The Gathering

FIVE

WE WALKED A FEW doors down before Mom turned to me, deflating. “I’m sorry, Maya. I know you were really looking forward to getting that tattoo.” “It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. If I had to wait, Dad might change his mind. There was no way I could go back to that shop, though.

Mom looked around, distracted, her gaze finally settling on Bubble Tea Stars. “You were hungry, weren’t you? Let’s go get you something to eat and I’ll call your dad.”

I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I followed her in. She phoned Dad, saying only that there’d been a problem and I’d need to get my tattoo another day.

“We’ll go to Vancouver next weekend,” she said when she hung up. “Make a special trip of it.”

Exactly what Serena had suggested just before she died. Her last words. I blinked back a prickle of tears and turned to peer into the ice cream freezer.

“I’m really sorry, Maya. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. She was obviously senile and I overreacted.”

“Do you know what that word meant? The one she called me?”

She shook her head. “No idea. I don’t even know if it’s Navajo. She may have lived with them, but she’s white. The language is nearly impossible for an outsider to learn.”

“Calling me a witch, too.” I shook my head. “At least give me a chance to earn it first.”

Mom tried to smile and surveyed the menu blankly, like we hadn’t been in here so often the counter girl had recognized us and said hello. Mom finally ordered an herbal tea with lemongrass. I got lychee bubble tea—cold milky tea with tapioca balls.

“You said you were hungry,” Mom said. “Maybe a sandwich?” She pointed at the Vietnamese submarines. “You like those.”

“I’m okay.”

“Ice cream, then,” she pleaded, like if I didn’t eat, she’d know I’d been permanently scarred by the old woman’s words. “They have Nanaimo bar. You love Nanaimo bar ice cream.”

“Sure, I’ll take a bowl.”

When we sat down, she was quiet for a minute, then said, “What that old woman said, about you, the adoption …”

I sighed and set down my spoon. “My mother left me in the hospital because she cared enough to want a better life for me. She must have had a good reason for not going through traditional adoption means. Maybe her family opposed it. Or maybe no one knew she’d been pregnant.” I looked at her. “Did I get that right? Because I’ve heard it, oh, only a million times.”

“Just checking. As you get older, your feelings might change.”

“Nope.” I slurped up a few boba balls from my tea. “I’m happy right where I am. And being abandoned is cool, in an old-fashioned gothic kind of way.”

That was a lie. Sure, other kids thought it was cool. I didn’t. I had no interest in meeting my birth mother, not because I’d felt she’d “abandoned” me or didn’t want me. I’d been a baby. She hadn’t known me long enough to reject me personally. She’d just rejected the general idea of having a kid, and I’d won the adoption lottery with my parents.

Abandoning me had been inconsiderate. I’d said that to my parents once, and they’d laughed. It was a strange word, I know, especially from an eight-year-old. They’d then given me the whole spiel on how my mother was a good person blah, blah.

What I meant was that she should have left a note detailing my family background and medical history. If I’m curious about anything, it’s my family. Was I Navajo? Did I have grandparents? Brothers? Sisters? And, even more important, was there a history of medical problems? I suppose that’s a weird thing to worry about, but I blame growing up in a medical research town.

When I was little, my grandmother used to tell me this story about how I came to live with my family. She said my real mother was a cougar who’d had a late summer litter. She’d been an old cat and knew the signs that it would be a long, hard winter and her cubs wouldn’t all survive. So she’d begged the sky god for mercy and he turned her smallest cub into a human girl and told the cat to take her into the city. She’d left me at the hospital, but before she went, she’d pressed her paw to my hip, leaving me a mark to remember her by.

That, she said, explained not only my birthmark but also my love of animals and the forest. Even as a kid, I knew it was only a story. Still, that’s exactly how I felt, even now—like I’d just appeared, from nothing, with no background, no history.

I was still thinking about that when Dad showed up. He didn’t get mad like Mom had. She always jokes he’s the only Irishman born without a temper. He was upset, though, and confused, not understanding how any person could lash out at a stranger like that. He was mostly just worried about me and how I was taking it, and because I didn’t want him to worry I went through the whole reassurance routine again, insisting I hadn’t been scarred for life by the mutterings of a senile old woman.

We left shortly after that, no one being much in the mood for dinner out. By the time we got home, the sun was dropping behind the house, setting it off in a glow of sunset. I love our house. My mom designed it, getting permission from the St. Cloud company to take down the cabin they’d built for the last warden.

