Having a rough night, Jared texted Kota.
At work, Kota texted back.
God, he hated the needy part of himself. Tearing up like the giant baby his mother thought he was. Emotions aren’t facts. Emotions are signals. Emotions shouldn’t steer the boat. Emotions made bad captains. He’d been in this kind of shape before and he’d made it through. He hadn’t even had this much support, a place to stay, regular meals, concerned people.
That he was making a target.
The gun grip was warm in his hands now. Body temperature. If he didn’t exist, Georgina would have no ride back to this world. His mom could deal with coy wolves. They were not deep thinkers. Things they had in common.
Can I call? Kota texted.
Yes, Jared texted back.
Jared answered on the first ring.
“Hey, what’s up?” Kota said.
Jared found he was crying again. Keeping it quiet, at least. Non-verbal with exhaustion. Kota said nothing, but he was there, breathing, the sound of machinery in the aluminum boat repair shop in the background, and then Jared heard someone tell Kota the boss was coming, and he said, “I’ll call you back at my break. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jared said.
Sorry if I got you in trouble, Jared texted.
It’s a shit job, Kota said. Don’t sweat it.
—
Someone tried to take his gun and he hung on, pointing it before he was fully awake. Mave raised her hands.
“Morning, Dirty Harry,” Mave said. “That’s a dangerous place to store your firearm, dontcha think?”
“Sorry,” he said, realizing he’d dozed off in the recliner holding the Glock like a baby. “Sorry.”
“Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
“It’ll cost you one Glock,” she said.
He checked that the safety was still on and then handed it to her, grip first. She ejected the magazine and calmly put the gun back in its case and then returned it to the top of one of her bookcases. He went to brush his teeth. Having temporarily lost the will to live last night, he had neglected his dental care. He had a bad case of jungle mouth. He looked at himself in the mirror as he brushed. Shouldn’t being a Trickster make you immune to gum disease? Inquiring minds want to know.
The teakettle boiled, whistling. Wake up and smell the coffee. Two hours of sleep really made a difference in how he saw the world.
“Do you want toast?” Mave said.
“Sure.”
“Are you going to eat it or hide it in the garbage?”
Jared looked heavenward, a silent prayer to be delivered from observant aunts. “Sorry.”
“I’m not angry,” she said. “Just worried. Alder tea isn’t enough to sustain a growing boy.”
“Okay.”
“I’m putting extra sugar in your coffee. Drink it.”
He sat at the kitchen table. Mave pushed the coffee and toast at him, went back into the kitchen and came back with jam. I like my toast as dry as my martinis. Ha ha. All the jokes in all the world couldn’t put humpty dumpty back together again.
Mave sat across from him, watching him as she sipped her coffee.
Fairness, honesty. What did the words mean? Keep your trap shut, he told himself. She doesn’t believe in Tricksters and you can’t prove anything.
“They’ll catch David,” she said.
Would she only believe him once she was a ghost shuffling off this mortal coil?
“Last night,” Jared said. “I wasn’t here for an hour. You thought it was me, but it was a Trickster named Wee’git, who you knew as Wade.”
Mave put her coffee mug down. “That’s not funny, Jared. Don’t bring my missing brother into this.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“You don’t sleep. You aren’t eating. Your behaviour is starting to scare me.”
“I know,” Jared said.
“I think we should call your mother,” Mave said.
“Okay.”
“Stay here. Don’t run,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She got up slowly, leaving her coffee mug on the table. She closed her bedroom door behind her. A few minutes later he could hear her talking on the phone. One of the room dividers wobbled, and then Sarah pushed it open and came and sat where Mave had been.
“We’re just supposed to be eyes and ears,” she said.
“Wee’git was here last night in my shape.”
“I heard you. And your mom has texted me about forty times since she found out about the ogress and her hex.”
“I physically couldn’t tell anyone. I still can’t. Even. Think about her. Wee’git said he’d text Mom for me if I’d let him check out the apartment posing as me.”
“Damn.”
“Mom hasn’t been texting me. Just once to say she was busy.”
“She doesn’t want you to do anything stupid.”
“Too late.”
Sarah sighed and looked longingly around the apartment. “It was nice while it lasted.”
“Mave won’t kick you out.”
“Where you go, I go,” she said. She held up her pinky.
“Where you go, I go,” he said, joining her pinky with his.
—
He considered not telling Neeka. He considered giving her a bogus version of events. It wasn’t as if he’d never lied before in his life. But if Neeka was risking her life and the lives of her family, she deserved the truth. She hadn’t reacted to the news of Mallory showing up, so maybe she was neck-deep in trouble.
Can we talk? Jared texted her. If you aren’t busy?
The ultimate test of courage, of course, was telling his mother that it was Wee’git who had texted. He had no desire to do that face to face. He fiddled with his phone for a bit, then told himself it would be okay.
Hey, Mom. I did a shitty thing. I couldn’t tell you myself about the things that got texted to you last night, so Wee’git said he would tell you if I let him check out Mave’s apartment for an hour in my skin.
He stared at his text for a long time before he hit Send.
You are some fucking piece of work, she texted back immediately.
The more he tried to not be like Wee’git, he thought, the more asshole-y he acted.
Is he still around? his mom texted.
No. He thinks I should go stay with his friend, Chuck.
What
