Inherit (23 page)

Jonas and my parents crowd around the little table where he and I shared a meal, a game, the promise of a kiss.

My mother holds his outstretched hands, and the three of them gaze into a white ball of light that’s rotating at a sickening speed. Images blur one by one in a never-ending slide show inside that little ball of light, and my parents follow with rapt attention. After a minute, my father looks up, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open.

They’re shocked. And impressed. With Jonas. My Jonas.

He looks up from talking to them, and his eyes glide up and down me like he’s never seen me before, like I’m a whole different person. I hate that look on his face. I want him to be my foundation. I want him to lead me through this stupid maze and back to myself, the self I keep losing sight of—like a drowning woman’s head bobbing down below the waves over and over until she’s sucked away for good.

“Wren.” My mother turns, her face mirroring my father’s shock and awe. “Jonas…is here. For you.”

“Right.” I sit in the vacant chair at the head of the table, and they all squirm. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s so much we need to tell you.” My dad opens and closes his long, elegant fingers, making a furious fist, then relaxing it into lazy, drooping open hand. “But there isn’t any time. We’ve been stupid to stay here as long as we already have. Every extra minute is a risk we really can’t afford to take.”

My mother stifles a sob, and my father scoots his chair close and puts an arm around her.

“So let’s leave. You can tell me everything on the ride.” No one meets my eyes. Jonas scratches at a dirty spot on the tablecloth with his fingernail, his head down , his mouth a twisted scrap of itself under the shadow of his face. Bestemor would hate that the tablecloth was stained when company was over.

I want to rip it off and throw it in the wash with her weird blue detergent stuff that makes all the whites brighter. I want to call Nevaeh and ask her to drag that loud, sweet annoyance of a boyfriend of hers on a double date with me and Jonas. I want Loki curled in a ball at the foot of Bestemor’s bed while she reads in the soft light of her fancy old lamp. I’d even sacrifice my parents for a chance at a rewind, because, much as I love having them around, I’m not sure they’ll even stay, and I want to save all my wishing power for the family who needs it: my grandmother, who’s lying in bed motionless, and the loyal fox I was supposed to protect and didn’t.

I wish it with every fiber in my body, with every breath I pull from the room and into my lungs. I draw on every magical trap and lure inside me, and wait.

But there’s nothing.

“We’re leaving, Wren.” Jonas lifts his face, but his eyes stay hidden under his lashes. “Just you and me.”

“No.” I scramble up so fast, the chair tips and crashes. “I can’t leave Bestemor. She isn’t doing well. And I need to take care of her. She’ll expect me to be there when she wakes up.”

Finally his eyes lift, and they’re the same comforting light blue, but pitching with a mix of emotions I can’t begin to pin down. The clearest one is sadness. He feels sad for me, and that look of potent pity makes me crumple to the floor.

Mom jumps to me, puts her arms around my body, and rocks me back and forth. “Please, shhh, please Wren, understand that this is what’s best.”

“Why?” I wail, shocked at the loud, ripped-apart sound of my voice. Leaving with Jonas tucks my mind into a zone of certain comfort, but leaving my parents? Just when I got them back? And Bestemor? Just when her fate is the most uncertain it’s been? Thoughts fly like missiles in the middle of a warball game, and I have no place to duck and cover. “Why can’t we be together? We’re so much stronger together!”

“Because you’re being tracked.” My father’s voice is soft and firm. “By the witches, Sakura and Hina, and by the shieldmaidens, led by Magda.”

“My aunt gave you a potion,” Jonas explains, his voice brittle because he’s working to keep control around the words. “She wanted you to bond with the Baltos, and she was going to use you to strengthen her own powers. Remnants of that potion must have stuck with you, and she’s been using that to track you, which is why the
Kråke
came here. But I figured it out. And I want to help you.”

“You have helped.” I rub the sleeve of my shirt under my eyes, and am suddenly so tired I just want to curl against my mother’s shoulder and sleep. Or do I? I look up at her, and I love that face, love the look of gentle understanding she’s pouring down on me. But I don’t
know
that face. Everything is whirling too fast, out of control. “You helped me so much. I don’t need anything else from you.”

Except your kisses, I want to add. Except you and me and no one else and nothing but the things we feel for each other. That I might need.

