Return of the Trickster Eden Robinson (sight word readers TXT) 📖

defend herself against something she couldn’t see and didn’t believe existed?

“I still think of Phil as my dad,” Jared said, retreating. “Even if we’re not blood.”

“He’s a good guy.”

“He’s driving Sophia nuts. He found God and he’s been preaching at her. Shirley’s pissed too. This is not what she signed up for.”

“Yeah, your mom wasn’t too pleased when he ‘forgave’ her.”

“But he seems happy.”

“Good.”

Her poker face, the stiffening of her back, told him everything he needed to know. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been warned. He’d just gone from someone she trusted to someone she didn’t, not quite, not fully, not anymore. Someone a little more crazy in her eyes. She smiled at him, kept smiling at him, and patted his hand. She put her book down and went to the kitchen.

“I’m going to make tea,” she called. “Do you want some?”

“No, thanks.”

Maybe if he’d said it better, smarter, then she would not have got that expression on her face you used on dogs you didn’t know, when you weren’t sure if they were friendly or not and you didn’t want to show fear. But it was done. He’d take Sophia up on her offer of one of her spare rooms. He called to Mave that he was going to get ready for the meeting. She said she’d take care of his breakfast dishes.

When he left, she didn’t move in for a hug or a kiss. He didn’t die.

—

After the meeting, Kota bought him a latte and a cookie. They sat on the patio. Kota smoked, irritating nearby patrons.

“Are you going nuts?” Kota said.

“I was always nuts,” Jared said. “I’m just low-key about it.”

“Mave texted me that you’re having delusions of grandeur.”

“What’s grandeur?”

“Like you think you’re Elvis and the rest of us are your backup band.”

Jared laughed. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“What’s Mave on about?”

“I can see them. When I talk to people about it, they get the same look you’re giving me now.”

“You see ghosts?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe meds will help.”

“We have two very different realities. Mine includes ghosts. That doesn’t mean I need meds.”

“There’s only one reality.”

Jared sighed. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

“It’s weird.”

“I’m a big weirdo.”

“You’re actually pretty vanilla.”

“FYI, words hurt.”

“So you think you’re a mythological creature that can turn into other things.”

“She told you that too? I’m a Trickster, yes.”

“Show me.”

“I’m not a dancing monkey.”

“Bok. Bok, bok, bok.”

Kota flapped his arms like a chicken to hammer home his point. Jared was momentarily shocked, then he was amused to see Kota doing something so uncool.

Kota dropped his cigarette and ground it under his boot. “What’s with all the weirdness?”

“Just thinking about things.”

“Stop brooding and start reading your Big Book.”

—

He rang the apartment buzzer and Mave eventually answered it. Jared felt heavy. Tired, but so far beyond tired—that punchy state beyond exhausted. Thoughts weren’t connecting.

A familiar Native girl in a fringed leather jacket with painted roses walked into him as he opened the lobby door. Mallory, he remembered.

“Whoops!” she said, taking her earbuds out. “Hey, Jared. Do you live here?”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “I’m staying with my aunt.”

“My cousin lives on the fourth floor. See you ’round.”

“Later,” Jared said.

He watched the doors close. Sure, Indian World was small, but he didn’t think meeting up with Mallory again was an accident. He hadn’t seen anything under her skin, which was good. But he didn’t remember her from Kitimat. Hot women, in his experience, did not follow him around, flirting. They were either family or they wanted to kill him. Usually both.

He was expecting Mave to still be weird around him and she was, waiting for him at her door with anxiety written all over her.

“I have some bad news,” she said.

8

THE DEATH OF PHILIP MARTIN

Sophia’s voice on the phone: “Stay with Mave.”

Stay with Mave. Stay with Mave. Stay with Mave. Home invasion. Stay with Mave.

“I want—” he said. “I need to come.”

Sophia hung up on him.

Noise complaints. Police arrived to find Phil’s front door kicked open. Two evening flights available. Stay with Mave.

You think you’re Elvis and the rest of us are your backup band. Sometimes your mother gets these ideas. The world is hard.

Philip and Shirley Martin were dead. Someone broke into their house, trashed the place and killed them both.

Phil’s face lit from beneath by sunlight reflected off the lake. It’s always a good day for fishing. His mom hefting her rifle. Outdoors. Outdoors people. The misery of staying at the cabin on long summer days when all his friends were playing Xbox games without him, when he was missing Breaking Bad, Dexter, Lost. No Internet, no TV. Just a water-damaged collection of Archie comics and a lumpy, stinky mattress and his parents arguing about the best way to cook a rainbow trout.

“I need you to breathe,” Mave said. “Can you do that?”

“Dad’s dead.”

“He is.”

“I think it’s my fault.”

“Breathe, Jared. It’s not remotely your fault. Okay? I’m here. I’m here. I called your mom. She’s coming.”

“Sophia thinks it’s my…It’s me. She—”

“Jared, breathe. She’s in shock too. She needs to take care of things. Okay? She doesn’t blame you. Do you want an Ativan? Let me get you an Ativan.”

Mave kept her emergency cash in a hollow bust on one of the bookshelves. Jared scored three crisp hundred-dollar bills.

Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

—

Beer’s not going to cut it, he thought. Vodka. Portable vodka. Obliterate my thoughts, please, he thought, ha ha, he thought obliterate. The first gulp like unbuckling your belt when you get home and letting everything sag free. Jared was free of the tension of being sober. Free at last, free at last.

The searing relief of obliteration. The searing relief. His eyes watered.

Are you ready to bring me back? Georgina said, mind to mind.

Stuck in a boring world, she was thinking, with boring apes who wouldn’t come near you after you ate a few of their kids. Who ran away from you like you were a monster. She stared at him,