Bone Dry_ A Soul Shamans Novel - Cady Vance Page 0,16

I even sat down.

“So, how is Laura?” she asked in between bites of thick pasta. A little dribbled down her chin. I wiped her mouth with a napkin and tried not to think about the time she’d banished spirits from a nursing home free of charge.

“She’s okay,” I said, like nothing was wrong. “Her dad asked about you again. Said to tell you he misses having you as a friend. Wanted to know when you’d be back in town.”

She nodded absently.

“You really should call him, Mom,” I said, pausing to take a huge gulp of water.

“And tell him what?” She looked up at me, eyes clear. I saw a flash of intelligence and wished it was there all the time. She always used to look at me as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. It made me feel like I could never get away with anything. Now I could probably get away with everything without her having even the slightest clue.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Make something up.”

She sighed and put her fork in her bowl. “Brian and I used to be close, Holly. I can’t lie to him.”

I shook my head and stared at the curly noodles in my bowl. “But I think it would be better for everyone if you just called him.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Not when I’m like this.”

“Mom, what happened the day you were attacked?” I stopped eating and held my breath. I hadn’t asked in a long time, and I had no illusions she’d answer. But I had to ask. I needed to know what had happened to her.

“Holly,” she said with a sigh. “Please don’t bring this up anymore. I’ve told you everything I’m going to. There is a political struggle going on in the shaman world right now, and I got in the middle of it.”

What? She’d never told me this before. A political struggle? My heart panged, though, at the fact she’d thought she’d told me this already. She didn’t know she hadn’t. The Mom from Before never would have let something like this slip. She might have kept files on all her cases, but she didn’t need to. She kept all the details up in her head.

“What do you mean, Mom? What political struggle?”

When she didn’t answer, I looked up. Her eyes were clouded over by a milky haze. They stared straight at me, and I met them unblinking, trying to see my mom behind the screen that was there. I remembered that for a few months after the attack, she’d been able to make it through an entire dinner with me, even if it had meant storing up her energy the rest of the day.

It wasn’t like that anymore. I didn’t know what that meant.

I ate by myself, the ticking antique clock on the wall the only sound other than my fork scraping the bowl. I spoon-fed my mom the rest of her food, and then walked her back over to her chair, her limp hand in mine.

***

In my room, I sat on the floor, my back against the wall. My favorite spot. My history book sat open on my crossed legs, but I ignored it, staring straight ahead at the blank white canvas.

I couldn’t concentrate on my homework. My mind kept drifting back to the faces of the shamans. To their guns. I kept trying to figure out what they were doing here and what I would do if they showed back up again.

Trying to figure out if I’d done the right thing. What if they hadn’t actually been trying to shoot us?

I flipped through my history book, and the words blurred as my mind raced.

At least one of them would have connections to the shaman world, and they could have pointed me in the direction of someone to talk to about my mother. Okay, so they’d had guns, but maybe we’d misunderstood. A thought had been niggling at me since we’d hopped into the boat. What if they thought Laura and I were the ones who had summoned the spirit, and they were trying to stop us? They’d said they knew what we’d done. They could have meant summoning the spirit.

I could have been totally wrong about everything.

I sighed and slammed the door on that train of thought when Astral climbed into my lap, right on top of my history book. He snuggled into the crook of my knee and purred, the familiar sound easing some of the tension coiled in my shoulders. As much as