Chapter 25
Twenty-five
-MILO-
I jolt up. I was asleep on my couch but someone called out. I’m not usually a Spineless Sally but having a cannibal mother and a ghostly best friend rattles me.
“Yoohoo!” The voice has repeated itself and a hooded spectre is wandering toward me.
“Summer, don’t do that. And since when have you been the type of person who yells ‘yoohoo’?”
“Surprise!” The figure throws off her cloak.
“Who the hell are you?” I inch my way to the other side of my three-seater, but this strange forty-something woman keeps coming closer.
“Who do you think I am?” Her zebra-striped top and red feather bower give me no clues.
“Are you my Maude?”
“Ah, no. Definitely not. You have two more guesses.”
“You’re my very own Penelope.”
“What do you need a Penelope for? You have Grayson.” She gives a stern look. “One more guess.”
I raise my feet and place them on the sofa, then wrap my arms around my knees as if this barrier will protect me from this crazy woman.
“Don’t be scared of me, Milo. I’m not the type of mother who feasts on human flesh.”
I choke.
“Oh sorry, pet. Too soon?”
I’m speechless.
“Okay. I just called myself a mother, and not in a gangsta way. Think, Milo, think.”
“You’re Grayson’s mum.” I’m pointing at her, an involuntary action caused by shock.
“Yes, that’s right, honey. In the flesh. Well, in spirit anyway.”
I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “Why are you here, Grayson’s mum?”
“Tania.”
“Tania?”
“What? You don’t like the name Tania?”
“You don’t look like a Tania.”
Her pants are hot pink and her sneakers are white. Eccentricity to the hilt in both fashion and behaviour. Tania is nothing like her son.
“If I don’t look like a Tania, then what name should I have?”
“Nora. Eleanour. Suzanna.” I’m rambling.
“Hmm.” She thinks. “I can see myself as an Eleanour. Strong willed. Isn’t scared of hard work. Has beauty and grace.” Tania furrows a brow. “But a Suzanna? Probably owns a ukulele and writes her own folk songs. No. That’s not me.”
She sits on the other end of the couch and pats my knee. Her touch is as cold as the arctic, making my leg lurch. “Sorry, Milo. I keep forgetting about my frosty fingers.”
“Why are you here?”
“To talk sense into you. My Grayson is the best thing in your life. He’s your soulmate.”
“How do you know?”
“Mother’s instinct.”
“But you’re Grayson’s mother, not mine.”
“Mothers just know things, no matter whose mother they are. And I know you’re the best thing to happen to him.” Tania’s reassuring gaze is just like her son’s, but I’m still freaked out. “So go see him and sort out your differences.”
“Why are you telling me this? You should be speaking to him.”
“Yes, why am I telling you? Because Grayson has remorse for throwing you out of his home. And you know this because he sent you voicemails you haven’t listened to yet.” She wags her finger. “So, stop putting my son through drama. He’s been through enough already.”
“Tania, your son is responsible for my mum’s zombie disorder which resulted in my best friend being her dinner, her leftovers, and her nighttime snacks.”
“But your mum is still breathing, and walking, and eating.” Tania shrugs. “She’s not six feet under.”
“Yes, but...”
“And she’s getting rid of the people who are the wet blankets of society.”
“She ate Summer.”
“I rest my case.”
I’m miffed. Yes, Summer may have been a pain in the arse, a spoilt brat, and a selfish friend, but she was still my bestie. “Okay, Tania. No one is perfect. Some people throw their offspring out of home without a reason.”
She lowers her head. “Oh, that.”
She eyes me again and her constant gaze suggests what she’s about to say may take some time. So, I wait in some kind of flux between motherhood confessions and here’s another thing to mess with my mind.
“Imagine you are approaching middle age and you are blessed with two perfect children,” she begins.
“Your husband is dead but these kids are no trouble at all. They’re independent, socially confident, and ready to take over the world.
Then you sneeze and your son is suddenly a goldfish on the carpet, gasping for breath. ”
“OMG.”
“OMG? I’m telling you something serious and all you can utter are text message shortcuts. Honey, get off your phone.”
“How did you turn Grayson back to himself?”
She shudders. “His sister nearly stepped on him.”
“Eek!”
