Chapter 18 #2
Hiram pours her a glass, then makes himself a brandy. They take the bottles and their glasses outside to the dock, sitting as dusk fades into darkness.
An incredulous chuckle breaks the silence. “I should be the last person you want in your house.”
“As long as you’re not accusing me of being a terrible parent, you’re welcome to stay.”
Veda cringes. “I deserve that.”
“No, you don’t.” Hiram sips his drink. “I feel like a shit parent more often than not. I’m doing my best, and while you made some valid points, you don’t know everything.”
“Go on, then, and I’ll reserve the right to call bullshit as I see it.”
“You’ll do it regardless.”
Veda offers a half shrug.
“I’ll spare you the tales about growing up. I’m sure Peter’s told you enough.”
“A bit, but he made it clear you left your parents.”
“I secretly applied to a few universities abroad and ended up in England. Told my mother I was going on a graduation trip, then never came back. I had to get out before I became a version of myself that I hated to appease them. My father was always working, and when he was there, he wasn’t. My mother . . . well, you’ve met her.”
Veda snorts.
“I only called them because my father has a cousin in Parliament, and I needed help making everything for Antaris’s custody move faster.”
“Fancy.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.” Hiram rolls his eyes.
“My mother caught me at a weak moment, promising to mend things and help if I moved back, but it was Peter who ultimately finalized my decision. I figured if my parents had changed, I would stay long-term, but if they hadn’t, I would stay long enough to get Antaris together and disappear for good. ”
“Have they changed?”
“I thought my father . . . but no.”
“People rarely do unless something in their life prompts it.”
“I’m not letting Antaris learn that lesson.” Hiram looks up at the dusky sky. “I’d rather do this by myself, anyway. I’ve been alone for a long time now.”
“You’ve got Peter.”
“I kept my distance because he has a life, a wife who hates me on principle, not that I blame her. I know what it means for a Seer to be openly friendly with an Ellis. He’ll lose credibility in his own community and make the target on his back even larger.
I always tell him to be careful. He doesn’t listen. ”
“No, he doesn’t.” Unease crosses Veda’s features. “But being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Intrigued, he asks, “Are you alone?”
“In all the ways that are glaringly obvious.”
Hiram understands deep in his bones. “You’re only as alone as you choose to be.”
Veda hums and finishes her glass, pouring herself another. “My dad would say something like that.”
“So you have parents . . .”
“Had,” Veda replies, hollow. “Lost during the Great Vanishing. I was sixteen. It took months to get back home, and by then, people assumed I’d Vanished, too.
Our house was gone, had new people living in it, and everything .
. .” She trails off, staring at her hands before clearing her throat.
“Anyway, I had to figure things out on my own until I was eighteen. The Seers in our community tried to take me in, but I refused. I parked our old camper in the woods and lived mostly off the land, like how we used to. I got a job, finished school, and went to college on a scholarship for minors orphaned by the Vanishing. I had to establish my existence because my parents lay low my entire life. My dad made amulets, and my mom’s college covered for her. They were Seers.”
Everything, from the wall around her to her intractable beliefs, makes sense.
“If my mother knew, I doubt she’d have allowed you within an inch of Antaris,” Hiram says honestly.
“You know Seers were given a choice to add their names to the Registration. My parents came from families that kept their Sight a secret for generations. Before I was born, my dad had a vision that I wouldn’t inherit their Sight.
It’s not uncommon. They moved to Maine and did their best to remain under the radar, to give me a normal life while keeping their status a closely guarded secret.
Hate groups like to ‘rescue’ the Mage children of Seers. It never goes well for those kids.”
Hiram shudders, vaguely familiar with the horror stories. “Where’s the camper now?”
Veda barks out a dry laugh. “Long gone. Sold for my bus ticket to college.”
“You’re resilient.”
“No, I’m not. I was traumatized. Being resilient isn’t a trait; it’s earned through the choices I was forced to make during the worst time of my life.
