“Why isn’t there any food in the fridge?” my dad interrupted, having pulled the door open again, leaning in closer, an irritated look on his face.
I didn’t reply, just waited for him to remember that he’d asked me a question and that I still hadn’t answered it. He shut the door and pulled open the freezer, then opened the fridge again, his face suddenly brighter in the refrigerator light. “There’s no milk or bread or fruit. . . .”
I could hear how annoyed he was getting, and I realized he’d totally forgotten about my program, had moved on to other things. I knew I could interrupt and tell him why, exactly, I wasn’t going, and that it was his fault, but I dismissed this plan before I even found the words. I wasn’t about to start begging my dad to pay attention to me.
“Well,” I finally said, about to answer his food question, which was clearly the most important thing right now. “Joy would sometimes pick stuff up. Or I’d get what I needed. . . .” The fact was, we almost never had that stuff in the fridge. I ate about four things, so it had never been an issue for me to keep myself fed. I took a breath, not really sure if I should point out that he was an adult who was capable of shopping for himself, when I realized a moment later that maybe he wasn’t. He had a housekeeper in D.C., along with interns and assistants who probably made sure he had everything he needed.
“I guess I’ll pick some things up later,” my dad said, mostly to himself, as he closed the fridge. He blinked at me again, like he was surprised to see me still there, his brow furrowing like he was trying to put something together. “So did you have another program lined up? Or are you going to be here this summer?”
“No other programs. So . . . I’ll be here.” As I said the words, I felt them sink in as, for the first time, I really understood what that meant. I’d been so caught up in getting my new job and feeling like I had at least some semblance of a plan that I hadn’t thought about what this would mean exactly. I would be home all summer. With my father.
My dad blinked. “Oh,” he said, and I wondered if he was coming to the same conclusion I was—that this was not a state either of us was used to. “Well, that’s—that’ll be nice.”
I nodded, not really trusting myself to say anything else. For a moment I thought about telling him how I’d spent my day—walking dogs, getting a job, seeing the painting, reading what he’d written about me, about us, five years ago. But I couldn’t even make myself picture it. It felt like trying to imagine a world without gravity, or something equally impossible.
I opened the pizza box, then hesitated. My plan to watch bad TV while eating pizza on the couch clearly wasn’t going to happen. I started to turn and get a plate, then stopped and walked back to the island just as my dad opened the fridge again, then closed it. It felt like we were bad actors who’d collectively forgotten our blocking, like what happened to Tom last year during a particular painful performance of The Seagull. I maneuvered around my dad, grabbed a plate, then put two slices of pizza on it. Even though I had a thing about crumbs, I was feeling more sure by the minute that I couldn’t keep standing there, more aware with every forced sentence just how little we had to say to each other. Especially knowing now that this wasn’t something I’d have to endure for only a day or two. This was the whole summer.
“Have some pizza if you want,” I said over my shoulder as I headed for the back stairs with my plate, taking them two at a time.
When I got to the top, I looked down. I could still see my dad, standing alone in the kitchen, looking really small from this vantage point and like he was a little lost in his own house. I walked to my room, then closed the door and leaned back against it, my thoughts all circling back and back again to the same question.
How were we ever going to get through this summer?
Tamsin glared at her brother as he lounged in the chair at the other end of the table from her, helping himself to the candied fruit. It was so typically Jack—he showed up after almost a year gone doing god knew what (though she unfortunately did know, and much more than she wanted to, with minstrels writing songs about his most outrageous exploits. She’d heard the groom in the stables singing one yesterday morning, and it had stayed in her head nearly all day) and just expected that everyone would be thrilled to welcome him back.
“What?” he asked, shooting her a grin, the one she was sure had worked on every barmaid up and down the southern coast, all innocence and rumpled charm. It wasn’t going to work on her, and Jack seemed to realize this as he dropped the smile and tossed a piece of fruit into his mouth, catching it easily.
“Are you planning to stay this time?” she asked, folding her arms. She wasn’t sure, to be honest, which answer she wanted to hear.
“My kingdom needed me,” Jack said, raising an eyebrow. “Also, I may have been asked to leave Riverdell. Rather rudely, I’ll have you know.”
“Because I’ve been the one keeping things going here,” she said, trying not to let any emotion come into her voice. “And—”
“And you’ve done a wonderful job,” Jack said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “But the adults are here now. You can run off and do your needlepoint.”
Tamsin took a breath, about to let him have it—when she realized what she was being offered. Freedom. She smiled as she stood from the table and walked toward the door, faster, until she was almost running.
“Uh—Tam?” she heard Jack call out to her, but she didn’t stop, didn’t even turn and look back.
She was going to the woods, to the last place she’d seen the Elder.
And she was going to get some answers.
—C. B. McCallister, A Murder of Crows. Hightower & Jax, New York.
Chapter
FIVE
“How did it go?” Maya called to me from the driveway as I locked the door, then double-checked that it was locked, then checked once more for good measure. It had been four days since I’d gotten the job, and this was my second training day. I was getting more comfortable with the dogs, but I hadn’t had to do it on my own yet, without Maya there for backup.
I was still coming to terms with the fact that this was what my summer was going to look like. It was fine, for the most part—I’d blocked the Young Scholars page on my computer after I’d spent one night just looking at pictures from the welcome party, beyond jealous of all the people who got to be there. I’d also been tiptoeing around my father—or maybe it was mutual avoidance, but I hadn’t seen him much, beyond occasionally crossing paths in the kitchen. I hadn’t told him about my job, and he hadn’t asked what I was doing with my days. But then again, I wasn’t asking him what he was doing all day either, so maybe we were just respecting each other’s privacy.
“It was okay,” I said now as I walked down the front steps to join her. Maya was sitting in the back of her SUV, the hatch open and her legs dangling. She’d let me follow her in my own car, and I’d shadowed her when we’d picked up the first dog—Wendell, a fox terrier who clearly thought he was a Great Dane, judging by the way he barked at every big dog who crossed his path. I’d watched Maya work, trying to keep in mind everything she was telling me—how to announce your presence when you come to the door, the way even some normally friendly dogs’ protective instincts kick in when a stranger tries to come into their home, how to always crouch down and let a dog sniff you first, never just reach for their collar—while having the distinct feeling that I was missing crucial lessons because I wasn’t able to take detailed notes.