Riverland Read online

  Trouble.

  When the doorbell rang, we all jumped, Momma included. All except Pendra, who kept chewing the last bit of my sandwich, which I hadn’t been able to finish. But it was only Mrs. Sarti.

  “Thought I’d swing by when I got Pen’s text,” we heard her say as Momma stood on the threshold.

  Momma smiled and stepped back, and Mrs. Sarti followed her in. “So many surprises!” Momma laughed. Mike choked on the crust of her grilled cheese. “Would you like some cocoa?”

  “We can’t stay long, the boys have a late game,” Mrs. Sarti said.

  Pendra slouched in her chair. “Can’t I stay while you go? It’s so much better here than at a game.”

  But Mrs. Sarti cleared her throat and looked at Momma. “A quick question, Moira? I’ve left messages. I thought since I was coming by anyway, we could talk for a moment. Maybe in the kitchen?”

  Mike kicked me back under the table. So much trouble.

  Momma’s face shifted so that it was hard to tell what she was thinking. She still smiled. “There’s nothing my girls can’t hear. No secrets in this house. All’s well, I hope?” She put her hand on the back of my chair.

  “Of course. Maybe a later time.” Mrs. Sarti smiled at me. “I’ll try and reach you on the phone again.”

  The door squeaked open in the silence that followed. Poppa nearly tripped on Pendra’s backpack as he came inside, took in all of us sitting around the table, and raised his eyebrows. “Quite a crowd!”

  Mike didn’t kick me again. She froze in her chair. I couldn’t move either. Only Pendra and her mom seemed to be impervious to Poppa’s sharp cheer.

  Momma’s smile didn’t change. “Mrs. Sarti was just about to take Pendra home.”

  As if she’d willed it, Pendra jumped up from her chair and dodged around Poppa to get her bag. Poppa frowned as if he was chewing on unasked questions and they all tasted terrible.

  I had a horrible, acidy taste in my mouth too.

  “Good to see you both.” He held the door open for them.

  “And you too,” Mrs. Sarti said. “Perhaps when I speak with Moira, you can join us.”

  Poppa’s frown deepened. Mike and I, trapped at the table, couldn’t break for the upstairs if we wanted to, which we did. Momma looked caught in the middle. Finally, under the increasing weight of Poppa’s gaze, Momma broke.

  “Vandana wanted to have a quick conversation, that’s all. It can wait.”

  “About? Something at school? Let’s have it.” Poppa’s voice had a rumble of thunder behind it.

  “I think it would be better without—” Mrs. Sarti said. She looked terribly trapped too.

  “We’re all here. Let’s get things out in the open,” Poppa said, laughing a little. He winked at Momma. He didn’t look at Mike or me. He sounded reasonable.

  We watched Mrs. Sarti nod. “Pendra, why don’t you head up the hill?”

  Pendra looked at me as she shouldered her backpack. “My book,” she mouthed. “Tomorrow.”

  I whispered back, “I’ll find it.” Please don’t be mad. And then she was out the door, Mike and I were trapped in our seats, and Poppa was staring at Momma. Who wasn’t looking at any of us.

  So much trouble.

  “It was an idea I had. That’s really all,” Mrs. Sarti began. “I noticed since we’ve been at school that Mike sometimes gets pushed around at the elementary.” Mrs. Sarti was the district’s traveling guidance counselor, and our neighbor. Right now she looked as uncomfortable as Mike and I felt, but she pressed on. “And there’s the fight from last spring in her record, which I know she said she didn’t start.”

  Mike groaned and sunk lower in her seat.

  “I’m sure you’re well aware we took care of that.” Momma’s voice turned icy cold, but her smile remained. How she did that always made me squirm, but I wasn’t sure why. Wood squeaked as her fingers tightened on my chair.

  Mrs. Sarti spoke as if she thought the chill in the room was just a draft from an old house. “I thought, perhaps you’d like to look into an assertiveness class, or a mentor for Mike and maybe Eleanor too. To get out ahead of things a little.” She smiled at Mike. “You’re very bright. I want to see you get the most out of third grade.” Then to Momma and Poppa: “We could talk about it more officially at school, the next day I’m there.”

