My Three Cousins

Chapter Twenty-Two

The next day we couldn't risk sleeping in, both because we didn't know if the electric man was going to figure out a way to find us and because we were all eager to get everything over with as soon as possible.

Joan let me know around 8am that she had put the bat in place and Ruth spent most of the morning lowering some of the defenses she had put up before.  The plan was for her to lower the defenses at the front, left side of the house just enough that the electric man could sense them and walk on the property but not so much he could enter elsewhere.  Helen had insisted that he appeared before their mom as a lightning strike before he killed her, so we didn't want to make ourselves vulnerable to him appearing on the property and bypassing the guard altogether.  Once Ruth came in and let us know the defense was down all of our worry became heightened.

Joan immediately took up her post at the vulnerable spot and Ruth showered and took a nap.  Undoing what she had already done was not as natural to Ruth as enhancing properties, so it drained her more and she needed to rest.  It was a risk, but a large part of our plan was banked on the idea that the electric man wouldn't notice our defenses down right away or would at least take time to prepare himself for the attack.  We weren't basing this hope on any facts, since our information about him was limited, we were just hoping for good luck.  

I was terrified that luck was the only thing standing between the electric man and my mom and Vivian's safety.  They were only going to let themselves be sent away so many times so if he attacked too soon or waited too long to attack, they'd be here, and we didn't have a plan that would protect them.

I was jumpy all day and it didn't take long for mom to notice.  "Are you alright, Addison?"

"Yeah, I just have a headache."  It felt like I was getting worse at lying as mom grew more suspicious, even I couldn't come up with an explanation for why having a headache would make me more on edge than usual.

"Ok?"  Mom said, the question evident in her voice.  She then looked at me for a while as if she was studying me and trying to see through me to find out what was actually wrong.  I wanted to say something to put her at ease but over the course of this summer I had run out of things to say.

"Addison, you haven't been acting like yourself," she said gently, "I'm worried about you and I'm starting to think this might not be the best place for you.  Your cousins seem to have things pretty well handled here, maybe we need to head home early?"  She was asking me if I wanted to change the plans and I couldn't tell if she wanted me to say yes let's go or no let's stay.

It didn't really matter if I wanted to leave or not, I knew I couldn't abandon my cousins, but it wasn't until Mom asked that I realized that I didn't want to leave at all.  I didn't just have to help my cousins, I wanted to help them.  I liked feeling like I was doing something important, something that mattered for people beyond myself, but I was also curious.  I wanted to know more about their powers and about our family's magic.  More than any of that though, I had missed my cousins and finally felt like I had them back.

"Mom, I don't want to leave," I insisted and then I realized as much as I didn't want to upset my mom, I had the perfect way to make sure she was eager to stay away from the house.  I rolled my eyes dramatically and put on my best teenage attitude, "I want you to stop breathing down my neck."

"What?"  She asked, not mad yet just taken aback.

"All summer you've been harping me to clean and wake up early and spend time with my cousins and watch Vivian," I complained, trying to appear as though I felt the things I was saying even though I didn't.  I felt like I was acting out some other teenager's complaints, the type of teenager in a dramatic coming of age drama who didn't see how great her mom was.  "I want you to leave me alone."

"What has gotten into you?  Do not talk to me that way."  She still wasn't raising her voice and I could tell the abrupt shift had caught her too off guard.  I knew there was only one way to make her mad enough for this to work.

"Don't act like you know me or care what I want, Elizabeth."  I paused for a second to mentally prepare myself for what I was going to say next, and to make sure that Vivian wasn't within earshot.  "I didn't want you to move us across the county with Hal.  You know how stupid Hal is?  The man is a moron and now we live somewhere I don't want to be with a moron.  I didn't want you to have a mid-life crisis love child.  You know what I really want?  To ditch them.  Being here makes me pissed because this is where we should have been not dragged across the country with your new family." 

Her face went from red to white quickly.  She didn't yell but this time it wasn't because she was mad, it was because she was so far past furious there was no level of her voice that could portray the rage she wanted to direct at me.  "Do not talk about your sister like that."  She said it a cold, stern tone.

I wanted to stop and apologize but I knew I couldn't.  "Even when I'm saying exactly what I mean you're not listening to me," I tried to match the quiet rage in her voice but mine was about to break, "she isn't my F-ing sister.  I hate her and I hate you."

Mom stepped to me like she wanted to hit me and clinched her fist, but she didn't bring it toward me.  I could tell she didn't know what to do, our relationship wasn't like this, I didn't yell at her or swear or tell her I hated her.  Even when I didn't like her decisions, I knew she cared enough about me to trust her.  I stepped to her as well and in the quietest, but angriest voice I could manage I thought back to what she had thought of me early in the summer, "you were right I did push her in the pond, and I wish she had drowned."

With this she froze.  "I don't want you near me anymore."  She then turned and walked out of the room.  I had expected her to hit me, to throw something at me, to call me every dirty name she could think of, to ground me, to take everything I owned, but I hadn't expected her to walk away from me.  That's when I realized I had broken something I couldn't fix.  I could never tell her why I said the things I said because I wouldn't put her in danger and even if I could, there would always be a part of her that wondered if I meant it.

After that she took Vivian and went out to dinner.  As terrible as it had been, my plan had worked.