“Oh, she told us alright,” Samuel replies.
I look at him quizzically.
“She went a little crazy, if you want to know the truth.”
“Samuel.” Marlene says, her tone gentle but reproachful.
“What do you mean, she went a little crazy?” I ask.
“Well,” Samuel continues, “she kept insisting she knew where Simon was. The rest of his family, too. She kept—” He stops, his brow furrowing, like he isn’t sure he should say any more.
“She kept what?”
“We don’t want to upset you,” Marlene says.
“It’s okay. I already know she was troubled.”
They exchange a third look, resigned this time. Marlene takes up the story. “Well, she kept insisting they found some sort of … doorway? She was very adamant, and it was all very upsetting. We tried to help her, but she refused to let it go. Every day got a little worse, until she was in near hysterics. In the end, social services thought it would be best for Clara to start fresh somewhere new and they took her away.”
“Do you know if it helped?” I ask.
“I’m afraid it didn’t. She was eventually admitted into afacility.” Marlene says the word delicately, but I can read between the lines. My mother was put into a psych ward. I can’t help but wonder for how long. “We were very sad to hear it. She was such a good student, your mother. Very smart. Pretty as can be. She loved reading.”
“Did she go to the high school?” I ask, realizing it quite suddenly. Unless Marlene home-schooled her foster children, or sent them to Blackwillow Christian Academy, which could certainly be a possibility if they were given financial aid, she would have gone to Foggy Hollow High.
“Well, of course.” Marlene smiles. “All of our foster children did.”
Jude and I return to school at the beginning of third period.
Mrs. Calloway buzzes us inside the front office looking every inch the mother hen. “Selah, I’ve been worried sick. I called your father, and he said you were dealing with something.” She turns fromme to Jude. “I marked you absent as well, dear. And left a message with your mother.”
“Stepmother,” Jude says.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Your stepmother.” Mrs. Calloway turns back to me. “Selah, what is the matter? It’s not like you to play hooky.”
I tell her. The non-supernatural parts, anyway. About my mother living here, being a student here. Friends with Simon Vandenberg. When I finish, Mrs. Calloway looks properly shocked.
I slide my hands into the pockets of my puffer vest. “We just went to speak with her foster parents—Marlene and Samuel Abner.”
“I remember the Abners,” Mrs. Calloway says. “Up until a few years back, they were always enrolling new students. They fostered your mother?” She asks the question as she types into her computer, and I can tell by the light in her eyes that she’s found something.
The transcripts of Clara Green, perhaps.
“For six months,” I say. “Then she was sent away after Simon and his family disappeared.”
Mrs. Calloway swivels her chair to look from the computer screen to me. “Selah, sweetheart, that’s a lot to take in.”
“I haven’t told Twig yet,” I say, squirming a little as I do. It’s not like me to keep things from Twig. “I thought I’d fill him in tonight, after dinner. It’s too much to explain over the phone.”
Twig comes home later this evening. The team took fifth place in the Catalyst Cup, an impressivefinish, really, considering the competition. Mrs. Calloway invited me to join them for dinner to celebrate. Naomi, too. Which means I’ll have to catch him up after she leaves.
Mrs. Calloway nods kindly, then starts writing us both a pass.
I fiddle with the skeleton key inside my pocket. “Can I see her transcripts?”
She stops writing. I think she would give me anything if she could. But even I know this is too big of an ask. “I would love to give you more information about your mother, but I can’t give you her transcripts. That would get me fired.” Even as she says it, she looks conflicted, like she might bend the rules just once. She taps her finger against the laminate desktop, her lips pursed. Then she scoots her chair back. “But there is something we could try.”
Jude and I follow her down the hall, into Foggy Hollow’s uninspired library.
