allie’s house. My mother had been bouncing in and out of our lives for years, coming back every once in a while when she ran out of money or just forgot how little use she had for Dad and me.
For a few weeks, everything would be roses. She was “centered” now, she’d promise, and she had gotten her priorities straight. But after a few weeks, that desperate edge would come back to her voice, the wild look in her eyes, and she would disappear again. Usually with whatever pawnable objects we had lying around the house. After three years of losing it, I learned to stuff all of my birthday money into a sock in my laundry hamper. She never looked there.
Having recently graduated from my school’s DARE program, I thought my mother was a drug addict, but Dad swore she’d never had that problem. He just said Mom was restless and confused and didn’t know what she was missing, not being able to watch me grow up. Even then, I knew he didn’t believe it, either.
As I came in, I stumbled over the little pink rolling suitcase by the front door. It was my suitcase, the one I used when Dad and I took summer trips to Cape Cod. For a terrifying moment, I thought Dad had decided to give me over to her, and I considered grabbing the bag and running for Allie’s house after all. Then I heard my dad yelling. I’d never heard Dad raise his voice to my mother before, even when she pawned his mother’s brooch. But now he was giving her what for.
“You think I’m going to let you walk out the door with my daughter?” he shouted. “Not this time, Anna. I’ve put up with your bullshit for years, hoping you’d come back and be a decent mother to our child—that sweet, smart little girl, who still loves you despite the fact that you checked out as soon as she could walk. No more, do you hear me? I won’t let you drag her down with you.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for my father. Dad hadn’t seemed to catch on to the fact that any remaining daughterly adoration I had for my mother had faded several “returns” ago. My dad was my whole family. He was the one who sewed the patches on my Brownie uniform. He made sure my lunches were packed and learned to French-braid my hair. He suffered the indignity of shopping for my first training bra. I’d figured out my mother’s limitations a long time before that.
To my surprise, my mother’s voice was even, calm. I’d never heard her so casual and cool before, and that scared the hell out of me. Her being sure of her “rights” in any situation was not a good thing. “You have no say in this matter. This is her birthright. She may be your daughter, but she’s a McGavock first. Really, Martin, you can’t keep her from me.”
What was she talking about? I didn’t know much about my mom’s family. All Dad would tell me was that they lived in Ireland and they believed in things that not everybody believed in. He’d liked the McGavocks when he’d met them, he said, but Mom didn’t want to have anything to do with them when she moved to the States to be married. And now my mother seemed to want to haul me away to some sort of McGavock indoctrination camp?
“Don’t act like I shut her off from your family!” Dad exclaimed. “I was all for traveling to see them, making sure that Nola at least got to meet her grandmother. But you haven’t exactly fostered an open relationship with them. Don’t blame me that she’s been cut off from her heritage.”
“Daddy?” I said, stepping into the kitchen.
“Hi, honey,” he said, schooling his features into a loving, untroubled expression. “How was school?”
My parents were so different, it seemed impossible that they had been married. Dad was tall and trim, with thick dark-blond hair and warm blue eyes. He was wearing his work clothes for Boston Medical Center, a crisp white shirt with the red-and-blue checked tie I’d given him for Father’s Day. My mother looked as if she was ready to head out to a club, in too-tight jeans and a clingy, silky red shirt that was cut low in the front. Silver bangles clanked against both wrists. Her eye makeup was heavy and dark, making her already large brown eyes appear even bigger. Her mouth was painted a bold bloodred.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She frowned, that lovely motherly energy fading like mist. “I haven’t seen you in almost a year, and that’s the hello I get?”
I ratcheted up my voice to a level of cheer only my father would recognize as my “dealing with an annoying babysitter” voice. “Hello! What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a mother come see her daughter without a special reason?”
I looked to my dad, who was glaring at my mother as if he could make her explode with the power of his mind. I returned my own gaze to her face. Underneath the makeup, I could see the signs of aging. Her lipstick was feathering into the network of tiny wrinkles around her mouth. Permanent dark circles had begun to form under her eyes. Those eyes were sharp and calculating as she looked me over.
“So tell me all about school,” she said, her lyrical voice ingratiating and saccharine sweet. “Are your grades still good? Are you still playing soccer?”
I stared at her, long and hard, without saying a word.
