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No! I mean, I don’t know. She’s seventy-one.I knew people of all ages enjoyed sex, but this was my mom we were talking about. She’d never dated anyone the whole time I’d lived with her.She always said that her elf—my father—was her one true love, and that she would never fall foranother.
That soundslonely.
Yeah, tell me about it.Not that I did any better in the romance department. I’d never evenhada true love. My ex-husband was… a nice guy, but I’d fooled myself into believing I was passionately in love with him and wanted to settle down and lead a normal life. That delusion had worn away quickly after we’d married. But unlike another man I’d had a relationship with,hewas still alive, so maybe it was for the best that I’dleft.
My chest grew uncomfortably tight as I surveyed the changes to Mom’s property. The situation, or maybe the yellow juniper pollen dusting the street behind us, had me wanting to reach for that inhaler again. I felt like a drug addict needing her dailyhit.
I made myself count through some of the slow inhalations and exhalations that Mary had suggested. I couldn’t tell if it helped. What if my condition got worse instead of better? What if I ended up having some massive asthma attack while I was on a mission, and I had to go to the hospital? Or I died in front of a creature I was supposed toslay?
“Stay here and watch the cat, please,” I told Sindari, giving up on activating my parasympatheticwhatever.
A plaintive yowl came from Maggie’scarrier.
The small feline has no wish to stay withme.
“I won’t belong.”
Are those geese?Sindari asked as I got out and walked up to the frontdoor.
I glanced toward the river where a group of them were hanging out on the bank.Yes. I’m sure they don’t want to meetyou.
Such an assumption to make. I am the equivalent of royalty in your world. They will be honored to make myacquaintance.
I really doubtthat.
As I walked up to the front door, I wondered if Mom even knew I was in town. The night before, I’d left a message on her answering machine, a hulking box on the kitchen counter that was attached to the landline, the only form of communication with the outside world that she had. She wasn’t a technophobe, and I’d seen her throw down some sophisticated Google searches at the library, but she had zero interest in having technology in her house. That had been true in the 80s when I’d been growing up, and she’d refused to have a television, and I was sure it remainedtrue.
I knocked on the sturdy wood-plank door, eyeing another piece of art mounted on it, a bulbous bronze thing that seemed a mix between a gargoyle and a shrunken head. The magic was faint, but I guessed it was the equivalent of an alarm system or maybe a doorbell camera. When had Mom decided she needed all of thisstuff?
The door opened, and the pock-faced, scarred, refrigerator of a man looming inside almost had me running back to the car for Chopper and Fezzik. He was six inches taller than my six feet, his head almost brushing the door frame, and there was no way he weighed less than two-fifty. And none of it wasfat.
See? Sindari observed from the car.She has found amate.
Uh, I really doubtit.
The guy couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
He is young and virile. Good for her. Your mother must be a powerful and strong female to attract such a mate at herage.
“I’m Val.” I decided to get to the bottom of this rather than listening to Sindari’s commentary. “Is my mom here? I left amessage…”
Yes, I’d successfully left that message. That had to mean this was still my mom’s home. Unless she’d moved and had the numbertransferred…
He squinted at me. “You made theopekungooff.”
“If that means cat detector, there’s areason.”
He glanced at the door hanging. “The guardian. It detectsmagic.”
“There’s a bunch of it in the car. My mom? Did she move orwhat?”
He went back to squinting at me. I couldn’t tell if this guy was slow or onlylookedslow. “You say you are Sigrid’s daughter, but I have lived here six months, and you’ve never visited. She’s spoken only rarely ofyou.”
“Yeah, we’re not that close.” I wasn’t about to explain to the Neanderthal why I stayed away from the people I caredabout.
“Theopekuntells me not to trust you. You may be a demon indisguise.”
“Does it talk to you often? I know a therapist, if you need areferral.”
