Memories of SIGAL

MARZELLE

This better be important, I mused as I drove to the Preparation Grounds.
Who was I kidding? Of course it was. It was about my daughter, the only other person I loved as much as I did my Albion...even now I wondered where and how she was.
My heart still ached from the goodbye text she sent all those years ago.
I sighed.
Now's not the time, Mars, I told me.
My girl needs me.
On arrival, I barely made ten steps out of the car when she hugged me, hugged me tight.

Okay, this is serious.

"Mom..." She mumbled into my lilac cashmere sweater.
"I'm here, baby..." I said, stroking her naturally spiky hair. Hair just like...
Hers.
I felt the full ache of love lost, like I was watching her walk away again...
I held my Vee closer. When she eventually disengaged from me and strode over to the car, I couldn't help but notice the large black-clad body, boyish, bouncing gait, and fluid motions of her right hand flipping her pen, again just like her.
I miss her still.
Footsteps approached behind me. Without turning around to see the Unsealer, I started. "If this is about her being a Raijin Mahican..." "It's not." I faced her. She continued. "It's about her distraction levels. She can't seem to focus hard enough for the magic to flow, but I can sense it in her, how deep it goes...almost as if she were a born Mahican."
"Did she tell you what was wrong?"
"No. She said only you would understand."
Trust Vee to talk like that, I smiled to myself. Out loud I said "Thanks for calling me, Ma'am. I appreciate it. I'll sort it out in time for her entry into the Realm." The lady smiled and gave me a nod as I retired to my ride.
Inside, Vee was still flipping that pen with a confused look on her face. I drove in silence, knowing she'd say something eventually. She was like Ovidia LaMartin, after all, over thinking was their thing.

Right...about...now.

"She told you I'm distracted." It wasn't a question.
"So she did." Silence.
"Aren't you going to ask what I'm distracted by?"
"It's certainly not guys, and you should know by now that I'm not in a hurry. You'll tell me." She scoffed. This was a way between us, very old and very practised. She'd only tell me the beginning of whatever she had to say, and I'd sit tight and wait for her to get it together. In the driveway, I brought her face level with mine, and tried not to choke on their physical resemblance. "Ready to talk?"
"Mom, something's not right. With my magic."
"Go on..."
"I've been trying to use it, I mean, I know it's been there since I ate... whatever that was-"
"Silverlight berries. Continue."
"That. I keep trying to draw it out, but when it reaches the surface, I hear this song and then my mind...finds it hard to focus...like building a sandcastle then waves washing it away, so I have to start over. Did that three times in a row today and it was..." A show of my palm silenced her.
"Why do I get the feeling you've tried to unlock your magic before?"
She shifted in her seat. "Of course I have..." "And you didn't tell me when it all started?" "I...thought I could handle it."

Now she's talking like me, I stifled a laugh.

"Let's get out of here," Opening my car doors, we both showed out, into my studio apartment. It was a pretty big place, though not an ideal house to raise a kid in. Beautiful as the outside was, the inside was like a paintball warzone and we practically lived in a small corner of the place. Also the house had been glamoured to look like a birch tree, a precaution I took on arrival at New York, so no one knew where we lived.
Ovidia began humming as I unlocked the door.
"What?"
We entered. "Mom, you do...an absolutely excellent job as a mother, but don't you think, maybe we shouldn't be living with your art? I'm just saying." That was Polite Ovidia for "Marzelle, you need to stop living in your studio. We, your art, and your designs do not fit in here." Shoving her into the house, I assured her, saying "Don't worry, babe. After the Exhibition, this'll be just a studio. We'll move someplace gorgeous!"
"Beverly Hills?"
"A big dream, but yes. We will."
"And we won't glamour the house?"
I paused, let the question sink in.
"Get inside. Now."
We got inside, and she began making space on the dining table for the two glasses of yogurt I poured. "You know you'll have to eat real food sometime, right Mom?" Vee asked as she sat. "Hold on, are you the mother or am I?" She shrugged. "Don't know. Gets a bit hard to tell." I gave her a nice smack to the back of her head. "Does it? Who has school on Monday?" She looked up at me, smiled and sipped her yogurt. She had something, a sarcastic comment, blossoming on her tongue, but had wisely chosen to keep mute. Another way between us. I changed the subject."Silverlight berries don't usually bestow magic on the Non Mahicans they heal, unless they're from a dormant bloodline, in which case they unlock what's already there." Raising my glass to my lips, I put it back down, only just then realising the import of my own words. "So you aren't a Raijin, a half Mahican. Did you know that?" I thumped myself on the head. Of course she didn't know. She was five years old when we met. "Anyway, I suppose I'll do some research on the Alvarez bloodline and tell you," I said dismissively, whereupon she gave me a no-thanks-I-don't-care look. "They're still your family, Ovidia."
"They're not family. You are. You and all the other Origons."