Coming up the drive, you can’t see it at all. It blends right in with the forest, like it’s been there forever. It’s a two-story modified log cabin, with huge windows and skylights, so when you’re inside, you feel like you aren’t. It smells like the forest, too, even with the windows closed in bad weather.

Both stories have wraparound decks. Right now, there was someone sitting on the bottom one—Daniel with Kenjii stretched over his feet as he played a game on his DS. Beside him was a duffel bag.

As we drove in, he stood.

“Got your text,” he said when I climbed out. “How much did it hurt?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Apparently, I can’t get a tattoo because I’m a witch.”

“I could have told them—” He stopped. “Oh, you said witch.”

“Ha-ha.”

“You’re serious?”

“Kind of. I’ll explain later.”

“Hello, Daniel,” Mom said.

“Hey.” He nodded to my dad, then gestured at his duffel. “This okay?”

He didn’t say, My dad’s drunk again and I need a place to stay. He didn’t need to.

Mom said, “Of course it is.”

“You still have your key, don’t you?” Dad said.

Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s nice out.” Even if it was pouring rain, he’d have waited on the porch. Daniel’s funny about stuff like that. He has this rigid sense of right and wrong, and even if he has a key, he wouldn’t go inside until we were there.

We put Daniel’s duffel in the spare room. He stays at least once a month, sometimes for a couple of days, so it would make sense to just keep some stuff here, but Daniel refused. I think he keeps hoping that this will be the last time he needs to stay with us. It never is.

We went outside so I could check on the animals. On the side porch Fitz stretched out in the last sliver of sunlight.

“Dad felt sorry for you, didn’t he?” I said. “That’s great, but you’re not going to learn if we keep getting you out of trees.”

Fitz only lifted his head, yellow eyes slitted, and yawned. Daniel laughed and crouched beside him, scratching behind his tufted ears, then under the ruff around his face. Fitz rolled onto his back and Daniel rubbed his stomach.

“Uh-uh,” I said. “If you get—”

“Scratched, it’s my own fault, I know.”

A cat scratch is bad enough, but a bobcat is twice the size of your average tabby. When he takes a swipe, there’s blood involved.

Fitz was on his best behavior with Daniel, though. He usually is. He can sense Daniel likes animals. That’s how we met. A week after we moved in, Daniel brought us an injured squirrel. The old warden had taken in wounded animals, and Daniel had figured that was part of the job. As for what a five-year-old was doing riding his bike deep into a predator-laced forest, well, that says something about the level of parental care in the Bianchi household.

When he’d brought the squirrel, I’d asked my dad if we could look after it. After some talks about conservation and how the goal was to release the animals—not make them into pets—my parents agreed. That was how I discovered my passion for rehabilitating wildlife. It was also how I made my first friend in Salmon Creek.

As Daniel played with Fitz, I sat on the grass, stretching out my legs and closing my eyes. I swore I could feel energy filling me. I inhaled the smells of the forest, the sharp tang of long grass, the sweet perfume of the trees. As I relaxed, I realized how tense I’d been since leaving the tattoo studio. I could say I was just disappointed, but what the old woman said bugged me, as much as I tried to shrug it off.

As I rested, Kenjii circled the house. She gave Fitz a respectful berth—having been on the receiving end of his killer claws many times—and lay down beside me, head on my knee.

I petted her awhile and then asked Daniel what had happened this time. He shrugged and said, “The usual,” which meant his dad got drunk and started in on him. Not physically. I think Daniel would have preferred that. Violence was something he understood, something he could deal with. This wasn’t.

Daniel’s mom had taken off three years earlier. She’d never really been there much anyway—always vague, distracted, caught up in her studies at the lab, no time for Daniel and his two older brothers. The one who really missed her was her husband. That’s when the drinking went from “a case of beer on the weekend” to “dead drunk by ten most nights.” It was just Daniel and his dad now—his brothers were in college.

Sometimes when Mr. Bianchi drank, he ignored Daniel, which was fine. But sometimes he didn’t. He said stuff. Not the usual “you’re lazy/stupid/worthless” insults either. These were … ugly. He’d say that Daniel wasn’t his son. That Daniel was a mistake. That he was a freak, an abomination, evil.

Once, after Serena died, I was over there, and his dad started in on me, calling me a freak, too, and saying that I killed Serena to get Daniel. Daniel coldcocked him. Then he took off to my place and stayed for two weeks. He went back, though. He always does.

His dad had apologized. He always did that—told Daniel he’d been drunk and he didn’t mean it and Daniel should never tell anyone what he’d said. Which showed how little he knew his son. Whatever happened in that house stayed in that house, and I kept my mouth shut, too, even if sometimes I thought I shouldn’t.

