It Runs In the Family

We’ve received many requests and questions about Kid 2’s work and what is it about and when can it be available.

Once in a while, there will be a successful writer who will come out with “My child wrote a book!” and they will use their platform to promote their child’s book. Full power to them. When you have a platform, why not help your child out?

That probably won’t be us. At least in the beginning.

Now don’t get me wrong, we’ll help with advice, we’ll allocate money for ads, and we will use whatever knowledge we have to help her write a good query and sign with a good agent. We are very proud of her.

But people are mean. They will call her a nepo baby, they will say that we wrote the books for her, and they will compare her work to our work, and on and on. Yes, advertising her work here would likely give her a big jump in sales, but at what cost? It is far better for her to launch without the baggage of Ilona Andrews attached.

Thank you so much for your interest. She was very touched that many of you asked, and she sent over a small snippet of an older work, not connected to anything, as a thank you. She says, “This is what I put mom and dad through while in school.”

Yes, she was that bad. Don’t ask me about the time she performed an exorcism.

“Are you mad at me?”

I put my stress ball in my lap and turned to my niece in the chair beside me, staring at her over the brim of my red-tinted shades. “I’m not thrilled.”

She slumped back against her seat, groaning. “Can we just get it out of the way now, please? I hate when you brood.” 

“Okay. First of all,” I started. “I don’t brood.”

“I don’t want to fight. I had a really bad day.”

“Oh no! What happened?”

“Nessie. Don’t tease me.”

“This is the second time this month that I have had to drop what I’m doing, rush here from the Circle, and sit in this chair – awaiting to be informed of what a lousy guardian I am.” I straightened my cloak. “You can suffer my teasing.”

“Everybody’s overreacting! It wasn’t that serious!”

“Mhm.

“Nobody here can take a joke,” she grumbled. “Too bad their rich parents can’t buy the kids at this school a sense of humor.”

“Haley.”

“They’re so soft! I have to walk on eggshells around everyone!”

“Haley,” I tried again.

“And for being one of the ‘top performing Arcane Art academies in the world,’ this place is so behind! All the stuff we’re learning right now, you taught me and Griff when we were in freaking pull-ups!”

“Haley.” My stern voice came out. “You chased the headmasters’ son down the hall, with blood dripping from your hands. Whose blood, frankly, I’m scared to ask.”

“It was ketchup.”

“Well, they all thought it was blood. Probably because you were maniacally laughing and chanting, ‘I am blood mage, the madness calls for blood! I am blood-

I saw the lady at the front desk staring, the warmth draining from her face.

Damn it.

I smiled and waved. “Go Vampire Bats!”

She turned away, shaking her head.

“Great,” I hissed under my breath. “Now the front office at your expensive new school thinks I’m a blood mage. Friday’s PTA meeting is going to be a blast.”

“It was just a joke,” Haley muttered. “Everybody didn’t need to freak out.”

“Kiddo, you were frothing at the mouth.”

She threw her hands up, auburn curls bouncing around her freckled face.

“I already told them- it was soap!”

I blinked. “Soap?”

“Hand soap. The foaming kind, from the dispenser in the girl’s restrooms.”

I dragged a sweaty palm down my chin. “You poured soap in your mouth?”

“Sugar Citrus Breeze- blech.” She made a sour face. “Didn’t taste like sugar.”

“No, I don’t imagine that it would.” I sighed. “And you did this, willingly?”

“Yup,” she replied, popping her lips.

“To make it look like you were unhinged?”

“You’re always saying Dad’s problem is he can never commit to anything.” She looked me dead in the eye. “I committed.”

 “I’ll be committed, if you keep this up. Between this charming, little stunt you pulled here today, and your brother terrorizing his classroom last week with the reanimated corpse of their beloved pet hamster -“

“It was a bunny.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, bunny -“

“Sir Hops-a-lot, Duke of Carrotown.”

I sharply inhaled. “I can’t keep doing it, Haley. The Circle has been falling apart at the seams for weeks, now. You got to help me out.”

She looked away, her upper lip quivering. “… Sorry.”

I stared at the stress ball in my lap. Thin, purple fabric, all faded and torn. Yellow, stiff foam seeping out from decades old cracks. It had taken a lot of abuse in the last two months.

“So why’d you do it? “

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m hormonal. Or I really am crazy.”

“Hormonal? Definitely. Crazy? Eh… too early to say.” I would tackle the topic of not calling people crazy another time.

“But I probably am. It runs in the family.” She frowned. “He started it. He’s always calling me a blood mage. Says I’m gonna turn Corrupt. Like Mom.”

Little bastard.

“You won’t.” I draped my arm over her. “I won’t let you. Either of you.”

She rested her head on my chest. “But if I did… would you still love me?”

I held her tight. “Yes. We’d just put a muzzle on you and carry on. We are Cowls. Like you said, it runs in the family.”