This is a continuation of Malison's Memory
I heard Dad creak into the kitchen with Mom’s sliding footsteps close behind him.
Dad peaked under the table. “Malison?”
Mom gasped.
More burning tears rolled down my cheeks. “D-Dad…are you… are you two sending me away?”
“No, No, no. My lil’ ladybug ain’t goin’ anywhere.” He smiled at me.
I sniffled. “Then why… why…” I began to cry. My eyes were waterfalls, and my nose was a slimy hot volcano. My Dad opened his arms out to me and I ran into them, his poor white shirt became my napkin.
Mom kept her distance and her hands in front of her chest. “Careful my love, she’s a wer-”
“Enough of that, Eira! I’m a werewolf too, okay!?” Dad yelled. He let go of me and held his left hand up. His nails grew into pointy daggers and his teeth were sharp as knives. His eyes dimmed to yellow and I gasped and backed away. Did I look like that when I transformed? Mom shrieked so loud she woke my brothers and the neighborhood.
Then next thing you know, Mom said she couldn’t take it any more and ripped her and Shawn away from the family.
She told Tyler to come with her too, but he said he wouldn’t leave me and Dad to become a sissy.
I thought Mom was gonna blow due to his foul language, but she only tightened her lips and growled, “Let’s go Shawn.”
I couldn’t bear telling James all that. I summed it up best I could and wiped my eyes.
“I never saw her again. My Mom,” I said, my voice blurring. “But Dad said he would never abandon me and Tyler, no matter what. Instead of hiding my ability, Dad said he wanted me to learn to use it safely. He tried therapy first, taking me to some doctor who kept calling me a monster when I would accidentally scratch things up.
After that, Dad said there was only one place he knew 100% well that I would get ‘proper’ training for my abilities. The Goblin Catching Academy. So that’s where he took me. He said he’d come back in a few years when I’d learn to control my wolf-like abilities. I told him I didn’t wanna go, but told me I had to. And so-” I shrugged. I tried to focus on something else. Gosh, the city really looked beautiful today. If only the sky wasn’t so cloudy so that I could see the stars.
I could still feel James’s dark brown eyes staring at me. How bad I wanted to look at them, but I just couldn’t bring myself to face him and risk crying like a baby over a wound that never healed.
He put an arm around me, and I leaned my head on his shoulder. I could always count on James.
“Hm. Your Dad has the same wolf powers as you. Does it run in the family?”
“Not that I know of,” I turned to him. “We'll, I don't know. I don’t know too much about my grandparents.”
James scratched the back of his head. “My Dad’s been in jail for as long as I can remember.
I widened my eyes. “Did he kill someone? Did he stage shape-shifter fights or something?”
“No,” James said, putting his arms behind his head.
“Well then what did he do? Tell me!”
James smirked at me. “I don’t think I will.”
“JAMES COME ON!”
“OK geez, stop yelling. He illegally bought and sold rare dragons.”
James had said it so plainly, so simply as if he had just told me about his day. Like selling rare dragons without a permit wasn’t comparable to owning a drug empire in this country.
“Oh my god!” I said, a hand covering my mouth. “How much time did he get!?”
James’s smile faded. “I think 15-20 years. I was too young to remember, and Mom won’t tell me.”
“Oh,” I stared at him as he looked at the sky. 15 to 20 years, and maybe even more, who knew?
“Mom says he was lazy and unreliable, the works.”
“So basically like you.” I giggled.
James looked at me with lowered eyelids, which only made me laugh harder. “That’s just what Mom says. I mean, who knows if he was really like that anyway.”
“You don’t believe her?” I asked.
James hesitated a moment before saying. “I mean, I dunno. If he was that bad then like, why did she marry him, or have me? If I ever met him again, then I’d be able to see for myself if he really is a horrible guy.”
I slid closer to James. With the sun gone he looked like just a shadow on concrete. I couldn’t imagine knowing that my father was in jail, going to miss me growing up. Or not knowing who he was or what he liked.
“Y’know, he’s s’posed to be locked up just outside this town. Cainhow city prison.”
So James’s father was here. The two of them were closer to each other then James’s father realized. And his father wouldn’t even know…
Unless.
“What if we gave him a visit?”
He raised his head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’re so close to him now. What if we snuck to the CCP just this once, so you could see him?”
“Malison, you’re not serious.”
I just stared at him. It was his father after all. If he wasn’t game, there’d be no use arguing.
James sat up and coughed from city smog. I sat up too. We sat there for a minute. Then he said: “Let’s go.”
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