Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson

Author:Eden Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2018-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

21

When he got home from work Saturday morning, Jared collapsed and slept until noon. His shift had passed uneventfully. The Donut Hole manager had left him alone for the last hour. Jared had worked faster without the old dude hovering. He still hadn’t told Jared his name.

Jared puttered through the apartment. Mave wasn’t around, but she usually did a weekend shift at the clothing store or went brunching with Justice. He didn’t feel like cooking anything. His sense of time felt off. Graveyard shifts were brutal. He made a run for a bagel and large coffee at the Tim Hortons around the corner. On the way home, he found himself scanning the street for David, but what he wasn’t expecting was to see a swarm of fireflies. They glowed, a large cloud above the entrance of his apartment building, circling just under Mave’s balcony, sparking and crackling like northern lights. Sarah.

She sat on the edge of the concrete retaining wall in front of Mave’s building. He would know her lean frame anywhere. That and her giant-ass Sailor Moon shirt. Her long hair was black except for two small, buttery-pink buns curled on the sides of her head. Shit-kicking boots with black marker hiding the scuffs. Her short plaid skirt and the white tights she used to hide the scars from her cutting. She was watching her feet as she kicked them back and forth. Above her, the fireflies sparked and spun.

He let out a breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. She was safe. She was alive and she was here. He felt light-headed. Knee-shaking excited.

She looked up as he came down the sidewalk.

Jared stopped in front of her. “Hey.”

She smiled at him and her up-tilted eyes sparkled. “Hey.”

“You okay?”

“Are you?”

Jared crossed his arms over his chest. “Where you staying?”

“Is that all you have to say?”

The fireflies crackled. He forced himself not to look at them, hoping they wouldn’t start spouting poetry or snarky remarks. As far as he could tell, no one else could see them, except Sarah when she was with him and they were stoned or drunk enough. Not even his mom, who was pretty powerful.

She stood. She touched his hand and, when he didn’t pull away, brought it to her cheek. “I almost died and that’s the moment you chose to dump me,” she said.

He pulled his hand away. He wanted to deny it. And there had been circumstances. But she was here and she was the person he needed to make amends to the most and she was waiting for him to say something. “That was one of the shittiest things I ever did. I’m sorry, Sarah. I was scared. I don’t know what I can do to make it right, but I’m willing to try.”

She moved close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, her breath on his cheek. Her pupils were wide black pools and he wondered if she was tripping.

“ ‘And though I have the gift of prophecy,’ ” she

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