Inherit (18 page)

“And I know it hurts to open up to her. I guess that’s why you’re imaging that she has ulterior motives. But maybe she just wants to help you. Maybe she’s just trying to make up for all the time she lost when you were a kid and she wasn’t there for you.” Vee’s voice takes on that same sing-song cadence the school librarian’s had when she read us
Charlotte’s Web
in elementary school.

“You’re a good person. The best person I know. But you’ve got it all wrong. My mother is so wrapped up in herself she doesn’t see anybody else. That’s who she is, and I’m not saying that because I’m so hurt or so paranoid. Okay? Ohmygod, I hear her coming, gotta go.” I chuck my phone under my pillow, realizing I’ve made a crappy case for my lack of paranoia.

“Wren, I asked you to meditate on your shield wall. Two hours ago it still had a good dozen weak points. How do you expect it to stand up against any witch worth her salt, let alone another shieldmaiden?” She leans against my doorframe, blonde eyebrows raised high.

I pull my mouth into a tight line. “It’s been two solid weeks. Sometimes sixteen hours a day. When will I be ready? I’m exhausted.”

She tilts her head back and laughs a real evil laugh. “Exhausted? Oh, please! You just started and you’re giving it about fifty percent, which is why it’s taking so damn long. Why can’t you focus?” She shakes all that freaking wild, perfect golden hair like she can’t comprehend the full extent of her disappointment in me.

“Why can’t I focus?” I tap my finger on my chin and pretend to mull it over. “Let’s see, shall we? I’m failing most of my classes since you won’t let me look at any of my schoolwork. I lost both my jobs, and the money I have in the bank is almost gone. I haven’t seen Vee face-to-face in over a week. I haven’t seen Loki, and I have no idea if she’s safe or in danger. Jonas—” I stop and clear my throat. “Jonas and his aunt are still bothering me.” It’s a lie, but it covers my near slip-up. She can’t know how much I miss him, what he means to me. And then the clincher. “And Bestemor is losing weight, strength, her mind. Everyday she’s weaker and less alive, and it’s like you couldn’t care less.”

My mom crosses the threshold of my door, sticks her face close to mine. “You think you’re such a big, grown-up girl because you’ve been playing house with your grandmother all these years? You have no idea what drove me out of this town or what I had to sacrifice so you could have a better life.”

The blood is pumping through me so hard it blocks my ears and makes it hard to hear anything but the angry bite of my own words.“I don’t? So tell me. Tell me what it was that was so important you left your only daughter. Tell me, Robin.”

She sticks her index finger into my face. “Don’t you call me by my name. I’m ‘Mom’ to you, missy!”

“Why? Because you gave birth to me? Any slut can get pregnant and pop out a kid!”

I know I’ve gone too far even as the words leave my mouth. Her hard slap across my cheek affirms it.

She puts a hand to her lips. “Wren, baby.”

I can taste a little blood in my mouth, and it makes my heart harden, first a shell on the outside, then through the layers of blood and tissue, right to the tiny black diamond core. “Forget it. Just forget I said anything. If you don’t mind,
Mother
, I need to meditate on my shield wall.”

She presses her hand harder to her lips and whimpers a little, but I know it’s all her own little show. She doesn’t care about me; over a decade of abandonment proves that. I glare at her until she leaves my room, shuts the door, and pads down the hall. Then I collapse on my bed and crush my face into my pillow to stifle my sobs.

When I’ve cried all I can cry, I pick up my phone and dial the number seared into my mind.

“Wren?”

“Jonas?” I swallow hard and wipe away the makeup that’s gooped under my eyes. “I need to get out of here. Wanna do something? You know, as friends?”

“Yeah. I do. I’ll be over in fifteen?”

“Perfect. Can you pull in front of the Pottbergs’? Down the street?”

“Sure.”

I kick off my sweats, pull on cute jeans, and squeeze the girls into my best push-up bra. I put on a low top, redo my eye makeup and lipstick and hop into my boots as I slide out the window. I race down the street, exhilarated that I’m escaping.

My footsteps echo hard on the concrete, and when I make it to the Pottbergs’ I have to sit on the curb and breathe slowly, in and out, to calm my thumping, stinging, tired heart.

