Inherit (12 page)

“We talked about the fact that these foxes belong to families who are involved with magic.” Vee speaks slowly and reasonably, the way a preschool teacher would talk to a kid panicked and irrational on the playground.

“Yes! We talked about
them
being witches!
Them
! My family in Japan! I thought…you know, old ladies maybe? Reading tea leaves? Or is that gypsies? I don’t know! I thought it was superstition! This is…screwing up my life! This is out of control! I want to be done with it!”

Loki puts her paws on my lap and tilts her head to one side. Her voice soaks into my head.

Wren, calm down. You can’t throw this gift away. You can’t deny it. You’re afraid to use the power you have, but it will be even more frightening to let the wrong hands command it. Do you understand?

“No! No, I don’t!” I yell. Vee looks at me like I’m a lunatic, which isn’t that far off. I explain awkwardly, “Loki is telling me that it’s a gift I can’t throw away and that if it gets into the wrong hands, it could be serious trouble.”

“What wrong hands?” Nevaeh leans over and peers at Loki like she expects the fox to blab to her. “What could happen?”

Your family has a very strong, very ancient coven. Your grandfather’s mistress and wife were two of the most powerful witches in Japan. You and your cousin would be equal in powers if it wasn’t for your mother’s contribution.

“What contribution?” I ask.

“What? What?” Vee looks back and forth and tries to figure out what’s going on, but I want to know what my mother has to do with this. The little fox opens her mouth and blinks slowly, as if she’s telling me to calm down and listen. A good golden light snakes through me and works like a mild sedative.

Your mother is the descendant of the Valkyrie, the Norse shieldmaidens. Because she passed her powers on to you, you have some of the strongest blood in the coven. You can easily overcome Sakura and assume your place as head of the family.

A very, very mild sedative.

“I don’t want a place as head of any family!” I cry, pointing an accusatory finger at the fox while her ears twitch back and forth. “My mother isn’t a Valkyrie or whatever you said! She’s just a deadbeat, like my father! How could two such complete losers make anyone worth anything? Answer that!”

“Wren?” Vee’s hands anchor my shoulders and she pushes me down onto the bed. “Are you okay?”

I pull long, shaky breaths in through my nose and let them back out in smooth, slow rushes. Loki stares without blinking, but her tail twitches from one side to the other. “I’m fine.” It’s not true.

“You’re not. Tell me what you heard. What did Loki say?” Vee’s sparkly pink nail polish catches my attention, and I focus on it gladly. I don’t want to think about what this magic fox telecommunicated to me. But the worry in Vee’s eyes forces me to talk.

“She said my mother is a descendent of Valkyries, some kind of shield people or something. She said that with that little extra piece in my DNA, I’m some kind of super witch and should be able to beat Sakura out as leader of our family.” My voice clunks out flatly.

“Your mother.” Vee wraps her arms around my shoulders and rocks me back and forth. “Sorry, sweetie. I know that you miss her.”

I don’t want to hear my amazing friend being so sweet to me. Her kindness trips my tear ducts, and before I can help it, I’m bawling like a baby.

“I don’t,” I whisper, my fists balled so tight my fingernails dig into my palms. “I don’t need her. I don’t miss her at all.”

“You don’t need her.” Vee’s voice soothes my hands back out of their fists. “We’re here for you, sweetie. Me and Bestemor will always be here for you.” Her sparkly nails comb through my hair, over and over again in rhythmic comfort.

“Did she and my father know all this?” I ask Vee or Loki. I’m not sure who I’m asking, or even what answer I could possibly want. Would it have been better if my parents knew and hoped I never found out? Or would it have been better to have had this strange life glitch explained to me before I got some fox airmailed from across the world?

And if they knew, did Bestemor know? If she did know, why wouldn’t she have said anything? Is that why she took the whole pet fox thing in stride?

I tip over onto my pillow and Vee spoons me. Loki curls into my arms, and I bury my face in her soft fur, breathing the smell of her in deep, calming breaths. “We could try to find them if you want.” Vee’s voice is soft, but I hear the edge of anxiety. Contact with my parents is usually a pretty clear-cut recipe for disaster.

“I don’t even know where to start. And I have so many calc problems to do.” I groan. “Calculus on top of all of this seems beyond unfair, right? I wish I’d started my work earlier.” It’s out before I even really think about what I’m saying.

