Chapter 24
Charlie didn’t make it home until after sundown.
She and Elias worked all afternoon, stopping only for water breaks and one brief snack provided by Bjorn (some sort of skewered reindeer sausage that she’d only nibbled on out of politeness).
When she trudged back to Elias’s convertible, Henry napping on her shoulder as if he were the one who’d spent the day trying to access previously unknown magical powers, she was more exhausted than she could ever remember being.
Even more than the time Abigail forced her and Lou to participate in an all-night dance marathon fundraiser.
The exhaustion was worth it, though. They had made progress.
Real progress. It had taken hours, but she’d finally figured out how to harness the energy within herself on command.
Elias had been right; it was a current, a constant sense of forward motion within her.
Earlier, her mistake had been to try to “find” that current.
To think it lived in one part of her body.
But it wasn’t located in any one place; it was everywhere, from the tip of her littlest toe to the funny bump on the top of her scalp.
To harness it, she had to feel all of her body, all at once.
When she did, she could use that energy to levitate herself—or others, as she’d learned by accidentally launching Elias ten feet into the air.
Seeing the terror on his face as he whooshed up into the sky had been the best part of her day.
Next up: dredging. She shuddered to think of how difficult it would be. Even Elias didn’t know much about it, but he promised to do as much research as he could before they met tomorrow.
After Elias dropped Charlie off, she stumbled through the front door, bleary-eyed and ready to collapse into bed. Her footsteps started to angle toward the staircase when her mom’s voice called out from the kitchen.
“Hi, honey!” she said. “We’re in here having dinner.”
Dammit, Charlie mouthed. She’d texted her mom just before school should have ended, saying that she needed to stay late to work on a Spanish project. Her mom hadn’t questioned the excuse, but she might start to if Charlie face-planted from exhaustion in front of her.
Henry stirred, blinking up at her as if to say, Really? He sent a pale, sleepy lavender into her head, along with two words:
MURDER SHOW?
Charlie laughed softly. “Yes, you can go watch The Witcher. Here.” She set the v?tte on the floor, then handed over her phone. He clutched it between his little arms and chirped a thank-you. She winked and said, “I’ll see you there.”
As Henry skittered up the stairs, Charlie straightened. She blinked, trying to clear the blurry exhaustion from her eyes as she headed for the kitchen.
She found Mason and her mom seated at the breakfast nook, a box of pizza between them. As usual, Mason wasn’t looking at her, but her mom gave a sheepish smile.
“Didn’t feel like cooking tonight. But it’s been so long since I got this one to myself.
” She reached out and tweaked Mason’s nose with two fingers, which he batted away.
“I figured pizza might finally coax him into spending some time with me.” She scooted over on the bench and gestured to the open spot beside herself. “Join us.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Charlie said quickly. “I’m pretty tired from working on the project—”
“Please?” her mom asked, throwing in sad eyes and pouty lips for good measure. “I feel like we haven’t gotten to spend any time together in the last month. I should have grounded you both for getting high at homecoming, like I’d said I was going to. At least then you’d be around more often.”
Charlie’s heart gave an unexpected lurch.
Her mom was so playful and extroverted that Charlie often forgot she spent most of the day alone.
She worked in IT, out of a home office on the second floor.
And while she said she loved her job—it let her sneak out for errands and coffee or Pilates with friends—it had to be lonely, too.
Double dammit, Charlie thought. She wondered if Mason had received that same speech. From the look on his face, she bet he had.
Sighing, she walked over and plopped down at the table.
Her mom clapped, using her arms to bounce herself up and down on the bench’s fluffy cushion. “Would you look at this! Both of my children at once. It’s a Christmas miracle.”
“It’s October, Mom,” Mason said.
Their mom flapped a hand. “It’s always Christmas in Silver Shores.”
Mason laughed. “That’s not a thing people say.”
“Well, it’s a thing that I say.” She reached into the box and pulled out a slice of pizza, plopping it onto a paper plate and setting it in front of Charlie. “Now. Polite conversation time. Charlie, how are things now that your boyfriend is back in town?”
Charlie choked on the bite of pizza she’d just taken, inhaling some rogue cheese and dissolving into a coughing fit. Across the table, she saw Mason turn his head to hide a smirk.
“Goodness!” Their mom pounded Charlie’s back. “Are you okay, honey?”
Charlie nodded, pointing at her throat. Her mom reached over and grabbed the glass of water in front of Mason. Charlie took it, downing several gulps before putting the glass back down and exhaling in relief.
“Better?” their mom asked.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Charlie coughed out.
“He’s not? But yesterday morning—”
“Yesterday morning was … a surprise.”
Charlie paused, breath unsteady as she decided what she should say next.
She wanted to tell her mom that they had broken up, that she shouldn’t expect to see him around.
But she and Elias were working together now, and if in the disturbingly likely chance he paid them an unexpected visit, she needed an excuse for why he was there.
“We broke up before he went to music school,” she said.
The story rolled off her tongue easily, bringing with it the unsettling rush of excitement that she always felt when telling a lie—a part of herself that she had always hated but now understood might be inevitable.
Genetic. “He didn’t want to, but I didn’t like the idea of long distance.
After returning, I guess he’s … trying to win me back. ”
Mason snorted.
Their mom ignored him, keeping her focus on Charlie. “Aww.” She clutched her heart. “How romantic. He’s fighting for you. As he should.”
Charlie rolled her eyes. “Real life doesn’t work like your romance novels, Mom.”
“Of course it does.” She picked up another slice of pizza and plopped it onto Charlie’s plate, even though there was still almost a whole slice left. “Eat up. And tell me more.”
“There’s nothing more to tell,” Charlie said as she picked up the new slice. “He wants to get back together, and I don’t.”
“For now,” her mom said.
“Sure. For now.”
Satisfied, their mom turned her attention to Mason. “And what about you, darling? Have you and Lou made things official yet?”
Charlie nearly choked on her pizza again. She covered her mouth, attempting to smother the laughter bubbling up from her throat.
Mason’s face turned bright pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, please.” Their mom shared a look with Charlie. “You’re smitten with her. You have been since you were a kid.”
“That is not true,” Mason said, shooting a pleading glance at his sister. “Come on, Char. You know that’s not true.”
Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was Mason for freezing her out for a full month. But rather than have his back, Charlie grinned and said, “I don’t know, Mace…”
“Not you, too.” He groaned, head falling into his hands.
Their mom turned to Charlie, eyes giddy. “Remember when you were in eighth grade? Lou was sleeping over, and she went to the bathroom in the middle night.”
“Oh my God.” Charlie covered her mouth again. “Yes. And she thought she had gone back to my room—”
“—but it was really Mason’s,” her mom interrupted. “She tried to climb back into bed with you, not knowing that she was getting into his bed…”
“I have never heard her scream that loud in my life.” Charlie giggled. “Especially when she realized—”
“—that Mason always sleeps naked!” her mom finished, and the two of them dissolved into laughter, falling on top of each other on the bench.
“I will never,” Charlie said between hiccupping laughs, “ever, ever forget Mason’s expression that night. Or the rest of the year. He refused to look Lou in the eye, and she wouldn’t stop making jokes about her favorite appetizer being ‘sausage in a blanket.’”
Her mom squealed, kicking her feet against the wood of the bench.
“I am going to kill you both,” Mason said, but Charlie could see the corners of his lips twitching. He wanted to join in. To laugh with them, together. Like the family they hadn’t been in a long time.