Holidays are Hell(7)

"Did she tell you she's taking martial arts?" she said to change the subject, and I smiled at the pride in her voice. The lemon half was done, and I reached for the mortar with the wine and holly mix.

"She got her black belt not long ago," my mom continued as I stood to grind it up a little bit more, puffing over it. "I wanted her to tell you, but—"

"She sold The Bat to pay for it," Robbie finished glumly, and I grinned. "Yeah, she told me. Mom, Rachel doesn't need to know how to fight. She is not strong. She never will be, and letting her go on thinking she can do everything is only setting her up for a fall."

I froze, feeling like I'd been slapped.

"Rachel can do anything," my mom said hotly.

"That's not what I mean, Mom…" he pleaded. "I know she can, but why is she so fixated on all these physical activities when she could be the top witch in her field if she simply put the time in. She's good, Mom," he coaxed. "She's in there right now doing a complicated charm, and she's not batting an eye over it. That's raw talent. You can't learn that."

Anger warred with pride at his words on my skill. My mom was silent, and I let my frustration fuel the grinding motions.

"All I'm saying," he continued, "is maybe you could get her to ease up on trying to be super girl, and point out how some guys like smart chicks wearing glasses as much as others like kick-ass ones in boots."

"The reason Rachel works so hard to prove she's not weak is because she is," my mom said, making my stomach hurt all the more. "She sees it as a fault, and I'm not going to tell her to stop striving to overcome it. Challenge is how she defines herself. It was how she survived. Now shut up and eat another damned cookie. We get along just fine here."

My throat was tight, and I let go of the pestle, only now realizing my fingers had cramped up on it. I had worked so hard to get my freaking black belt so the I.S. couldn't wash me out on the physical test. Sure, it had taken me almost twice as long as everyone else, and yeah, I still spent ten minutes at the back of the gym flat on my back recovering after every class, but I did everything everyone else did, and with more power and skill than most.

Wiping an angry tear away, I used the stirring rod to scrape every last bit off the pestle. Damn it. I hated it when Robbie made me cry. He was good at it. 'Course, he was good at making me laugh, too. But my shoulders were aching beyond belief, and a slow lethargy was taking hold of my knees once more. I had to sit down again. Disgusted with myself, I sank into a chair, elbow on the table, my hair making a curtain between me and the rest of the world. I wasn't that much stronger now than when they kicked me out of the Make-A-Wish camp. I was just getting better at feeling it coming on and covering it up. And I wanted to be a runner?

Miserable, I held my arm against the ache, both inside and out. But the spell was done apart from the three drops of witch blood, and those wouldn't be added until we were at the square. Mom and Robbie had lowered their voices, the cadence telling me they were arguing. Pulling a second dusty box to me, I rummaged for a stoppered bottle to put the potion in.

The purple one didn't feel right, and I finally settled on the black one with the ground glass stopper. I wiped the dust from it with a dishtowel, and dumped the wine mix in, surprised when I found that the holly and the ivy bits went smoothly without leaving any behind. The lemon half was next, and my fingers were actually on the copper pot before I remembered I hadn't mixed in the identifying agent.

"Stupid witch," I muttered, thinking I must want to go to the West Coast and bang my head against the scholarly walls. The spell wouldn't work without something to identify the spirit you were summoning. It was the only ingredient not named. It was up to the person stirring it to decide. The suggested items were cremation dust, hair… hell, even fingernails would do, as gross as that was. I hadn't had the chance to get into the attic this afternoon where Dad's stuff was boxed up, so the only thing I'd been able to find of his was his old pocket watch on my mom's dresser.

I glanced at the archway to the hall and listened to the soft talk between Mom and Robbie. Talking about me, probably, and probably nothing I wanted to hear. Nervous, I slipped the antique silver watch out of my pocket. I looked at the hall again, and wincing, I used my mom's scissors to scrape a bit of grime-coated silver from the back. It left a shiny patch, and I rubbed my finger over it to try to dull the new brightness.

God, she'd kill me if she knew what I was doing. But I really wanted to talk to my dad, even if it was just a jumbled mess of my memories given temporary life.

My mother laughed, and in a sudden rush, I dumped the shavings in. The soft curlings sank to the bottom where they sat and did nothing. Maybe it was the thought that counted.