Page 136 of Awry
Gigi.And if she’s calling Coda ‘technocrat,’ I gather the trip has been tense.
I make sure the main oven is off, double-checking all the gas burners even though I didn’t use any.Not only is Muta not to be trusted around appliances, but I’m still feeling hollow, especially in my head.Then I pull on a jacket and brave the misty morning to inspect the caretaker’s suite.
I haven’t set foot in there yet, so I’m not sure it’s the right place for Coda and Gigi.But outside the workshop-barn is definitely the best place to hook up a trailer.Because I have no doubt that any trailer Coda has bought to travel in, and to carry as much equipment as they have brought with them, isn’t going to be a small tow-behind model.
I know the beach house is also an option, though I suspect it’s a fair bit smaller than Mack’s former suite.Also, I can already feel that it’s currently occupied by another shifter.A shifter who I kicked off the property.But I don’t feel up for a fight with Rath.
The cu-sith, or at least the man who transforms into a cu-sith, isn’t anywhere within reach of my other senses.Reck’s Authority agents in their huge SUV are parked again on the road, though, just beyond the property boundaries.
A quick glance into the garage reveals it filled with vehicles.My truck is back, along with DeVille’s Mustang, which is definitely a work in progress.A motorcycle is strapped into the back bed of my truck, and two more bikes that have been seriously trashed, presumably during the battle with Chains and his berserkers, are propped next to the Mustang.
The battle with Chains, his berserkers, and a dire mage.Not that I really need to remind myself of the mage.
I slip through the door off the still-tidy workshop, passing Ingrid and Mack— and making a mental note to arrange their transportation to and from a crematorium.Then I flick on the lights to reveal the lower main living space of the caretaker’s suite.
I have a vague memory that the loft contains two bedrooms and a full bathroom.The lower level has a small open kitchen, another bathroom, and the large living area I stand in now.Everything is tidy, almost sparsely so.A wool blanket is folded neatly over the back of the sectional couch where Presh napped.
I head up to the loft.But I don’t manage more than a cursory look into the main bedroom and bathroom— because my attention is instantly ensnared by the gallery-sized photographs lining the wood-planked walls of the second bedroom.
Large black-and-white framed photos spread out from either side of the door, encircling the entire room.There must be twenty of them at a quick glance.
I remember Rought mentioning them.Telling me I might like them …
The photo to my immediate right, next to the door, is a shot of a woman in a windswept, rain-soaked dress standing on the bluff.It takes me a moment to recognize my aunt.Not that she looks any younger or older.Just that I’ve never seen her so … at peace.Her face is raised to the sky, arms seeming to float at her sides, feet bare on the rock.
Entranced, I move to the next photo.Every inch of the shot is filled with wildflowers — purple larkspurs?— that grow along the edge of the beach.Compared to the majesty of the first photograph, I feel physically let down as I gaze at it.Then I see him peering out from among the tall stems, practically hidden with his color and essence muted within the medium of black-and-white.
Muta.All narrow-eyed and suspicious.
I laugh, quietly but involuntarily.Then I eagerly step to my left again, in the hopes of seeing my mother within one of the other frames.It’s difficult to capture one of the awry in a photo or video, but since the photographer managed to get a shot of my aunt and Muta, then …
It isn’t a picture of my mother.
No.
A young girl perches on the bough of an oak tree.The tree trunk and multiple branches fill the bulk of the photo, the child looks almost doll-like framed within.
I know it’s an oak.And I know which tree it is.Because it’s a photo of me.
Muta is twined around a narrower branch, resting his head on my shoulder.And I’m looking at something.Not the photographer.My gaze is tilted up, riveted upward.Am I looking up at my aunt’s turret?
My arm is in a cast.
My gaze, my demeanor, is heavy with sadness.
I peer closer at the penciled note in the bottom corner.‘Zaya.May 1, 2003.’
This photo was taken only a month after I lost my mother.I heal like a regular human, but my aunt had access to healing mages.Yet my arm is still in a cast.
My heart hurts.
I move to the next picture and then the next, all just landscapes.But my mind is still caught back with the first three photos, so I barely see them.
Then I see another of me.I’m barely older than the first photo, but the cast is gone.I’ve got my back to the photographer, and I’m perched on a weathered log, the ocean and two other blurred figures in the deep background, farther out on the beach.But a boy around my age sits next to me, close enough to touch.He’s looking at me, grinning, and I’m smiling back though it’s a restrained expression.We’re in summer clothing.
I can practically feel the warm sand under my feet.The photo is black-and-white and blurred around the edges, but I know the boy’s hair goes golden in the sun, and his already tan skin deepens in color as well.
I move to the next picture and the next, barely glancing at them once I see they don’t show what I’m looking for.Not acknowledging what that is even as I search for it.