“You need a lot more from me.” Jonas runs his hand through his hair. “I’m a magus, Wren. I can cloak you. I can make you untrackable. I can get you back to Loki, and once you have her, we might all have a chance at beating this thing.” I think he can sense I’m about to protest, because he adds, “It’s the only way to protect your family. You’re running too high a risk being around them. What happened today? That’s just the beginning.”

No one’s face denies what Jonas said.

“Is that your bag?” he asks, pointing to my duffel. I nod, my eyes stung with tears, my throat closed so tight, it feels like I’m trying to breathe through a tiny straw. He gets up and puts one big hand on my shoulder, then leans his head close to me, talking so low, the words are for me alone. “I’ll take care of you, Wren. This isn’t forever. And I’m…I’m so sorry. About Magda. About all of this. I should never have brought you to her.”

Instead of answering him, I screw my eyes shut and listen to his boots on the linoleum, the slide of my bag across the floor, the creak of the door, the pull of my father’s chair, and his footsteps as he comes right up to where I sit, shaky as a china cup teetering on the edge of a table, and wraps his arms around me and my mother.

I’m circled by the sweet, soft floral of my mother’s smell and the clean, hard bite of my father’s, and I want this to develop into something I’m sure about before we’re torn apart…maybe for good. I squeeze my arms, one around my mother’s waist, one around my father’s shoulders, and contemplate how unfair it is that this is over before it even started.

My mom pulls away first, wiping her eyes and nose. “I know this has been hard on you, sweetie. Hard and confusing as hell. But believe me, we’ll be together soon, and we’ll explain every single thing to you, okay? Every last crazy thing. We always wanted to. We just never thought…” Her eyes blink too fast. “We never thought it would be this fast.” She looks right at me. “And we’ll take care of your grandmother. The best care. We’ll take her somewhere where she can rest, where no one can get to her.”

I barely nod.

“You’re extremely powerful, Wren.” My father’s dark eyes and firm mouth droop with the weight of this fact. “I’m sorry we didn’t prepare you better so you could use your power. So you could understand why people would be interested in abusing it. But Jonas is a magus without equal. We would never let you leave if we didn’t trust him to protect you.”

He says that, and I want to believe him, and his words seem to make good sense. Except for the fact that nothing’s ever stopped my parents from leaving me before, and all I had was my frail grandmother to “protect” me.

But I keep my mouth firmly shut. I hug them both close, then get up and walk to my grandmother’s room. She lies on the bed, her chest rising and falling in a steady way that communicates every single good thing that should put me at ease: health, peace, life. Part of me wants to leave her to rest. Part of me wants to shake her awake and say my good-byes just on the outside chance that I almost can’t think about…that this might be the last good-bye.

I pull a chair up next to her bed and sit right on the edge. I brush her soft hair back from her forehead. “Bestemor?” I wonder if she can actually hear me. There’s not a single physical change I can see, no matter how hard or how long I look. I finally give up and say what I need to say. “Remember that time I invited all those girls from school to my eleventh birthday, but there was that big storm, and only Nevaeh could make it? And you baked this huge cake, and just the three of us sat up late and watched old movies and ate almost the whole thing? And Vee got me this makeup kit, and we all did our makeup? And you got me that weird coat with all the sequins on it that I begged for. And you were right! Those stupid sequins did all fall off.” I take a deep breath because the memory makes my voice shake, and I creep my fingers under her hand.

“You said you were sorry my birthday got ruined, and I never said anything back to you.” I lace my fingers through hers, warm, but not responsive. “That was stupid of me. I should have told you that was the best birthday I’ve ever had. Ever. I hoped there would be another storm the next year.” Three or four tears slide down my nose and plop on her pillow. “There wasn’t. And you stayed in your room to give us all our privacy, and you know what? It wasn’t nearly as cool. I wish you’d been out there the whole time. Because I love you. So damn much. I need you. You. Around. And I’ll fight whatever the hell I have to to get you back.”

I kiss her hand and lay my cheek down on it, and it’s like I’m a little kid in my jammies, snuggled down in bed with a glass of warm milk and a book about a little Fur Family who are warm as toast, and I
feel
warm as toast.

