Lost (16 page)

I suddenly couldn’t live without that life, the one we were supposed to have. The thought of saying goodbye to her, now as well as on the 4
^th
, felt like hell.
Pure, biblical, agonizing hell.
So
was knowing
that she was about to erase my memory so that I wouldn't feel the worst of it.

I was tired of living this way, having Sophia and my
mother lie
to me and orchestrate my life. She’d planned eighteen years of it before she left me. Now, she and Sophia made my decisions, and she was about to make yet another one. I cleared my throat and found my own voice.

“I want to keep you,” I said. “I want you to work things out. Stop
whoever
you need to stop. Kamon or Remi or whoever it is. Do what Lydia Shaw does and make the monsters in my life go away. And you … stay.”

 
It sounded like she was crumbling, like my words had shattered her tough façade and left the girl from the diary in its place.

“Sweetie.” Her voice cracked, more fragile than it was a minute ago. “There are so many reasons why-”

“Make it work,” I said, interrupting whatever excuse she was about to feed me. Logical or not, I didn’t want to hear it. “I want you to fix my scarf.” She narrowed her soaked eyes. “Like Paul’s mother does. Or get too involved in my life. Or tell me I’m partying too much.”

She chuckled at the jumbled examples of a normal parent that I’d gotten from Emma and Paul.

“You don’t party too much,” she said. “You’ve only been drunk once. You really pissed Sophia off that day.”

I smiled, but it faded as my lips pushed into a pout. “I want to piss
you
off.”

She laughed and wiped my cheeks. “That’s not possible,” she said. Those words felt like what I assumed getting stabbed in the chest would feel like, if I didn’t have an extra soul. I was hoping that would work, demanding her to stay with me. “It’s not possible because I don’t think I could ever be pissed with you.” I looked at her slowly. “I’ll work it out if that’s really what you want.”

“It is!” I nodded hard enough to break my neck, still waiting for the other shoe to drop, the inevitable
but
.

“But,” she said. I held my breath. “If, at any time, you come to your senses and hate me like you should … tell me. Tell me and I’ll leave you alone. Okay?”

I could deal with that
but
.

I clutched her and stayed in her arms for a minute, until I felt the need to reclaim my age.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

She smiled. “We go home before it starts raining.” She pointed up to the heavy clouds. It looked like it was about to storm at any moment. She reached for my hand, and I gave it to her gladly. I was done crying. I’d escaped the hell that saying goodbye to her would be. I would get to keep her for longer than a few minutes. She’d be a hero and work out our problems. I would have a mother. In my opinion, despite the decisions she’d made, I had the best one in the world.

Instead of going to Sophia’s, she took me to Paris with her.

After showers, we crawled in bed, and I finally asked the hard question I’d been tossing around in my head since we’d left the Congo.

“Will I get to meet him? Gavin? My dad?”

“Anything you want, baby,” she whispered. “I’ll work on his memories. Maybe Sophia can help. I made his brain believe a large portion of his life didn’t happen. It’s hard to undo that. It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” I asked, trying not to bury my nose in her pillow.

“Reversing what I did can cause him seizures, strokes, or brain damage. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I never even considered telling him. But don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

“Let’s watch him through your mirror!” I said, remembering the last time we’d spied on him through the magic mirror she’d changed the course of history for. In her memories, I’d seen her sign the treaty that allowed magical kind to live as they do for it.

For me.

She told me no and explained the dangers of spying on grown men in the middle of the night.

“Mom, I get it,” I said. She hadn’t stopped giving reasons why we couldn’t watch my dad five minutes after she’d started. I thought I would vomit if she said the word
naked
as it applied to my father one more time. “What about Nate? Can I watch him? He won’t be naked. At least he better not be.”

She kissed my hair. “That kind of magic only works on the unsuspecting. Emma and Paul grew up knowing it exists, and Nathan has been schooled since joining the Peace Group. We wouldn’t be able to see them, and, besides, it would be a violation of my part of the treaty. They have the right to not be under surveillance.”

“That sucks.”

