Footprints In The Snow

VI. Shattered Mirror

:|| Posted above: What I imagine Kaia to look like. ||:

I get to my feet as Jack walks towards me. "Why are you here?"

"Why is he here?" Jack jabs a thumb over his shoulder at Charlie, who quietly closes the front door behind him.

"He's Zeke's friend."

"Oh, so your brother can invite friends over no problem, but when I come over, you get all defensive, and--"

I grab Jack's arm and pull him into my bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I turn to him, fire in my eyes. "Zeke was shot by the mystery man we saw, I'm sure of it!"

Jack's eyes widen. "How do you know?"

"It all fits together, don't you see?" I throw my hands in the air. "When we were running after the man left, we heard the scream, in the direction that Zeke ran. And the man had a crossbow, and Zeke was shot by an arrow."

"Ah, I see," Jack says. "Well, if that's all sorted out, I want to apologize for being so . . . uh . . . rude to you, when we were leaving. I just didn't want that guy to kill us, 'cause there are a lot of things I'd still like to do with my life, you see, and . . . um . . . so, yeah. Sorry."

He makes a move to walk out of my bedroom, but I block his path. "When we get out there, you are going to apologize to Charlie for being so cold-shouldered to him. For no apparent reason."

"He was--"

"I don't want excuses, Jackson." I grab his forearm again and drag him back out into the common room.

The doctor is standing outside of Zeke's door, talking in a hushed tone with Mom. They both look at me as I walk to stand by Kaia.

Everyone is silent.

I let go of Jack's arm, looking between the doctor and Mom. "Well?"

The doctor steps forward, smoothing back his graying hair. "He will live, but he will not be able to move for the next week or so. I have given your mother special medicine to put in his soup that will speed up the healing process and numb any pain he has."

I let out a breath of relief. "Thank the stars."

"He is lucky to have survived," the doctor continues, his dark eyes sweeping around the people in the room. "The arrow he was shot with had water hemlock poison on its tip. One of the deadliest poisons on the planet.  There wasn't much on the tip, just enough to make the victim feel enough pain to cause them to pass out. I managed to get a majority of it out of his system, and the rest will come out one way or another. I wouldn't worry, as long as you give him the medicine I gave you."

The doctor turns to Mom and dips his head. "Good day, Calla. If anything should happen that is unexpected, please let me know."

"Thank you, Doctor." Mom watches him leave the house, then turns back to Charlie, Kaia, Jack, and I. Her gaze settles on Jack.

"Did I not forbid you two to see each other?" Mom crosses her arms over her front.

"You did, but I mean, he's one of my best friends. You can't punish us for something we didn't do!"

Mom narrows her eyes. "I am your mother and I can do whatever I damn well please."

I scoff and push past her, grabbing two of the mugs of coffee and handing them to Kaia and Charlie. "And I'm almost eighteen, and as soon as it's my birthday, I'm moving out of here and into a place of my own."

"You don't have the money," Mom points out.

"I make seventy-five percent of the money needed to sustain this house," I retort. "So I'm pretty sure I can afford something small."

Charlie clears his throat and sets his mug down on our small table. "Well, Kaia and I should probably go . . . set up the bakery."

"At six p.m.?" I raise an eyebrow.

"We have to make sure everything is ready to go for tomorrow," Charlie says.

Before I can respond, Kaia grabs Charlie's arm and pulls him out the front door. I turn back to Mom, who has gone into the kitchen, mixing a packet of the medicine into a bowl of steaming liquid.

I chew on the inside of my cheek.

"Where did you go, Azari?" Mom asks. "You just disappeared after the morning. No one saw you at the market, you weren't home, or anywhere else in Terra Nix. Where did you go?"

"Out," I say, sipping coffee from Kaia's mug. My tongue seems to shrivel in my mouth as the liquid burns the skin.

Mom stops mixing the medicine, crossing her arms over her chest. "'Out'? What does that mean? You weren't in Terra Nix, so the only place you could have been was in the forest. Was it so hard to wait a whole day to go out there, Azari? Then you could come and go as you please without reprimanding. Now I'm going to ground you another week. And no leaving the house unless it's with me. You can stay here and watch your brother."

I curl my hands into fists. "You can't just keep grounding me over and over again and again, Mom."

"I'm your mother," she says, picking up the bowl. "I can do whatever I want."

"Mom, look at us. We're not a family. You're not my mother. I mean, you used to be, but now we're just a shattered mirror that'll take forever to fix. Is Zeke like your favorite child now or something? I bet he could actually go sleep with other girls and you wouldn't ground him!"

Mom drops a spoon into the bowl, walking towards Zeke's room. "Because Zeke is responsible and knows what he wants."

I scoff, "Responsible? Do you realize how much of a lie that is? He's--what, twenty?--and he still lives--"

"Shut up!" Mom screams, her hands shaking. A little bit of soup splashes onto the wood floor. "Just shut up, Azari!"

I feel tears sting my eyes, but refuse to let them fall. My feet pound against the floor as I storm into my room, slamming the door shut in my wake. I collapse onto my bed, burying my face into the pillows.

She hates me. Mom hates me.

The door opens and closes again.

I whip around, prepared to throw a fist into Mom's face.

But it's not Mom.

Jack puts his hands out in front of him. "I'm not going to kill you, Zara, chill."

I relax, falling back onto my bed.

The bed dips as Jack sits next to me. "What can I do to make you feel better, Larkspur? Minus going back into the forest."

I chuckle at the last part, but the laugh is humorless. "I want to get out of here. I want to go into the woods. I want to figure out who that man was. I want to know what he's hiding--because he is hiding something, and I know it. I want so many things."

Jack grabs my hand. I look up and see him examining my palm, running his fingertips over the skin. It sends shivers up my back.

"Do you want to go onto the roof?" he asks as he turns my hand over and begins tracing my knuckles with his fingers.

"Sure," I mutter, sitting up.

Jack laces his fingers with mine, pulling me out into the common room. I look to the left, hearing Mom's voice from Zeke's room: "It's okay, baby. The pain will go away. Just eat the soup, honey. Yeah, there we go. Just--"

Her voice is cut off as Jack pulls me outside and closes the door behind me. I follow him to the side of the house and up the ladder. Jack lays down on the roof, running his fingers through his hair. I lay down next to him and rest my head on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Jack, for risking your ass just so you could bring me into the forest. For being there for me, even when you seem like whatever we're doing is crazy as hell. For everything." I look up at Jack, then up at the sky, which has erupted into a brilliant pink-orange.

I feel Jack's gaze on me, and I look back at him.

He brushes a piece of hair back from my forehead.

Then he leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

"You're welcome, Larkspur," he says, looking back up at the sky.