Kayla looks at me, face tight with suppressed emotion. She is trying so hard to make sadness and fear look like anger she almost manages it. But the despair is there at the corners of her eyes.
“She won’t come,” Kayla says. But she knows that line of defense will be about as useful as it was last time. She still has to call. That’s what we’re down to. Last hopes and long shots.
I do my best to smile with sympathy. “Have you ever considered,” I say, “that she might be more predisposed to come if you stopped calling her a shite”
“Have you ever considered how far I might shove my sword up your arse if you keep on giving me unsolicited parenting advice?”
I nod. I actually have. “She might come,” I say. “It might work.”
Kayla snorts derision. But only silence follows. She shakes her head, closes her eyes, breathes deeply.
She’s delaying, but if my teenage step-daughter had the power to turn me into protozoic green sludge, I might be nervous too.
“Ephie,” Kayla calls out, all preamble done. “Hey, Ephie, I’d like a word.” It’s as if she’s calling to someone on the other side of a street.
For a moment, nothing. And then for a moment longer still.
“See,” Kayla says. “I feckin’—”
And then, as if simply to spite her mother, Ephie appears.
There is no puff of smoke, no ripple, no sweeping wave of ether. She simply isn’t in the room, and then she is. Like two strips of film spliced awkwardly together.
She looks much the same as when we last saw her. An unseasonably flimsy looking black tanktop. Big hoop earrings. An unreasonably short skirt. Her skinny legs stick out, very pale.
But… oh, goddamn it… there is one change. Though maybe, just maybe, Kayla will recognize this moment for what it is. Maybe she will control herself.
“Is that a feckin’ tattoo?” Kayla screeches.
Oh crap.
It obviously is a tattoo. An anarchists’ “A” in a circle scrawled jaggedly on her bare left shoulder.
“Oh Jesus.” Ephie rolls her eyes. “Now you bloody care.”
“The feck were you thinking?” Kayla’s voice stays in the upper registers.
“Oh come on,” I say. A little prayer to the gods of absurdity. “Can’t we just once…”
“Oh,” Ephie rolls her eyes, “I was totally thinking about you and your reaction, because my every decision revolves around you and how it will affect you.”
“Oh good,” Hannah mutters to herself. “So this plan is going about as well as I would have thought.”
Kayla is still spluttering. Ephie turns to Hannah, a look of mild curiosity on her face. “Who are you?” she asks.
“Oh,” Hannah flaps a hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’m barely here. I quit.”
Ephie smiles. A perfect teenage know-it-all smirk. “So you’re the smart one?”
Kayla finds her voice. “Do you even know what that symbol means?” she says. “You’re stuck with that for life.”
The ink on Ephie’s shoulder wriggles, twists, reforms, becomes a clenched fist that slowly extends its middle finger to wave solemnly in the air.
It’s a small, casual display of power, but it’s almost more effective for that. Young though she may be, Ephie handles authority like a pro.
Kayla, however, has never been entirely comfortable with authority. “Oh, threats is it?” she says, nonchalant. “What are you going to do? Rearrange the limbs of the woman who raised you? Who rescued you? Who gave you care and shelter?”
“You dragged us around half of England so you could kill monsters!” Ephie yells. “That’s not a fucking childhood.”
Kayla’s sword is out again. She advances on Ephie. That really is a terrible instinct to bring to parenting.
“Of course.” Ephie throws up her hands. “I can’t threaten you, but you can threaten me.”
“Oh piss off,” says Kayla. “Like this could really feckin’ hurt you.”
Ephie shrugs. “You’re right.”
Kayla’s sword abruptly droops, the metal becoming plastic soft. Then she holds a bunch of flowers. Then a giant rubber tentacle. Then a flapping, gasping herring. The images slam together. The same film-splice abruptness of Ephie’s appearance. Next Kayla is holding a feather duster. Ephie seems to like that reality. She freezes the flow of images.
Kayla looks up. There’s a fire in her eyes. “Oh, you think because you took my sword away I’m less likely to give you a thrashing.”
She flicks out with the duster, lightning fast. There’s a crack as its plastic spine lands on Ephie’s arm.
“Ow!” she yells.
Suddenly Kayla isn’t holding a duster but something small, furry, and rabid. It spits and scrabbles at Kayla, back legs clawing against her arm. Kayla flings it away toward the wall and a sudden death.
Before it gets the chance to become a bloody stain, it’s a sword again, burying itself in plasterboard up to the hilt.
“You know,” Hannah says to no one in particular, “smart one isn’t really that much of a compliment in this place.”
And, goddamn it, that’s it. “Stop it!” I yell. “Just bloody stop it. God! This bickering bullshit is why we’re in this goddamn mess in the first place!”
Shock tactics seem to have bought me a second or two. Even Hannah seems to be paying attention. I shove forward, away from the wall, past Ephie, jamming myself between her and her adoptive mother.
“There’s a bomb,” I say. “A great big bloody reality-destroying bomb. And I don’t know how much of reality you control, but this could take out more than you might want to lose. You and all of your tribe. Your dominion diminished. Maybe gone entirely. Nowhere left for you to exist. This affects you. So we need your help. We desperately need your help. To figure this out. To stop this.
“Look,” I implore Ephie. “If you don’t help us, people here will die. I will die, Ephie. Me. Felicity. Tabitha. Clyde. Your mom. Hannah here. All of us. The people you grew up with. Please. You can help us. You can save us, maybe. Save so many people. We just need some information.”
Ephie looks at me. And it’s not the good sort of looking. Scorn fills her eyes.
“Save you?” she asks. “Because that’s what I am? Some handy personal deity? Kayla looked after me for a bit so now whenever reality doesn’t go your way I’m meant to bend everything to help you all. Bend everything. I mean screw the collateral damage. Not that you even really know what you’re asking.
“I’m a Dreamer,” she snaps. “My responsibilities extend so far beyond what you perceive it’s laughable. Everything in this room. You, and you, and you.” She points. She makes it clear this is not a general “you.” “You are so petty,” she finishes.
“You try and replace me,” she points at Kayla. “And you can’t even ask for my help. If I was like you, I’d bend you out of existence. Stick you in some backwater reality where you can wallow in your own spite. But I don’t do that, because I have priorities and responsibilities. And you’re too small to register on either list.”
“You,” she points at me, “so paralyzed by your fear of death you’re unwilling to do anything more than cravenly beg for some sort of second chance.” At my confusion she rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I bloody watch. I pay attention. Because you were all there. You were family. Were. Past tense. So now all of you, even you,” she smiles at Hannah, “can go fuck yourselves.”
And with that, she’s gone.