Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(139)

81

BAZ

It’s an hour-long drive to Oxford. My stepmother cries intermittently for the first half hour, then goes pale and wrings her hands for the second. I think she would have turned back if she were the one driving.

When we get to the hunting lodge, I pull the car right up to the house and turn off the engine. She shows no sign of getting out, so neither do I. I tap the steering wheel and look up at the door.

Daphne and I don’t talk about things. Not usually. Not really.

She’ll ask me how university is going, and I’ll tell her, and then she’ll say, “Good show, Basilton. You make your father so proud.” She used to ask for my help with the girls—but never in a badgering way. She used to take me shopping for summer clothes and sports gear.

I never rebelled against my father’s remarriage. I just went to Watford and got over it. I got used to Daphne. Things got better after she moved in. (Even though she’s the reason my aunt moved out.)

My father got very hard when my mother died—perhaps he was always hard, I don’t know—but Daphne softens him. She’s the reason I got a mobile phone when I turned 15. And the reason I got to go on school trips. And probably the reason my father didn’t murder Simon after our ancestral home lost its magic.

She’s a good person. A good stepmother.

“They’re going to be happy to see you,” I say softly.

She laughs, joylessly. Some of the tears come back. “How am I going to explain this…”

“You might not have to,” I say. “My father is usually relieved when I don’t explain things.”

Daphne laughs again, less joylessly, and cries a little more. “Your mother never would have been such a fool,” she says in a small voice.

My mother might have killed me, I think.

And then, My mother isn’t here.



And then, How did my mother feel about gay people, has Father ever mentioned it, maybe when George Michael came out?

I get out of the car and walk around to Daphne’s side, opening her door.

She looks up at me, still hesitating. I hold out my hand. “Come on, Mum.”

Mordelia is passing through the living room when we walk in. She doesn’t look up from her phone.

“Delia,” Daphne says.

Mordelia looks up. “Mum!” She runs at Daphne’s middle. I step out of the way. “Dad!” Mordelia shouts. “Mum’s home!” She pulls away a bit to look at Daphne. “Are you home? Did you get the thing you needed?”

“I’m home,” Daphne says, smiling, her eyes too bright.

“Mordelia, I’ve asked you not to shout in the—” My father is walking into the living room, holding Swithin. He stops when he sees Daphne.

“Mum’s home!” Mordelia shouts again. (I never would have raised my voice in this situation, even at 8.)

“Hello, Malcolm,” Daphne says.

“The twins…” my father says.

Her face falls. “Are they all right?”

“They’re out back … I was just going to check on them.”

“I’ll do it,” I say. “Mordelia will help.”

Mordelia pouts. “Baz, no—”

“Come on, Mother’s not going anywhere.” I take Swithin from my father and haul Mordelia towards the back door. “Let them have a hug. You know they won’t do it in front of us.”

“Did Mum finish magic school?”

“Yes,” I say. “All done.”

“And she’s really home?”

“Yeah,” I say, hoping I’m right. We find Sophie and Petra in the garden, playing with the Tibetan mastiff my father bought when they moved to Oxford.

“Mum’s home!” Mordelia tells the twins.



“That’s Baz,” one of them says, climbing up my leg. I sit on the ground, so that I have some lap for her. The dog edges away from me, growling. Good instincts.

When Daphne comes out, fifteen minutes later, all three of the girls run to her. Swithin starts crying. Daphne takes him.

My father is standing in the doorway, watching. “Help me with dinner, Basilton?”

“Of course, Father.”

You’d never guess, at dinner, that Daphne has been gone for weeks. Which is a good sign, I think. My father treats her with as much polite tenderness as ever. He dotes on her, in his way. Caters to her every whim, without making a show of it.

I could get back to London before the trains stop, but Daphne asks me to stay the night. After dinner, I head to the attic to rummage through some boxes of my old things that were brought up from the house in Hampshire. Then I go hunting in the fields behind the house. (Two rabbits and a mole.) Daphne makes a bed for me on the sofa. “You should have your own room here,” she says.

“I’m fine. The twins are already doubled up.” I’ve just taken a shower, and I’m wearing some old pyjamas I found upstairs—they’re a bit short.

Daphne hands me a wool blanket, and I spread it out over the cushions.

“We could add on,” she says. “Your father could manage the spells. Or we could, you know, hire a builder.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary—”