“No. They don’t.”
“Where’s my phone, we’re going to need photos. And a team of occultists and a demonic Rosetta Stone. Morgana, what a mess.” She’s warming to the problem now, and I can’t help but be relieved. For a moment I thought she was going to let Shepard go to hell just because she was in a bad mood.
“There’s no recent scholarship,” she says, lifting Shepard’s shirtsleeve with her fingertips, “but there is precedence. The last outbreak was at Watford. A secret society … Never join a secret society, either of you. How bored do you have to be to do terrible things for the sake of having a secret?
Wealthy people can’t even earn their secrets with any integrity.”
Shepard is keeping wisely—and shockingly—quiet.
Mum has her phone out. She’s focusing the camera on his elbow. “Do you remember when it happened? How old were you?”
“I do. I was twenty—it was two years ago.”
“Well old enough to know better.”
“Yes.”
“Did someone put you up to it? Were you tricked?”
“No. I was just … curious.”
“About demons, Shepard?”
“I’m curious about everything, Mrs. Bunce.”
“Dr. Bunce. And I’m curious to hear how you think you’re getting out of this predicament?”
“I don’t think I am.”
“What?” She’s pulled away, and she’s looking down her nose at him.
“I think I’m well and truly fucked. Just like you said.”
She glares up at him. “I was only insulting you, Shepard. I was trying to make you feel so bad about your actions that you won’t repeat them; it’s a common parental tactic. You are well and truly fucked, but I don’t intend to leave you this way.” She smiles at him, just a little.
He’s so grateful for it that he smiles back widely. “Thank you, Dr. Bunce.”
Mum tucks her phone in her pocket. “Now, let’s see your wand. Is it compromised, as well?”
“I don’t have a wand, I’m not a magician.”
She jerks her head up at him and then at me. “You’re not a magician? What are you? You don’t smell like a pixie. No offence.”
He laughs. “I’m a Talker. I mean—a Normal. I figured that was obvious.”
Mum’s got her wand pointed at him before her chin has finished dropping.
“Let bygones be bygones!”
Shepard lurches back like he’s been shoved.
“Rock-a-bye, baby!” Mum shouts.
Shepard slumps forward. Mum and I catch him.
“Mum! What are you—”
“Penelope Leigh Bunce, have you lost your mind?”
“Have you?”
“You brought a Normal into our house?!”
“Mum, he needs help!”
“All Normals need help!”
“Mum—”
“You told him about magic? About our family?”
“If you’d just listen! Shepard is my friend. He helped me through—Well, I found myself in a very dicey situation…”
“Imagine my surprise.”
“Mum, that’s not fair.”
“Penelope, you’re so addicted to danger that you manufacture it as soon as things get quiet!”
“I’ve manufactured nothing! I wasn’t responsible for the Mage!”
“No, but you were one of three children in five hundred who couldn’t steer clear of him. You are recklessly bent on finding trouble.”
“That is an extreme and unfair mischaracterization.”
“Is it? So there’s not a demon-cursed, American Normal in my kitchen?”
Shepard is slipping out of our arms. We lower him to the floor. “Mum, he’s my friend.”
“I’m sure he is! I’m sure you befriended him the moment you realized what a hopeless disaster he is!”
“I didn’t know, actually.” I’m making sure Shepard doesn’t hit his head on the tile.
“It’s a sixth sense, then.”
“Your disapproval is well noted, Mother. I feel bad about my actions, and I won’t repeat them. Can you just help him now? He really is in trouble.”
“Penelope … no. ” She’s standing up, looking down at Shepard with her hands on her hips. “There’s no way to help him without compromising ourselves.”
“He won’t tell anyone about us.”
“Now he won’t. He won’t remember you or me or any of it. He’ll spend the rest of his life wondering how drunk he must have been to have forgotten getting such elaborate tattoos. Get him on the next plane home.”