Gwen stepped back, her hands on Maria’s shoulders, and scrutinized her daughter’s face as she held her at arm’s length. “Don’t ever, ever run away like that again. I don’t care what the problem is, we can talk about it. Okay?”
“Okay, Mom.” Maria looked at her tennis shoes but kept a hand on her mother’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
Gwen hugged her daughter again, pulling her close, both of them crying and laughing at the same time. Gwen buried her face in Maria’s hair. They stood that way for several minutes. Then Gwen kissed the top of the girl’s head and looked over at me. “Thanks for bringing her home.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to make it past the lump in my throat.
“Do you have time to come back to the house?” Gwen asked. “We really need to have that talk.” There was no anger in her voice now. Just oceans of relief.
I nodded again. Before catching the train, I’d phoned Mab from South Station. She told me that Axel had called to say Juliet was still unconscious. No call from Daniel. I didn’t have much time—and was fast running out of the little I did have—but with no way to find the Old Ones and no idea where to start looking, there wasn’t much I could do about that.
Besides, this was family. I’d make time.
Maria threw her backpack into her mom’s van and climbed into a middle seat. “Where are Zack and Justin?”
“Playing at the Henleys’.” Gwen glanced at me as she buckled up and started the car. “They’re our neighbors a couple of doors down. They have a boy Zack’s age.”
During the short drive from the train station to Gwen’s house, the van was quiet. Maria stared out her window. Gwen turned on the radio, listened to two sentences of a news story about the zombie march, and turned it off again.
In the driveway, Maria jumped out with her backpack, slammed the door, and started toward the house.
“Maria,” Gwen said, “go to the Henleys’ and keep an eye on your brothers.”
“But Mom . . .” Maria looked to me for backup. Her appeal wasn’t lost on Gwen.
And there I was, stuck in a position I never wanted, wedged between my sister and her child. But I said what I thought was right. “I think she should stay, Gwen. This conversation concerns her.”
Gwen gave each of us a long stare, as if trying to assess how much we were in league against her. Not at all! I wanted to shout. You’re her mom. But until we played this out, my sister would see me as a rival.
“All right,” she said, but in a voice that suggested we’d be sorry. “She may stay.”
We went through the garage and took the side door into the kitchen. Gwen pointed at a chair, and Maria sat in it. My sister, ignoring her usual hostess instinct, didn’t even offer a glass of water.
She sat at the head of the table and folded her hands, looking like a CEO ready to announce bad news at a shareholders’ meeting. “So here’s the situation as I see it. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that Maria is developing Cerddorion tendencies. We have to plan for dealing with that.” She turned to me. “You need to tell Kane to get started on the legal side of things. We have some time, but courts and government agencies move slowly, so we can’t delay.”
“He’s, um, away right now, but I’ll call his office and see what they can do. I’ll fill Kane in as soon as he’s back.” If I ever got him back. The full moon still seemed a long way off, and after the failure of Roxana’s ritual, I worried that even the moon wouldn’t be enough.
“If Kane can help, fine. That would be our preference. But Nick and I agree we also need to have a plan B in place. If it looks like the courts may try to remove Maria from our home, we’re moving to Canada. Nick says he can get a transfer to his firm’s Toronto office.”
Maria stood up. “But Mom—”
Gwen silenced Maria with a look, and the girl sat down again. She slumped in her chair and stared at the table.
I felt the same as Maria. Toronto was a long way from Boston. If they moved, I’d see Gwen and her family maybe once or twice a year. How was I supposed to help Maria get accustomed to shapeshifting if they moved so far away? Gwen’s stony face brooked no arguments. All right, we’d figure it out. When Maria needed me, maybe I could take some time off and go up there to help her get through the first few months.
It felt like everything was moving way too fast.
“We do have time, Gwen, like you said. Maybe a year or longer.”
“Yes. But I also said we need to have a plan in place. I’m not going to wait until the authorities come knocking on my door.”
Maria scrunched down farther in her chair. As the grown-ups talked, she’d made herself so small that she now appeared to be little more than a scared face hovering above the table.
“Okay, so we’ve covered plans and possible consequences,” I said. “But we haven’t discussed what’s in store for Maria, what it’s like to become a shapeshifter. Can I tell her what to expect?”