  Momma released the back of my chair. I scooted back as soon as she was clear, looking for my exit. Mike did the same. The sound of our chair legs squeaking on the dining room floor was the only noise in the house besides Poppa’s long sigh.

  “Thank you,” Momma said, making each word distinct. She glanced at Mike. “But we would appreciate you not pressuring her. Mike is fine. Aren’t you?”

  Mike nodded, her face bright red.

  “I understand sometimes these things come off as a failing,” Mrs. Sarti hurried to say, “but they’re really not. I thought—”

  “I think the question’s been answered,” Poppa said. His voice was calm, but he held the door open with fingers tight around the knob.

  Mrs. Sarti nodded. “Of course. Anything I can do. I hope you understand.”

  “I understand that you were right earlier. This should be kept on school time, if there is any problem,” Momma said. “And there won’t be.” She walked Mrs. Sarti to the door and then through it. Poppa barely moved. I saw Pendra standing just beyond the driveway. Had she heard too?

  When the door swung shut, our house seemed to turn in on itself. Poppa glared at all of us, one at a time.

  Momma smoothed the air with her hands like she would a wrinkled bedspread. “I’ll take care of it,” she said.

  Poppa let go of the doorknob, walked up the stairs, to the landing. He pulled the remaining air through the house with him. “What just happened?” His voice was overly calm.

  Momma bit her words tight. “Eleanor knows what happened.”

  I shook my head, the terrible taste in my mouth getting worse.

  “Mike, what did Eleanor do?” Momma said without moving from where she stood. She cast her words so that Poppa could hear them.

  Mike stared at the table. She kicked her feet but didn’t say anything.

  “Mike, you were asked a question,” Momma said. She said it like she needed an ingredient for a recipe. Or a spell.

  Mike looked at me and I nodded, barely. Say it. I hoped it would be enough.

  “Eleanor brought trouble,” Mike whispered, her eyes locked on mine.

  The dining room was silent for a moment. Momma let out a small hiss of breath. “She did. She brought it right into the house. Eleanor, we don’t need anyone from the school coming around. Your father has enough to worry about. Even if you’re friends with their daughter. All right?” She was asking all of us.

  Was it enough? I didn’t look at Momma. Just at Mike. Mike looked at Momma, eyes wide, lip trapped beneath her wide-gapped front teeth. Neither of us looked out to the landing.

  “They need to remember,” Poppa said from upstairs. From the upstairs light, he cast a shadow on the foyer floor.

  “I agree,” Momma said. “Everyone will.”

  Poppa said, “Yes. They will.” His shadow danced silently on the wall. A twang broke the quiet, a string snapping. There was no more warning. But consequences rarely came with warnings.

  We didn’t see him drop the witch ball.

  We saw his shadow arm move, the bright glitter of glass rippling blue on the pale wall.

  We heard silence so loud it sounded like horses’ hooves galloping. Then an enormous pop and shatter. Thick glass connected with hard floor.

  Then the ancient blue glass was everywhere. The thick string dangled empty above the landing.

  Shadows swirled and rippled blue on the ceiling, then disappeared. A single shard skidded into the dining room.

  I thought I could still hear hoofbeats. Probably my heart trying to run away. Was there more to come? Was this enough?

  Poppa walked down the stairs without a word, back through
broken glass, his shoes grinding pieces to dust. He didn’t stop. Didn’t look at us. His feet crunched on the wood floor all the way back to his office. The door slammed.

  “You promised,” Momma whispered to me. “But that’s never enough.”

  Not enough. Oh, that hurt.

  We looked at the air for a long time, as if the space between us could harden. “I didn’t break the—”

  My voice was louder than it should have been. Momma winced.

  “Mind your temper, Eleanor. From now on,” Momma said to us, her words as bright and sharp as shards, “no friends here unless I’m home. Absolutely no Pendra.”

  I bit my lip so the sour taste wouldn’t get out. No more broken rules: no back talk. No crying either.

