Chapter 18

The Eclipse of Matter

IT TOOK ME A grand total of four days before I was able to be in the same room as Matvei. It wasn't because I couldn't stand him. It was because he just wasn't there. He kept leaving for hunting mission. The only time he appeared to be at the house was either when I was at school or fast asleep.

            That last part was kind of weird. The fast asleep part. I had been falling asleep fast and for full nights ever since Kostya had done his little hocus pocus trick on me.

            I tried to ask him about it actually, but just like Matvei he was kind of winning this round of hide-and-seek.

            Anyway, I finally saw my father's face on Thursday and the only words he told me were, "Hello Oksana, I hope you're having a nice week. I'm sorry I'll get out of your hair. Take care," and the turd didn't even give me time to answer or even say hello and he was already running out of the kitchen and he was out of the house.

If he wanted to piss me off more, he was totally succeeding. The fact that I wanted to have a chat with my father though didn't mean all was forgiven, especially for the rest of the family and the way they had treated the whole crisis. Basically, the only adult I wasn't pissed off at was grandfather dearest because it was difficult to ever truly be mad at the drunk. He was just too goddamn entertaining.

            Nevertheless, the tension in the house was still palpable. I didn't have any qualms with my grandfather, but the bitch he had decided to marry and procreate with was a whole other deal, so was my so-called aunt. And of course, Stick-Up-His-Ass-Hugo was definitely also on a prime spot in my shit-list.

            So when I noticed that Matvei was still missing from the dinning table I didn't stick around to be force to take a page from Hannibal's book and have someone eat their own legs.

            I grabbed food for the kitchen and went to hide in my room, yet again. I was getting more and more comfortable in it. I seriously couldn't understand why everyone had turned their nose up at a room with that view. When it had rained a couple of days ago, looking at the raindrops hitting the glass ceiling had been seriously mesmerizing.

I headed straight for my unbelievably comfortable bed and lay on top of the covers, staring at the sunset sky.

A knock came at my door when the sun had finally set.

"Can I come in?" Pasha asked, tentatively.

I sat up. I wasn't pissed at my cousin. "Sure."

Pasha, pushed the door slowly at first, like he was worried I might throw a table at his face, and then more forcefully when he realized he wasn't going to be attacked before walking in and closing it behind him.

"How are you doing?" he asked me, smiling a little.

"Peachy!" I exclaimed. I wasn't smiling. I wasn't really peachy.

"We haven't talked in a while. You keep walking to school," he pointed out.

I shrugged. "It's good exercise." Truth was, I was partly walking to school to make sure I wouldn't inadvertently end up being in the same car as Hugo and partly because I was curious about what I had felt the first time. Each time, I had felt the same kind of presence as the first time I had walked to school when I was right in the middle of the spot surrounded by the most forest, but like the last time, thinking hard enough to leave me alone had done the trick.

            Maybe I should go see a professional to get prescribed some kind of pills for schizophrenic because I was probably going bonkers.

            "I just wanted to know if you wanted to come to a party on Friday. You haven't been socializing that much lately."

            That wasn't exactly true. I spoke to Yoan at school, he was nice and our relationship felt like the beginning of a friendship. "I don't need to socialize."

            "It might be good for you to go out, and not stay cooped up in your room all the time."

             "This room is the exact opposite of being cooped up," I pointed to the roof. "I have the whole sky open over my head."

            "You're like a caged bird with a mirror."

            I let out a breath. "That's not exactly the best comparison."

            "Maybe. But the fact still remains that you came her to find your family. You found it but now you're ignoring it. I get it, I really do. That's okay, you can mope. But I think that even if you're mad, you're here to stay. So making friends to help you when you butt heads with your family would be good for you. And a party is a great place to make friends." That cousin of mine made sense.

            Still, I wasn't that easily persuaded. And a party didn't really feel like my scene. "I'll think about it."

I thought Pasha was going to leave, but instead he came to sit beside me on my bed. "I know you're mad at them. Even I don't understand what got over them. They seriously overreacted."

