“I don’t look like either of my parents.” She swallows down her emotions.
“Neither do I,” Mercia says, waving as if it means nothing.
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. My mom jokes and says I’m the UPS guy’s kid. Truthfully, though, I may not necessarily look like them, but I inherited a lot of their traits.” Mercia picks up two parts of a photo and holds them together before she magically bonds them into one piece again.
“My mom didn’t seem too convinced about me being hers, though.”
Mercia glances up at Rachel, sympathy in her eyes. “It’s not necessarily about blood, Rach. Your mom—” She exhales through her nose and shifts around on the bed to get comfortable. “Okay, so, while I was in your mom’s head, trying to break your mom from the Fae’s clutches, I saw things I probably shouldn’t have. When your mom was our age, she was the Holland Keith at Ridge Crest, except, she wasn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your mom wasn’t just the captain of the cheerleading squad. Jenny was literally a beauty queen who got offered a big modeling contract by an international agency. She turned it down because Jason White told her he was going to marry her after they graduated,” Mercia explains. “When he dropped her before their prom, it was too late, though. The agency had already moved on to sign another girl.”
“Fine, but what does this have to do with me?” Rachel asks.
Mercia rolls her eyes. “Like your mom, you’re not small town hot. You’re the cover girl of French fashion magazines, the actress gracing our screen, the songbird on the stage, whatever. Here’s the thing, though, Jenny knows she’s gorgeous, whereas you probably don’t care what you look like.”
“I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment, but—”
“It’s an observation,” Mercia interrupts before Rachel can say more. “To people like Holland and your mother, you don’t make any sense. You prefer books to people, making lists to wearing makeup, running track to cheerleading. The most ordinary thing anyone’s ever seen you do is when you went out with Greg.”
“In other words, my mom wanted a carbon copy of herself in order to live her life vicariously through me.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“No wonder we don’t get along,” Rachel murmurs.
“You get straight As—how did you not pick up on this earlier?” Mercia asks.
“I’m socially awkward, hello?”
A few beats of silence fill the space between them, before Rachel titters. Hesitant at first, Mercia only smiles, but releases an unexpected giggle. Spurred on by each other’s giggles, the two girls soon rumble with laughter.
Their mirth eventually dies down, leaving Rachel hollow once more.
Rachel couldn’t be who her mother wants her to be. No matter how hard she tries, she won’t ever fit into the Jenny Cleary mold. So where does that leave them?
Will she and her mom forever be at odds or will they maybe someday find common ground? Jenny is a librarian, sure, but their taste in reading material doesn’t match up whatsoever. Where Rachel loves genre fiction, her mom gravitates toward romance and literature. Jenny doesn’t enjoy cooking whereas Rachel does. They are simply too different, too at odds.
Who am I?
The question, still frustratingly unanswerable, pops into her head again. The fact is she doesn’t know who she is—does anyone?—but she knows who she wants to be. Rachel wants to be kind and courageous, compassionate and humble. Popularity isn’t something she has ever desired, but she would very much like it if she could someday be the person other people wanted to confide in. The question remains, though.
Who am I?
“What is this Fae actually looking for?” Rachel stares at the sonar picture her mother hadn’t torn up. “Better question: What does it want from me?”
“I have no idea,” Mercia says. “Are we even certain this is that Golvath guy?”
Rachel shrugs. “My instincts tell me it is, but I can’t be sure.” She picks up the sonar scan and studies the grainy image, searching for a clue. There’s a reason why her mother didn’t rip up this picture—there’s a memory she needed to share. But what could it possibly mean?
“Rach?” Dougal’s voice intrudes on her thoughts. “It’s almost visitin’ hours at th’ hospital. Ye wanna come with me?”
“Mrs. Crenshaw doesn’t want me seeing her like that,” Rachel says.
Dougal grimaces then nods. “Ye know why, yeah?”
“Yeah, it’s because she loves me more than she loves you.”
“Oi!”
Rachel grins. “I’m kidding.”
“It is ’cause she loves ye, but also ’cause of pride.”
“I know.”
“Had to make sure ye know,” he says. “I’ll tell her ye said hi.”
“Tell her I love her, too.”
“Nan’ll think ye’re tryin’ to be funny,” he says, but smiles anyway. “I’ll give her yer best.” He pushes away from the door, but says, “Are ye two lasses gonna be all right by yerself?”
“I’m recharged and ready to go,” Mercia says as she snaps her fingers and a bright flame dances on the tip of her thumbnail. “Don’t worry about us.”
“Don’t get into trouble without me,” Dougal says as he retreats.
“Don’t get into trouble without me.” Mercia nails his brogue with ease. Rachel snickers in response, earning a smile. “It’s like he expects us to do something irresponsible.”
“Speaking of being irresponsible, are you up for a recon mission?”
“Yeah, sure, why not,” Mercia says. There’s mischief twinkling in her storm-gray eyes and a grin playing at the corners of her lips. “Where are we heading?”
“To where this all began.”
“Oh?”
Rachel stands and says, “Ever since the Fae’s come out of hiding, I’ve been wondering what is new, what doesn’t belong, and maybe we’ll get lucky and find some answers there.”
“I’m not going into the boiler room,” Mercia says, standing.
“Would you believe me if I said that’s not where the answers lie?”
Twenty
Calcification
The drive to school is not without its obligatory weirdness.
As Mercia turns onto Main Road, Shadow Grove’s residents step into the
