Page 4 of House of Marionne

“I can. I’m seventeen, not a child anymore.” My tone grates with irritation. “Please,” I say, softer. She stills and sighs again. A long moment of quiet passes between us. And I sit in it because this time there’s more than silence in response to my questions.

“Your grandmother is a very powerful and influential woman, Quell, in an entirely different world than we live in now.”

My chest tightens with anticipation, hearing Mom mention Grandmom. I haven’t thought about her—seen her—since I was little. Hope bubbles up inside me at finally getting some answers. “Does she have magic, like I do?” Mine must have come from somewhere. Maybe it skips generations.

“Growing up, our house was a training ground for a magical secret society.” Mom wraps and rewraps herself in a blanket. “The Order.” A smile wafts between us. “And life there at Chateau Soleil even in the off-season was . . .”

“Chateau Soleil?”

“Grandmom’s estate.”

“Estate? How big does a house have to be to have its own name?” We lived at my grandmother’s until I was five. I can’t remember it, really, or picture it. I have one cobwebbed memory. I was little. She pulled me up onto her lap. She smelled like birch and juniper. Sunlight poured into the room and everything seemed to glitter. She handed me some toy to play with. I felt safe. But Mom came thundering into the room, snatched it out of my hand and me out of her lap. The rest is a haze.

“Their magic is different from yours, Quell. They move in the world in a way that you never will because of your toushana.”

My shoulders sink.

“All that glitters, darling—”

“Isn’t gold. I know.” Another question pokes my thoughts. “Does Grandmom know about my toushana?”

“No.”

“Then why—”

Thunder claps quietly in the distance and the lights flicker. The suddenness silences both of us. Mom’s brow pinches as if she’s focusing hard on something. I know that look in her eye. That spark that won’t die.

“Pack your things.”

“Mom?”

“I need you to tell me everything that happened at the Market, Quell, right now. Please.”

She grabs her duffel and something inside me fractures.

I tell Mom everything, about how I got lost leaving and saw them kill that man, that I ran into a guy with a mask that bled into his skin. How I dropped the envelope, and how my toushana rotted a hole in the stone trying to get it back. The longer I talk, the more her grip on her duffel tightens.

The far-off sound of thunder rolls again and her expression darkens. Mom stuffs the few clothes she has into her bag and my resolve falters.

“Mom, please.” Hot tears sting my eyes.

I can’t. Not again. We’re so close. Two weeks.

She hands me the blue savings jar we made six years ago when we settled on our beach plan. I can practically see the house I built for us in my dreams. Two stories, a plain square shape, cozy with shutters. Salted air blowing through an open window.

“One more time, I’m sorry.” She tugs on her coat.

It’s always one more time. “I don’t believe you!” I hate this. I hate it so much. How do I convince her I was careful at the Market? I got away! We’ll be fine, like we always have been, for a few more weeks. I lock my knees and try to find a big voice.

“No.”

“What did you say to me?” Her tone is sharp, but the grip on the bed rail says it’s fear that strains her words, not anger.

“I said no, Mom.” My tone is stronger this time, my song rising up in me. Magic prickles my fingertips, and I tuck them away to warm them, unsure of what it could do. I’ve never had it flare up when I’m this upset. The anger in her flickers, then morphs into something else, her eyes red with tears. She puts out her cigarette, then leans in so close I can taste it on her breath.

“You want the truth? That isn’t thunder. It’s magic.”

My heart stumbles. “I don’t understand.”