Honestly, it's freaking ridiculous that the only sane people in this house are you and your siblings and our drunk grandpa. I mean, your dad is alright but he married your mom so that means he has a few loose screws, I thought.

Oh wait, scratch that, he was laughing. I said that out loud.

"I'll let this slide. Like you should let what happened slide. I think there's a reason for the freaking out."

"Well, enlighten me," I told him, making grand hand gestures. It was fun to play the drama queen.

"It's just a theory, really but I've been thinking about it and it's really the only thing that makes sense. I think they're overreacting because of your mother."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yes, my ever present mother." I might kill the bitch at this point if I ever did meet her.

"Hear me out. Your father met her when he was in Russia hunting an ogre, or at least something that kidnapped children. I don't really see my uncle hooking up with anyone, but a human even less. I think your mother was supra. I think... well I think your father went there to kill her."

Pissed off and confused stick pole says what? "What?"

"Lots of different creatures take children. Maybe she had problems, or maybe someone was using her. Either way, my working theory is that he was there to kill her, but instead he fell in love with her, and ultimately, she wanted kids? He gave her a kid."

Couldn't my mother just be a Russian hooker looking for a visa, like any normal family?

"You're out of your mind. You watch too many cheesy movies, you read too many young adult novels. Matvei told me that she was a good person, that she was good through and through, that she always did everything for the better good of everyone else. He never said she was a murderous psycho."

He just shook his head as I spoke. "People lie. Matvei can lie. He could have lied to protect you. Would you tell your kid her mother was a killer? That forty days thing, it's been bothering me." I never should have told anyone about that. "There's a very old custom in the suprahuman community, where mother keep their babies hidden from the world for forty days, so they can build protecting for their minds against attacks and so that they can bond fully."

"Even if what you were saying wasn't completely bunkers, what has it got to do with Kostyantyn?" It made no sense to shun out Kostya like that. "Also, my mind wasn't protected, remember?"

"They see the potential for disaster," my cousin answered. "Kostyantyn could easily become the bad guy. And with his position, Kostya shouldn't be associated with the daughter of a child killer or kidnapper. He's already getting a lot of heat for keeping Blair around. And you wouldn't be anymore. That kind of protection wears off."

"This doesn't make sense."  

"It kind of does. Maybe she got pregnant, kept you during forty days, and then decided to send you to America, made sure people knew your name was Oksana Matveyevna Faustina so your father could find you but maybe she was never able to tell him he had a daughter. Maybe she died."

"Wow, way to make me feel better about this whole being abandoned thing. Not only did my mother abandon me, now she's also a killer and she's dead." That daytime drama plot just needed an evil twin to get green lit.

"It makes sense."

Maybe, but it was always getting me pissed. I didn't want to talk about it anymore. "Whatever, I gotta go to sleep," I told my cousin.

"Kind of early to go to sleep don't you think?" he pointed out.

"I just like to follow the sun's sleeping habits."

"Whatever weirdo," he answered and got off my bed. "You'll think about coming to the party on Friday?"

            "Sure," I answered and then Pasha waved goodbye and closed the door behind him.

            I stayed sitting on my bed for a few minutes, mulling over what he had just told me. With my luck, a crazy psycho killer mother made sense.

            Sighing heavily, I got out of my bed, grabbed my dirty dishes and headed for the kitchen.

The second I stepped out, I came face to face with my father.

He looked like he wasn't sure if he should speak, before he asked, "You had a nice chat with your cousin?"

"Sure, he's nice. He wants me to go to a party on Friday." I wasn't sure if I should be sharing his nice theory. I kept heading towards the kitchen. Matvei followed beside me.

"I think that's a good idea. Going out of the house making friends. You should go with him," Matvei answered.

Shouldn't a dad be against his daughter going to a party? "I don't know. Feels like something bad might happen."

"Something bad like you having fun?" he joked. And then he looked like he was surprised he had joked and that was something he shouldn't have done.

Naturally, I asked, "Are we speaking now?"

"Do you want us to speak?"

Oh boy, he asked for it. "I want you to tell me why you were being an ass to a guy that was helping me. I want you to tell me what really happened between you and my mother. I want to understand why the hell my life is so screwed up."

