Chapter Twenty-One #3
On Monday morning, when I walk down Faraday Street to the mandatory meeting, chased by a blustering breeze that sweeps along the yellow leaves that have fallen in the square, I see a tall, blond-haired woman standing outside college.
She’s in her forties, smoking a cigarette and wearing a belted tartan coat.
I stop in my tracks, my heart racing. It’s Elizabeth’s mother.
The last time I saw her was the only time I have ever spoken to her, at Manchester Royal Infirmary, after the cave.
I was sitting on a hard plastic chair, shivering uncontrollably, my hands torn and bloody from wrenching fallen slate and stones off Elizabeth’s body, an ambulance blanket around my shoulders.
I saw Dr. Toppings as soon as she walked through the automatic doors.
I could tell, just from her expression, that she had already been told.
She looked like she’d aged ten years from the photos I’d seen on display in Elizabeth’s house.
She saw me and her ring began to glow, the same kind of pearly color as Elizabeth’s but her magic smelled like witch hazel, making my nose smart and run.
“I’m sorry,” I gabbled as she stalked over to me. “I don’t know what happened, I shifted and she fell over and hit her head—”
“I should curse every inch of you, shifter,” she said. Her voice was so gentle and dangerous, I cowered in my seat, wishing I could disappear. “I should dedicate my life to it, turning you to nothing. It should have been you.”
Now she is looking at me with that same expression, her blue eyes, which are so much like Elizabeth’s, completely cold.
“What are you doing here?” I blurt out, without meaning to. She looks about as happy to run into me as I am to run into her.
“The miracle is that you are still here, shifter,” she says.
When it happened, she lobbied hard for my expulsion from college, but Professor Wallace was clear that since it was a “first offense” and hadn’t happened on college grounds or even during term time, it had nothing to do with my college performance.
“I never meant—” I stammer out, thinking that saying something must be better than saying nothing. “I didn’t know what she had planned to do, it was a secret, she didn’t tell me.”
“My only child is dead because of you,” she says, stuffing her hands into her pockets. “Your intentions mean nothing.”
She drops her unfinished cigarette and stamps on it with the heel of her red snakeskin boot, clearly more desperate to get away from me than to absorb more nicotine.
I stare down at the stub and wonder if she wishes she could grind me to dust the same way.
Then she turns and walks up the stone steps and into college.
I watch her go and think I should have listened to Bastian.
I should have bunked off. I wonder, if I had told her I was trying to make up for it, that I was trying to bring Elizabeth back, would she have been happy or angrier?
I suddenly have an uncomfortable feeling that even if we manage to resurrect Elizabeth, her mother will never see me as anything other than a murderer.
“Hey, Lando, are you okay?” I jump when someone touches my elbow. Bastian is standing next to me, his cheeks flushed with the exertion of walking through the cold wind.
“Of course,” I say mechanically. “Let’s get this over with.”
I keep my eyes peeled for Dr. Toppings as Bastian and I walk to the main library, barely listening as he tells me about his research.
I imagine those snakeskin boots marching her all the way to Professor Wallace’s office to demand my expulsion again.
My mind races through all the terrible things she could say—violent young person, a threat to others, no control, killed my daughter—then we reach the library door and I see her.
She’s removed her coat, she’s standing in front of a PowerPoint that has the words DANGEROUS MAGIC: THE THREATS OF MAGICAL DISCHARGE on it.
I stumble to a dismayed halt, as other students brush past us and find seats.
“Lando?” Bastian frowns at me, then looks at the PowerPoint and Dr. Toppings standing talking to Professor Wallace. His eyes widen when he sees the title. “Is that—”
“Elizabeth’s mother.” I cannot believe that she’s chosen to do this, to talk about her own daughter’s death in front of four hundred students, but I’ve clearly underestimated how much she hates me. My breathing is shallow and I feel like I’m going to be sick. “This is about me.”
“Come here, come on,” Bastian urges, grabbing my arm and guiding me back out into the corridor, out of the flow of students entering the library. I lean against the wall and try to catch my breath, but it’s like I can only breathe in and not out. “It’s not going to be about you.”
“She hates me,” I gasp out. “She blames me. She told me it should have been me.”
“Shit,” Bastian mutters, rubbing my arm up and down. “It’s okay, look, follow my breathing.”
He takes my hand and presses it against his chest. His hand is warm, his sapphire ring catching the light.
I can feel the steady thump of his heartbeat through his T-shirt and he breathes in, holding my gaze, and then out steadily.
I mimic him, my own breath stuttering, my heart trying to jump through my rib cage.
“It shouldn’t have been you, it shouldn’t have been anyone, it was an accident,” Bastian whispers. The entire world is his hazel eyes, his steady heartbeat, and the rise and fall of his chest. “Just breathe, it’s going to be okay.”
“Oh, you’re still hanging with the shifter, Chevret?”
It’s like someone has burst the little bubble of safety I feel around Bastian and I’m aware, again, that we’re in a public place and Carl bloody Lord is staring at us.
He’s looking me up and down, a sneer on his lips.
I find myself, without meaning to, gripping Bastian’s hand.
I’m even more surprised when he grips it back.
“Can you piss off, please?” Bastian says coolly.
“Ooh, touchy.” Carl smirks, fixing his eyes on where Bastian’s hand is holding mine. Then his eyes flicker to Bastian. “I guess you fancy him more now he’s a bloke again?”
“Not a bloke,” I manage to snap out. Carl leers at me.
“Yeah, but you are in all the ways that matter.” The look he gives me is so derisive, so sly and greedy, that suddenly I’m back in first year and he’s pushing me against the wall of the library. Then he looks at Bastian. “Right, Chevret?”
Bastian drops my hand. For a horrible second, I’m sure that Bastian agrees with Carl, that somehow Carl has got to him and ruined this for me, too, but that’s not what happens.
Instead, in a single fluid motion, the blue shine of his ring pouring strength and magic into his fist, Bastian punches Carl in the face.