Waiting for the Flood (Spires) by Alexis Hall

Author:Alexis Hall [Hall, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781728251363
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2024-02-19T18:30:00+00:00

7

I dreamed my mother was knocking on the side of the boat and calling my name. Then I woke up and it turned out my mother was knocking on the side of the boat and calling my name.

“Oh my God.” I sat bolt upright in bed. Thankfully Leo had drawn the blinds at some point last night, so I did not flash the whole towpath. “I think that’s—I’m so sorry. But that’s my mother. I have no idea what she’s doing here or how she found me.”

Leo was already climbing over me. “Why are you acting like you’re in witness protection?”

It was a good question. Possibly I always acted that way around my family. “Maybe if we’re quiet, she’ll go away again.”

This was a lie; my mother never went away again.

“Is it possible,” asked Leo, “she’s worried about you?”

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “Edwin was supposed to let her know I was fine.”

“Edwin?”

“Never mind.”

Leo had already pulled on trousers and a hoodie. “Is there something you’re not telling me about your family, Marius? Some reason why you don’t want to see your mother?”

No, I was just being a dick. “No,” I said aloud.

I dressed more slowly—and given my foot, more awkwardly—than Leo. And by the time I hobbled out, my parents were already coming aboard, my mother backwards, looking everywhere at once, because she had no sense of personal safety.

“Oh, this is lovely,” she was saying. “Why doesn’t she have a name?”

Leo, meanwhile, was being steered through the kitchen and into a corner. “She does have a name—but winter came on, and I haven’t had time to paint it yet.”

“What’s she called?” I asked, drawing myself heroically to my mother’s attention.

“Um. Demoiselle.” Leo had gone bright red. “After—”

“A young lady?” Apparently my gambit had failed. And Mum was more concerned with discovering if Leo was gay, and therefore potential boyfriend material, than she was about my well-being.

“After the damselfly,” Leo corrected quickly.29

“How interesting.” Mum was probably the only person in the world who said “how interesting” and didn’t mean it sarcastically. “Are you an entomologist?”

“I just think they’re beautiful.” Leo’s eyes slid to mine, and I found his gaze almost impossible to hold. “Nothing but beautiful.”

Mum’s whole expression practically became a cartoon heart. “Thank you so much,” she said, dumping what looked like six separate carrier bags onto the floor and descending lovingly upon Leo, “for looking after Marius.”

“It’s”—Leo’s back was to the wall now—“it’s not a problem.”

“I’m Clementine, Marius’s mother. And this is Krzysztof, his father.”

My dad stepped forward to shake Leo’s hand.

And I got that slightly dizzy feeling that came from seeing people you knew well in a fresh context. Almost as strangers. My mum, with the candy-pink streaks in her grey hair, wearing an ankle-length puffer coat of such extreme puffiness that she looked like she was strapped into a sleeping bag. And my dad with the quiet air of a serial killer and the suit of a middle-grade accountant when he was, thankfully, neither.

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