“Anyway, I send her to her room and I tickle my upper lip, trying to sneeze again. Another ah-choo and Grayson turns into a carp. I sneeze again and he’s an even smaller goldfish. Thankfully, he turns into himself on my fourth sneeze.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He had the memory of a goldfish.”
I chuckle. “And you never told him?”
“I had no idea what was happening, yet somehow, every time I sneezed, Grayson was a fish out of water. And it happened at the worst times. I was at the market and someone thought he fell off the table of seafood. They were going to buy him until they picked him up and he started wriggling. The customer freaked and dropped him. My Grayson, head first onto concrete. I didn’t know what to expect when he turned back to a boy.
Would he have brain damage? Or a squashed face? But he seemed okay.”
“I still don’t understand why you threw him out of home?”
Tania shakes her head, like she’s frustrated at me for not seeing her point. “Think about it. His sister nearly treads on him. A customer nearly buys him. A staffer at the aquarium nearly feeds him to a dolphin. A cat licks him before she almost rips him in two with her claws.”
“You were frightened that one day you couldn’t save him, so you threw him out of your house.”
“If he remembered, he would have stayed, keen to find some way to solve my dilemma. I couldn’t risk it.”
“What did you turn his sister into?”
“Nothing.” Tania shrugs. “No matter how often I sneezed it was always Grayson who turned fishy.”
“And you had no one like Penelope to help you?”
“I slipped through the cracks apparently. Maude caught wind I was a witch, introduced herself and scolded me for throwing my boy out. Then she promised she’d keep an eye on him after I convinced her I couldn’t trust myself to keep him alive.”
She stares at me like she’s seeking forgiveness.
Yet I can’t work out why I’ve been cursed with this information while Grayson still has no idea why his mum made him homeless.
And how do I tell him? Oh, your dead mother visited me and we had the weirdest conversation.
By the way, have you ever tried breathing underwater?
“You need to speak to him, Tania. Let him know he wasn’t rejected.”
She lifts her feet from the floor and clutches her knees, mirroring my posture.
“I don’t know if I should come back into his life.
Not yet, anyway. Let him learn his wizardry first so he can come to terms with weird kooky things.
Then he can come to terms with a phantom mum when it’s not too much of a stretch for him. ”
“Tania, Grayson has done some weird shit, and seen some weird shit. We both have. I don’t think a visit from you will fry his brain.”
“That’s kind of you to say, Milo, but...” She bites her bottom lip.
“But you’ve left me with intel Grayson should know. Do you want me to tell him?”
Tania gazes into space and I sense her regret. Her blunder was monumental yet totally understandable. Grayson could have ended up on someone’s dinner plate if Tania didn’t make the ultimate sacrifice to keep him from harm.
“I’ll break the ice for you,” I say. “It will make your imminent reunion easier.”
“Perhaps. But he went through some pretty rough patches so it will be a while before he forgives me.”
“But if he knows the truth.” I pat her on the shoulder, forgetting how cold she is, then rub my hands for warmth.
“Sorry about that.”
“If Grayson knows the truth, then he’ll know you didn’t turn on him.”
“Perhaps. But it’s affected him deeply. And you’ve also suffered because of his insecurity.”
But Grayson was confident when he defended me in court.
His life experience showed that day, never wavering as he stood up to the judge and the prosecutor.
And he allowed Penelope to be Penelope, not blaming her for not doing what she came to do.
He took control, not only because he needed to, but also because I needed him to.
“Yoohoo!” It’s hard to determine where this detached voice came from.
“Oh.” Tania checks her watch. “It’s time for me to go. I have a curling match.”
“That sport with the brooms?”
“Really, Milo?” She lifts her arms to show off her outfit. “Can you imagine me in sporting gear? No, Milo. The older witches are into curls, so we have tournaments to see who does their hair the best. There are extra points for dyeing.”
I wait for a punchline. Nope. Tania isn’t joking.
“Good luck,” I tell her. “I’ll find a way to weave you into my next conversation with Grayson.”
“Good.” She levitates. “My boy is in good hands.” She blows me a kiss. “And so are you.” She waves, wiggling her fingers before fading away.
I stay on the couch. Actually, I’m glued to it.
As much as I’m keen to see Grayson, I need to just sit and make sense of these supernatural revelations. And the more I deliberate on Tania, Mum, and Summer, the more normal Grayson and Penelope are in comparison.