Vee sits up like a shot, and I bury my face in Loki’s thick fur again, trying to eek some comfort from the steady pulse of her tiny heart. I would have assumed that living with this wish problem would make me less likely to utter the ‘w’ word. Apparently not.

“Do you think anything happened?” Vee licks her lips.

I reach down for my backpack, flip open my calc notebook, and there are the fifty-three problems Ms. Riegel assigned us on Friday. Not only are they all neatly done, when I look at them, they make sense. I’ve almost never linked the words ‘make sense’ and ‘calc’ in a single thought.

I chuck the notebook and pound my fist into the pillow while my fox hops back and forth on dainty, nervous feet. “Nononononono!”

Those sparkly pink nails scratch light, comforting circles on my back. “Having your calc homework done isn’t the worst, hon.”

The tears are already pouring out in a torrent. “This is the worst! Not knowing, not understanding! Maybe this isn’t what’s right for me. I have no training. I have no one to talk to about how to do this the right way. If Sakura wants this, why the hell would I even attempt to stand in her way?”

The ‘conversation’ I had with Loki the other day, the one where she brought up Bestemor and her health, rings through my head, and I’m not able to push it away.

Loki whines deep in her throat, and her eyes plead with me.

“I get that Sakura is a little bit of a bitch, but is she really that bad?” I direct the question at Loki. “Really?”

Loki tucks her snout into her paws and flattens her ears. I attempt to comfort her with reassuring, fur-smoothing pats. “It’s okay, girl. It’s alright. I didn’t mean to freak you out like that.”

I take a deep breath and look to my best friend for guidance. The confident set of her smile gives me the push I need to get to work. “Right now I need to do some reading. I need to understand this all better.” I put my hand on top of the massive book Vee brought me. She nods and kisses me good-bye, and I’m left alone with way more questions than I can deal with.

I open the book and begin reading, patting the bed so Loki will curl at my side, one paw on my arm. I have no idea how much time goes by, how many hours I spend with my nose in the book. I would have read long into the night, except that Bestemor knocks on my door with her ladel.

“
Elskede
, dinner’s ready.
Fårikål
, just like you like it, with homemade bread. Come and eat. You’re wasting away.” She turns and walks to the kitchen, lifting her feet with deliberate, pain-staking purpose. Bestemor has strong feelings about old people. Old people, the ones on the way out, shuffle when they walk. She refuses to shuffle.

The fact that two weeks ago the sound of her feet dragging in a slow shuffle filled my ears and sent chills down my spine shakes me.

Loki jumps off the bed and trots after Bestemor. She turns to give me an expectant flash of her gold eyes over her copper shoulder, and I scramble to follow them.

At the table, Bestemor spoons out my favorite stew into the white and blue bowls she loves so much, and Loki parks herself at my grandmother’s feet, I’m sure hoping for some scraps. I dig in, filling my mouth with a huge spoonful that scorches my tongue.

“Not so fast,
skatt
! There’s no rush!” She sits across from me and dips her spoon with a dainty twist of her wrist. She blows on the stew and eats like a lady.

I put my spoon down and hold cold milk in my mouth in an attempt to combat the blisters I’m sure are coating the roof of my mouth. I swallow. “Bestemor?”

“Yes?”

I’m at that place where asking for more information is just going to hurt. And I don’t want to add my grandmother to the long list of people who let me down. But I need to know.

“I was reading about Norse mythology. I read about Valkyries.”

She sets her spoon down and folds her hands in her lap. Her bright blue eyes apologize across the table, so I know for sure this isn’t going to end well.

“Is any of it…true? Are there really shieldmaidens? What would they even do in regular life? I mean, they’re all about war and battle, right?”

The kitchen yawns around our silence. Bestemor picks at the blue threads that embroider the edges of her snowy napkins. She opens her mouth, and I lean forward, eager to listen, but she snaps it shut again. Her lips pucker closed, the wrinkles around her mouth more pronounced than usual.

“Wren.” She sighs and her brittle shoulders sag. “Oh,
elskede
, I hoped that our fate wouldn’t find you. It was a stupid hope.”

I push my bowl out of the way and reach across the table, grab her hand, rub my thumb along the tissue-paper skin. “Just tell me. Please. So much is happening, and I don’t understand any of it.”

She shakes her head, her white hair fluttering like swans’ feathers. “I don’t, either. Not completely. I promise you, if I had answers, I wouldn’t keep them from you. But I don’t, not really.”