  Crying wasn’t for someone who’d turned twelve two weeks ago, anyway. Even though, since I’d agreed to wait to celebrate at Pendra’s sleepover, it really didn’t feel like my birthday had passed yet. Still, no crying. That would make it worse.

  And what about the sleepover? The science fair project?

  “For how long?” Mike saw my concern and asked for me. Her words vibrated in the air. But she could ask. She wasn’t in trouble. Not today, at least.

  “Pendra and her mother do not get to make free around this house or our business. You see what happens when they do,” Momma said. She saw my face and her voice shook. “Eleanor, you can visit up there sometimes, as long as you’re discreet. But that’s the rule now. Clean up, then stay in your rooms.”

  She walked into the kitchen fast, leaving Mike and me alone at the dining room table.

  Mike slid from her chair and came to stand next to me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” I lied. “You helped.” It hurt to hear her tell on me, but it would have been harder if she hadn’t. If she hadn’t gone shoe shopping. If she hadn’t talked about house magic. We were actually lucky, I told myself. Maybe Poppa had taken it all out on the witch ball. And Mike, still embarrassed by Mrs. Sarti’s visit, had done her best.

  Now, what I could do was fix things.

  I added another rule to our list. “I won’t break any more rules,” I promised Mike. So often, broken rules led to broken things. The photographs. The television. The witch ball.

  Mike brought the dustpan and I began to sweep up the blue glass. I wrapped the big pieces in paper towel and put them in my jacket pocket.

  “House magic will fix it,” she said, as if this was nothing new. “We’ll get a better witch ball, that’s all.”

  I wanted to tell her house magic wasn’t real, right there. But I bit my tongue. She needed to believe. “We’ll get a better witch ball,” I said instead. Even though I knew that sometimes broken things didn’t come back. We’d had more glass floats, once. They’d broken over the years and couldn’t be fixed or replaced—so they, like Pendra’s book, just disappeared.

  Sometimes, one broken thing was enough.

  I was lying on my bed, halfway through my math homework, when voices drifted up from the kitchen.

  “. . . School drama. Ridiculous new regulations. Waiting periods,” Poppa said. “This seller’s agent is a monster.”

  Momma responded with bright words. “It will be all right. Things work out. You know they do.”

  Then there was a crash, like a dropped plate, or a mug. “Oh, damn. Clumsy of me.”

  The quiet was tense like the green clouds curled up on the horizon this afternoon.

  “Things are tight, Moira. Especially now. Especially with two goddamned girls to take care of. How much did that cost?”

  “I dropped a mug,” Momma said. “A few dollars. It happens.”

  From the echoes through the air vent by my bed, I knew Momma was standing at the kitchen sink. Her voice was muffled like her head was bowed. Poppa’s voice grew louder and softer. He was pacing as if trapped in there. I’d stood at the same sink, in the same pose, during an angry prowl.

  “A few dollars.” I knew his hands were probably shaking with the effort of holding his anger together.

  That was hard to do when people brought trouble into the house.

  The witch ball hadn’t been enough.

  I knew another thing with creeping certainty. I knew I wasn’t going to go downstairs and get in the way again.

  I hated that I knew this.

  My homework slipped off the bedspread and rustled onto the floor. I eased off the bed, one sock foot on the carpet, then the other, bare. I’d kicked off a sock while wrestling with algebra, trying to memorize algorithms for Monday’s test.

  The sock was probably sandwiched in between layers of covers and sheets. I left it there. I tiptoed through the bathroom I shared with Mike. Where my bare toes met the cold tile, I hissed.

  Then the hard music of more stoneware mugs hitting the kitchen floor punctured the fight. One cup. Two.

  “Do another one,” I murmured as I went through to Mike’s room. “Then they’re even at least.”

  Crash.

  Good.

  Crash. Crash. Crash.

  Bad.

  Mike was awake, bunched up in her blankets, looking out at the doorway like an owl. Waiting.

  “Come on,” I said. “You don’t need an invitation anymore.”

  Mike slid down from the bed, but she did it very slowly. “Maybe they’ll stop.”

  Crash. I shifted from my sock foot to my other, bare foot. Felt the rough carpet between my toes. “Not likely. Let’s go. Story time.”