“Oh, fine, I do have a reason for coming to see you. I just thought it was time for you to come live with me!” Mom said, smiling brightly. “I’ve been staying at this beautiful place in Florida. We’re right on the beach, and it’s so lovely and warm. And there’s enough room for you. I mean, I know you’ve never liked Boston, Nola. Your dad told me you don’t have any real friends.”
“I never said anything of the sort!” Dad protested.
Mom rolled her eyes and shared this weird little wink with me, as if we were conspirators. “Don’t you want to spend some time with me? You’ve been living with your dad for so long. Don’t you think I deserve some time, too? A girl needs her mother, Nola. You need me.”
Pointing out that she didn’t get any time with me because she’d left us to go “find herself” would have been pointless, so I just said, “I’m not moving to Florida.”
“But, Nola, there’s nothing to keep you here.” Mom sniffed. “Now, I already packed your bag while your father was at work. He’ll post the rest of your things to Florida.”
“Anna, this is ridiculous. No matter how you try to strong-arm me, I won’t allow you to take her.”
“Be quiet, Martin,” she said, without even looking at him.
“I’m not moving to Florida,” I said again, my voice louder this time, begging my mother to hear me just this once.
“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said, giving her patronizing little sneer as she pushed me toward the foyer. “Stop being silly and get in the car.”
I planted my feet, and for the first time, I defied my mother. “No.”
My mother leaned in close, her dark, glassy eyes threatening to draw me in as she hissed, “Now, you listen to me. I’ve put up with your spoiled little arse for years, and now it’s time for me to collect my due. Get out to the car right quick, before I give you something to fuss over. You’d think I was trying to bloody kidnap you, the way you’re carrying on. I’m only doing what’s best for you. Now move it.” And with that, she grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me toward the door, hard.
“No. No. NO. NO. NO!” I screamed, so loudly I felt something in my throat tear. An enormous pressure squeezed my temples, and all I could think was that I wanted that pressure out of my head. I felt a snap between my eyebrows. The lightbulbs in the fixtures above my mom’s head flickered and burst, pelting her with shards of glass.
Mom’s face went paper-white, and she scrambled back away from me, against the wall. I stared back at her—she looked like a little mouse cowering in front of a snake—wondering if I could make that pressure build back up somehow. And then an angry red flush crept up my mother’s neck. She grabbed at me, nearly closing her grasping, clawlike fingers around my wrists before my dad swept me behind him.
“Get away,” he growled. “Don’t touch her. Leave, and don’t ever come back. I’m not going to let you do this to us anymore, do you hear me, Anna? Don’t come back again.”
Mom snarled at us both, her face twisted and ugly like some awful Halloween mask, and shoved past him to the front door. She slammed it behind her, and both of us let loose breaths we hadn’t realized we were holding. With my mother gone, my brain could finally process the bits of broken glass scattered around our feet, the faint smell of ozone, the small cut on my father’s cheek, presumably from the bulbs exploding over his head.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
“But what about the lights? And your face?” I sniffled. “How did that happen?”
“It’s all right, honey,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders. “It’s all right.”
I never made it to Allie’s sleepover. We moved to a different neighborhood a few weeks later. My mother wasn’t able to find our home address, and it was years before I saw her again.
That summer, Dad made more of an effort to contact my mother’s family. We flew to Ireland to meet them just before my fourteenth birthday, and I formed a special bond with Nana Fee. We flew home, and two months later, my dad was dead, the victim of a heart attack at forty-four. Nana Fee took me in and raised me, which was fortunate, considering that the number of bizarre lightbulb explosions only increased, what with teen hormonal changes and my damaged emotional state.
I was grateful to be completely immersed in the McGavocks’ loud, loving madness. I’d wanted so badly just to disappear into the family, to blend in, so no one would see me as the Yank cousin brought home to foster. It seemed easier to forget that I had a life before Kilcairy. But Nana Fee had insisted on saving a few of my father’s things when she and Aunt Penny had flown over to help me settle his affairs. It hurt so much to see his Red Sox cap, the bottle of his aftershave, and his wallet. Nana Fee had hidden these things away for me in her hope chest, for when I was ready. I’d only found them after she died.
Nana did her best to teach me to control what I could do. And I loved her for it, but I wanted no part of it. I shut myself up in logic, what I could see and control. I only accepted my natural ability because I had no choice. After seeing what my mother had become after years of practicing witchcraft, desperate and bitter, greedy for what she couldn’t have—from money to youth to power—I could live without magic.