The noises faded at last. His mother had come to a halt a short way into the oak grove, her back to him. As he stumbled up, she turned and silenced him with one look from her gray eyes. Then she turned back to the oak tree she seemed to have chosen, its pale, dry branches as shocked and contorted as bolts of lightning. Most of the green leaves had already withered in the unseasonable heat, which made it harder to see the bird’s nest in the crook of one of the high branches.
Staring up at the nest, his mother began to sing, a swoop of wordless melody. Colin fell under the spell of it instantly, just as he always did, as he had since infancy. Her voice was as sweet and slow as warm honey. Colin’s legs grew weak. Sometimes when he heard his beautiful, terrible mother sing, he thought he might be hearing the sounds the very first women in all the human race had used to lull their babies and soothe the sick. Her voice was so powerful, so loving, that when she raised it in song like this he could forgive her anything.
The melody went on, sparkling like sound made gold. A bird with black and white shoulders and a lovely red head crept out of the nest and moved cautiously down the bark of the oak tree, her tail flicking this way and that. For a moment she huddled in her own feathers like someone warming herself in a thick coat, then she fluttered down onto his mother’s outstretched finger and squatted, as if making a curtsey, presenting her glorious wings and neck feathers to be ruffled, bobbing and wobbling comically on the slender finger like a puppy begging to be petted.
“Let me hold the bird,” said Colin, charmed by the power of his beautiful mother. “Please… ”
The singing stopped. His mother’s fingers snapped closed like a trap. In the abrupt silence the handful of small bones breaking seemed loud as a drumroll. His mother opened her fingers and let the crushed bundle drop to the ground, one wing still fluttering feebly.
Colin clamped his hands over his mouth. He should have known. He should have known!
“Do you feel better now?” he shouted at her. He wanted to run but he couldn’t. He looked from her to the dying bird. “Does that make you feel better?” He actually wanted to know, that was the terrible thing. As if maybe there actually was a reason for these things, and when he knew it he could forgive her again.
Patience Needle turned her clear gray eyes on her son. “Better?” she said. “A little, I suppose.” She turned and began to walk briskly back toward the house. “Come along, Colin, and don’t dawdle. We still have to decide on an appropriate punishment for a sneaking little spy, don’t we?”
Chapter 1
“Y ou really want to ruin my life, don’t you?” said Mom.
Tyler was playing his GameBoss and so far had managed to stay out of the fight, but his big sister never had the sense to keep her mouth shut. She jumped for any argument like a trout going after a baited hook.
“Oh, right, Mom,” Lucinda said. “Ruin your life-as if! Just because we don’t want you to go away all summer and leave us with some lady who smells like fish and whose kids eat their own boogers?”
“See, that’s what you always do, sweetie,” their mother replied. “You always exaggerate. First off, it’s not going away all summer, it’s a four-week singles retreat. Second, Mrs. Peirho doesn’t smell like fish all the time. That one day she was cooking something, that’s all-some Portuguese thing.” Mom waved her hand, trying to get her nails to dry. “And I don’t know what you have against those kids. They both do really well in school. Martin goes to computer camp and everything. You could learn something from them.”
Lucinda rolled her eyes. “Martin Peirho needs to go to camp for the rest his life-that’s the one place you’re allowed to have your name written on your underpants.”
Tyler turned SkullKill up louder, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. When Mom and Lucinda argued and he tried to drown them out by cranking the volume, they just got louder too. It was hard enough to deal with fast-moving vampire gnomes and flying batbots without all that yelling in the background.
“Good Lord, Tyler, turn that thing down!” Mom shouted.
“No, turn it off. We’re going to have a family talk. Right now.”
Tyler groaned. “Can’t you just beat us instead?”
For a moment Mom got really angry. “Like I ever hit you. You better not say things like that in front of Mrs. Peirho and her family-they’ll think I’m some kind of negligent mother.” She stomped to the door. “I’m going to get the mail. When I come back, I want you both sitting on the couch and ready to listen.”
Tyler sighed. He considered leaving-just walking out and going to Todd’s house. What was there to stop him? Mom didn’t hit, and Tyler figured he could live through just about any yelling she could come up with. After all, he was pretty sure he’d already heard every kind there was.
He glanced at his older sister. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her arms wrapped around herself, leaning forward like her stomach hurt. Her expression was despairing. “ You don’t want to go stay with the Peirhos any more than I do, Tyler,” she said to him. “Why don’t you say something?”
“Because it never does any good.”
Mom came back in wearing her “I’m calm now” face, her hands full of catalogs and bills. She sat down in her chair with the mail in her lap. “Now, let’s start over, shall we? Instead of yelling about what you don’t want to do, maybe we can talk about the good things that could come from this situation.”
“Since when,” said Lucinda, “have there been any good things for this family coming out of any situation?”
Mom’s face clouded, her eyes shut tight. Tyler braced himself, wondering if she was going to yell, wondering if he was going to regret sticking around. But, to his surprise, Mom opened her eyes and even tried to smile. “Look, I know it’s been tough for you since your father and I got divorced. Of course it has…”
Tyler blew out air. What was the use of talking about it? Talking wasn’t going to bring Dad back or make Mom happier, whatever she thought. Talking wasn’t going to turn Lucinda back into the older sister who used to make him dinner when Dad first left, who would cook macaroni and cheese and eat it with him on the nights when Mom couldn’t do anything but watch television and cry.
“… and of course it’s difficult for kids when their mother wants a little time on her own,” their mother said.
All the way across the room, Tyler could feel Lucinda struggling not to start yelling again.
“It’s a singles retreat,” their mother continued. “It isn’t anything sleazy. It’s safe and it’s a perfectly nice place to meet people.”
Lucinda lost the battle with herself. “God, don’t be so desperate, Mom, it’s pathetic.”
Tyler watched Mom’s face go all loose and miserable and his stomach clenched. Sometimes these days he felt like he hated his sister. Lucinda saw Mom’s expression, too, and her face filled with shame, but it was too late-the words had been spoken.
Mom picked up the mail and began shuffling through it, but it was like she had suddenly gotten old and exhausted. Tyler felt sick. She might not be the greatest parent in the world but she did her best-she just sort of lost focus sometimes.
“Bills,” said Mom, sighing. “That’s all we get.”
“Why can’t we stay with Dad?” Tyler asked suddenly.
“Because your father is in a very important place right now with his new family-or at least that’s what he says.” She frowned. “Personally I think it’s because that woman has him completely wrapped around her finger.”
“He doesn’t want us and you don’t want us,” said Lucinda miserably. “Two parents alive but we’re still orphans.”