Chapter 11 #2
I appeal to my dad for backup. I know she wants me to keep my magic a secret, and I’m all for that too, but sometimes you must break promises when it’s the right thing to do. I can see she’s worried. At this point, I don’t know if she’s angry at me or over what’s happening outside.
At least they believe me. I could have come home, and everyone could have said I was exaggerating or making things up, but I’m covered in ash and exhausted.
I haven’t looked in a mirror, but I bet my expression is haunted.
If you take the time to look, you can see when someone has been through hell.
“Can’t we save everyone?” Aleric asks.
Ledger scoffs.
Aleric scowls at him and then turns back to me. “Kricket, you’re strong enough to save people, right? You saved the gargoyle. You can save everyone from these invaders if you just try.” He stares at me as if he has every faith that I can fix this, and wow, it hurts.
My dad comes to the rescue. “Yeah, bud. Your sister is an incredible magic user, but all this is different. She’s only one person, and we don’t know anything about the creatures attacking the town.”
“If you think you’re so tough, why don’t you go rescue everyone?
” Ledger says, digging his elbow into Aleric’s side.
“No? You’d piss yourself, that’s why. You’d never have come down from the roof.
Hell, you’d have continued stocking shelves and got yourself blown up.
As if Kricket can take on pros, nobhead. ”
“Ledger! Don’t speak to your brother like that,” Mum growls.
“And Aleric, contrary to popular belief, Kricket is a nineteen-year-old girl. To you, nineteen might be ancient, but in the real world, your sister is barely an adult and isn’t a Marvel character.
Yes, she is smart and brave, and yes, she can do a very nice ward, but putting ideas in her head will only end up getting her killed.
In this family, we do not encourage others to throw their lives away. ”
“We don’t live in the real world,” Aleric grumbles, picking at a loose thread on his hoodie. “We live here in this shithole town.”
“Aleric!” Mum’s pointy finger comes out, and before this can evolve into a fully-fledged argument, I interrupt.
“I have a plan.”
“A plan?” Doubt flashes across my mum’s face.
“Kricket, that’s our job. It’s our job to look after you. We will deal with any planning. You need to get cleaned up and get some sleep,” Dad says, rubbing his face with his palm.
It’s late, and everybody is exhausted.
I twist my fingers around the mug. My eyes drift to Nan, who gives me an encouraging nod.
Okay, how do I say the next bit without getting into trouble? “I can get us through the ward.”
There is a beat of silence.
And then everyone talks at once.
“What do you mean?”
“What?”
“Why the hell are we still here? If you can get out!”
“Kricket, that ward kills people. There’s no getting past that barrier; hundreds of people have tried and paid the price with their lives,” Dad says.
“I can get us through the ward and into the real world. I have a charm that makes a hole.” I hold up my hand when Mum opens her mouth to explode. I’d never dream of doing the talk-to-the-hand gesture in normal circumstances; she’s my mother. But these aren’t normal times.
Mum gives me her classic wait-till-I-get-you-alone expression, aka the look of death. I’ve triggered her you-are-my-child mode.
“It’s a small hole, but if I don’t need to be cautious, I can pump more power into the charm and make the gap bigger, stabilising it enough for us to leave.”
“Kricket, have you been leaving—”
“No, Dad. Never. I didn’t think it was possible to use it like that.
I made the charm because I could. It was a challenge, and I was very careful.
Mum always goes on about how we lived before.
I wasn’t so young that I don’t remember much of our lives before we came here.
I wanted to be prepared for when we left and to make sure we had choices.
Good choices. You know they’ll freeze our bank accounts, if the town bank works outside.
You know they’ll make it impossible for us to survive.
I can do it. I know I can get us safely through the ward, and in preparation, I have money set aside. ”
Mum slams her tea down. “You have money? Kricket, you work in a supermarket. The kind of money we would need would be too much for your piggy bank.”
I gulp and hit them with it. All the secrets are coming out tonight. “I’ve been selling my spells under a pseudonym for years.”
“You have? Since when?” Mum snarls.
“Five years,” I croak.
“Five years? So that’s how you got so many raw materials.” Mum’s pointy finger is out again. “Who have you been selling your spells to?”
“I… might have borrowed your old number and been in contact with Ava, a friend of yours from school.”
Mum is a witch, but she can’t practice. She says she doesn’t enjoy stirring spells, but she isn’t allowed to anyway, and I think that’s something she says.
Her dad, my grandfather and Nan’s late husband, was a talented witch.
Mum had to go to an expensive school—the Witch Academy—to train.
When you have a fancy education and a purpose and can’t use it, it must be like cutting off a limb.
Of course Ava doesn’t know about our prison of a town. I keep that information hidden. And she doesn’t know she’s been dealing with a girl, let alone a teenager, this entire time.
“That phone is over thirteen years old. How can it possibly work?”
Well, there’s magic for that. I can mix magic and technology, and the SIM works better than when it was new. I don’t say anything; I fidget as Mum glares.
“You said you trade under a pseudonym? What name do you use?” Dad asks as he rubs a point between his eye socket and nose.
“Ah, well. I used your nan’s maiden name and Grandad’s first name.”
“Gary. Chappell?” Dad says softly.
I nod. “Yeah, Gary Chappell.”