The smell of motor oil and aftershave cuts through my cozy thoughts. “I’m sorry, Wren. We can’t wait anymore. None of us are safe right now, and you and your grandma together is a high risk. We’ll be back. You’ll see her soon.”

The pressure behind my eyes makes my head ache. I kiss my grandmother, leaving a wet smudge of tears on her face. My parents wait at the door, and I hug each one tight, but it’s Bestemor I worry about most.

“We’ll take care of her,” my mother assures me. My dad nods, and Jonas gives them a look he thinks I don’t notice.

We walk to the truck together, Jonas’s hand hovering inches away from the small of my back, and I don’t look over my shoulder because I wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. The tears are making the world swimmy and blurred.

Jonas opens my door and tries to help me in, but I turn away from him. I fumble with the seatbelt, and he reaches to clasp it, but I swat his hand out of the way, blind fury and rage popping up like bubbles in hot oil and burning the one person who’s done nothing at all to deserve the brunt of this roiling, singeing anger.

“Stop it! Stop touching me! I can do this, okay? I can do it fine…on my…own.” The words spurt and sputter out of my mouth around sobs, and Jonas quietly ignores my protests, my tears, my arguments, and buckles my seatbelt methodically.

He gets into the truck and starts the engine, not looking my way or nudging a solitary syllable of comfort out of his tightly pulled mouth. Which I’m so thankful for, because I just got my sobs under control, and if he says one single sweet thing, I know they’ll come tearing back.

Suddenly the car jerks, and he stares at me, eyebrows furrowed, mouth to the side, definitely looking like he’s about to say something he maybe shouldn’t.

“Say it,” I plead, so sick of the countless things people feel it’s necessary to keep from me.

“You can make a
boble
. An unbroken
boble
. Of Bestemor.” He squeezes his hands on the wheel. “It’s…like a locket or a keepsake, I guess. Just pull the good energy, the good memories you have of her, and make a tiny
boble
shield. Did your mom teach you any
ferdig
spells?”

I shake my head.

He holds his hands out to me, dirty, calloused palms up. I put my shaky hands on top of his.

“Pull the good memories. While you’re still close to her. You can do this.” His voice coaxes me with gentle pressure.

I do it. I pull the memories of Bestemor I love the most: that birthday party, reading me the entire Ramona Quimby series before bed, decorating the Christmas tree with little paper angels and birds and stars we made together, the sound of her singing voice mixed with the aroma of the delicious meals she was always cooking, the beautiful curve of her back as she plucked herbs in the garden, the dry linen feel of her hands, her bright, sharp laugh. I pull them all and draw from my center. Blue and white flame-like energy flickers and collects in my hands, and I squeeze it tight, until it’s the size of a marble.

“Are you ready to seal it?” Jonas asks.

I add one last memory. One of Loki and Bestemor cuddled on the couch together. One I hope I can make a reality again soon. I compress the images and the small blue and white ball rotates quickly on my palm. “Ready.”

Jonas, unlike my drill sergeant mother, teaches me with gentle confidence. He grips at the edges of my fingertips and explains, “The energy for
ferdig
comes from the ends of your fingers, right at the brink of your power seam. Does that make sense?” I nod and he continues. “Imagine a sparkler. You want to keep the power showering but only from the edge of your force field. Use that concentrated power to seal the
boble
, and when the seal is complete, you’ll be able to keep it.”

Light shimmers and flecks from the ends of my fingers. It looks so pretty, but this is raw, pure energy that singes Jonas’s truck seats where stray sparks land. I try to keep it as controlled as I can, but the day has been so long and so full of insanity, my hand shakes and jumps and the power focus wavers.

Jonas’s hands cover mine and he draws his fingers along my skin over and over again, murmuring incantations that sound similar to the ones my mother uses, but older and rougher, like he’s weaving the words through from some ancient, sacred doorway that hasn’t been accessed for a thousand years. The shower of sparks from my fingers narrows, and the blue and white ball in my hands jumps and dances, then falls with a cool, heavy thud in my palm, a pure, clear blue.

“Here.” Jonas scoops it up and holds it to my forehead. I close my eyes, and all of those memories unfold in my mind like a beautiful, perfect film reel. The image of Bestemor so healthy and happy breaks down the last of my strength, and I put one clammy hand up to cover the
boble
and Jonas’s fingers.