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Then he waved me off.
I couldn’tflowwith Bud watching me, so I walked at a brisk pace until I was hidden by the copse of trees that grew thick and strong without humans interfering. People enjoyed short trips to nature, but by and large, they weren’t comfortable too long outside the walls of cities. Nature was rebounding without the litter and greed of humanity. If I slowed, I knew there were wolves, foxes, birds, and any number of prey animals in the thick undergrowth of the forest. As a child, I’d taken glee in playing near them, comforted by the knowledge that my speed and magic would prevent the larger ones from eating me.
It was not nature that scared me. The unnaturaldraugrand the fearful man, those frightened me. Nature made sense.
As I started toflowtoward my mother’s house, I knew that her magic was why I felt such trust in nature. She’d given me a gift, a regard for life and all the slithering, crawling, running, flying, or swimming things in it.
I recognized that gift, but my relationship with my mother was still strained. Not onherside, mind you. My mother, bless her sweet heart, was fairly sure I was goddess-sent or G-d-sent, depending on which faith she was leaning into that week. Mama Lauren was raised Jewish, discovered paganism, and honestly, argued convincingly that the two faiths worked remarkably well together on a lot of practical matters. Vegan witch wasn’t much different than kosher Jew. Some of the ethos fused well, too: make the world a better place and “harm none.” In some ways, it made for an idyllic childhood.
My mother stood in a garden in front of the tidy little A-frame house where I grew up. When I came home, I could forget that I’d ever left. Home was a constant, my mother surrounded by plants or herbs or brewing something while she danced through the house. As usual her hair, barely gray still, was tied up in the sort of untidy knot that looked somehow elegant. I could’ve been any age from two until now, and my mother still wore the same basic thing: tall boots, dress, and a pair of pistols holstered at her hips. She was all about life and love, but she was aware of the world, too. Her hand went to the butt of one of those guns at the same time as she lifted her head. If I was a human meaning her harm, I’d be dead before I reached her.
When she saw it was me, her hand dropped away from her gun. “Genny! What a lovely surprise!”
It wasn’t just her voice that filled with joy. My mother lit up at the sight of me, arms open for an embrace, and I couldn’t refuse. Honestly, I don’t go broadcasting it because I fear someone using her to hurt me, but I always felt like pleasing my mother was my life’s mission. Sometimes, I thought that was part of the strain between us: Mama Lauren never quite saw me as Iwas.
To her, I was a miracle, a gift, a mission, and I just wanted to be a girl.
“The cards said you’d visit, but I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” Mama Lauren said in a tone that felt like reproach. “You could have let me know.”
I stepped away, but let her take my hand in hers. “You don’t have a phone. How was I to let you know?”
My mother let out a pulse of magic that I felt like a sizzle on my skin. She said nothing, though. She’d answered my question. I could have sent a message. We were both witches.
“I don’t exactly like broadcasting where I am or whereyouare.”
She gave me a look that used to send me cringing in fear.
“Fine. I suppose I could’ve sent a message when I was on the bus,” I murmured.
She made ahmmnoise and smiled. It wasn’t simply that she used her non-answers like weapons. My mother was an artist at emoting. She embraced a school of thought that basically said that illness comes from repressed emotion. And yes, it was just about as anxiety-inducing in childhood as it sounded. Every feeling, every possible emotion, was to be shared.
“I worry,” she said, as if that was news.
“I know.” I let her tug me to her patio where there was a table with a pot of tea, a bottle of homemade moonshine, and two sturdy teacups.
She released my hand and looked me over, cataloguing things I didn’t need to know. I squirmed as she brushed my hair back and stared at my face. I stayed still, though, when she put her fingers under my eyes and tugged so she could examine my eyes more closely.
When she smoothed her hands over my temples and jaw, I asked, “Any wrinkles yet?”
She frowned and swatted my arm. “Don’t be cheeky. Your iron is low.”
I winced. My mother had any number of herbal drinks that she’d concocted over the years to try to offset my peculiar diet. Sometimes I’d rather be low on multiple things than be forced to drink a cup of whatever gritty sludge fixed my daily deficiencies.
“I’ll eat later, and grab a few vitamins, too.”
She made the samehmmnoise and gestured for me to sit. Dutifully, I did, and my mother went over to a raised garden bed and pulled out a tuber that looked like the beet’s uglier cousin. A sharp knife from her pocket, and she sliced the root into slivers that she dropped into a tea cup.
Then she topped it off with a spoonful of what looked like sugar and a splash of moonshine. “Drink.”
I sighed and accepted the cup of dirty root and homemade booze. There was no sense arguing with her. I could be a hundred, and she’d still be mixing up things that most mothers wouldn’t give a childbutknow damn well that it was precisely what my weird body required. She could read me with the same ease she had with the soil in her various gardens. Sometimes, I suspect the truth was that she parented the plants or maybe gardened me. To her, it was one and the same. Who’s to say she was wrong?
It was salt, not sugar, in my cup. Salt, dirt, root, and booze. It was weird, but her concoctions always were. The damned gritty root cocktail was making me feel better already. I lifted the cup and said, “It’s helping.”
“Well, of course it is.” She patted my arm. “Don’t forget salt, child. You’re low.”
We sat and enjoyed the afternoon sun, chatting and drinking moonshine, and I felt a lot of my stress slip away. There was a lot of my life I questioned, but no matter what went wrong or right or somewhere in between, I always knew I was loved and accepted unconditionally. Some days, that was everything.
Other days, it was a pressure, a weight I didn’t want. I had fear that my very soul was tied to her, and if I were injured it would break her—but we had agreed not to discuss that. She’d made sacrifices to have me, and I couldn’t get an answer as to how deep the costs were.
