Seeing with the Shadows

Chapter 37

Lena threw all the stuff she had taken from Quoim’s house into her duffle bag and dragged it into the kitchen. She had talked to Lauren, and was going to see her mom. She wasn’t sure what would happen, but that didn’t really matter. She just needed to see her.

“I’ll see you soon, Quoim… Oh! I think Phelicia will be best off here for the time being, so, um, would you mind taking her?” Lena said as she hugged Quoim a last time. She gently took Phelicia’s talons out of her shoulder and handed her over to Quoim. Lauren motioned to the flowerbed.

Lena nodded, waved goodbye one last time, and stepped on one of the flowers. The flowers were called Portal Petals, and they were a portal to basically anywhere in the world.

Lena turned around three times and closed her eyes. The overpowering smell of flowers filled her nose, and just when she thought she was about to faint, the smell disappeared.

Lena stumbled a few steps forward, got her balance back, and smiled. The street was familiar to her. She walked along, newly fallen snow crunching under her shoes. It hadn’t snowed too much, just a couple inches. The darkening sky had turned a shade of light purple and was casting long shadows onto the sparkling snow. The smell of it made her smile, it was the same smell she had known since they first moved here when she was three.

She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder again and walked down the street. The houses, each with their own story, each with different people, different friends… she half wished that she never had learned who she really was, that she had stayed how everything was, just stayed.

Lena kept walking until she saw the house she was looking for: and stopped. It was the same as she remembered, the same. The yellow shutters were like bright light in the evening, and the brown shingles in the same places.

She might just have been coming home from another day at school. Only she wasn’t. Lena sighed, gathered up her courage, and rang the doorbell. She heard it echo inside the house, and then the patter of feet on the wooden floor met her ears. She didn’t feel like looking inside. The door creaked open, and Lena looked down at an eight year old. She had two long pigtails sprouting out from the sides of her head, and blue eyes were looking up at her.

Had her mother moved? Lena didn’t know what to say. It was almost like she couldn’t speak. If this was a dead end, she didn’t know how she would be able to find her mother. When she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. The little girl looked at her curiously, then asked, “Want me to get Michaela for you?”

Lena’s heart missed a beat. Michaela. Michaela. That was her mother’s name: Michaela Kanstrofi.

“I-“ Lena took a deep breath, then said, “Okay. Sure.”

“Okay!” The little girl sped away, sliding over the floor in her socks, calling out, “MICHAELAAAAAA! SOMEONE WANTS TO SEE YOU AT THE DOOR! Michaela? Michaela? MICHA- oh.” There were now two sets of feet coming to the door.

Lena hoisted the duffel bag up onto her shoulder in a different position and braced herself.

When Michaela saw her, there was silence- it seemed the whole world had stopped. Lena couldn’t hear the cars down the street, honking and trying to get through the light, or the snowplow, or the kids running down the street, yelling. She could only hear her heart beating faster and faster.

“This will just take a minute. Stay inside.” Michaela said to the girl, then stepped out onto the snow and closed the door firmly behind her, taking a set of keys out with her. “Lena?”

“What.” Lena hadn’t meant for it to sound so mad. It seemed to be a little too late for that now.

“How did you know that?” Her mother asked.