Interlude Whatever you want to say to your sister, you had better say it when you see her, had been the warning from Mara's mom after she had announced that Dad had arranged for Jessica to come spend some time at their house before she went back to the big house outside the city, the house where Jessica's mom lived and where Mara's mom had worked until this past summer. I don't know if we'll get to see her again before she has to go back - your father said we'll do Christmas the day she gets home, and I know her mama will want to keep her with her more than usual.
Mara thought of this as she watched Jessica trying to make friends with Lola again, and for once even forgot to hate Jessica's mom for always being the thing that kept them from being a normal family. She was too busy trying to figure out how to phrase her question without sounding stupid or immature. Finally, she cleared her throat. "Jezi?"
Jessica looked up from repeatedly dangling a cast-off strip of ribbon toward Lola's nose. "Yeah?" she asked.
"Can you do magic now?"
Her sister's delicate face tightened. Mara had always thought Jessica looked mostly like Mrs. Hayles, but sometimes, now, she thought Lola looked somewhat similar to Jessica, except for her hair, of course, and how very pale she was. Mara got annoyed with her sister when Jessica would refuse to go outside until she had on her sunscreen and things in the summer, but Mom scolded her for that and pointed out how fragile Jessica's complexion was. "No," she said.
Mara pouted. "Why not?" she demanded.
"Because they're spying on me," said Jessica, and her eyes darted toward the door and the windows as though she might catch them at it.
Mara, however, laughed. "What? That's crazy," she said, and Jessica flushed redder than her hair.
"Well, they're crazy," snapped Jessica, her mouth turning at one corner in the way it did when she was sulky. "The - woman - who won't let me do anything, she told me, they're going to watch us forever to make sure I don't do any of it at home. Can't have people finding out that a bunch of freaks exist."
"You're not a freak," said Mara.
She had meant it to comfort her sister, but Jessica's expression suggested she had gone the wrong way about that. "I never said I was," said Jessica. "I said they were."
Now Mara was confused. "So you can't do the magic at all?" she asked. "So why don't they let you come home?"
"Oh, I can do it there. For all the good it is. You don't even want to know how long it took me to turn a teacup into a saucer, or a saucer into a teacup, or whatever it was."
Mara frowned. "Why would you bother turning a teacup into a saucer?" she asked, and Jessica laughed, instantly in a good humor again. Jessica's moods could change faster than the weather on a summer afternoon, one minute sunny, one minute suffocating, one minute a thunderstorm.
"I know, right? That's what I said!"
Jessica went back to playing with Lola, and Mara went toward the kitchen to look for a Coke. She stopped short, however, when she heard her parents talking in there.
"Mara wants to go to church with you and Jessica while Jezi is home," said Mom.
Mara had indeed, in a careless moment, mentioned that to her mother, and her chest tightened with anxiety as she realized Mom had remembered it at all, much less repeated it to Dad. For a moment, though, anxiety mixed with the barest glimmer of hope - it had made sense to her at the time that they could get away with it; she and Jessica had played together even at the big house when Mom had worked there, so why wouldn't Jessica invite a friend to come to church with her as quickly as she would a sister? - but the glimmer was dashed as soon as it formed by the sheer length of the pause before Dad said anything. "Mel, you know I would - " he began, and Mom cut him off.
"But Rosalie," said Mom, naming Jessica's mom. "I told her that was what you would probably say - she asks for too much, wanting her father to treat her the same way he does her sister."
"Damn it, Mel, you know it isn't like that. Hell, Mara's not even a Methodist. What would she even want to go there for?"
"Mara would join the circus if she thought you would go watch her perform, Arthur," said Mom, and Mara's face burned with humiliation. Maybe it was true, but Mom didn't have to tell him that! She shouldn't have mentioned anything about Mara's stupid comment at all. They had both known that this would be how any such request would be met; that was why Mara had never mentioned it to Dad herself, even though she had seen a lot more of him than usual for the past few months, while he hadn't had to spend so much time with his other family. Mrs. Hayles had been busy with...whatever it was Mrs. Hayles did, and there had been times when Mara had almost been able to forget that the horrible old hag even existed. She had missed her sister, though, and had thought that....
She fled back to the other two girls, trying to school her face, but Jessica stopped laughing at Lola's efforts to catch the ribbon as soon as she looked at her. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," said Mara curtly.
"Then why are you all red like that?" asked Jessica. Mara shook her head violently, hoping to put her sister off, but Jessica wouldn't let it go. "You look like you want to cry. What's - "
"Why does your mom hate us?" asked Mara.
Jessica looked like she'd been slapped. "Mommy doesn't hate you," protested Jessica.
"Oh, yeah? Then why does Dad have to sneak out to see us? Why do you?"
"We aren't sneaking anywhere. Mr. Robert drove me here on the wide open highway just like anything," said Jessica, but she didn't meet Mara's eyes, and she sounded almost like a recording as she went through all that.
"Yeah, and you come in looking like you're hiding from TMZ," sneered Mara.
"That's just because Daddy had to tell everyone I was sick."
"Yeah? So why didn't Mr. Robert drive me and Lola to see you at your house, then?"
"Because - that's just not what Daddy wanted to do," said Jessica.
Jessica was flushing again, and wringing her hands - warning signs that Mara knew meant she should back off. However, she was furious - at Mrs. Hayles for reminding her to hate her, at Mom for not keeping her mouth shut, at Dad and Jessica for having two families while Mara only sometimes even got to have most of one. "Because of your mom," said Mara.
"Don't talk about Mommy like that!" shouted Jessica, and Lola started to cry again, prompting the re-entrance of their parents. Mom rushed to the baby; Dad, naturally, went to Jessica.
"What's this about, Jezi?" he asked.
For a moment, Mara thought Jessica might actually repeat everything they had said - there had been real anger in her sister's brown eyes for a moment there - but then her mouth twisted again. "Nothing, Daddy," she mumbled.
"I heard you saying something about your mama," pressed Dad.
"I asked her why her mom hates us," blurted Mara.
Silence, aside from Lola's last few post-cry whimpers, fell on the room. It was finally her mom who broke it. "Mara, you know better than that," she said.
"No I don't," said Mara stubbornly. "If I knew why, I wouldn't ask."
Jessica started crying. "I've missed you for months," she sobbed, "and now they finally let me out of that awful place and you have to ruin everything!"
"Jessica Rose!" snapped Dad. "There ain't no call for that. Quit that crying."
"She started it!"
"And I'm telling you to quit it," said Dad. "Now pull yourself together. You think that's any way you'll ever need to behave?"
This, of course, was not the right tack to take. Even Mara knew that. When Jessica was in one of her high-strung moods, telling her anything she didn't want to hear was just going to make her spiral even worse. Dad, however, had apparently missed this memo, somewhere along the way, because he looked genuinely exasperated and confused and a little concerned when Jessica's response was to start crying even harder, almost squalling now in between attempts to apologize. Mom put Lola back down to hurry over and put an arm around Jessica, glaring at Dad over Jessica's head.
"What?" he protested, seemingly bewildered.
Mara bent down and picked up the ribbon her sisters had been playing with. So much, she thought, for the Christmas spirit - and nobody but Mrs. Hayles to blame.