“I’m vegan, too,” Jasper said.
River drained the second bottle. “Your brainwashing worked,” he said to Ellis, opening another beer. “He never got over the guilt you made us feel for eating meat.”
“Lay off her!” Jasper said. “It was my choice. I never liked meat.”
“That’s the point of indoctrination,” River said, “to make you think what you believe was your idea all along.”
“You’re acting like a total ass,” Jasper said.
“Why would I have to act?” River said with a grin. He asked Raven, “I suppose you’re a vegan, too?”
“No,” she said.
“You eat meat?”
She nodded.
“Well, hell, no wonder you feel sick from eating that shite-tan thing. Let’s go over to the barbecue place down the road.”
“You’re not driving,” Ellis said. “That’s your third beer in twenty minutes.”
“Seriously?” he said. “You’re going to play parent all of a sudden?”
“You’re underage, and I gave you the beer. I could get in big trouble if you had an accident.”
“Okay, that sounds like the mom I knew. It was more about you than concern for me.”
“I told you to lay off,” Jasper said, shoving his shoulder.
The blow made River stumble backward a few steps. He found his feet and threw a punch that Jasper barely dodged. Jasper grabbed him by the upper arms, shouting, “Stop it! Why are you doing this?”
“Why are you?” River yelled, shoving him back. “Why did you want to come here? We could be at the goddamn beach right now!”
They crashed into the baker’s rack, toppling one of the very few possessions Ellis cared about, an antique apothecary jar Keith had given her for her birthday their first year together. Ellis had gradually filled it with little gifts of wildflowers Keith had brought from his walks on the property.
The jar exploded as it hit the floor. Parched flowers scattered in land mines of glass shards.
5
RAVEN
Raven cut her foot trying to help.
Ellis snapped at her for walking barefoot into the glass.
Jasper cut his hand.
Blood mixed in with the broken glass and dead flowers.
River did nothing, just leaned against the refrigerator, drinking his beer.
Ellis gave Jasper a box of Band-Aids and told him to clean his cut at the kitchen sink. She took Raven into the bathroom to look at the sole of her foot. “This is a bad cut,” she said.
“I can do it myself,” Raven said.
“Hold still,” Ellis said. She cleaned and bandaged the cut and had Raven sit with her foot elevated on a couch pillow.
Ellis went to the kitchen, and Raven heard her thank Jasper for cleaning up the glass.
“I hope you don’t mind that I threw the flowers away,” Jasper said. “They were too mixed in with the glass to sort out.”
“That’s okay,” Ellis said.
It wasn’t okay. Raven rarely talked to Ellis, but she’d become familiar with her moods, and she could tell Ellis was badly stressed by the arrival of her sons. Raven wasn’t happy about it either. She and Ellis had established a fragile balance. They both knew Raven would leave soon and there was no reason to try being friends. The absence of trouble and emotion between them was necessary for Raven as she grappled with everything Mama had done. All Raven wanted from Ellis was to be on her land until she could go home. Her closest companions were the grandparent oaks opening their giant limbs down to her, meadows that let her sleep on their flowered skirts, sandhill cranes bugling sweet music to her throughout the day.
But now these fighting boys had come and ruined everything. They had broken much more than the glass jar. Raven had felt it as soon as she saw them, everything in her life coming apart again, and she didn’t think she could handle more breakage.
She heard thumping cabinet doors, River asking if there was anything stronger than beer. Ellis saying beer was all she had. She asked them to go in the living room while she cooked.
Jasper asked Raven if she was okay as he entered the room with his brother.
“It’s nothing,” she said. She lifted her cut foot off the pillow and sat up.
“Nothing?” River said, looking at her bandaged foot. “That’s amazing. I guess you’ve already fixed it with your earth-spirit superpowers.”
In her mind, Raven jumped off the couch and punched him much harder than Jasper had. In reality, she tried not to show any reaction. The person who deserved to be punched was her bigmouthed aunt.
River saw she was upset. “Yeah, we know,” he said. “Our father told us about your kook religion.”
“Shut up,” Jasper said.
“I can say what I want, dickhead. What exactly can those earth spirits do?” he asked Raven.
“Nothing a person as lost as you could understand,” she said.
“Good answer,” Jasper said.
River was clearly angry that his brother had sided with her. He downed the rest of his beer and opened a new bottle.
“Have you figured out that the woman who stole you was insane?” he asked. “They tried to lock her up more than once, you know.”
“You’re the one who should be locked up.”
“Maybe I should,” he said. “And you’ll be in the padded room right next to mine. And why is that? Because of that piece of shit who stole you. She wrecked a lot of lives! And for you to act like she was this great person really pisses off everyone in this family! You need to get with reality! She was a total wacko!”
Raven sprang up and shoved him in the chest. “Don’t talk about her like that!”
Ellis pulled Raven away as Jasper grabbed River’s arm. The boys were about to get into another fistfight.
“Stop this!” Ellis shouted. “All of you, stop!”
“All of us?” Jasper said. “It’s River!”
“Go sit in that chair, River!” Ellis shouted.
“Oh my god,” he said with a laugh. “I’m in time-out? Have you forgotten I’m not four?”
“I said sit!” she screamed. Her eyes were the same as Mama’s when the storms thundered, her hand shaking as she pointed at the chair.
River complied.
“Why are you doing
