Page 21 of Missing Moon

She sighs. “My dad had emotions… bad ones, but he had them.”

Oof. I’m ninety percent sure she’s just calling him a sociopath as an insult. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. She’d have no way to know if anyone she’d bumped into randomly was a sociopath. Though, odds are pretty good she’s at least been in the vicinity of someone suffering from sociopathy at least once in her life. It’s a scary thought how many of them are out there.

“Was she always like this?” asks Paxton.

“I… umm…” I look down at my lap, fidgeting my hands together. “I remember her being a little more functional than this. She’d go for long periods being out of it, then come back to life and be consumed with her hobbies. Always in here crafting stuff. Mom was never really too interested in us kids.”

“Did she ever have emotions?” Paxton leans on me.

“Yeah. Usually annoyance or… excitement at whatever flaky idea she got and wanted to spend all her time on.” I tap the tips of my boots together, thinking.

Dusk said something about her doing ‘magic’ to protect Clayton from some sort of monster. That is contrary to the idea of Mom being indifferent to her kids. Maybe she cared enough to want to prevent us from being kidnapped or eaten by a bear… but not enough to play board games with us.

“You’re sad now.” Paxton squeezes my hand.

“Maybe. I feel confused. Things aren’t adding up.”

“Like what?” Paxton tilts her head, causing her long blonde hair to spill off her shoulder.

“That thing Dusk said about protective magic.” I look Mom over, hoping to see any hint of reaction from her as I speak. “I remember her being indifferent to us. Like she didn’t care about our existence at all. If she did something to protect Clay, that means she had some amount of concern for us.”

“Comin’ round the bend, quarter to six,” mutters Mom.

“Huh?” I ask. “Mom?”

She tilts her head in contemplation. “Blue looks tacky. Better go with the beige. It’s high in nitrogen.”

Paxton’s eyebrows go up. She whispers, “Ma, she’s got emotion now, but it’s so strange. Changing fast. Annoyed to worried to happy, and now... it’s gone again.”

“Mom?” I ask. “It’s Sam.”

Mother tilts her head back the other way, smiling at the bean plants.

This is almost too much for me. It hits me now that I hadn’t been avoiding coming here entirely because I didn’t want to explain why I still look so young. It’s guilt. I didn’t want to deal with losing my mother a second time to whatever’s going on in her head. That day when I was ten and gave up on her was me mourning the mother I never had. I didn’t want to go through that all over again.

Sensing my mood spiraling down, Paxton squeezes my hand.

“Ma…” Anthony walks in.

“Hey.” I wipe tears off my face. “Sorry. This isn’t easy for me.”

“Something is wrong with Grandma?” Anthony moves over to stand behind us, resting a hand on my shoulder.

Paxton gives him a ‘ya think’ stare, but doesn’t say it out loud.

“Yeah, I think so.” I glance down. All this supernatural power in me and I can’t think of anything to do that might help her.

“There’s no soul inside her,” says Anthony.

“Harsh,” whispers Paxton.

A brief spike of anger hits me. I almost snap at Anthony. Thankfully, I catch myself. My thinking brain has faster reflexes than my mouth. He’s not trying to insult her. He’s being literal. His tone was so blank, matter-of-fact.

“Wait. What?” I peer back at him. “You’re not just calling her soulless.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I mean Grandma’s not here.”

Was she ever? I bite my lip so I don’t say that out loud.

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