Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates (15 page)

When I fall asleep, I dream I’m back in the library where we stayed as Interim Fates. It’s this cool place that goes on and on forever. It’s filled with magic law books and books on spells and the history of magic. Every book ever written by a mage, conjured by a mage, or loved by a mage is in there (which means there are some mortal volumes as well, not that I read them then, although I looked at a few of them.) We kinda trashed it, because we didn’t know we had to hire our own maids (or spell them or whatever) and I complained a lot about the place because we were surrounded by books all the time with nowhere else to go.

But I’d rather be there now than here. This is like a bigger version of that library—this strange town with its even stranger customs—and I really and truly have nowhere else to go, even if people say I could drive out or fly out or whatever it is mortals do when they travel.

I let myself in the house, which is cool and dark in the warmth of the afternoon, and go to my room, pretending I don’t know where Mom put the iPhone as she prepares to send it back. I could call Crystal and Brittany on the phone, too, and maybe, if Mom keeps coming home late, I will. Just because. It’s pretty clear that Crystal’s mom won’t tell—she won’t even notice. It’s just Brittany’s mom who’ll get her undies in a bundle (yeah, I like that phrase) and if we do it right, she might not notice either.

But what’s keeping me from it is all that time Mom and I spent looking at sample itemized bills for the iPhone, and I keep wondering if regular phones have those too. Because if they do, I’m screwed, at least as far as the afternoon phone calls go.

So I head to my room to pretend to do homework and maybe figure out some plan so that I can at least talk to people who care about me and don’t find me exotic. I drop my backpack on the rug beside the bed, then flop on the coverlet, letting the entire thing bounce me a little, which is more soothing than I want to admit.

I’m almost asleep when something goes
Ka-zap!

I open my eyes.

My dad is standing at the foot of the bed. He has his hands on his hips and he’s surveying the whole place.

“Daddy?”

He turns toward me. He’s short and people say (I’ve heard them) that he looks a little like a bull because his features are coarse. I have his eyes—all black and intense—but not the rest of his features or even his shape, which, Crystal says, is a blessing because who would want to be short and square with no neck?

“Heard you wishing, honey,” he says. “I can sure see why.”

He was spying on me! He’s not supposed to do that.

I sit up, then glance at the door. Mom’ll be home at any minute.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Hello, and how are you?” he says, raising his black eyebrows. “I missed you, Daddy. It’s great to see you.”

He’s being sarcastic, implying that I’ve been rude. Maybe I have, but I did just see him a few weeks ago. And I’m not homesick for him.

I hope he doesn’t hear that thought. He normally doesn’t listen into thoughts, but if he heard my wishes, he had to be doing some illegal mental spying.

I can feel the blush beginning.

But he’s turned around again, and is looking at the smoke stain on the wall.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know why I agreed to any of this. You girls are all unhappy. I hate it when my girls are unhappy.”

I cross my legs and plump some pillows against my back. I don’t even have the urge to hug him. If this’d been the movies, I’d’ve run across my room and given him a big old hug before yelling at him.

But Daddy’s never really been the huggy type—at least not with his kids. New girlfriends, now that’s another matter.

“You don’t usually notice if we’re unhappy,” I say.

He grabs the white chair that matches the desk I never use. The chair looks too flimsy for him, but if he breaks it, I’ll make him fix it.

Magic. It’s so convenient.

He slides the chair over and sits beside the bed, almost like he would if I were sick or something.

“I notice when my girls are unhappy,” he says.

I shake my head. “Then you don’t usually care.”

“You’re always tough on me, Tiffany,” he says. “Why is that?”

I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that most of the other kids—even the grown ones—are a little afraid of him. I’m not. I never have been, not really. I’m not even sure I like him much, even though he is probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met.

“What do you want, Daddy?” I ask.

“You’ve been wanting to go home,” he says. “I want to take you home.”

“That’s not what we agreed,” I say.

He rolls his eyes. “Already you’ve become one of those hidebound mortals? You’ve only been living like this a few weeks. Don’t tell me you like it here.”

I can’t tell him that because that would be lying.

“There’s some cool stuff,” I say, because that much is true.

“Cooler than doing anything you want?” he asks. “Cooler than having the world at the snap of your fingertips?”

It’s not even the same
, I think, but don’t say.

His expression doesn’t change—and my dad’s not really good at hiding his moods—so for the moment, at least, he’s not listening in.

But I’m a bit surprised at my own thought. I mean, I should say that magic is cooler than living here, but it’s just so different. Magic, at least the way me and Brit and Crystal have lived it, is all about doing whatever you want when you want, and this place with Mom is all about rules and structure.

The real Fates once told me that good magic is about rules and structure too, but Daddy laughed when he heard that. He says they only like the rules because they make up the rules.

My confusion is growing worse. So is my stomachache, and I can’t tell if it’s from the stress or from that stupid chicken sandwich.

“Are Brittany and Crystal going home?” I ask instead of answering his question. Because if they are going home, then I will too. Not that I’m a follower, but we all agreed to do this together, and if we can’t be separate together then we should be together all the time.

Even if Megan doesn’t think so.

“They’re not happy either,” Daddy says.

He is studying me like he can see through me. Maybe he is listening into my thoughts.

But if he was, then he’d’ve answered my question differently. Because he would know how important truth is to me. How important it’s always been to me.

Not that he’s lying about them being unhappy. Even I know that, just from the short phone calls.

But the question is…

“That’s not what I asked,” I say. “I want to know if they’re going with you.”

