The downside to not having a set work schedule was that I could stay at home and watch daytime TV when I wasn’t working. Or, more specifically, watch the news to see what the police had found out about Tessa’s murder.
They weren’t releasing much, which suggested to me that either they didn’t know a lot, or it was worse than they’d originally thought.
Tilly woke from her spot beside me on the sofa and barked at the TV. Tessa’s parents were being interviewed. Heh. She always had been a good judge of character.
Out of curiosity, I turned the volume up.
Spectre looked up from his spot on top of the bookcase and floated down, settling on the arm of the sofa beside Tilly. Curious cat.
‘Tessa was such a wonderful girl. We’d raised her so well,’ said her mum in between sobs. ‘I don’t get how anyone could hurt our girl in this way.’
Possessive, much? Tessa was eighteen; technically an adult. I did find it interesting that most of the press coverage had referred to her as a ‘girl’ instead of a ‘woman’. The different connotations would’ve changed the thread of their media coverage and earned her less sympathy from the public.
‘We have every faith that the police will catch the monster who did this to our daughter. For anyone who has any information that leads to his capture, we’re offering a £500 reward.’ Stingy considering I knew they both had well-paying jobs. And unlikely to get them very far. But I understood their desperation. I couldn’t have put up a reward like that for answers if something had happened to Edie.
Then again, I could’ve asked Edie’s ghost what’d happened to her instead.
*
Before I searched for other causes of my headache, I had to speak to someone to put my concerns to bed. I really, really didn’t want to talk to her about it. But I didn’t have a choice.
So I summoned my mother.
She appeared in front of me, hovering beside the coffee table in the living room. ‘You look well.’
‘Gee. Thanks.’ I leaned forwards, resting my elbows on my lap and my head in my hands. I didn’t have the energy for her passive aggression, circles, or riddles.
My mother narrowed her eyes at me. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Could my resurrection have done any long-lasting damage?’
‘Like what?’
Tilly hopped on to the sofa and curled up by the arm of the sofa. I reached out and stroked her. Small comforts.
‘Like I think my head is going to explode. It feels like I haven’t slept properly in forever. This can’t be normal.’
My mother pursed her lips, placing her hands in front of her. It was somewhere between a pensive and a defensive stance, and I didn’t like where it was going. ‘Have you been feeling stressed lately?’
Was she serious? Was I stressed? Was I bloody stressed? I knew she didn’t follow my life that closely but she knew enough to know that even half of what’d been happening lately was going to make me feel stressed!
I waved my arms in the air. ‘Stressed? Of course I’m bloody stressed!’
‘There’s no need to snap at me like that.’
‘I wouldn’t be this bloody stressed if it wasn’t for you! If you’d have told me the truth about my heritage when I was younger, Dominic wouldn’t have been able to manipulate Edie. We could’ve trained her how to use her powers from a young age and she wouldn’t have had to go to a raging psychopath to discover what she could do!’
My mother adjusted her high bun, shifting away from me slightly. ‘I didn’t tell you what I felt at the time were irrelevant details. I had no idea Javier came from such a powerful lineage.’
I stared at her, deadpan. Did she really think I believed that? ‘So you’re telling me you never sensed that Javi’s powers were bound? My seventeen-year-old daughter, who has only just tapped into her powers, can sense bound powers in a total stranger. Are you seriously telling me that you never sensed them in Javi? Despite how often you saw him?’ I continued to watch her, daring her to lie to me again. If her body language was anything to go by, she knew she’d messed up big time and had to tread carefully.
‘It’s not like I saw him as often as you did.’
‘That does not answer my question.’ I crossed my arms.
Until she answered, I wasn’t going to say anything else. She was going to tell me what I wanted to know if I had to wait in painful silence until she did.
My mother ground her teeth together, floating back and forth a few times as she tried to work out what to do. A part of me enjoyed seeing her so conflicted. It wasn’t often she was backed into a corner like this.
