Shadow Wrack. Kim Thompson
Willa took a deep breath. “You married a mermaid.”
Grandpa gestured helplessly. “Well, she was human sometimes; she could switch back and forth. And I didn’t know what she was, at first.”
“And Mom was born. And then Belle…?”
“She left.”
“And put a curse on you so you couldn’t catch any fish.”
He squinted again and shrugged. “Well … I guess she was sore at me.”
“You didn’t catch a single fish in forty years!”
“There’s no point dwelling on the past. The curse is off now. My catches are setting records, and the good weather looks like it’ll hold for a while yet.” He grinned and rapped his knuckles on the wooden roof of the boat’s cabin. “Knock on wood. Everything’s grand.”
Willa sighed. Her grandpa never did hold a grudge, even when it was totally called for.
“Why did she do it?”
“Do what?”
“Why did she leave?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“You don’t know? But you must have some idea.”
At this, Grandpa just looked at her pityingly. “Willa, it was a long time ago. I don’t think about it any more. Nothing to be gained by it.”
“Why did you leave?”
Belle was watching TV; on the screen, jellyfish were undulating in a turquoise sea.
“Why did you leave?” Willa asked again, louder this time.
“What are you talking about? Leave where?” The old woman scowled at the TV.
“You left Grandpa after Mom was born. I was wondering why.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I’m four hundred years old! I can’t be expected to remember every little thing that happens,” she snapped.
Willa stared at her. “Every little thing? Seriously?”
Belle grew uncomfortable under her gaze, shifting in her wheelchair. “Maybe it was someone else. You ever think of that? Now shush and let me watch my show.”
The next conversation was even shorter.
“Mom, I want to know more about Grandpa and Belle.”
“Eat your breakfast.”
“But she’s your … mom.” That sounded weird.
“I don’t have a mom. Eat. You’re going to be late for school.” End of discussion.
“Dad, you know about Belle, right?”
“You mean, that she’s … hmm. Yes.”
“So Mom is part … you know.”
“I guess so.”
“Dad,” Willa looked him straight in the eye, “is Mom at all … different? Weird?”
Her dad smiled, scratching his head. “You know what, Willa? Everyone is weird. Mermaid parentage or not. That is the honest-to-god truth.”
And that was as far as she got with them. Not only would they not talk about it, the four so-called grownups in her family wouldn’t even sit in the same room together. They were like billiard balls ricocheting off each other.
I have the worst family in the world, Willa fumed. So who needs them?
Ever since the shambolic old place known as Eldritch Manor had burned to the ground, its inhabitants had been scattered all over town. In a moment of weakness, Willa’s mom had agreed to let Belle and Baz move in with them temporarily, even though Mom and Belle were not speaking.
Horace and Tengu were in a hotel downtown, and Willa had her fingers crossed that they were behaving themselves. Robert the centaur, being half-horse and rather hard to disguise, was living in the stable behind the charred remains of the house, complaining bitterly about being treated like an animal. Mab the fairy queen was living with the tree nymphs in the wild jungle of a yard. The nymphs were basically fairies too, inhabiting a different branch of the family tree, and even though they’d been feuding with Mab for at least a hundred years, they’d suddenly become allies. This made Willa uneasy. Fairies may seem cutesy and sweet, but they can also be astonishingly vindictive and mean-spirited. Willa had no idea what trouble they’d get up to now that they were working together. Who knew what those tinkly little voices might be plotting? At least Mab had resumed knitting the time talisman scarf, which kept the whole supernatural bunch of them living in this time, in the real, right-now world. The tiny ball of yarn she was stitching into a doll-sized silvery scarf was what the dark forces had been after when they attacked in the summer. As Willa understood it, the yarn had some kind of magical properties that would have allowed them an access point to enter this world and this time. Or something like that. Willa was still not totally clear about the details.
A number of strange wee creatures had also disappeared into the yard and were presumably faring all right, though Willa seldom caught a glimpse of them. And as for Miss Trang, no one knew where she went at night, but every morning she appeared at the ruins, picking through the ashes to retrieve anything she could find — a blackened teaspoon, a doorknob, broken bits of crockery. Every once in a while she’d disappear for three or four days and reappear with a new furrow in her brow. Something about high-level meetings and everyone being very upset with them, she had confided to Willa just the other day. Willa was shocked.
“Why would they be upset? Didn’t we keep the talisman safe? Didn’t we beat the dark side?”
“Yes, as far as that goes. But the loss of the house was vexing,” sniffed Miss Trang as she turned and paced slowly away, her eyes on the ground. Willa sighed. She hadn’t exactly expected a medal from the powers-that-be who oversaw mythological retirees, but she thought that defeating the terrifying black worm was worth something other than reproach.
As Willa gazed at the ground that day, she noticed something odd. Poking up from the ash and blackened debris was a shiny white shape. A stone? Willa knelt down and ran her hand over it. It seemed to be made of wood and was rooted firmly in the ground. Looking around, she realized that there were a dozen others, just the same, all in a straight line.
“Miss Trang? What are these?” Miss Trang looked over.
“It’s the house coming up,” she said simply.
“The house? Coming up? Like a plant?”
“Yes, naturally. The house is rebuilding itself.”
Willa stared down at the white nubs, like a row of teeth.
“How long does it take?”
Miss Trang shrugged and gazed up at the sky. “Depends how much rain we get.”
Willa blinked. This was too much. She glanced at the house next door and saw a curtain drop in the dining room window. Their neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Hacker, were always on the watch for unusual behaviour to complain about.
“But Miss Trang, shouldn’t we hide it?” Miss Trang looked blankly at her for a moment, but Willa persisted, pointing at the Hackers’ house. “People will see. A house growing out of the ground isn’t exactly normal.”
Miss Trang seemed to snap back to the present. She nodded and looked around. “Yes,