“I know. Sorry.” I yawned and tried to strike up a conversation about my first day in her office, how she’d thought she was hallucinating, but she shushed me. “You’re fighting sleep, honey. You had a crazy night. Close your eyes,” she said. I shook my heavy head. “I know you’re scared. The last two times you’ve fallen asleep in my arms, I haven’t been there when you woke up.” I couldn’t fight the tears or deny it. This whole thing was so unbelievable. Doubt hung in the air, thick and heavy, making me cling to this night in case I didn’t get another. “Trust me, angel. I will be here.”

She started the lullaby. My eyes fluttered closed before she started the second verse.

In the morning, I felt around in bed for her, my eyes still glued shut from sleep. My heart jumped a little when my hands only found soft, disheveled sheets.

“Over here, sleepyhead,” she said. I rolled over and opened my eyes. Mom was standing in her doorway, dressed as Lydia Shaw. “Good morning.”

“Morning, Mom.”

I sat up and clutched my chest. It burned ten times worse than it had last night. “Be careful,” she said. “As it heals, the pain becomes yours and not mine. It’s no longer fatal. Sophia will give you something for it.”

I ignored the ache and jumped out of bed. Like she knew where I was headed, she opened her arms. I debated on a few questions to ask her, how she’d slept, how long had she been up, but our long, wordless embrace said more than any frivolous conversation could.

“Lydia,” Sophia said, from somewhere in the apartment. “I told you to hurry. I will tell Christine you said you’re sorry for not being here when she wakes up. You don’t have time for this.” Mom squeezed me tighter as Sophia nagged her from another room in an unfamiliar voice. Not sweet or patient. Not a hint of love. “I’m already getting calls from friends in Mexico. It has started. You have to go.” She made it to the door and paused. She cleared her throat and pulled me away from my mother. “Good morning, my heart,” she said in her usual, overly sweet voice.

“Mexico? Another attack?” I asked.

She flailed her hand in the air, like what had her nagging Mom a second ago suddenly didn’t matter.

“Get back in bed, honey,” Mom said. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I just wanted to be here when you woke up.”

She smiled and walked me back to bed. She kissed my cheek, and her thick curtains closed on their own, from her moving them without her hands, I guessed. It was night in the room again.

“Are we going to have a lesson today?” I asked.

“Not today. You need to heal.”

“What about the … problem? Have you figured out anything else about how I will kill you? I mean … we have to figure it out before it’s-”

She shushed me and shook her head. “You think about healing, and I’ll think about everything else.”

Sophia cleared her throat and rushed Mom off to work.

She served me a magic-laced breakfast in bed. She pointed to the eggs and said, “These are for the pain.” She giggled as I lifted the fork to my mouth suspiciously. She pointed to her famous homemade biscuits and said, “This will help you sleep.” She tapped the rim of the glass of orange juice. It wasn’t banned anymore since the scent wouldn’t remind me of Mom, I guessed. “This will close the wounds the rest of the way.”

“I can’t taste anything in it.” She winked, and I scarfed down the rest of the delicious breakfast.

“You’ll be all better when you wake up.” She took my plate and kissed my cheek.

That was the last thing I remembered before Nate’s ringtone woke me up hours later.

I brushed dried flower petals from my face that Sophia had obviously decorated me with. I dug through my duffle bag next to the bed, trying to get to the phone. It stopped ringing before I found it at the bottom.

I called him back, but it went straight to his friendly voicemail.

“Sorry, babe,” I said, after the beep. “I was sleeping. I hope you’re okay.” I peeked into my shirt. “I don’t even have a scar from last night. Sophia fixed me up. I miss you. I love you. Call me back when you can. You won’t believe where I am right now.”

I didn’t want to drop the
Lydia Shaw is my mother
bomb over his voicemail. Nate didn’t handle surprises well. I needed to break it to him slowly and just hope for the best.

I pulled the thick curtains back and smiled. Paris was beautiful at night. The city buzzed underneath me, and glowing lights lined the spectacular skyline. The moon was a tiny ball next to the Eiffel Tower, fighting for recognition in the beautiful sky.

I opened the doors to Mom’s room and wandered around her apartment, looking for Sophia. I followed the odor of burning food, and I heard her and Mom bickering in the kitchen.