Gwen’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded.
Maria sat up a little as I spoke. “Nothing is going to change right away. You’ll keep having dreams like the ones you’ve been having, like the ones you told me about right here at this table.”
“Will they get scary?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“No, because you’re in charge. If a dream starts to feel scary or uncomfortable, just remind yourself, ‘This is my dream; I’m in control.’ When you do that, you can take the dream in whatever direction you want.”
Maria looked dubious.
“Honest,” I said. “These dreams are happening because your mind is starting to explore the idea of taking on other shapes. When you dream that you’re flying or swimming underwater, what does it feel like?”
“Like it’s me but not me.”
“Exactly. When you get that ‘me but not me’ feeling, you know you’re dreaming. So use that feeling to take control of your dream.”
“It’s called lucid dreaming,” Gwen said. “I don’t change shape like Vicky does, but I do control my dreams.”
“You do it?”
Gwen smiled, a little ruefully, in my direction. “She used to think her mom could do anything.” She cupped Maria’s face in her hand. “If I didn’t, worrying about you kids would give me nightmares, and I’d never get enough sleep to keep up with you all during the day.”
Maria rolled her eyes, but she smiled.
“Try it the next time you have a flying dream,” I said. “Pick a place to fly to, and see how easy it is to go there. Or switch: Go from flying to galloping or swimming. You don’t have to wait for a dream to feel bad before you take control of it. You’re always in control if you want to be.”
“But if you do have a bad dream,” Gwen added, “come and wake me up. I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep again, like I did when you were little.”
“Can I call you on that dream-phone thing?”
Something crossed Gwen’s face, an expression like she’d caught an unpleasant smell. She scowled at me.
“She’s already experienced the dream phone,” I said. “She was curious about it, and I figured it was better not to keep her in the dark.”
Gwen sighed. “I guess you’re right.” She turned to Maria. “Well, if you have a bad dream it’ll probably wake you up, and you can’t call on the dream phone when you’re awake. But yes, you can talk to me that way. Vicky, too, if she’s willing.”
“Sure,” I agreed, “we can chat about whatever you like. But I might be at work sometimes while you’re asleep, so don’t get frustrated or think you’re doing it wrong if I don’t answer.”
“Start with me,” Gwen said. “I’ll teach you how. My colors are rose and gold. Vicky’s are green and silver.”
“What are mine?”
I let my eyes go out of focus and looked at the space just above Maria’s head. Her aura shimmered into view. It spread around her, the size and balance of colors indicating she was healthy and generally happy, although some excess yellow showed she was prone to worry. Threaded through the aura, her Cerddorion colors were just beginning to show.
“A beautiful sky blue,” I reported, “and . . . well, the other color is kind of pink now, but I think that’ll deepen into a ruby red. Don’t you, Gwen?”
Gwen, who’d also been reading Maria’s aura, blinked. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling, getting her first glimpse of her daughter’s Cerddorion colors. Her baby was growing up—and into something Gwen feared. She nodded, blinking some more. “Pink and blue. The colors we used for the nursery when you were born.” She cleared her throat. “But Vicky’s right. They’re the base colors, and they’ll take on your specific shades as you . . . as you grow.”
“Are those good colors?”
“They’re yours,” I said. “Colors aren’t good or bad, just like a fingerprint isn’t good or bad. But they’re part of what makes you, you.” I touched the tip of her nose. “So, yeah, I’d say they’re pretty terrific.”
A bread knife lay on the table. Maria picked it up and peered into its shiny surface, tilting the blade this way and that, trying to glimpse her colors for herself.
Gwen closed her hand around Maria’s and lowered it to the table. “Okay, we need to lay down some ground rules. First, you can use the dream phone only on the weekends. No calls on school nights. I remember how tired I used to get when Vicky and I stayed up talking for half the night.”
“But you were asleep,” Maria objected.
“It’s a different kind of sleep. The kind you can wake up tired from.”
“Oh.” Maria seemed puzzled, but she shrugged. “Okay.”
“Second—and this is important—you may answer a dream-phone call only if it’s from Vicky or me. Green and silver or rose and gold. No other colors. Understand?”