Spectre watched from his spot on the top of the living room bookcase. If I thought cats could judge, I definitely would’ve called his expression judgmental.
Tilly was still beside me on the sofa. She’d adjusted herself so that her head was resting on her paws. Her gaze was fixated on my mother. What was she thinking? Did she dislike my mother as much as I did? She was probably the only person the little dog didn’t get excited to see…
My mother lowered her shoulders, as if admitting defeat. ‘I sensed something, but it was none of my business. When you’re as powerful as me you sense a lot of things about people they don’t necessarily want to know.’
I rubbed my face. ‘You’re unbelievable, you know that? Fucking unbelievable.’
‘Don’t swear at me like that!’
I stood, squaring up to her. I’d never been filled with more rage towards the woman in my entire life. ‘After decades of your bullshit, I think I’m allowed. That’s the really clever thing: you’ve never overtly lied. Instead, you’ve danced around the truth; you’ve left things out; you’ve done whatever you can to protect yourself first and foremost. It would be clever if it didn’t make me want to punch you.’
She jerked her head back, as if I’d actually do it. I wouldn’t, for the record. Nor could I, since she’d already crossed over. Surely she knew that?
I rolled my eyes. ‘Please. You’re not even worth it if I could punch you. Get out of my house before I do something else.’
Her eyes went wide. ‘Did you just threaten to exorcise me?’
‘No. You interpreted what I said as that.’
It felt kind of good to play her at her own game. I should’ve done it years ago.
*
‘Niamh? What’s wrong?’
‘My mother!’ I shouted down the phone at Maggie. My mother had gone, but her words – her excuses – were still very much in my head.
I slammed a mug on to the kitchen side, then changed my mind and shoved it back into the cupboard, closing the door with a semi-satisfying bang. While the angry part of me enjoyed it, the headachey part of my very much didn’t. I leaned against the side for a minute, grinding my teeth together.
‘What did she do?’
‘Can you meet? I need to vent.’ I tapped my foot against the cupboard door.
Tilly and Spectre will still in the living room, neither of them wanting to stay near me when I was in such a bad mood.
‘I’m at work, sorry.’
Of course she was. I was such an idiot.
‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.’ I pulled my phone from my ear and reached for the end call button.
‘Wait! Why don’t you come over after work? I can feed you and you can vent.’
I nodded. Yes, that would help. ‘That sounds like a good plan. What time do you finish?’
‘In about an hour. So why don’t you take Tilly for a walk, then take a slow drive over here?’
‘Why did you emphasise the word “slow” like that?’ What was she implying? I was always a careful driver!
‘Because I know you,’ she said vaguely.
‘Meaning?’ She so wasn’t going to get away with not filling in the blanks. I’d had enough of that already.
‘Meaning I remember not long after you passed your driving test you reversed your car into a pole because your mum stole your secret ice cream stash from the freezer and finished it off without telling you. So if you do that over ice cream…’
‘I couldn’t see the pole! My back window was too high up and the pole was too short and I had no rear sensors!’
‘Still. You don’t want to take your bad mood out on your car.’
My shoulders relaxed. Maggie wasn’t the villain here. She was offering to feed me and let me vent. She was on my side. And probably right about the car. ‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry for snapping.’
‘I’ll see you in a bit, all right?’
‘All right.’
*
I expected Javi to turn up while I was rage-walking Tilly, but to my surprise, he didn’t.
Then again, he had the common sense to know that when I was in a bad mood, Maggie was the best person to calm me down. While he was good at making me laugh, he often said the wrong thing and made me more annoyed.
Not to mention it appeared that he now spent a lot of time with the source of my anger, making him an easy target if he did come near me.
Despite her hatred of walks, Tilly walked well, as if she sensed that I needed to get out of the house. I appreciated her understanding.
*
Usually I liked to listen to music or the radio when driving, but both made my headache worse so were out of the question. Even the indicators clicking caused me to cringe. I tried to block the clicking out, to focus on the road ahead of me, but it wasn’t easy when light also hurt my eyes, even through sunglasses.
