Spring came late to the North Country. After days of forceful sunshine, mud season was almost over, though the green smell of wet earth lingered. Orla still wasn’t sure if the summers lasted long enough to grow a proper garden, but she intended to try. She and the kids were planting green beans and tomatoes to start with; she envisioned fresh canned goods on the basement pantry shelves. She’d enrolled in a gun-safety and shooting class in town, and Walker and the boys were mentoring her on hunting and dressing various types of animals. One way or another, they’d never run out of food again.
Tycho, bored now that their little plants were in the ground, ambled off with his stick that had magically become a sword.
“What are you fighting?”
“The dragon and me are just playing,” he said. “She’s a very friendly dragon.”
“Okay.” Orla grinned as he swashbuckled around the yard. She turned to Eleanor Queen, who knelt beside her, knees and hands grimy with freshly turned soil. “The one thing I forgot to get? A hose. We’ve got the bucket, though.”
“We could wait for it to rain again.” The girl looked up, evaluating the sky. “Probably be a couple days.”
There were many moments now when Orla wondered if she was witnessing the knowledge of a tree—attuned to the elements in a way she couldn’t yet fathom—or something greater.
“I think it’s best for newly planted plants to have at least a little drink of water.” Orla pushed herself up and slapped the dirt from her hands. “Back in a minute.”
She headed toward the house. It hadn’t been so bad, acclimating to their reclusive life. Eleanor Queen hadn’t made it all the way to town yet. Partway there she’d inevitably start to feel weak, mumble something about passing out, and they’d turn back. But a violin teacher was coming out once a week to give her lessons. And with the internet, and regular video chats with her parents, and visits from Walker and Julie, Orla didn’t feel so isolated anymore. And her family accepted her excuse for why she and the children couldn’t travel or visit: they weren’t ready to leave Shaw behind, even for a day.
Orla had gotten her driver’s license and didn’t mind leaving Eleanor Queen alone for short periods when she and Tycho went out to do the shopping; the girl was more than able to look after herself. And when they were all home, with Shaw’s paintings on the walls and the music he loved accompanying their lives, he seemed near at hand, part of everything. They’d scattered his ashes in a circle around the house. And Orla saw him in her mind often, wearing his toothy grin. He liked the woman she was becoming, as independent in the country as she’d been in the city. And the children were happy; they played outside every day, regardless of the weather, and Eleanor Queen’s new boldness was rubbing off on her brother. He played by himself sometimes, imitating the songbirds, while his sister tested the whats and hows of her power. Tycho called her a magician. Neither Orla nor Eleanor Queen corrected him.
When Orla came out with the heavy bucket of water, she smirked at her wasted effort. She left it on the porch, spilling a bit on her shoe as she set it down, and strolled back to the garden—once the spot where the detached garage had stood. She’d had the generator moved to the other side of the house, and the SUV now had a new graveled slot where the driveway met the yard.
Eleanor Queen had summoned a cloud; a light rain fell on their little patch of earth.
“Make a rainbow!” Tycho skipped in a circle nearby.
With her outstretched hand, Eleanor Queen changed the direction of the falling water. The sun shone through it in such a way that a bright rainbow appeared, a bridge of color that spanned from one side of their garden to the other. Tycho skipped through the bands of color, tried to reach up and grab them as if they were fireflies.
Eleanor Queen manipulated the cloud, made it so the rainbow chased Tycho as he ran around. He squealed and let it chase him, fully accepting of the magic, and of his sister. Of the beauty and simplicity of their new life.
Orla dipped her hands in the gentle rainfall her daughter had created, washed away the dirt, and headed inside.
Before she made it back to the kitchen, the house rumbled from an earsplitting crack of sound—the kind that lights up your bones, makes you duck and wince even though the danger is unknown. Tycho screamed. Orla charged back out, certain the house—or her son—had been struck by a wayward lick of lightning.
She wasn’t far off.
“Sorry, Mama.” Eleanor Queen was too ashamed to look her mother in the eye.
Tycho ran to the safety of Orla’s arms. Relieved that he was okay, she finally saw her daughter’s mistake; the SUV still smoked from the strike, one tire flattened, the front hood mangled, the windshield shattered. It wasn’t the first thing Eleanor Queen had damaged, but it was the largest.
“Bean, you need to be more careful—”
“I know!”
“You can’t just experiment all the time.”
“Mother, how else am I going to learn?”
Annoyance flashed on the girl’s face. Orla had come to recognize the discernible presence of the other self. She didn’t emerge often, but She was distinctly not her daughter.
“Eleanor Queen Bennett, we’ve talked about this.” About not letting the older, otherworldly parts of herself surface; Orla still worried that She would ultimately overpower Her young host, her real child. But she hoped her maternal love would eventually soften Her rough edges; She wasn’t used to being mothered anymore, but She seemed to like it. In her most patient, most of-course-I’m-right tone, Orla added, “We made an agreement.”
“I’m sorry.” Her daughter drooped with defeat.
“Thank you, love. Well, it’s time to come in anyway—you can set the table.” A beautiful table. Solid oak. With only one char mark on it from where Eleanor Queen had been lighting candles. Without matches.
Eleanor Queen leapt across the yard and ran up the stairs and through the doorway, clearly relieved to get away from her mother’s admonishing eye.
“You go and help.” She set Tycho down and he chased after his sister.
“I’m doing the spoons!” he yelled from the living room.
Orla gazed at the car. Had the lightning strike gone all the way through the hood; was the engine ruined? At best, the SUV was currently undrivable, and if she needed to replace it…it was an expense she couldn’t afford. A little nest had been growing inside her, hatching tiny termite eggs. Hungry, they took turns on her ribs, gnawing. That Eleanor Queen sometimes misjudged the execution of her new powers didn’t surprise her. But this reminded her too much of those early weeks. Trapped. Unable to hop in the car and go.
Was there a chance Eleanor Queen had done it on purpose? Could her other self yet have an agenda of dangerous secrets? Do I really know my child?
The trees had unfurled their endless varieties of green; delicate new leaves fluttered like waving hands all around her. Maybe it was an illusion, a trick of how much larger they seemed, blooming with life, but had the trees come a little closer? Curious neighbors desperate for gossip?
Orla had nothing to say to them. She retreated indoors to her children, unwilling to be undone by things yet to come. And she knew. Something was coming. Though she also knew shutting the door wouldn’t help.
The problem lived inside her house.