Page 53 of The Deer and the Dragon
She froze. The water continued to run for a long time, though her hands didn’t move. After a long time, she turned off the sink. Rather than turn to face me, her eyes remained screwed on the individual droplets that clung to the faucet, dripping with rhythmic insistency before she asked, “What angel do you see?”
The words poured out of me before I could stop them. “Only my guardian angel. I pray for him, I—”
“No.”
My mouth continued to move as if I were the sink faucet. “Mom, I pray toGod. Just to keep him safe, to—”
“No!” she said, spinning with intensity. Her eyes, normally a bright shade of sky blue, were as dark as angry coal as she looked at me. “Nothing of God would ask you to pray to it.”
I winced but stood my ground. I lifted my hands to brace against impact as I insisted, “You aren’t listening. I don’t praytohim, Mom! I prayfor—”
“It’s not ahim!” she practically screamed. She stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the door to her bedroom so hard that the walls shook. I sank against the wall, pressing my ear to her door as I listened to her tearful prayers as she interceded on behalf of my soul. After that day I knew my angel, like my fox, would be something I’d never, ever mention again.
Chapter Eighteen
AUGUST 19, AGE 26
“Please don’t do this to me,” I pleaded as I adjusted my grip from ten and two to something that more closely resembled nine and five. It was too early, and I was in no mood. The panorama faded from skyscrapers to suburbs to the dark emerald canopy of late-summer trees that lined the highway as we trekked north.
We’d loaded up the car and barely made it out of the city before Fauna revealed what she’d downloaded onto my phone in the night. Apparently, she’d figured out how to hack facial recognition software even while I slept.
“It’s a nine-hour drive. It will be fun.”
“It will be fun foryou,” I said miserably.
I was dressed as comfortably as I could manage for the road, but there would be no relaxing. No amount of well-worn childhood shirts or gray sweats filled with holes would bring me comfort for the nightmares she had in store. She dressed like a hippie once again. She wore a top that may have been a loosely fitting bralette or that may have once been a tank top that had lost its bottom half to craft scissors. The fabric of her olive pants was so wide and flowy that I’d mistaken it for a skirt.
Fauna pressed play on the audiobook. A woman’s deep, authoritative voice boomed through the door as she said, “ANight of Runes, by Merit Finnegan. Book one of thePantheonseries.”
“For Christ’s sake, please don’t—”
“Hush.” Fauna swatted at me. “I’m trying to listen to the story.”
Despite my reminding her as often as possible that it was fiction, that I had been in college when I’d written it, that I’d learned and grown since then, she had no greater joy in the world than to talk over the book every time I’d made an inaccuracy regarding the so-called pagan gods, the cryptids, or the fae that had launched me into an unprecedented success. She informed me on more than one occasion that whatever such deity, entity, or being would laugh themselves into stitches when they heard what I’d said about them.
“Then don’t tell them,” I snapped.
“Frigg has already read it,” she sang merrily.
I wanted to throw up. She referenced Odin’s wife with the casualness as if she had been talking about an old pal. The most sovereign goddess in Norse lore should be a myth. And if shewasn’ta myth, she sure as hell shouldn’t know my name. “That’s not funny, Fauna. You’d better be telling a really bad joke right now.”
Fauna made a defensive gesture. “She’s our great, protective mother of all! She was very curious to see what damage someone with a drop of our blood could do.”
I white-knuckled the steering wheel, begging the highway hypnosis to lull me into unconsciousness as I stared at the dotted yellow lines that flashed between the road and the bumper. I was going to give myself blisters if I kept chafing my skin against the wheel like this, but I couldn’t help it. The trees broke to reveal rolling hills and farmsteads before the woods returned with a thicketed vengeance as we approached forested northern areas where few dared settle.
“They’re happy with you,” Fauna said.
I took my eyes off the road to gape at her. “So help me, if you’re—”
“I’m not lying. Look at the road. I’m too pretty to crash.”
She pointed to the radio as if gesturing to a visual piece of history as she said, “We’ve had more converts to Norse paganism after the release of your book than we had in nearly two centuries. You drove a whole generation to seek answers. Tourism throughout Scandinavia skyrocketed. Now, I’d have to talk to our buddies along the Mediterranean to see if they saw similar results after book two, but even if you’re a moron, you’re one who’s making a lot of friends in high places.”
I couldn’t have anticipated this response if I’d been given a million years of guesses.
“Did you go?” she asked.
I looked over at her, waiting for an explanation.