I had to keep moving. I didn’t know anything else.
I’m not defined by the blows I’ve taken.
Life moved on. So did I. For a few years, I thought I was safe.
I thought it was over. But I’m back where I started, with my entire life in a bag.
Only now, my amulet is dead. It was all I had left of my parents.
My dad made it for my sixteenth birthday. ”
Hiram is speechless. The hurt in her voice is raw, even now. Especially now.
“But you kept it, right? After the hospital?”
“Yeah.” Veda pulls it out of her shirt. “It’s useless, but I can’t part with it.”
Hiram absently reaches for the blackened stone. It’s inert, but he still feels it watching him . . . as is Veda, her expression inexplicable.
He pulls back. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I. For unloading,” Veda says quietly, covering the amulet and tucking it back into her shirt. “I don’t talk about this much. Actually, I avoid it as much as I can.”
“I don’t mind listening,” Hiram says. “I understand you better now.”
Wary as ever, Veda watches, waiting for him to say more, but he lets the silence further melt the ice around them. He looks to the lake, the faintest breeze rippling the water. Crickets chirp as the last dregs of twilight darken into night.
Hiram sneaks glances at her until he catches her looking at him, too.
“I suppose we should make peace.”
“If that’s what you want,” Hiram replies. “I was never fighting you.”
“What happened to make you change?”
“Peter’s mom, mostly. She’s the best person I know.
She talked when I was ready to listen, taught when I was ready to learn, explained when I was ready to understand.
She taught me patience by waiting for my mistakes to teach me the right way.
And the rest of what kept me dedicated to my family’s ways and rhetoric was unhinged by logic. ”
“What do you mean?”
“It makes no sense that those with power at their fingertips, with the ability to see into the past and future, are somehow inferior. Bigotry has never stemmed from ignorance. It comes from knowledge. From fear.”
“That’s true.” Veda’s expression shifts. “So what now that you’ve cut them out? Do they finance anything?”
“No, I have more than enough. Between my own savings and an inheritance from my uncle Sebastian, who also left the family behind and married a Seer, I can live comfortably and still leave more than enough to Antaris.” Hiram sighs.
“The longer I’m here, the more I realize I can’t go back to my job.
I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. ”
“Why?”
“It’ll put me back in Los Angeles, too close to my purist extended family, who don’t know Grace had Sight.
The family used to make people who broke rank disappear or reform them.
Now they make defectors’ lives miserable.
My uncle and his wife lived in virtual solitude for the rest of their lives once they stopped running. ”
“Is Antaris—”
“Safe? Yes. My mother keeps them busy.”
“What’s stopping her from exposing Grace as his mom now that you’ve cut her out?”
“The status she’s worked hard to ascend to over the last thirty-five years.” Hiram chuckles. “She won’t risk taking herself down with me. My mother may have everything now, but she knows what it’s like to have nothing.”
“What about you?” Veda asks. “Do you have everything or nothing?”
“Neither. Both.” Hiram watches the brandy as he swirls his glass. “I have everything for myself, but I’d give it up for him.”
Veda falls silent, stealing glances at him now and then. Hiram’s had enough alcohol to wonder what the heat in her eyes might mean, but not nearly enough to ask.
“You know”—she chuckles softly—“I didn’t expect much tonight. I was coming to see Antaris and apologize to you again.”
“And now?” Hiram asks, voice near a whisper.
“I’m figuring it out as I go.”
Hiram tries his luck. “You could always come back to figure out, if you ever feel inclined.”
“I’ll think about it.” The warmth in Veda cools as she searches his eyes. “Why did you help Ruth after what happened at the town hall? You didn’t have to. You had every reason not to. Yet you did. Why?”
Hiram is surprised by the question. “I almost didn’t, but I didn’t feel like minding my business. Not heroic. Call it the bare minimum of human decency.”
“You saw beyond yourself.”
“I did,” Hiram murmurs, leaning closer. “Now it’s your turn to actually see me.”