It was right here, right in the middle of the crocuses, that Loki told me to wish for Robin. It was that same day that my mother showed up and invaded my life.

Jonas’s truck rumbles to a stop next to me. The engine cuts, but I look down at my hand on the cement instead of up, even when I hear the car door slam shut and his boots clomp my way. He sits close and bumps his shoulder into mine.

“You needed saving?” He puts a hand under my chin and tilts my face gently, so we’re eye to eye.

A smile is the very least I can do, since I’m the one who called him and asked for his saving. “Thanks for coming. I feel a little like I’ve been trapped in some kind of weird boot camp.”

He lets his fingers spread over my jaw for one delicious minute before he drops his hand and pulls at the grass growing new and green between us. “Vee told me your mom’s been pretty focused.”

“That’s a really nice way to put it.” I laugh, a shaky, dusty laugh that is really more practice than fun. “She’s helped me, though. That was the point. I needed her to help me and she did.”

Jonas plucks a few blades of grass and twirls them between his fingers until they crush into a damp green and release the smell of spring into the air. “So she’s helped you with a plan for Bestemor?”

Bestemor. It takes a few seconds for me to answer Jonas because I’m trying to get a chokehold on my urge to weep. “Not with Bestemor. She’s been so bad, Jonas. Just lays in bed, not eating much, cries all the time. I think it has to do with Loki, but I don’t really know. I really don’t.”

His arm swings over my shoulders. I lean into him, letting his bones and muscles soak up the weight of my hopeless unhappiness.

“You’ll figure it out, Wren. I know you will. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

“You really think that?” I ask into his jacket.

“Absolutely. That’s why I was such a jerk the day of our debate. I didn’t want you to whip my ass and embarrass me in front of the whole class.”

This time my laugh is a little more dressed up, like it’s slipped out of its pajamas and into loungewear. “I would have gone easy on you.” I tilt my head up and look into his face, all golden five o’clock shadow and warm blue eyes asking me, I know he’s asking me, to kiss him.

Or maybe not asking me. Because the minute I get up the courage to lean in, he leans back and asks, “Has your mother taught you anything about being a shieldmaiden?”

I put kissing out of my mind and think shields. My mother helped me master the Jell-o shield Sakura put around us at school. It’s called the
boble
. She taught me how to cast a wide multi-armed shield around people I want to protect. That’s the
tentakkel
. I mastered the kind of solid shield nothing can break through, called the
diament
. The one that I was supposed to meditate on was a type of flex wall that could rotate strength spots. But it’s difficult because when you pull all of your power to one area, you risk leaving a second area under-developed.

That’s where my downfall has been. I spread the power unevenly and leave big gaps between the focus centers. My mother has pounded those gaps day after day, leaving me exhausted and bruised.

“Apparently, I’m not half the shieldmaiden she is, and I find new ways to disappoint her every day.” I shrug. “I guess I should be glad. I never disappointed Bestemor like this, so at least my mother is giving me the chance to be a typical disappointing teenager.”

“I’m sure she’s not disappointed in you. I take it from Magda that they were trained by some old-school shieldmaidens, real taskmasters. She probably thinks this is the best way to teach you.” Before I can disagree and cite a million reasons why he’s wrong, Jonas nods his head to the truck. “You gotta be starving if you’ve been training that hard. You want to grab something to eat?”

“Sure.” I reach for his calloused hand and let him pull me to my feet. We’re inches away for a few quick seconds, but he loosens our hands, stuffs his in his pockets, and herds me to the truck.

“You like sushi?” He cracks his window and the cool night air whooshes around us.

“Never had it.”

“You’re half Japanese and you’ve never had sushi?” He smiles with new determination. “We’re going to fix this!”

“Good. Maybe raw fish and seaweed will be exactly what I need to get the
smør
shield just right so my mom can stop telling me what an incompetent loser I am.” I grip the side of the door as Jonas whips to the side of the road, his face suddenly contorted in shock. “Um, what’s up?”

“
Smør
? That’s the shield you’re working on?”

I feel like I’m being interrogated. “Yeah. Weird, right? The ‘butter’ shield.” I manage a weak laugh, but he’s still staring. I clear my throat. “So, sushi sounds really good. Like, now. If you want to drive? Now?”