“What do you mean, you’re done for the day?” Sophia said.

“I mean what I just said. I’m done. Everything else on my to-do list can wait until tomorrow. I have plans.”

Sophia laughed. “Plans? Please. Do tell.”

The smoke floating from the kitchen tickled my throat. I tiptoed closer and stayed out of view. Mom was standing over the stove, stirring something in the skillet that obviously didn’t need to be in there anymore.

“I’m taking my daughter somewhere, if you must know.”

“Have you lost your mind? You can’t take her anywhere.”

The smoke detectors wailed. Mom waved a towel in the air like that was going to do something. She still hadn’t taken the skillet off of the stove. “Sophia, it is public knowledge that we know each other. To the world, I found her. It won’t be odd if we’re seen together. I’ve planned it all out.”

“Planned!” Sophia said, sarcastically enthused. “Oh, I see. You planned it out. That makes me feel better. Does this plan occur before or after your meeting with the president? Or perhaps you’ll squeeze it in between house visits with the hunters in Moscow today. Or after you find a way to dispose of the twenty thousand bodies you don’t plan to report in the death toll for Cancun.”

“I get it!” Mom shouted. “I'm busy, but she wants to spend time with me. Can you believe that?
My
baby wants to spend time with
me
. I have to make it happen.”

“You have too much to do right now. Too many lives are hanging in the balance for you to take a day off!”

“They will wait until I come back from taking my daughter on a campus tour. I’m not even clearing out the school. I want her to have what any kid would have. She’s going to love it, and I’ll get to be there with her, doing something normal for once.”

I couldn’t stay silent after that. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to go to school again. It was right up there with the thought of Kamon hitting another city, racking up even bigger numbers this time.

“Hi,” I said.

They both turned around with huge grins. Mom reached for me first. Sophia snapped and silenced the smoke detectors. “Hi, baby. I popped in a few times throughout the day, but you were asleep.” She held me for a while until I coughed on the smoke. “I’m making you a grilled cheese sandwich since it’s technically lunch … your time.”

Sophia laughed. “She’s burning a grilled cheese sandwich.” She snatched the skillet from the stove, like she’d been waiting for Mom to turn away to do so, and dumped the blackened bread into the trash.

“I thought you said not to worry about the attacks,” I said.

“You shouldn’t. It doesn’t concern you,” she said.

“My friends are out there and are not human. It concerns me.”

Sophia laughed. “As if I would’ve let them go with less than a ton of magic coating their skin. Nothing can hurt them. Just like nothing can hurt you. I’ve taken drastic measures since last night.”

She tossed a knife at me that I hadn’t even seen her grab. The end never tilted to the ground. It sliced through the air, speeding towards my face. The sharp and threatening blade twinkled in the fluorescent lights of the kitchen before hitting the air in front of me. Pure white smoke engulfed the knife. The puff of protective magic drifted to the floor like a feather, cradling the blade and masking the clinking sound I expected it to make.

“Toss another knife at my child and I’m going to burn you alive!” Mom yelled.

I still hadn’t caught my breath.

“Relax, Lydia. It was a simple demonstration.”

“If magic was foolproof, your people would be ruling the world. Don’t do it again.”

“No, Mom! This is great! Thank you, Sophia. That means no one will kill me on the 4
^th
, right?”

A deathly silence screamed in the kitchen, and both of them turned away from me. Apparently, this magic, as amazing as it looked, wouldn’t be enough to keep my extra soul safe.

When Mom finally turned around, she flashed a smile so big and out of place that it looked painted on. “Today is a happy day. You are not allowed to worry.”

 
“Not possible. Even if I play along and pretend I don’t have your soul, I also heard you talking about college,” I said, fanning the smoke out of my face. “I don’t want to go.”

“You’ll change your mind. I have a fun day planned for us. I found a great school for you. It’s called Trenton College of the Arts.” I rolled my eyes at her. It even sounded awful. “It’s a small college in Los Angeles. Close to your house. Very prestigious.”

“She means expensive,” Sophia said.

“How is it that you don’t know how to cook?” I asked, purposefully changing the subject.

