Shadowspell

I reached over and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Please don’t be stressed about me. I’ll be fine.”

“Of course you will,” she agreed with false cheer, then fell silent and went back to her fidgeting.

I waited to see if she was going to say anything else, but she didn’t. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” I finally prompted, not sure I wanted to know.

She took a deep breath, then turned to face me with a grim but determined expression. Now I felt sure I didn’t want to know.

“You understand that your father is keeping me here against my will, don’t you?” she asked.

I winced. Yeah, I knew that. She and I were both his prisoners in a way.

“Do you know why?”

That question surprised me. Of course I knew why. Dad forcing Mom to stay sober was one of the few really good things that had happened since I’d come to Avalon. Naturally, Mom didn’t see it that way, especially since she wouldn’t admit she had a drinking problem in the first place.

“He’s keeping you here so you’ll stay sober,” I said, bracing myself for yet another round of denial on her part.

Mom shook her head. “No. He’s keeping me here because he thinks it’s what you want.”

“Huh?”

“He’s keeping me here because you think I’m an alcoholic, and he thinks keeping me locked up without alcohol will make you happy.”

I’d never thought of it that way, but I supposed it was true. Damned if I was going to feel guilty about it, though. “Your point being?” A hint of frost entered my voice, but Mom ignored it.

“My point being that if you asked your father to release me, he probably would. I’m as much your prisoner as your father’s.”

I laughed, but it was a bitter, angry sound. “You want me to convince Dad to let you go so you can go back to business as usual. That’s great, Mom. Just great. You want to go back to being a pathetic drunken loser.”

She jerked back as if I’d slapped her. “Dana!”

Back when she’d been drunk all the time, I’d worked very hard to keep my rage locked tightly inside. Yelling at her or even reasoning with her when she was drunk was an exercise in futility. But she wasn’t drunk now, so I let it all out. Maybe now that she was sober—however unwillingly—she’d be able to understand just how badly her alcoholism hurt me.

“You want me to pretend it’s all right with me that you’d rather get drunk and pass out than spend time with me?”

“That’s not—”

“Or that it’s all right for you to be so drunk all the time you can’t be bothered to keep your bills paid? You think I didn’t mind having to lie for you year after year after year?”

“Enough!”

“No, it’s not enough!” The anger was taking on a life of its own. My fists were clenched so tight my fingers were falling asleep, and I felt like I was going to explode. “You’ve been a sorry excuse for a mother my whole life, but for the last few weeks, I thought maybe you were capable of better. And now you’re asking me to make it easy for you to go back to being—”

My mom slapped me, and it shocked me silent. She’d never hit me before in my life. She was so angry she was shaking. But the sheen of tears in her eyes said there was pain behind the anger.

“I said that’s enough,” she said hoarsely. Then she stood up, turned her back on me, and walked stiffly away.

*   *   *

I should have felt happy that I’d managed to save Ethan from the Wild Hunt, regardless of the promise I’d had to make to do it. Instead, I felt lousy. Dad was worried about me. Mom was furious with me. Keane seemed to want something from me I wasn’t able to give him. And Ethan, apparently, wasn’t speaking to me.

I finally got sick of waiting for him to call me and nerved myself up to call him instead. He didn’t answer, and though I left him a message, he didn’t call back. It kinda reminded me of the cold shoulder I’d given him after I’d seen him with Ashley at the party, but I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Not that I knew of, at least.

When calling Ethan didn’t work, I called Kimber instead. I’d only spoken to her once since the day I’d gone to the Erlking’s house, and that conversation had been brief. I was determined this one, however, would let me get to the bottom of whatever was going on with Ethan.

It had somehow slipped my mind that Kimber hadn’t had a chance to interrogate me about just how I’d managed to free Ethan. She reminded me of the fact almost immediately.

“So, you said you had to work something out with the Erlking other than the deal we’d come up with together,” she said, and I made a chagrined face I was glad she couldn’t see. “What was it? No one seems to know.”

Yeah, and that was just the way I wanted it. So even though I felt a bit guilty about it, I gave Kimber the same lie I’d given my dad. “The Erlking put a geis on me, so I can’t tell anyone what I did.”

There was a long silence. “Uh-huh,” she finally said, and I heard the skepticism in her voice loud and clear.

I squirmed. I hadn’t felt bad about lying to my dad. I mean come on, he might be my dad, but I barely knew him. There was no way I was talking sex with him. Period.

But Kimber was my best friend, and if I was going to open up to anyone about this, it should be her. I’d told Kimber the shameful secret about my mom, and at the time I’d known her for like twenty-four hours. We were closer now, so I should be able to trust her with my new embarrassing secret.