Crossing Over

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

I don't know how long I stood there, at the end of the street staring at the slowly sinking sun. I knew I was being silly but my brain wouldn't break out of its mental loop of the phrase 'she knew my mother'. Nothing else mattered apart for that one little fact.

Ever since that moment when my mother left I had only felt anger towards her. Anger for leaving my dad. Anger for abandoning me and most of all anger for dumping all her problems on us. But now that I had met someone who had once had a connection to her I had an instinct to run back and beg until she told me where my mum was. It was a suppressed instinct that I had been trying to ignore for almost five years.

I had thought about calling Flynn and getting him to pick me up or perhaps to just dump the information I had just received on him. But I couldn't do that, not now. I might have lied to dad to get what I wanted but deep inside I realized that we all deserved a little bit of normal just for a moment. Even if that moment was infinitely tiny compared to the rest of our lives it was still worth it. So I let my hand fall to my side and stood perfectly still while I figured out a different course of action.

Every fibre of my being was saying I needed to find my mother again and the only way to do that was to go back into that house and confront that woman. The thought was enough for me to make a step in the direction of Col’s house. Even though every time my foot hit the ground a swirl of anger clouded my mind I managed to push through it and continue on my walk.

By the time I reached the front door I had set my mind to a goal and my stubbornness wouldn’t let me back down until I completed it. I burst through the door and walked as calmly as possible into the living room. The first person I saw was Kyra who was sitting on the couch with her legs on Dominic’s lap. Although her body was relaxed she had an intrigued face on. I turned slightly to find Col’s mother sitting in an arm chair with her elbows rested on her knees and appeared to be in the middle of a sentence. I looked up and saw Col in the middle of pacing in front of the window.

They were now all staring at me and a chill went down my spine as their eyes bored into mine.

The tension was broken when I felt something soft hit my cheek. It fell to the carpet and I looked down to see a white marshmallow. I looked back up, slightly confused, to see Dominic’s arm positioned ready to throw another marshmallow.

“Wait….did you just throw a…..marshmallow at me?” I picked up the marshmallow from the floor, then shrugged and then popped it in my mouth.

“Ahh yeah. I just really hate awkward silences.” He shrugged and then threw another one at Col. “You should have seen your face.” He burst out laughing and Kyra joined along with him. Eventually we all snapped out of our daze and laughed until our stomachs hurt. The release of emotion felt good but it didn’t ease the instinct to find my mother.

After we had all calmed down and had settled back into our seats I decided to bring up the topic.

“Umm, so you knew my mother, right?” I focused on Col’s mother.

“Yeah, I did,” she said. “But I would like to apologize about my introduction. I should have known you would have remembered me.”

“It’s okay, just as long as you explain. Please” Col sat down next to me. And the simple act of having him next to me seemed to give me extra strength. “Oh, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh, right. Sorry I’m Sylvia. And don’t worry I know who you are.” Oh course she did. “Okay well your mother was a close family friend and we grew up together despite our age difference. She was a water elemental and in normal circumstances you would have been as well.”