Chapter 22 Tash
Tash
Flames in the backyard always put me on edge, but today, I didn't even have the excuse of a barbecue.
I braced one elbow on the marble kitchen countertop, pretending to focus on my laptop while my eyes kept snagging on the backyard scene.
Mere and Maeve. One of my babies and a kitchen witch, heads bent together like they were plotting to overthrow the government.
Beyond them, the hills climbed up behind the fence, stark and smoky-blue against the morning sky.
I told myself I was calm. Focused. Not spiraling about one daughter, maybe turning herself into a fireball under adult supervision.
Or the other falling out of the sky. With Fifi out for "flight lessons," and even though the whole point was to help her settle, I couldn't help picturing every possible disaster.
Power lines. Nose-dives. Cell tower electrocution.
I'd tried to pack my nerves away with the cinnamon rolls, but it didn't stop my stomach from doing gymnastics every time I heard a bird shriek overhead.
Maeve had said, "While Fifi stretches her wings, Mere's lesson can be low and slow." She even winked at me, like that would keep my anxiety from boiling over.
Through the glass, I watched as Mere tried her best to look unimpressed. She stole glances at Maeve, brow knotted while Maeve demonstrated something with a twig and a weird gesture, then nodded for Mere to try.
The first time, nothing. The second, a flicker of movement, but it could've been wind.
Then, on the third attempt, a spark lit up right in Mere's palm. Actual flame. No lighter fluid, no tricks. Just my daughter, conjuring fire out of nothing with her own two hands.
She gasped, and her whole face lit up with pride. Not the show-off kind, not even the "look, Mom, no hands!" kind. This was something bigger. Surprise laced with relief. She wasn't the oddball for not shifting. There was power for her, too.
My insides went soft.
I watched a little longer. Maeve clapped, delighted, then immediately launched into a rapid-fire pep talk.
I couldn't hear all the words, but "more control, less panic" body language is pretty universal.
Mere grinned so hard her nose scrunched, and the sun caught the loose strands of her hair and added golden highlights to her brown curls.
Huey flopped in a patch of winter grass nearby, every inch of him oozing guard dog energy. If anyone so much as thought about sneaking into the yard, he'd have announced it loud enough to be heard five blocks away.
I forced myself back to my actual work, though my focus was shot to pieces.
My laptop looked back at me, blankly unimpressed.
I zipped through my tasks. First, recusal paperwork for the Meyer site, timestamped Thursday at 10:53 a.m., filed and acknowledged by half the bureaucracy in the state.
I'd even doubled up with the conflict-of-interest disclosure, just to be bulletproof.
The subject line "NRCS ETHICS: REQUIRED COI" flashed at me like the world's most boring emergency beacon.
At least something was going right. This would cover the conflict of interest that living in Chance's house created for the samples I'd take in the future.
Underneath that avalanche, new stuff from my field team rolled in.
They were already out at the stream near my rental, collecting baseline samples and prepping the test plots.
My group had flagged turbidity spikes upstream and a suspicious nitrate bump near an old cattle pasture.
"Weather's holding, will have composite samples by end of day.
" I replied, thanked them, and said I'd QA the data as soon as I could.
I tabbed through the charts. All color-coded and perfectly organized. My comfort zone.
Next up, confirming the girls' remote school enrollment for spring now, too.
Laurel Gap's county registrar had sent the confirmation.
Both twins registered through the spring semester, online syllabus mapped out and ready.
I printed their schedules, just in case, then tried not to think about what might come after January. No point getting ahead of myself.
My phone vibrated, nearly skittering off the table.
Gerty.
I picked up, bracing for a story about cat litter or Florida traffic.
"Hey, stranger," I said. "What's up?"
Her voice came through like static. "Open your door. I'm literally standing on your front porch."
I nearly dropped the phone. "You're on my porch?"
"Yup. Two duffels, a portfolio case, and one existential crisis. Does the rental come with coffee, or do I have to beg?"
I barked a laugh full of nerves, not humor. "There's a key. Frog statue by the flowerbed."
I heard her rooting around, then a muffled, "Found it!"
"You need a place to stay?" I asked, still not believing it.
"That's the rumor. Can I crash for a while? I promise not to judge your cleaning habits unless you pay me for a consult."
I didn't hesitate. "Of course. Make yourself at home. Just don't trip over moving boxes. I left a deathtrap by the front closet."
