Page 111 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“I’ll survive. Is this you?”
He crossed the room and picked up a framed picture from the mantle of a fireplace where the shrine had been set up. I joined him to look. In the picture, a small girl with sleek black hair, bright blue eyes, and missing front teeth sat atop the shoulders of a handsome man in cammies, both of them laughing.
I smiled. “I didn’t realize any of these were still around. Yes, that’s me and my dad. I’m probably five or six. Right before he left for Okinawa, I think. He was only there for three months.”
Jonathan set the picture back down. Looking around the room, I noticed several other photos of my father, to the point where the house was a bit of a shrine. I was in a few of them. There were none of Gran at all.
It was so different from the house in Manzanita. Gran never had any photographs in the house and refused to have her picture taken. Sybil, it seemed, had no such compunction for secrecy.
Nor should she, I reminded myself. She knew nothing of Gran’s real identity. Penny kept her in the dark as much as me.
“Tea’s ready,” Sybil announced sharply.
I followed Jonathan into the kitchen, where we sat at a battered pedestal table and accepted mismatched cups of oolong.
“So,” Sybil said, looking at Jonathan. “You’re English.”
I frowned. What did that matter?
Jonathan nodded. “On my father’s side, yes."
“And your mother?”
“Mom,” I put in. “What’s with the third degree?”
She ignored me. “Does your family come from anywhere else?”
Jonathan coughed. “My, er, mother was from Italy. The north, near the Austrian border.”
Sybil drummed her fingers on the table and looked him up and down blatantly. “Can’t say I blame you, Cassie. Italians have good skin, and that accent must drive you nuts in the bedroom.”
“Mom!” I snapped, but not before Jonathan and I had both turned the color of ripe strawberries.
She just smirked, the look of someone satisfied with her work. “You’re just like your father. Took nothing to turn him beet red, just like you.”
“Sybil,” I tried again through gritted teeth. “This is inappropriate. Jonathan is just a family friend helping us through a hard time.”
“And what exactly are we helping by rehashing a death no one here ever wants to See again? You already burned the house down. The property has been sold. We’re rich, though I’d personally like to know where that money was when you or I, for that matter, were growing up. Not that it does any damn good, considering I still can’t access a penny of it.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled through my nose. “Sybil, you still don’t have a bank account?”
“I don’t even have aphone, Cassie. These big companies get their fingers on all of our information and private lives. Mom agreed with me. Only thing we ever agreed on.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “My goddess. She had bank accounts, though. She had a telephone, for crying out loud. She wasn’t an idiot.”
“That’s right, I forgot. Silly, unmanifested, stunted little seer that I am, can’t take care of herself. Why do I need a bank account when I’ve got you and this one to manage it all for me from afar? What’s the point?”
Her voice was a snarl, and I rubbed my forehead viciously with two fingers. Under the table, Jonathan’s hand lay on top of my knee, willing sympathy and patience.
I let it stay there and took a deep breath. “Mom. If you need more money, we’ll get you more money.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jonathan added. “Cash. It won’t be a problem, Mrs. Whelan.”
Sybil blinked at both of us, waiting, it seemed, for something. “Well? Is that it?”
“Aren’t you the slightest bit upset about what’s going on?” I demanded. “Maybe just a little bit sad that we are currently going over your mother’s death?”
“It happened months ago,” my mother snapped. “What would you like me to do about it?”
