Firestone (32 page)

Start there and come back.

I’ll wait.

Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Love
you. Love you. Love you.

Always and forever love you!

Mommy

“
Mommy,” Sandy whispered
the word she hadn’t said in twenty years. The word felt good on her
lips and in her heart. She repeated, “Mommy.”

She put all the journals back into the box
and picked up the first one. She would read them, in order, as her
mother asked, and then read the last one. She nodded to herself at
the plan.

She closed up the box so the smell wouldn’t
get out.

Leaning back into the couch, she started to
read.

~~~~~~~~

Monday morning — 9:12 a.m.

Heather stood on the landing upstairs at
Blane’s house, her house, their house.

“
Shit,” she said out loud.
“Just shit.”

Tink was at school. Mack was at the Marlowe
School. And Blane . . .

He’d realized his hair was falling out, so
he’d asked the nurse to get him some clippers. She had not been
prepared to see his bald head this morning.

No, she had not been prepared for that.
She’d let out a small peep of surprise when she saw his image on
the laptop.

He looked like a prisoner, which he was.

His hazel eyes looked huge. His teeth looked
extra white. He looked damned handsome, like a movie star.

That’s what she’d told him. She’d used
“print screen” on her computer to capture his photograph.

“
I’m making a scrapbook,”
she’d said.

He’d laughed because what
she was actually doing was taking pictures so
he’d
make a scrapbook. He said he’d
look into digital scrapbooks.

And . . . he missed her.

She missed him.

But they both agreed he was where he needed
to be. They’d nodded and told each other what they knew — they
loved each other completely.

It was just true.

Anyway, he’d had to go get more total-body
irradiation again. She looked at his watch on her wrist to see how
long she had until they talked again.

Five minutes less than the last time she’d
looked.

She groaned at herself.

“
Why did I quit my job?”
Heather asked the ugly light fixture on the landing.

“
Because you need to be
available to Blane,” a tiny voice came from . . .
where?

Heather looked around. She spied a little
pink dot.

“
Abi?” Heather peered at
the dot. “Are you spying on me?”

The fairy flew right in front of Heather’s
face.

“
No,” Abi said.
“I . . .”

“
Will you get regular
sized?” Heather asked.

“
This is regular size for
me,” Abi said.

“
No it’s not,” Heather
said. “I’ve seen your man. He is very hot. There’s no way you
two . . .”

Abi laughed. It was the oddest sound. Her
laughter started as a tiny peal, almost like the clinking of
glasses or icy rain on a wet garden, and grew into a regular human
laugh.

“
You are so right,” Abi
said when she was human size. “He does not like the
tiny.”

“
Then why do you do it?”
Heather asked. “I mean, you’re a princess. You could dress in
velvet and have jewels and . . .”

“
I captured the prince’s
attention while I was on the fairy corps,” Abi said. Heather
gestured to her tiny pink outfit, and Abi immediately changed into
her usual workout wear. “You think Prince Fin would be interested
in the velvet brigade? He wants someone worthy of fighting by his
side, not an orchid to wilt in one of his palaces.”

Heather thought through what Abi was
saying.

“
I guess that makes
sense,” Heather said. “What do you want? I’m pretty sure you’re not
here to give me marital advice.”

“
We’re not
married.”

“
Why?”

“
Remember the whole orchid
thing?” Abi asked. Heather nodded. “I’m no orchid. Plus, the prince
doesn’t want a wife. He had a few early on. Didn’t work out. I will
tell you that Tanesha thinks he’s being disrespectful to me for not
marrying me.”

Heather nodded.

“
He listens to her,” Abi
said. “Likes her. Thinks about what she says. In all our time
together, he’s let only a few people into his inner council. She’s
special.”

“
She is,” Heather
said.

Abi nodded.

“
I’m kinda biased, I
guess,” Heather said. “She’s my best friend.”

“
She’s my
great-granddaughter.” Abi smiled. “Takes after me.”

Abi winked. Heather chuckled, and then
scowled.

“
What do you want?”
Heather asked.

“
You promised that we
could go and talk to your mother together,” Abi said.

“
So?”

“
I thought today might be
a good day,” Abi said. “Blane’s in the hospital. The children are
at school. You don’t have to go to work and aren’t ready to have
the baby yet.”

Heather scowled.

“
Plus, your mother is at
work,” Abi said. “She takes her coffee break
in . . .”

Abi made a show of looking at her wrist
watch.

“
Gosh, we have just enough
time to get over there in your car,” Abi said.

Heather scowled again and put her hands on
her hips.

“
Why?” Heather asked. “Why
do you want to talk to my mother? Why do you want to help
me?”

“
You’re my
great-granddaughter’s best friend.” Abi smiled. “Isn’t that
enough?”

“
No,” Heather said. “Tell
me why.”

“
You won’t believe me if I
tell you,” Abi said.

“
Try me,” Heather
said.

Abi gave Heather a long, assessing look.

“
We’re burning time,”
Heather said.

“
Fine,” Abi said. She
exhaled to empty her lungs and then took a deep breath. Speaking in
a quick voice, she said, “The world has darkened quite a bit in the
last thirty years. One of the jobs of the fairy corps is to keep
light in the world. Usually, there are other forces fighting. A
couple of those forces are lost to extremists and nomadic customs.
We predict that they will return in time, but the pendulum must
swing, because humans only learn through experience. The light is
waning, and things — bad things, scary things — grow in the dark,
and the dark grows in every human mind.”

“