“I thought you said your mother kept telling you how awful you were. I thought you were some huge disappointment.” The words buzz and strike at me, a swarm of wasps whose hive I’ve just stomped on.

I speak slowly, trying to calm his irrational jump-down-my-throatedness. “Check and double check. Like I said, I can’t do the
smør
shield, and my mother’s been beating me up over it for the last three days.”

I don’t know if Jonas is actually listening, because he seems invested in banging his head into the back of his seat.

“If you don’t want to do this, it’s cool, Jonas. I thought the whole friend thing was kind of weird anyway, you know, considering, so just turn around. Or you can drop me at Vee’s— ”

“No one can do that shield, Wren,” he interrupts, taking a break from his head-banging to look at me like I just crawled out from under a microscope. “You’re not a failure because you can’t master it. You’re amazing because you can even grasp it.”

“How do you know?” I demand.

“I live with some of the most powerful shieldmaidens in the world. They talk shop. Incessantly,” he sighs. “Magda thought you two would still be perfecting
boble
this week.”

My laugh borders on giddy. I have officially entered the Twilight Zone, where I’m some kind of super sheildmaiden with all kinds of power, instead of the lowly disappointment my mother kept insisting I was all during training. “Jonas, that shield took me less than a day. It’s ridiculously easy.”

“Show me?” His request is half dare, half order.

My back goes up and I turn to him, one eyebrow cocked in acceptance of his throw-down. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“I’m actually really scared that you can.” He mutters something I don’t quite catch, but it sounds like, “
I knew you were trouble
.”

The thing about
boble
is that you’re not really using the shield as a weapon or an offensive tool unless you want to hurl it, and there’s not enough distance for that in the car. Plus, it would be like getting shot with a frozen paintball close range. Not fun. Primarily, it’s supposed to insulate, so you can do other things; argue, confide, warn, kiss.
Focus
, I tell myself. You have to create a thick, impenetrable, undetectable wall and hold it without thinking.

I start by focusing the energy that’s cradled in my center, my diaphragm. I visualize the ball of tightly locked white and blue light and let it bob there for a minute. When I have a good hold on it, I put my hands out, palms up, draw the light down my arms, and wait for my palms to get warm. Once there’s enough heat, I flick my wrists and pop the light in a shield that, at first, fills the entire cab. But holding a larger
boble
is hard, so I constrict it until it falls around Jonas and me without any extra room.

The outside world swishes away, all the noise of the highway at night disappears, and the space I’ve created nestles us, warm and secure as an underground den. Just like it did that day with Sakura, but without the creepy cousin factor.

Jonas tilts his head back and reaches his fingertips out. He presses against the sides and the
boble
ripples softly before it returns to its semi-solid Jell-o form.

“This is amazing.” He looks at me like he’s never seen me before in his life.

I want his eyes locked on me like this all the time. Being the target of his focus is like sucking helium from a birthday balloon or shooting down a treacherously icy hill on a waxed sled. “Sakura could do it and she’s not even a shieldmaiden.”

He shakes his head, dismissing my cousin quickly. “But she’s a witch. She probably used a draw.”

“A draw?” I remember her saying something about that, but my fury was at too high a pitch to really pay any attention. I’m irritated that there’s yet another thing I know nothing at all about. But, as frustrating as it is that everyone in my life has more information than me, at least Jonas shares what he knows.

His fingertips strum the side of my
boble
and it ripples in waves of iridescent rainbow colors. My skin longs for the same treatment from his fingertips. Something about arguing with my mother and sneaking out makes me feel like doing all kinds of other bad things, and Jonas is number one on my list. He breaks my deviant daydreams with his next words. “A spell where she draws some of your latent power and uses it for her own.”

By far the creepiest thing about finding out I have these powers has been Sakura’s sneaking around in my life; my head, my friends, my house, my powers, my fox; she’s trampled on it all and I feel like the victim of the most massive kind of identity theft. “So everything I learn is just going to make her stronger when she steals it?”

“No. Now that you know how to control it, you’ll own everything you do.” He grabs my hands and squeezes them tight, and a tingle runs from my fingers through my entire body. “Don’t worry. You’re much stronger than she is. You have so much talent. She’s going to wish she never messed with you.”