His mouth thins. It makes him look even more bullish. “You’re the first one I’ve asked, little girl.”

That makes me feel good and makes me uncomfortable. “How come?”

“Because they listen to you. They can’t sneeze without your permission.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “They’re living whole lives without me now.”

“And your little empath—” by that, he means Megan “—seems to think that’s a good thing.”

“I know,” I say, because I’m still confused about this good thing/bad thing idea. “She says we can’t be real people until we know ourselves.”

“That’s modern crap,” Dad says and stands up. “You want to know yourself? Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? You want to know why your mom gave you up? Here.”

He touches that smoke stain and suddenly the whole room fills with flame. Only I can’t smell the smoke. The smoke is terrible and the fires are coming from the fingers of the fat baby lying in the middle of her crib.

Me.

I’m really round and naked and the only thing about me that looks like me is the eyes. They’re black and intense and sparkling. Baby Me is having a great time, even though the room is burning down around her.

Mom comes in and screams. Her hair is long and cornrowed with beads at the bottom (hypocrite!) and the beads click as she leans over me. She reaches for me and I zap her with fire. Her hair catches fire and instead of screaming, she grabs a blanket and snuffs it out.

Then she tosses the blanket on me, and grabs me and runs from the room. Down the stairs, out the front door, and past the neighbors who are staring at my room like it’s the most fascinating thing they’ve ever seen. Fire trucks show up, and men in fire suits go into the house and bring in hoses and they work on the flames while Mom keeps me wrapped in that blanket.

A paramedic shows up and tries to take me from Mom so that he can tend to the burns on her scalp, but she pushes him away. Tears run down her face, making tracks in the soot, and finally, she says—in a hoarse voice I barely recognize—“Zeus.”

That’s all it takes. A soft-spoken “Zeus” and the entire scene freezes. The water stops moving, the people stop moving, the
fire
stops moving. Only Mom is still moving. Mom and me, as I pry my way out of the blankets and eye the unmoving flames with more intensity than the adult me likes.

Daddy pops in like he just did in my room. And he looks the same. Mom looks lots younger and very scared, but Daddy looks no different.

“I warned you,” he says.

“Spell me,” she says. “Give me the power to stop her spells. Help me take care of her.”

He tilts his head. “You know the rules.”

That’s rich. Daddy hates rules. But Megan always says Daddy’s good at using rules to his advantage, not caring about anybody else.

“You break them all the time,” Mom says. “Help me. I can’t get rid of her. She’s my child. My
only
child. You have an entire battalion of children.”

“And I know how to raise them,” Daddy says. “She’s special. She doesn’t belong here. You’ll constrict her, make her something small. She needs to be big and glorious and free.”

“She’s a baby,” Mom says. “She needs her mother.”

Daddy grins. He looks almost satanic (yes, I know what that is. I saw
Little Nicky
).

“You have three choices,” Daddy says. “You can keep her here, and hope you survive the next few months. You can give her to me, and I can raise her. Or you can try to find some magic couple that’ll take her.”

Mom’s lower lip trembles. I’m surprised at how hard she’s working to keep me. Daddy always said she just handed me to him, and Mom always said she had no choice but to give me up.

“I’ll give her to you,” Mom says, “if you let me come with her.”

“You’d give up your life here?” Daddy asks.

Mom nods.

“Everything, your lovely house—” He says that with his trademark sarcasm. “—your university job, your all-American beloved freedom?”

“Yes,” Mom says. “I need to be with her.”

“Hera doesn’t let me have girlfriends anywhere near Olympus,” Daddy says.

“So take us somewhere else.”

“Then how can I raise her?” Daddy asks. “It’s either me or some magic couple.”

“Like an adoption,” Mom says.

“And you’ll never see her again.” Daddy sounds almost gleeful.

I’m not sure why he’s showing me this. Does he know how bad he comes off? Or does he think I’ll hate Mom after watching this?

“How come you want her?” Mom asks. “You’ve never spent any time with her.”

“She’s my daughter,” he says. “You know how special all my children are.”

“No,” Mom says, the tears gone now. “I don’t. I’ve only heard of a handful, and most of them are several thousand years old.”

Daddy rolls his eyes. “I’ll raise her to be one of the best of us. I wanted to give you a chance to see how you could do.”

“I’m not giving her to you,” Mom says. “Not unless you let me come along.”

“I can’t do that,” Daddy says. “But I can get Hera to look the other way for a week or two every once in a while. You can visit Tafandra then.”

“Tiffany,” Mom says. “Her name is Tiffany.”

Daddy shrugs. “It’s not a very good name, is it? We’ll have to change it.”

Mom stands. She’s holding Baby Me so tight that I squirm. Both mes. The me watching and the me being squeezed.

“Her name is Tiffany,” Mom says. “The name stays, just like I do. If you want the best for this child, you’ll take me too.”

“If you want the best for her,” Daddy says, “you’ll let her be herself. You’ll let people who know how to deal with her raise her.”

Then he sweeps his hand toward the still frozen fire, pouring out of my bedroom window.

Mom looks at it too, and wilts, just a little.

“How about a compromise?” she says. “How about some magic couple we both know raises her for a while and I spend my time there. It’s away from your wife—” And now Mom’s using a tone I’ve rarely heard. It’s just as nasty as Dad’s only without the magical threat, “—and I can still be with my daughter.”

“Tried that about three thousand years ago. Hera killed the couple, stole the baby, and threw me out of Olympus for most of a year.”

“Why do you stay with her?” Mom asks.