How does that have
anything to do with me or my mother?” Heather interrupted the
fairy’s flow of words.

“
Because your mother has
wandered, and your father spends all his time looking for her, and
for you,” Abi said.

Heather gave an angry snort.

“
My father doesn’t give a
fuck about me or my mother,” Heather said.

“
You may never know how
untrue that is,” Abi said. “I’m not saying he’s not flawed. He is
flawed and he screwed up big time. He allowed a great cruelty to
happen and did nothing to prevent it.
He . . .”

“
He sucks.”

“
Yes,” Abi said. “But we
have to get through all of this, because the world needs him, and
your mother, and even you. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but there
will be a day when his light could be the only one burning, and the
only light in human minds. We
fairies . . .”

Abi shivered.

“
You’re frightened,”
Heather said.

“
I’ve never seen the world
this dark,” Abi leaned forward to whisper. “Scares me.”

“
And you think my
woe-is-me pathetic mother is going to fix this?” Heather scowled at
Abi.

“
Your mother is not
pathetic,” Abi said. “She suffered a great injustice, one that
would kill most human women and should have killed her. But
instead, she took you and came to this place and time. We fairies
lost her. We thought she was gone for good,
but . . .”

Abi nodded.

“
But?” Heather
asked.

“
Perses recognized you,”
Abi said. “That’s the easiest way to say it.”

“
Jill’s dad recognized
me?” Heather asked.

“
When Jillian was in
danger,” Abi said. “He saw you . . .
uh . . . help her.”

“
Me?” Heather asked.
“Tanesha has fairy powers. She . . .”

“
She does?” Abi asked.
“The tea doesn’t work on her?”

“
The tea?” Heather raised
her eyebrows. “That special tea keeps her fairy powers at
bay?”

“
Uh . . .”
Abi gave her a bright smile.

Heather pointed her index finger at Abi and
ordered, “You will tell me.”

“
The tea keeps their
powers from manifesting,” Abi said. “Or it’s supposed to. It works
on Yvonne. It was the only way we could keep the monster she calls
‘The Spider’ at bay. He would have killed her outright if he’d
known the truth about her. This way, he got what he needed
and . . .”

“
And Tanesha?”

“
She’s half Rodney ‘kick
ass and take names’ Smith.” Abi shrugged. “Who knows?”

Heather scowled.

“
Hey, you wanna go?” Abi
asked.

“
No.” Heather shook her
head. “I don’t trust you. At all. I don’t trust you at
all.”

“
You listen to me,
Hedone,” Abi said. “You need to get over yourself and get this
done. You were not born to waste your life as a housewife in
Denver. Grow up.”

Heather scowled at Abi.

“
That didn’t work,” Abi
said.

“
Not at all,” Heather
said. “Plus, my name is Heather.”

“
Bribes?” Abi
asked.

Heather shook her head.

“
Chocolate cake?” Abi
asked.

Heather shook her head.

“
Shit,” Abi said. “I blew
this.”

Heather nodded.

“
What would get you to go
with me to talk to your mother?” Abi asked.

Heather looked up at the ceiling while she
thought about it.

“
Nothing?” Abi
winced.

“
You could ask me.”
Heather nodded. “Not a fake, ‘Let’s go see your mother,’ but a
real, honest ask.”

Abi was so surprised that her mouth dropped
open.

“
And you can tell the
fucking fairy corps that I will light them on fire with my
hairspray if they don’t get out of my house,” Heather
said.

At least a thousand blue and pink lights
appeared on the landing. Heather pointed down the stairs and they
began to file out of the house.

“
You knew they were
there?” Abi asked.

“
Just figured.”

Abi nodded. They waited until the last fairy
left the landing.

“
All right,” Abi said.
“Here’s my ask: Will you, Hedone . . .”

“
Heather.”

“
Fine,” Abi said. “Will
you,
Heather
,
come with me to speak to your mother and remind her of who she
is?”

“
Sure,” Heather
said.

“
Sure?”

“
Sure.” Heather shrugged.
“But not today.”

“
Why?” Abi
asked.

“
Because I’m pissed off at
you for lying to me and . . .” Heather gestured to
where the fairy corps had been hiding. “And drugging my best friend
so she can’t be all she can be.”

Abi nodded. Heather wondered how long the
fairy would wait before she asked again. Heather had counted to
fifteen when Abi opened her mouth.

“
How ’bout tomorrow?” Abi
asked.

“
How ’bout tonight?”
Heather asked.

“
Tonight?” Abi
beamed.

“
We’re supposed to have
dinner at my mother’s house,” Heather said. “She’s trying to be
supportive. Plus, she loves Blane. Why don’t you and Fin come?
Tanesha and Jer are coming — hopefully with Jabari, but we don’t
know. It could be quite the party.”

“
Okay,” Abi
said.

“
Meet us here,” Heather
said. “Be normal-sized and wear jeans or something. Mom doesn’t
like people who are too fit.”

“
Your mother is a
beautiful woman,” Abi said.

“
Yeah, whatever.” Heather
pointed down the stairs. “Go.”

“
But . . .”

“
I’m exhausted,” Heather
said. “All of this . . . and Blane
and . . .”

Heather’s eyes welled with tears.

“
I’m sorry,” Abi said. “I
wasn’t thinking. I forgot . . .
anyway . . .”

“
You forgot what?” Heather
wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“
Nothing,” Abi said.
“Please forgive me.”

Abi nodded. She waved her hand, and she was
holding an enormous bouquet of flowers. Abi held it out to Heather.
When Heather took it, the fairy disappeared. Sighing, Heather went
downstairs to put the flowers in water. She brought the flowers
upstairs and set them on her bedside stand. She was going to
shower, but lay down instead.

If magic was making her so tired, she didn’t
care. She’d been too worried for too long. For the first time in
months, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~~~

Monday afternoon — 1:12 p.m.