like this better.” I squeezed her hand.
“I mean Chicago.”
“Oh.” I dragged the sound out, like I was only just realizing what she’d meant. She rolled her eyes and smiled. “In that case, yes. Almost constantly. There was always something to do. Movies, clubs, libraries. I could hop on the El and get anywhere in the city.” I shrugged. “Didn’t need a car.”
“Sounds crowded.”
“Yeah. It was great.”
“Why’d you move here?”
“Ha—well, that’s because my dad is a lawyer and he thought it was in my stepmom’s best interest to get out of Chicago. Some stalker or something, they tell me. Real hush-hush. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more illegal than that. Or she made it up in an impressive play for Dad’s sympathy. They’ve only been married for a few months, so maybe sheused it to get her hooks in more securely. And to drag us out here.”
“Wow.”
“It was extremely convenient that Grandpa Harleigh croaked when he did.”
“Did you know him?”
“Nope. Just met him the once. I don’t know why he left me the house. No other family, I guess.”
“Will you go back to Chicago after graduation?”
“Sure, eventually. Periodically.”
“But not to live?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do? College?”
We hopped together over a tiny irrigation stream. “Find my mom.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“Last I heard, somewhere in New Mexico pretending to be Native American.”
“What?”
“We’re, like, a sixty-fourth Cherokee or something totally minuscule like that, and she said she felt called to the ‘old ways.’ There wasn’t a forwarding address so that I could tell her the Cherokee were never a desert people.”
“How old were you when she left?”
“The first time? Eight. I don’t really remember, except being at the hospital. She’d bled all over the bathroom after a really stereotypical suicide attempt. And drugs, Dad says. She got clean, cracked up again when I was nine, tried to kill herself again, got clean, in this constant cycle. Then she screwed herdealer and Dad used that as an excuse to divorce her. He got full custody, and basically a restraining order. I haven’t seen her since I was thirteen. Just random postcards. She claims she went through rehab and is on the right track. I’ll find out after school, maybe. Dad can’t keep me from her when I’m eighteen.” I fell silent. It had been a long time since I’d laid it all out like that. I guess it was the night for stories.
Silla didn’t respond for a while. I watched my shiny black shoes kick through dead grass and thought of Mom sitting down in a hostel or bus station, scrawling a few words to me and putting on the stamp, then forgetting I existed for another few months. Or taking a razor to her wrists again. It was too much to ask that Mom had really given that up. It was an addiction. She hated her own blood for some reason she never shared. And when she couldn’t drain herself dry, she’d turned to drugs to dilute the magic’s power.
“That sucks, Nicholas,” Silla finally said, sounding very formal. Like she was closing off some ritual. Acknowledging what I’d gone through in a way nobody ever had before.
“I like it when you call me that,” I admitted. “It’s real.”
“Nicholas,” she said again, but more slowly.
I shivered and had to roll my shoulders back to regain some firm ground. “So what about you, Silla? What are you going to do after high school?”
She winced and I wanted to know what had crossed her mind. But she said, “I don’t know. Go to college, I guess. I was going to apply to Southwestern State, in Springfield. They have a great theater program.”
“You want to act, then.”
“I’ve always loved it. Performance. The audience, the language, the action, and just the energy that’s all around it. But you know, I have to feel it again.”
“I guess you aren’t feeling much these days.”
“Easier that way.”
It
“I mean Chicago.”
“Oh.” I dragged the sound out, like I was only just realizing what she’d meant. She rolled her eyes and smiled. “In that case, yes. Almost constantly. There was always something to do. Movies, clubs, libraries. I could hop on the El and get anywhere in the city.” I shrugged. “Didn’t need a car.”
“Sounds crowded.”
“Yeah. It was great.”
“Why’d you move here?”
“Ha—well, that’s because my dad is a lawyer and he thought it was in my stepmom’s best interest to get out of Chicago. Some stalker or something, they tell me. Real hush-hush. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more illegal than that. Or she made it up in an impressive play for Dad’s sympathy. They’ve only been married for a few months, so maybe sheused it to get her hooks in more securely. And to drag us out here.”
“Wow.”
“It was extremely convenient that Grandpa Harleigh croaked when he did.”
“Did you know him?”
“Nope. Just met him the once. I don’t know why he left me the house. No other family, I guess.”
“Will you go back to Chicago after graduation?”
“Sure, eventually. Periodically.”
“But not to live?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do? College?”
We hopped together over a tiny irrigation stream. “Find my mom.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“Last I heard, somewhere in New Mexico pretending to be Native American.”
“What?”
“We’re, like, a sixty-fourth Cherokee or something totally minuscule like that, and she said she felt called to the ‘old ways.’ There wasn’t a forwarding address so that I could tell her the Cherokee were never a desert people.”
“How old were you when she left?”
“The first time? Eight. I don’t really remember, except being at the hospital. She’d bled all over the bathroom after a really stereotypical suicide attempt. And drugs, Dad says. She got clean, cracked up again when I was nine, tried to kill herself again, got clean, in this constant cycle. Then she screwed herdealer and Dad used that as an excuse to divorce her. He got full custody, and basically a restraining order. I haven’t seen her since I was thirteen. Just random postcards. She claims she went through rehab and is on the right track. I’ll find out after school, maybe. Dad can’t keep me from her when I’m eighteen.” I fell silent. It had been a long time since I’d laid it all out like that. I guess it was the night for stories.
Silla didn’t respond for a while. I watched my shiny black shoes kick through dead grass and thought of Mom sitting down in a hostel or bus station, scrawling a few words to me and putting on the stamp, then forgetting I existed for another few months. Or taking a razor to her wrists again. It was too much to ask that Mom had really given that up. It was an addiction. She hated her own blood for some reason she never shared. And when she couldn’t drain herself dry, she’d turned to drugs to dilute the magic’s power.
“That sucks, Nicholas,” Silla finally said, sounding very formal. Like she was closing off some ritual. Acknowledging what I’d gone through in a way nobody ever had before.
“I like it when you call me that,” I admitted. “It’s real.”
“Nicholas,” she said again, but more slowly.
I shivered and had to roll my shoulders back to regain some firm ground. “So what about you, Silla? What are you going to do after high school?”
She winced and I wanted to know what had crossed her mind. But she said, “I don’t know. Go to college, I guess. I was going to apply to Southwestern State, in Springfield. They have a great theater program.”
“You want to act, then.”
“I’ve always loved it. Performance. The audience, the language, the action, and just the energy that’s all around it. But you know, I have to feel it again.”
“I guess you aren’t feeling much these days.”
“Easier that way.”
It
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