Page 8 of Veil of Blood and Bone

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

I huff out an irritable laugh. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. The thing was working yesterday and had a full charge. I'm not sure what's wrong with it.”

"I don't mean the battery. Hel. I mean...my bully."

Easier, always, to label her disease a bully. Naming it only leaves me fuming and helpless and Audra unsettled.

This festival, this potential for extra income, isn’t dead in the water yet with our tardiness. There’s still time to make it work.

She arches perfect chocolatey brown eyebrows toward the rogue curls on her forehead.

I don’t see her. I see our mother, the rueful way she used to watch the two of us like we were somehow a blessing and a burden at the same time. Too much imagination, Mom always said.

A hint of me peeks through in Audra’s face, though. Only the freckles. Those are the one roadmap of genetics we share.

“We would have been fine if your battery hadn’t blown,” I reply, already exhausted. "It's not your fault."

Her owlish eyes call me a liar.

Life warped my bones and made an old maid of me. When do the struggles curl up and die, like a bug on a hot sidewalk? When is the money going to do something rather than stretch like a contortionist at a circus?

When will I be able to stop making two cents out of a penny?

The costume stretches uncomfortably against all my soft places but within fifteen more minutes, the setup comes together, much to the amusement of the crowd churning between tents.

Barnes is an eclectic prick. The bookstore in town isn’t the dominant draw of Nightshade Hollow but he’s turned it out today with books, vintage odds and ends, and some local crafts with a Scandinavian or Norse flair.

I step back with my hands on my hips. “Handiwork admired, check. Square fully charged and connected to Wi-fi, check.”

Audra snaps the new battery back in place and wheels forward with a discordant buzz. “Are you sure you want the purple table runner?” She strokes the frayed edges. “Camille donated it with so much other crap after her Aunt Velma died.”

“It’s got these cool runic patterns near the fringe. It will work.” I tug the tablecloth to pull the fraying fabric from Audra’s pinched fingers. “It’s still attractive.”

A few adjustments and the offending corner is hidden where none of the customers will see unless they bend down with a magnifying glass, and if they do, good for them. That’s dedication.

A raven circles the tents across the muddy aisle from me. I click my tongue at it before it flies away. The one I noticed earlier?

I like to think so but animals have never really liked me. Not like Snow White. I don't have the gift.

The stench of damp and musty air carries the echo of the festival-goers through the tent. A sneeze tickles the inside of my nose.

I hold my breath while the sensation passes and grab a headband, clenching it until my skin smarts.

Within the hour the field is packed with bodies. Sounds and noise and sales.

I rub my hands together working my thumbs free of any kinks or taut tendons, as I’d done for the past sixty minutes. The aches aren’t a surprise.

People inch forward and form shapes in the horde, searching booths for mementos and keepsakes of their time with us.

It takes another thirty minutes before the lull in the thinning crowd lets me breathe again. The air thickens with shadows and cloud cover, night coming sooner with the changing season.

“Hey, you hungry, kid?”

I toss a headband at Audra and she snaps it up, pushing her curls away from her face, framing her scowl.

“Twenty-two. Not a kid,” she says.

It doesn’t matter if she’s old enough to drink or not. She’ll always be kid. She has to be because it’s the cutesy label Mom called her, and when so many loved ones are ghosts, at least the name hasn’t died yet. I won’t let it be buried with the woman who used to hold Audra’s hand and skip her through Joshua Tree National Park.