“Do you know about the Valkyrie?”

She blinks a few times. “In ancient times, the Valkyrie were women of battle. They chose the bravest souls and took them away to Valhalla. When the wars ended, the Valkyrie remained, but changed. They became women of power over human emotions and desires. I have a very small amount of the gift. Just a pinch, really. Your mother…oh she had loads!” Bestemor laughs. “It was her undoing. She could attract anything, anyone. And when she set her sights on your father, I knew it was trouble. He was the first person in her entire life who had any power to resist her. I didn’t understand why then.”

“Why?” My fingers itch to pull out the secret, never-tell-anyone-not-even-Nevaeh box full of pictures of my hip, gorgeous parents that I have squirreled deep under my bed. Very few of the shots have me in them. I guess because once I came to be, I ended their hipness. And sent them running across the country, far, far away from me.

Bestemor rocks my hand back and forth and squeezes her fingers around it. “Because he had power, too. His family, well, they were different and strange in their own way. But powerful. Charms, looks, magic, it didn’t work on your father. He had his own tricks.” She laughs softly, but she doesn’t sound like she thinks any of this is funny. “What do you know,
elskede
? What do you know about Loki?”

“I know that she’s been making life crazy,” I grumble.

“Not easier?” There’s an edge of panic in Bestemor’s voice.

“Maybe. I guess.” I sigh. “But there’s a lot that isn’t working. I don’t know what I’m doing or why. I can hear her, too. In my head. I can hear what she says to me.”

Bestemor’s hands still. “Are you sure?” She asks with a hitch in her voice, desperate for my answer. “Answer me as honestly as you can. You’re sure it’s her voice?”

“I’m sure.” I look at her now-trembling hand. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I was warned,” she says, her voice suddenly scratchy. “Go get me a small glass of
akavit
. Right away!”

I can barely pour the stuff, the stink of alcohol is so overwhelming, but Bestemor throws it back like a sailor in a pub, and I watch with my mouth hanging open.

“
Skaat,
the truth is I don’t know how powerful you are, but I was warned that your power might be extremely strong. And if you can hear Loki, it must be.” She pulls me toward her, and I half want to fall onto her lap like I would when I was a little girl. But I can’t now. She’s old and frail and her lap won’t support me. I kneel at her side instead. She smoothes my hair with her soft hands. “As long as no one from your father’s hometown knows about this, we’ll be fine.”

Uh-oh.

“Um, Bestemor.” We just look back and forth, saying everything we need to say without uttering a single word.

“Who?” she demands.

“Sakura. My cousin.”

“Sakura Kochi?” Bestemor clutches at her heart , and I grab her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” I demand.

“Oh,
elskede,
” she murmurs, so low I almost can’t hear. “I think we’re in much bigger trouble than you realize.”

Chapter 13

“Sakura.” Bestemor purses her lips and shakes her head. “I knew that child would grow up to cause trouble way back when she was a tiny thing pulling your hair and stealing your toys.”

“I’ve met her before?” I wrack my brain to dredge up some decade-old image of Sakura as a little girl. All I can picture is a pink-haired Bratz doll, and I’m pretty sure that’s just something I’ve seen on a toy store shelf. “Did she always have pink hair?”

“Pink?” Bestemor rolls her light blue eyes. “What a drama queen she’s become. No,
skaat
, she was just an ordinary little snot-nosed brat with nothing to distinguish her except her jealousy.”

Cold. My grandmother is a lovely woman with bubbly kindness in her heart for animals, small children, even a very annoying Jehovah’s witness couple who’ve been visiting every other week since I was in nursery school. Sakura is a dumb skank, but that’s my very immature teenage response to her. Right?

“Why is she even here?” I watch my grandmother pace.

“It’s all jealousy! Of course. I should have known it would come to this. That woman always hated Ryuu.” Bestemor shakes her hands out at her bony wrists.

“Who? Who hated my father?” My voice sticks in my throat. I close my eyes, and I can see him no matter how many times I’ve tried to rub his image out of my brain. His arms bulge with muscle and are twined with tattoos of dragons. I bounce in his embrace, my baby hands tight around his neck. His black, shiny hair hangs close to mine, the intersecting strands identical except that his are thick and strong, mine wispy and baby-soft. When he turns his head to kiss me, I see his eyes.