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He didn’t argue, just stopped on the side of the road to collect some bugs on our way to the train station, you know, in case a demon showed up. Honestly, I’d prefer demons to fathers.
When we got back to Singsong City, I took a bus from the train station in spite of Percival being quite put out about my recklessness in the face of demons. It didn’t matter what he thought. I had a class to get to, a life to live for as long as it lasted.
The thing is, on the bus, I pushed back my hoodie and stared at my arm, the smooth and polished flesh all warm and squishy and not remotely stone-like. Had my father cured me in the time it took to dance to one song? Impossible. Maybe it ebbed and flowed like the moon. He’d gotten so sharp and irritated at the end, but maybe that came after expending magical energy into my stone cure. Maybe we should have gone back to the hotel like he’d commanded, so I could learn what price he’d demand for my cure. On the other hand, he was my father and, by rights, owed me the cure that his nature had bestowed upon me. Had he really worked at a medical clinic, and if so, as what? He had a very soothing presence when he wanted to, so maybe he was a therapist or a doctor of some kind. Maybe he was a sorcerer, and that’s why mom had such a great distrust of them.
I poked my arm a few more times, then it was my stop, at the small college branch only a few blocks from the healery where my mom should still be safe. I was in my class, poking my arm through my hoodie every few minutes to check if it had turned back into stone or not, when the door opened and a woman in a neat black skirt suit and no-nonsense bun came in, looking like an administrator that was way over my college’s pay grade.
She didn’t look at me specifically, just announced to the class in general, “Gabriela Doe, if you would be so kind as to come with me, I have some documents for you to look over.”
I stared at her and my heart started thumping and my stomach twisting. I stood slowly, slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed down the narrow aisle, avoiding stretched out legs and overstuffed backpacks.
“You’re a girl?” one guy said and then laughed like he was hilarious.
I ‘accidentally’ kicked his backpack over under his desk, spilling out pencils and dice.
“Hey, watch it!” He scowled at me and stood up while I gave him a flat glare, wishing I had my skateboard to beat this fool.
I said, “Keep it out of the lane if you don’t want it to get run over.”
The teacher, a young and inexperienced woman, looked anxiously between us and the clearly professional woman. “Hey, let’s stay cool, okay?”
The guy inhaled deeply and then sat, pulling his cap low. “I don’t beat up girls, so you’re lucky I noticed.”
“Yeah, must be my lucky day,” I mumbled and made my way to the woman with her no-nonsense hair style so that she could tell me about my lifelong servitude now that I wasn’t dying. Yay.
We sat down in the smoothies place across the street from the small brick building where I went to college.
“If you could make it fast, I’d appreciate it,” I said, smoothing down my pants.
“Mr. Bellham has put together a contract based on an exchange of one kind of goods for another.” She shuffled her papers and put one sheaf down in front of me before smoothing it out. “Read this, please, and then you can tell me whether the services line up with your agreement.”
I read the paper that said, in the most dull and repetitive language possible, that he had healed me from a serious and permanent stone condition for which I owed him an aforementioned debt.
I pressed my lips together. I should probably call a lawyer before I admitted anything. “Maybe.”
She looked back at me calmly and then smiled. “My client has outlined what he would like in exchange for your healing. Will you examine it?”
I chewed on my bottom lip and wanted to bite my nails like I hadn’t done since I was twelve. “Maybe.”
She put the papers out on the table and then our shakes came out, the scrawny guy giving us both nods before he left us to it. I read through the difficult language for a long time before I came to the point.
I will require attendance at one prestigious institution befitting the Bellham name. List of acceptable colleges included.
Gray College was the first place on the list. I closed my eyes for a long time, listening to the reggae on the crap speakers in the shake place before I opened my eyes and read that section over again. “He wants me to go to college?”
“Fitting your station.”
I looked up at her in alarm. “What does he care? He abandoned my mother before I was born after getting her pregnant when he knew the kind of problems that would cause with a certain stone condition. These are all magic schools, aren’t they? I’m not magically gifted.”
“There are other things to learn than magic, but I’m sure that if he is your father, your magic is quietly hidden, not nonexistent.”
“You’re sure? You don’t know me, and neither does he, because if he did, he’d realize that the last college I’d want to attend is the one where I worked for the last four years, being ruthlessly bullied and teased for the first two.” I stood up, gripping the table and breathing hard while anger and defensiveness rolled through me. How dare he?
“If you decline, I have an alternative offer.” She pulled out another paper, a single sheet that was clear and succinct.
I will request that your mother pay off the debt you owe if you are unwilling to attend a worthy school.
I jabbed the paper. “He’s threatening my mother?”