“He’s been worse lately,” Daniel said after a while.

I looked over. He was toying with Fitz now, dragging a long piece of grass over the porch as the bobcat chased it. Daniel was looking the other way, and all I could see was a sliver of his face. I didn’t need to see his expression, though. Just hearing his tone, seeing the set of his broad shoulders, the way his bare arms tensed, muscles bunching, I knew what his face would look like: lips tight, dark eyes distant and sad. That’s the part he didn’t like me seeing—the sadness, the shame.

I moved to sit on the edge of the deck. Kenjii slunk over. Fitz gave both of us a watch your step—he’s playing with me look. Daniel kept trailing the grass over the deck, leaving seeds behind.

I wanted to reach out to him. Put my arm around him. Rub his back. Do something that said, I’m here. But I never did. Couldn’t.

After Serena died, there’d been long days and evenings, just the two of us, grieving, and sometimes he’d hug me, and that was fine because I knew it was just comfort. But I didn’t feel like I could do the same back without a really good excuse or he might take it the wrong way.

It’s not just because of Serena. Obviously, I don’t want to be the slut making a move on her dead pal’s boyfriend. But more than that, I don’t want to do anything that might make him uncomfortable staying here when he needs a place. I’m pretty sure I could give him a hug without him misinterpreting it, but I can’t take that chance.

So I sat, and said nothing. After a minute he slid over beside me. Fitz grumbled, then stalked off, with a halfhearted swipe at Kenjii, as if this were her fault. We watched as he disappeared into the forest.

“Hunting time,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else.

“He does a good job of it,” Daniel said.

“As long as he can catch his dinner off guard.” Missing a back leg meant Fitz could walk fine—he just couldn’t run, either after prey or away from predators.

“And as long as he doesn’t climb a tree to get it.”

I gave a soft laugh and pulled my knees up. After another moment of silence, I said, “You said your dad’s getting worse?”

“Yeah. I’ll be glad when he goes on that business trip tomorrow. Bet you will, too. Birthday party time.”

He jostled my shoulder and I forced a smile. After a minute he cleared his throat and said, “He had a teleconference with the St. Clouds last week. I think he told them he wants to leave Salmon Creek.”

I looked over sharply. “What?”

“Lately, when he’s drunk, he goes on about how he wants out, how he’s trapped. Trapped in Salmon Creek because of me and because of his contract with the company. Once he sobers up, he never wants to talk about it. Then he had this meeting.”

“How’d it go?”

“Bad. I think he tried to get out of his contract. They told him no. He should have known that. Everyone’s contract is tight for security reasons. You remember how the whole town council had to lobby the St. Clouds to let Serena’s folks go after … well, after.”

I nodded. From what I understood, it hadn’t been much of a fight. Mayor Tillson and everyone took their case to the St. Clouds, who’d given Serena’s parents a generous severance package. For that kind of thing, you really needed a good reason. You couldn’t leave the project halfway through and take your expertise to a competitor.

“So now he’s mad,” I said, “which means he’s drinking more.”

Daniel nodded.

“Well, he can’t blame you for that.”

Daniel tossed a stick for Kenjii.

“He doesn’t blame you, does he?”

“Yeah, he does. Who knows why. Finally, tonight, I just had enough. I told him I wasn’t holding him back. As far as I’m concerned, he can go. I’ll take care of myself. Not like I don’t do that already. He flipped out. He called me an ungrateful brat and came at me, and I—I—”

“Hit him again?”

“I—I think so. I mean—” He exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck, eyes closing as he grimaced. “I must have. I just don’t—”

His gaze went distant, the way it had that morning, staring after the hiker, and when I looked into his eyes, I saw nothing.

“Daniel?”

He shook it off. “Yeah, I hit him. I just got so mad that I didn’t even realize … Well, you know.”

“Your boxing instincts kicked in. He came at you and you hit him without realizing it.”

“Right. Exactly.” Another exhale, this one sounding like relief. “Anyway, he’s fine. Just seriously pissed off, which is why I’m here.”

“You could stay here,” I said softly. “If he does leave.”

He rubbed his arms, like he was getting cold. His gaze was down, but his jaw was set in that way I knew well, ready to refuse. Only he didn’t want to refuse. He wanted to know that if it came down to that, his dad leaving, he could stay here. I could see that worry and that need wearing away at his pride until finally he grunted, “Yeah. Okay.”

After another second, he got up, and said, “Let’s feed the animals.”