Maggie worked as a part-time chef at a fancy local place on the outskirts of Nottingham. When I pulled into the car park, I’d never been happier to stop the car and not have to listen to the humming of the engine any more.
The restaurant car park was moderately busy, but easy enough to find a space in. And, more importantly, quiet enough that Maggie and I could talk in semi-privacy.
When I went inside, the server showed me to a table that had been reserved for me. There was a handwritten note from Maggie, scribbled in her scruffiest handwriting, the style she only ever used when she was in a rush but really wanted to write something down. The note informed me that food was on its way and the bartender would make my favourite coffee when I got in.
I relaxed into the plush seat, closing my eyes to listen to the sound of people talking and the water feature on the other side of the window. The splashing water was soothing, helping me to block out the argument with my mother that was playing over and over in my head.
‘Coffee?’ said Maggie’s voice. She sat opposite me, placing a mug of my favourite in front of me, then sitting opposite me with a cup of tea.
‘Bless you,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘So. What happened?’
‘I made the mistake of asking my mother for help, and she suggested the reason I haven’t been sleeping is because of stress.’
A server placed two meals in front of us. ‘Guinea fowl?’
Maggie gestured to me.
‘You’re feeding me guinea fowl?’ I asked as the server put the plate in front of me and chuckled.
‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘Unless you’d like to swap for my chickpea and quinoa salad?’
‘I’m good with the meat,’ I said. It wasn’t that I had anything against eating vegan, but I couldn’t angrily chop into grains in the same way I could meat and veg.
We thanked the server, then Maggie continued: ‘You have been stressed.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ I picked up my cutlery and stabbed the guinea fowl. The metal knife clanged against the plate. ‘It’s hers.’ I sliced into the meat, ramming my hand back and forth as fast as I could. ‘If she’d told me the truth from the start—’ slice ‘—Dominic wouldn’t have been able to manipulate Edie—’ slice ‘—because we would’ve known what she was capable of and could’ve trained her from the start!’ My knife finished slicing through the bit of guinea fowl I’d been cutting, so I stabbed it with my fork. Yes, that felt better.
Maggie put her hand on top of mine. ‘You’re going to damage the plate if you keep sawing your food like that.’
‘Sorry.’ I tried to relax my grip on the cutlery, focusing on eating instead of attacking. The guinea fowl had a stronger flavour than chicken, but Maggie was right: it was nice. She’d picked well. Why was I surprised? She always picked well.
‘It gets better,’ I said, shovelling some cabbage on to my fork.
‘Worse than her lying to you?’
‘She knew Javi’s powers were bound and never. Said. A word.’ I punctuated the last few words for dramatic impact and with more – delicate – slices of roast potatoes.
‘All this time? She knew and never told you? Or him?’
‘If Edie can tell when people’s powers are bound, there’s no way my mother couldn’t. Especially not with how much time Javi spent at ours when we were teenagers. She would’ve sensed it, even if she couldn’t tell exactly what he was capable of.’
‘Damn.’
‘And she has the audacity to not realise she caused so much of my stress!’ I put my cutlery down and waved my arms in the air. ‘She’s got no accountability. It’s like she doesn’t care and can’t take responsibility for any of it.’
‘Are you really surprised?’
I sipped my coffee. The sweet, acidic taste was exactly what I needed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This is pretty standard behaviour for her, isn’t it? The only difference is that the consequences are greater.’
I sighed. ‘You’re right. You’re totally right. She’s not acting out of character. I was expecting too much from her. More than she’s ever shown herself to be capable of.’
‘You were expecting her to be a good person,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s not too much to ask.’
I scoffed. ‘It is for her.’ Shaking my head, I returned to eating my roast dinner. Maggie knew if I didn’t eat I’d crash once the adrenaline wore off. That’s why she’d offered to feed me.
‘Thanks for having my back, Mags.’
‘Any time.’