  The stairs creaked. First step. Second step. “It’s been a stressful day for everyone, Simon. You’ll upset them.”

  “And whose fault is that? Moira, don’t be stupid. They’re asleep. They don’t care about you.” A hard hand met a soft cheek. “No more than the neighbors do.”

  There were different kinds of quiet. Just like different kinds of magic. There was shame quiet, and angry quiet. Worry quiet.

  There was the quiet of someone deciding what to say, which way to turn.

  “Eleanor.” Mike tugged at my arm, finally free of her bed. I stuffed her pillow beneath her comforter and punched it a few times. Made it look like she was sleeping. Pulled Mike by the elbow until she followed me from her bedroom, through the cold bathroom, and back into my room.

  She stepped carefully around my math pages and crawled under the bed.

  I paused, listening. A moment, just one while I rethought which way to go. Mike would be safe under the bed. I could crawl under too. Or I could go try to help, like I’d done last night.

  Got a good bump for that on the back of my head, from the wall. Mike and I had whispered, “It doesn’t hurt,” under the bed until I didn’t know what hurt felt like, which was the same thing as not hurting.

  Which was why Pendra’s book had disappeared. Consequences.

  I didn’t want to get in the way again. I had nothing much left to disappear.

  Momma broke the enormous quiet. “Eleanor’s friend was by, and that’s why Vandana came. As the girl’s mother. She’s been trying to track me down about Mary.”

  “That girl. We could send her to military school, like I said. Or Eleanor, if her grades slip. They’re nothing but trouble together.” His voice was the low, looming storm quiet again. “How did she—”

  “Eleanor gave her the opportunity. Had her daughter over when no one was home. She knows she broke the rules.”

  No. I was most certainly not going downstairs to help. I wished I was a bird and could fly from the house.

  I got down on my belly and crawled under the bed. I could see Mike curled against the far wall, pushing aside pillows to make room. Maybe she hadn’t heard.

  “The guidance counselor. What next, Moira? Blaming me for everything?”

  Mike had wrapped a blanket around herself. She bit her lip and snuffled.

  No such luck. She’d heard every word.

  Momma’s reply was too soft and I couldn’t make it out over Poppa’s footsteps on the landing. Sometimes we could make him so mad that he’d g
et in his car and drive away. That was better. Sometimes.

  The quiet built again.

  “Tell me a scary story,” Mike said. “With magic in it.”

  A crash of glass against a wall. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t know what the girls are telling people behind my back?” His voice broke the silence like a wave.

  “Simon, no.” Pleading from the landing.

  Another crash. A breaking frame. Another. The old photographs. And something heavier. I closed my eyes and hugged my sister tight.

  “Once upon a time,” I whispered, hunched beneath the bed frame, “two girls lived in a lighthouse where the old lighthouse keeper was sick. They kept the light going so no one would know.”

  “Scarier,” Mike murmured into the heaviest of quiets. He hadn’t left. Mike curled on her side and pulled her knees up to her chest. Wrapped her arms around them.

  “Okay. Give me a minute.” I peeked out from beneath the bed skirt carefully, holding the bells to keep them from chiming. No one was in my room.

  I rolled over, careful not to catch my hair on the frame, and lay on my stomach on the carpet.

  Pendra was right, I was getting too big to fit under here. Mike snuggled hard against my side. “Tell a story, El.”

  “Once upon a time, there were two girls who weren’t very good at rules,” I began.

  “I’m sorry about the magic.” Mike pulled her sleeves over her hands and began to twist the fabric. “I didn’t think it would matter.”

  I closed my eyes. I’d been trying for funny, but what I’d said was so mean. “We both broke rules.” I would be nicer. I would.

  A door slammed. A car started.

  “We’re not good at family either,” Mike added solemnly.

  “Or that.” I thought of Momma and Gran. How they rarely spoke and Gran didn’t visit. “I’m not going anywhere, though.”

  Mike nodded. “Okay.”

  I tried again. “Once upon a time, two sisters set out to rescue their real parents, who’d been kidnapped by a troll.”