An Elemental Tail by Shona Husk Page B

of you to answer this time.”
    Isla winced. It didn’t matter what she did;
it was never right. “I was working last night.”
    And by the time she’d gotten home it was
after midnight. She’d been too tired to draw, and while the
crimson-haired man had slipped into her sleep, this morning she had
been unable to put a single line down, his beauty lost forever. She
fingered the pages of the book. Maybe it wasn’t too late…
    “Like you need to with that fancy scholarship
buttering your bread.”
    “I still have to eat.” They went through this
every time they spoke. Her mother resented the several states
between herself and Isla’s bank account. In her mother’s ideal
world, Isla would still be working at the local supermarket and
handing over her paycheck.
    “We all do.” The cigarette crackled down the
line as her mother dragged in a breath filled with smoke.
    The remembered scent made her gag. She’d
spent too many years spent emptying ashtrays so her younger
siblings didn’t play with the butts.
    “Spill—I know the uppity old bag left you
something. Don’t think about lying. I should never have let you
stay with her. You were never right after that.”
    Isla closed her eyes as her mother salted old
wounds. She had been forced out of the house at five because the
new boyfriend didn’t like kids. Sarah had been the only family
member willing to take Isla on. She hugged the leather-bound book
to her chest. As always, her mother would take anything of value.
“Books.”
    “Books? Is that all? What am I supposed to do
with books?”
    And that was probably why Sarah had given
them to her. They held no value to her mother. The cash wouldn’t
show up in the will. The necklace had been hidden in the folds of
brown paper. Sarah had known exactly how to protect her gifts from
the avarice of her niece.
    Isla expanded, knowing the names meant
nothing to her mother. “All my favorites from when I lived there.
‘The Little Mermaid,’ ‘Snow White’—”
    “Any first editions?”
    Her mother was always grasping. Men, money,
or both.
    “They’re children’s books.” Illustrated with
loving detail. She’d spent hours poring over the pictures, not
needing the words. Going home to her mother had been the saddest
day in her ten-year-old life. She’d wept as her mother’s beat-up
Ford had pulled into Sarah’s driveway to drag her away from the
home and school she loved.
    Something had happened after that, and Sarah
and her mother had never spoken again. Now she knew that Sarah had
asked for her to stay, and her mother had refused. What’s mine
is mine .
    But Sarah hadn’t forgotten her. Each birthday
and Christmas she’d receive pencils, crayons, paper, paint,
charcoal. She’d filled her and her sister’s bedroom with fairies
and princesses, castles, and unicorns. It had been her escape from
the yelling and the baiting as her mother worked to keep her
expanding number of children at odds. For her eighteenth birthday,
it had been a plane ticket so she could go to college. This
birthday there would be nothing from the woman she used to wish was
her real mother. The book was Sarah’s last gift.
    “Typical Sarah, no idea how the real world
works.” Her mother muttered her words like acid drops. “Carly needs
a new pair of shoes. You’d better send some money home.”
    If she sent money home, her mother would
spend it on herself. That’s where all the money always went.
    “What size is she?”
    “How the hell should I know?”
    “Let me speak to her.”
    It was a long shot. When she’d left for the
Massachusetts art college six months ago, her mother had cut off
all communication with her siblings. She didn’t want their minds
poisoned by Isla’s newfound independence.
    A slow drag on the cigarette. A cough, and
then the lie. “She’s not here. Just send the money for the shoes.”
The phone clicked, the empty line humming.
    “Love you too, Mom. College is great. I love
it here.”
    ****
    The