Dancing in the Rain (The TUSH Duology-Book 2)

Week 17

Sunday, December 13

Today was my first final (an oxymoron. I know). I had to wake up bright and early on a Sunday morning for my mythology final at 8:30. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning, but it is what it is. Luckily, I didn't have to log onto the Zoom meeting. It was technically a take-home, but it was also due at 11:30, and I had been putting it off to coach George through Sand Ruin. Poor management of my time, now that I thought about it.

I was also glad that I didn't have to get on the Zoom because it was while I was taking my final that Mom came through the doorway through the study. I could tell because I was in such a daze that I was focusing more on the reflection in the computer screen than the test that was actually there, and there she was. Without turning around, I asked, "What do you want, Mom?"

"Am I interrupting something?" She stepped back.

I glanced at the clock. 9:30. I was two-thirds of the way through the test, much to my surprise. "Only my final exam, but if you want to talk, I have time."

"Great." Mom pulled a chair from the dining room and sat down next to me. "I was just wondering who it was I heard while you and George were playing video games yesterday."

"What are you talking about?" I chuckled nervously. "It was just me and George up there."

Mom shook her head. "That's where you're wrong, mi chica." Mom is one of the least Hispanic people I've ever met. What was she doing speaking Spanish? "I know I heard a third voice up there."

"Oh. Uh..." I had to come up with a lie real quick. "George was reading the dialogue on the screen. His Menie-Funie voice is so convincing, it could sound like a different person."

"I could tell it was him. He wasn't using a different voice at all. He was just shouting. Now that I think about it..." She tossed her head to the right and looked up in thought-- "It reminds me of that friend of yours, Saide."

"'That friend of mine?' She lived in this house for over a month."

"And now that I think about it..." She tossed her head to the left-- "I thought I kicked her out. What was I doing hearing her voice?"

"She was just visiting."

Mom crossed her arms. "She wasn't suggesting any more surprise road trips, was she?"

I shook my head. "That was just the one time. If you could hear her voice, you must have heard her say she came to tell me she had become a sorcerer."

"Is that so? Did she do so to make herself seem more trustworthy?"

I sighed and hung my head down. "This has nothing to do with you, Mom. Saide and I were friends before she moved here. I've trusted her for a long time. In fact, we were friends even before she became Saide."

"What do you mean, 'before she became Saide'?"

Oh, boy. I had to tell the story again. "Up until a couple months ago, she was a witch named Circe. She's been staying here because there's another witch named Brianna who wanted to kill her. She had the bright idea of creating a magic decoy of herself for Brianna to kill instead, but George showed up and accidentally split Circe into two people. There's Saide, who lived with us, and then there's Cetera, who's been living on campus."

"And this Brianna girl didn't kill her?" Mom asked.

I shook my head. "Actually, no. They became buddies. You know, since Cetera got all the dark magic and Saide was stuck with the light magic. We've been trying to get them back together, but we don't have any precedent or any idea how this happened, for that matter."