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“Your Grandmother had one of her prophecies. Something about silence being the only thing to save their souls from the devil.”
Despite myself, I smiled. “Of course. Where are they?”
My mom tipped her head in the direction of the entrance, where the security guards’ equipment and refreshments were set up. “Grandmother and Mrs Jamroz have befriended one of the security men. They’re teaching him how to knit and how to connect with the spirit realm.”
“What a confusing lesson.” I sat down on the sofa next to her. “I’m really sorry about all this, mom. I hope it’s not for long.”
She looked at me carefully. “I bet you’re worried it’s going to be forever.”
I looked back at her. “You don’t think it will be?”
She shrugged. “Things have a way of working themselves out.”
I sighed, and slumped further down into the couch. “It was Forest who paid off all our debts, by the way, mom.”
“I had a suspicion.”
I was surprised. My mom always knew more than she let on. Unlike my Grandmother who let on more than she knew. “And they say Grandmother is the psychic one in the family.” I sighed. “I decided I wanted to earn the debt payments, and got myself embroiled in a rivalry between two billionaire brothers. Truth’s weirder than fiction, huh?”
“You couldn’t just let it be, could you, Ria?” Her words were harsh, but her tone was gentle.
My mother never tried to change who I was like my Grandmother did. She was different from us – she accepted people how they were.
Grandmother and I tended to pick at people, criticize them. In our hearts it’s because we cared, and wanted to help people improve. But our empathy made us get too invested.
Maybe that’s what had happened with Forest and me. I didn’t regret blowing up at him, because he’d said some pretty shitty things, too. But I did regret that that whole argument had gone down. I wished things were different. But they weren’t.
* * *
We settledinto a kind of routine. The three boys worshiped my Grandmother, constantly asking her for more stories about spirits and prophecies. I asked Mrs Jamroz if she was worried about my Grandmother filling their heads with ideas like that.
She had waved away any such idea. “Can’t be any sillier than the ideas already in their heads.”
Me and Mrs Jamroz divided the chores. She mentioned Forest a lot – it was clear she adored her boss. But it meant that he kept coming into my brain more often than I wanted.
“Did you know he set all three of my boys up with college funds? Shame they’ll never get accepted into any colleges.”
I had to laugh. I suspected that calling her boys stupid was a game she played with them – that when it really mattered, she would give them praise, boost their confidence. They were certainly plenty confident, and seemed like happy, if lively, kids.
My mom was quite content to sit around drinking herbal tea, chatting with the other adults, taking Mrs Jamroz’s sons through the homework they’d been given in lieu of attending their schools. Before she’d retired from ill health, she’d been a schoolteacher, and she still had the knack.
Everyone seemed to have faith in Forest but me. I didn’t see an end date on our stay in the safe house, not at all.
As for the man himself, we did not see him. He’d taken me at my word. It was silly, having asked him to not visit, but I felt sorry for myself at the fact that he hadn’t even tried to defy me. It was so annoying sometimes to have your wishes respected.
And I worried every day about Jenni. Her social media profiles were making regular updates – too regular, like they’d been scheduled in advance, or outsourced to a diligent gig economy worker to fake.
Though I tried to hold the doomed thoughts at bay, gradually they seeped into my consciousness, until it was all I could think about.
It was then that it occurred to me.
I had information on Forest that Apollo would surely find useful.
Surely that would be enough to buy our freedom?
It would go against all my principles. But once again I was forced to choose between my family’s wellbeing and my principles. My family would always win out in the end.
But I didn’t give into it. I waited, with a fading glimmer of hope somewhere deep inside, threatening to go out.
