Page 34 of A Winding Wave of Magic
I swallowed. “Then…I don’t know. Gods, Rein, I don’t even know if she had a will.”
A sob escaped from my throat, and immediately Reina pulled me close to her tiny shoulders, not knowing how to comfort me other than to demonstrate that she could feel my grief, that I wasn’t alone in my sadness.
It didn’t fix everything. But in its own way, it was enough.
Before getting backinto her car, Reina hugged me again outside the house. She was more open with her hugs than before, as if she wanted to leave traces of her love and kindness on my clothes for me to have once she was gone.
“I’m sorry I can’t stay the entire weekend,” she said. “I would have liked to go with you to the morgue. Smooth things over with the doctor.”
“You’ve got your own shifts to worry about. And medical school to finish. A whole life. You’ll be there when I’m done.”
At that, she seemed to look uneasy.
I frowned. “What is it?”
Reina sighed. “I meant to tell you...I...Penny and I talked about it over the holidays.”
“You and Penny talked?” This was news to me.
She exhaled. “I’m taking a year off before I match with a residency program. Instead, I’ve applied to work on a medical study in Petén. I just got word that we’ve been funded.”
My eyes shot open. “Guatemala?”
Reina nodded nervously, though her dark eyes shone. “I’m going home. And I’m going to try to find my birth parents too while I’m there. Find my tribe. Penny was right. We need to learn who we really are before we manifest. Before it’s too late.”
I blinked in shock. “Pennytold you to go?”
My grandmother, who, despite having her own life, had wanted nothing but for me to live mine here in the shadow of this mountain, where she thought nothing and no one would ever bother us. That she would have urged Reina to get on a plane to fly to an overpopulated country to work withpeoplewas incredibly out of the ordinary.
Far beyond her shallow maxim of living to live.
“It was her idea, actually,” Reina said. “She started talking about it a few years ago. Asked me what I knew of my parents when she heard me muttering in Itza’. Turns out she knew of a seer in my village. Someone who might be willing to teach me.”
Gran was big on roots. She had encouraged me to learn Old Irish for the same reason. But she had never told me togoto Ireland.
“Are you going to be all right?”
Absolutely not, I wanted to say. I had just lost my grandmother, the only real family I had anymore. Now my best friend was informing me that I was about to lose my other anchor in this world.
But at the same time, I knew exactly why she needed to go. It was the same reason I’d gone to school in Boston to study my own cultural history. As lonely fae in a world with fewer and fewer of us, roots were all we had.
“I’m happy for you,” I said, though she would know the lie for what it was. “And you don’t need to babysit me. I do appreciate the ride here, though.”
Reina could See through my lies but was too polite to say it. “Are you going to go up to Seattle?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I suppose I’ll have to. It’s not like I can call with an update.”
I hadn’t seen my mother in years. But at lunch, Reina and I had determined that if Penny didn’t have a will, everything would have to go to Sybil. Which meant I’d have to face her at some point.
“It’s going to be all right, Cass.”
“Yeah, but Gran’s not.”
“Tell me if you need anything,” she said. “I’m just a few hours away, and you don’thaveto stay here tonight. Why don’t you just drive back to Portland after you’re done with the examiner? I can take a personal day this week and come back out to help you sort through her stuff later.”
I squeezed tightly, not wanting to let her go. She was right. I didn’t want to spend the night in this cold, empty house, and I certainly didn’t want to do it alone.
But Reina didn’t argue as she gave me another tight squeeze. Probably because she could also read the other thoughts, which I said aloud anyway.
