Page 83 of Veil of Death and Shadow

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, choosing instead to focus on the yacht coming towards us, and the obnoxious yuppies dancing to shitty music on the deck.

“Tell me about your mom,” I said, shifting the conversation in a direction that most definitely would not send my mind in dangerous directions.

“I don’t really know what to say about her. No one’s really asked me about her before,” he said, almost surprised by the revelation. “She’s a . . . mom, I guess.” He shrugged. “Tough, kind of standoffish around other people, but warm around me. Funny when she lets her guard down—which is pretty rare when it’s not just me and her. She’s also extremely protective.” He paused for a moment. “I owe her a lot. She gave up a big part of her life when she found out she was pregnant with me. I’ve always kind of felt shitty for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She had an affair,” he winced, then dropped his leg in the water, letting it dangle over the side. “And the guy who impregnated her was not the guy she was married to.”

“Ah,” I said, “and judging by the fact that you called him ‘the guy who impregnated her,’ I’m guessing you and he aren’t exactly close.”

He ran his hand through his hair, which was now almost dry again from the sun’s heat. “Nope. It was just a fling—with my mom. He wasn’t around.”

“I’m sorry.” And I was. I knew what it was like not to know the people you came from. It wasn’t a loss in the traditional sense—it was hard to miss someone you never had—more like an emptiness, a piece of yourself that was forever cut off from you. “I never met my dad either.”

He glanced up at me, a softness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “And what about your mom?”

“She uh—she died giving birth to me.” I swirled my leg through the water, needing the distraction. I never let myself linger on my parents for too long. There was too much guilt, too much shame—both because giving birth to me killed my mother, and because when it came down to it, I missed Amto Amani far more than I’d ever missed the parents I never even met. Sometimes, even though it didn’t make any sense, that felt like a bit of a betrayal. “What about your mom’s husband, from before? Is he still in the picture? Are you two close?”

Levi shook his head. “No, they had another son.” He looked shy suddenly, the callous, cocky mask he usually wore slipping away. “Before me, I mean. So, I guess I have a half-brother technically. I’ve met him, but we aren’t really close. I tried, when I was younger, to reach out,” he exhaled sharply, “but he made it very clear that he had no interest. He hates me, but I can’t say that I entirely blame him.”

“Why would he hate you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” His leg brushed against mine under the water, but he pulled it back just as quickly, as if the touch had stung. “I broke up his perfect family. If I hadn’t been in the picture, I’m sure my mom and her ex would have worked things out—whatever their problems were. She’s never really discussed it with me. I think thinking about that part of her life hurts too much.”

“Hey,” I nudged him, waiting to continue until he looked up at me again. “That wasn’t your fault. I’m sure what happened was shitty. But if he blames you, then fuck him. He doesn’t deserve to have you in his life.”

“What about you?” he asked, watching me now with a focus that made me squirm. Maybe drawing his attention back to me had been a mistake. “Who raised you, I mean, if not your birth parents?”

“My aunt,” I answered. “Well, technically my father’s aunt. After my mom—” I shrugged. “Well, you know—after what happened—I moved in with my mom’s sister, but I wasn’t there for very long.”

She was my mother’s only family, an older sister she was never close with, but she took me in anyway. I didn’t have any memory of her. Or any memory I did have, I suppose, was cobbled together through a handful of photos I found online years later—memories that were half shadow and false memory, a record more than anything I felt particularly connected to. It seemed silly, holding onto a memory of what I couldn’t keep.

“It didn’t work out?” he asked.

“She died, too. Overdosed a few days before my first birthday. And her own daughter, just two years older than me, fell ill not long after she passed. Her husband—my uncle—sent me away after that. Thought I was cursed.” I gave him a wry grin. “My cousin got better after I left—or at least I assume she did,since she’s still alive anyway. According to the internet.” And a drunken night of social media sleuthing with Sora.

I never tried getting in touch with her though. Protective services reached out to them after Amto Amani died, hoping they could place me with them. But my uncle made it clear that I wasn't welcome.

I was dead to them, no matter how alive I was.

It stung, maybe, but I understood. Bad omen, curse, or just plain bad luck—it hardly mattered at the end of the day. My presence had done very little to protect the people closest to me.

“But yeah, l guess that’s where the whole curse thing started, now that I think about it,” I said.

“That’s ridiculous, you know that, right? A string of rotten luck, sure, but what happened to them wasn’t your fault.” His brows were furrowed, like he was angry on my behalf. “You have to see that.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. I mean, I don’t know, I know the curse theory is all woo-woo and out there, and maybe it’s not real. I hope it’s not. Trust me, no one hopes that more than I do. But there’s enough evidence that it is—or at least that it could be.”

I dipped my hand into the water, letting the cool, gentle waves pull it under. Oddly, I wasn’t panicking. Maybe it was because I was in my element out here, or maybe it was just something about Levi—he’d certainly had a way of getting Sora to open up, I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised he’d been just as successful with me. Or maybe it was easier to be open with him because I knew what this was—a transaction. Two days, and we were well on our way through the first.

There was no danger of things going any deeper than surface level, not really.

In some ways, that made him the easiest person to talk to. Things I spoke into existence out here would be swallowed up again by the sea and a stranger.

“It just seems easier to assume it’s true,” I said. “Safer. For other people, you know? I don’t blame my uncle for sending me away.”

He didn’t know me. He wasn’t even my blood. And he certainly didn’t owe me anything. He did, however, owe his daughter protection and, rational or not, it was entirely possible that shipping me off was what saved her in the end. Almost like he had been holding onto her at the edge of death's cliff with nothing more than fatherly desperation and a white-knuckled grip—and the only way to pull her up was to let me go.

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