She laughed. "I've survived worse. When do you think you'll be back?"
"I'll text, I'm not sure," I said, trying to figure out what to tell her and Beth.
Chance, Livia, and Maeve had all emphasized the need for secrecy.
We hung up, but my brain was spinning. Gerty. Here early, in Laurel Gap, ready to stay for a while. What had happened?
I shoved the laptop shut and tried to remember if I'd left any clean towels at the house.
Through the window, Mere held fire again. This time, she let the flame fizzle into a puff of smoke, then beamed at Maeve. The wild pride I'd felt earlier doubled, then tripled. This wasn't just magic, it was hope, for both my girls.
I pulled the door open and stepped into the yard, the brittle grass crunching under my boots. Maeve caught me first.
"Heading out?" Her cheeks were pink from the wind and excitement. "If you're not back in five minutes, we'll assume you were abducted by aliens."
Mere giggled, tucking her hands behind her back. "Don't worry, Mom. I've got firepower now."
I hugged her, a real hug, not the helicopter-mom "stay alive" squeeze. "I'll be back in a bit, okay? Don't let Maeve talk you into running off to a witch academy or something drastic like that."
"No problem," Maeve promised. "Boarding school would be boring."
Huey escorted me to the car, tail up like he was ready for a road trip.
I took one more look over my shoulder. Maeve talked with Mere, both of them already plotting their next spell. For the first time in years, there wasn't a single coil of panic in my chest about leaving her and Fifi.
It felt good. Weird, but good.
I slid behind the wheel and pointed the car toward my rental, mind already racing ahead to whatever disaster Gerty was hauling into town with her. If there was a prize for top-tier drama magnet, my friends would sweep the category every year.
When I pulled up to the rental, she was already halfway up the sidewalk, bent double under a mountain of cardboard and canvas.
The backseat of her car was jammed solid with paint-stained smocks, a pile of galley proofs, and what looked suspiciously like four different kinds of instant coffee.
I didn't even have a chance to open my mouth before she spotted me and called, "Don't just stand there, grab the green bin!
My thumb is literally going to snap off. "
It wasn't a joke. The plastic tote that dropped into my hands was loaded with art books, half a dozen tangled phone chargers, and, for some reason, a single ceramic duck. I didn't ask.
Inside, the house was thankfully mostly unpacked.
I'd left it in better shape than I'd remembered.
Gerty navigated the remaining moving boxes like a pro and parked the bin next to the couch.
"Okay, don't freak out, but my stalker found me again.
The cops are useless, my landlord's a coward, and I had to bail.
" She said this while scanning the room for an acceptable corner to dump her stuff, as if a maniac with a knife was just Tuesday's weather, but the real crisis was whether the Wi-Fi password was under the router or taped to the fridge.
It hit me like a club. "Wait, he showed up at your apartment?"
"Broke the back window," Gerty said flatly. "Thankfully, I wasn't home. My security camera caught him scraping messages into my mailbox. The cops dusted for prints but found squat. Guy's basically invisible unless he's bugging out at me."
She shrugged like it wasn't the most terrifying thing I'd heard all year.
My brain tried to switch tracks, but Gerty wasn't done. "And before you ask, no, I didn't call my uncle and aunt. I'm officially on my own. The fun part of being a trust fund disaster? You can be broke in style."
She plopped her bag onto the couch.
"Broke?" I questioned, just to be sure my ears worked.
"That's the headline. No reserves, no fallbacks, not even enough for a week in a bad motel." She let that land, then gestured toward the car. "Come on, Tash. Help me get it all in."
I staggered another load to the entryway, brain still backpedaling. "Gerty, you come from, like, actual money. Trust fund money. What happened to it all?"
She shot me a sideways look, all mischief bordering on heartbreak. "I spent it. All of it. Every dime."
That shut me up. For a solid ten seconds, all I could do was watch her wrestle a suitcase up the porch. The silence stretched, awkward and stunned.
Gerty grunted, then dropped her voice. "Look, it wasn't shopping sprees or some crypto scam. It was for Beth."
The world went back on its axis as things started making sense again. I knew she'd do it. "For Beth?"
She nodded. "I did what you do when you care about someone. I paid the bastard off. Made him sign away his rights, NDA, the whole nine yards. A million buys a lot of silence."
I dropped into a chair, gaping at her.
Gerty just smirked, like my shock was the best thing she'd seen all month.