"I don't have all the answers. I have some, but not all of them. And most of them might not be what you want to hear."

Would hitting him with a chair make him stop sounding like he was speaking in riddles all the time? "I want the true. That's all I've been asking ever since I got here. I just don't understand why that's so hard for you to give me."

My father sighed. "It's hard because the truth hurts most of the time."

"I can take hurt," I told him. I doubted he could tell me anything that awful. I was playing around the idea that my mother was eating babies for breakfast thanks to my cousin.

"I know you do. I just don't want to give you more."

At this point we had reached the kitchen, so I put my dishes in the dishwasher and the sort of slapped my hands over the counter, annoyed. "How long are you going to go around and around in circle over this? Just spill already!" I exclaimed.

"How about we talk this weekend. Go to your party on Friday and Saturday we can go somewhere together and talk. Just the two of us."

Screw the party, I wanted to talk now. But I humoured him. "And you'll finally start being completely honest?"

"I'll try."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "This whole father daughter thing is a lot more complicated than I had anticipated."

"I'm with you on that one."

"Well, I should go to bed."

"At this hour?"

Why was everyone saying that? "I'm following the sun."

Matvei smiled faintly. "I wasn't aware my daughter was a hippie."

"Always nice to know my father is lacking a good sense of humour." He smiled more at my retort. One corner of my mouth lifted. Just a little.

"Sleep well."

"Thanks, you too," I answered, waved and headed back to my room.

The next day I drove to school with Pasha and Marisha. The siblings easily chatted together. I was watching them from the back seat and envying their relationship. It must have been nice to grow up with a sibling that cared about you.

When I got to school, my eyes automatically fell on Kostyantyn. I wasn't sure if this was new or I just hadn't gotten a good enough look at him lately but he looked like he hadn't slept all week long. I mean, the guy still looked hot, but he looked like a hot mess.

            I wondered what that was about and headed straight for him. He couldn't ignore me forever.

"Kostyantyn," I called out behind him.

He looked at me, answered with a quick, "Sorry, can't speak. Gotta eat," and sped up his pace.

He disappeared amongst the morning student crowd before I was able to catch up with him.

My mind was kind of racing though.

After I left myself fall on my seat in homeroom, I couldn't help but catch snippets of the conversation between three girls sitting beside me.

"Did Tifanny tell you? She hooked up with Kostyantyn last night."

"No."

"Yes!"

"But wasn't he with Meghan with an H last night?"

"No, he was with Megann with two Ns."

"But I totally saw him sneaking around with Darby this morning."

"What are you talking about? I saw him walking out of his car with Addilyn this morning."

"You know what would be fun? If Blair could stop being a bitch and actually tell us poor girls what's going on with him."

"As if she would tell any of us. I'm pretty sure they hook up too in between his other floozies."

I tuned them out after that.

Jesuuuuus. If half of this gossiping was true, Kostyantyn was seriously banging too many chicks. I mean, even for a guy that needed to feed off of sexual energy, he couldn't be needing that much energy.

Obviously, I had questions, but I didn't see him at any of our classes.

At the end of the day, when I drove back with my cousins, I asked, "Hey, I've got a question."

"Question away," Pasha replied, looking at me through the rear-view mirror.

"So, how often do suprahuman need to feed? Not food-food, but suprahuman stuff."

Pasha shrugged. "It's a case by case honestly. Some supras like Hugo for instance don't really need to feed because his Nain Rouge powers sort of just hit him. He doesn't exactly control them. Witnessing gruesome events isn't something you need to feed to be a part of."

I asked what I really wanted to know. "What about Kostyantyn?"

"Hmm." Pasha frowned, like he was thinking about it. "Well Mare and Succubus basically only need to feed if they use their powers a lot. They can starve themselves off for a while if they don't use their powers at all."

So all the banging meant that the boy was using his powers a lot...

I didn't exactly like what that could mean. I seriously needed to have a talk with him. There was only one place I could think about where I could catch him.

"You know, about the party tonight?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll tag along."