“Well … I had a mother, then maids, then …”

“My dad?” I said, because it seemed like she couldn’t finish that sentence on her own. She nodded. “What about when it was just us? There was no one around to cook for you.”

She smiled, a real one this time. “I just manifested whatever I wanted. I can’t do that now. For one, it makes me tired, and
two,
I don’t allow hunters and agents to manifest things they can buy.
Food, homes, anything.
It leads to greed and greed leads to something I really don’t want to have to deal with again.”

She must have meant the little thing she was famous for, killing Frederick Dreco and ending the magical apocalypse. “Do I have to follow that rule?” I asked.

“No, you can do whatever you want.”

“Whatever you want within reason,” Sophia amended. “Lydia, if you give any child an inch, regardless of how wonderful that child is, they will take ten miles.” Mom rolled her eyes at the parenting advice, and Sophia handed me a plate of unburned food.

Mom pouted. “Well, my plan for lunch is ruined, but we can still go to Trenton.”

“I was stabbed yesterday! I should definitely be in bed.” I faked a groan. “How about we watch a movie or something instead. I need to heal.”

She laughed and peered into my shirt. “You’re fine.”

I rolled my eyes at Sophia and her magic, and Mom’s cellphone buzzed on the counter. She pressed the button on the side to silence the call. It buzzed again a second later. She sighed and answered this time.

“Shaw. Yes. I know. How many?” Her eyes slammed shut. “Okay. One minute.” She hung up and frowned. “I’ll call and push the tour back. We can go in a few hours.”

“Mom,” I whined, managing to fit three syllables into the word. “I don’t want to go. I hate school.”

 
“College is different. You’ll like it.”

 
“And she’ll tour it on her own,” Sophia said. “You don’t have time, and besides, it’s a horrible idea that you’re too blind to see right now. Luckily, I’m here. I’ll handle it. Don’t worry.”

Mom looked like she was about to argue, but her phone rang again. She answered and promised the caller she’d be there right away.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know mothers typically are able to spend more than five minutes with their kids. I’m going t-”

I hugged her and interrupted her unnecessary apology. It would be more than easy to feel betrayed, cast aside and forgotten, from today and every day of my life, but some indescribable connection to her wouldn’t allow it.

“Bye, Mom,” I said.

“Bye, honey.”

I blew her a kiss. She caught it, pressed it into her heart, and went back to being a hero.

Hoping I could butter Sophia up and get out of the campus tour, I helped wash the dishes. After, obviously desperate, I got on my knees and scrubbed Mom’s tub with her.

“This is nice,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind doing this with you every day. Mom can go to work and I can hang out with you. Think of the things you could teach me to cook. It’ll be fun.”

“You’re not getting out of the tour, Christine. It’s important. Your friends will always need to work, and you need to have something to do that does not include pretending to want to clean with me. Lydia and I agree on very few things. This is one.”

I dropped the sponge, done helping, and crawled back into Mom’s bed to pout.

The handle of the magic mirror stuck out from under her pillow.

Sophia passed the door, singing a song I thought was too recent for her to know, something Emma would blast in her room while rifling through her closet. I frowned, missing her now.

“Emma Arnaud,” I whispered into the mirror. Nothing happened. Just like Mom said it wouldn’t. “Paul Ewing.” Still nothing. “Nathan Reece.” My reflection stared back at me as the magic failed once again.

I tiptoed into the hall. Sophia was in Mom’s room-sized closet, humming and hanging up clothes.

It was the perfect time to be sneaky.

I shut the door to her bedroom and whispered, “Christopher Gavin,” into the mirror. The glass rippled like gently disturbed water and showed him. He looked the same as he did in Mom’s
memories,
low cut curly hair, same eyes as me. He’d gotten a few faint age lines, but other than that, he was the same boy that stole her heart in a coffee shop.

He propped his feet up on the rail of a patio overlooking a beautiful lake. The neighboring homes all circled the water, suggesting that it was manmade. He hummed to himself as he stared at the sky. He folded his arms behind his head. On one of them, not a piece of his brown skin was left without inked musical notes, stars, and other symbols I didn’t understand.