Branded as Trouble. Delores Fossen

sped up. And she didn’t dignify his insult with an answer.

      “Because I heard about it,” Ian went on. “Somebody said you dress up like people in the movies. Like Dirty Dancing kind of dress up. But that you don’t do the nasty with any of those fellas, that you just do the dancing parts. Well, if you want, I could dress up like somebody from the movies and dance with you.”

      She wanted to say she had a phobia about dancing with him, but they both knew this wasn’t about dancing. It was about his wanting to get in her pants.

      “I don’t do that pretend stuff anymore,” she assured him.

      That was a lie. But she was taking a minibreak from it because the previous night’s enactment hadn’t played out so well. Apparently, her fantasy partner had a different interpretation of Buttercup and Wesley rolling down the hill. He thought it should involve clothing removal while he yelled, “As you wish.”

      “Guess you’re still hung up on Roman Granger, huh?” Ian asked several moments later.

      Mila hadn’t thought there was anything to get her to slow her lightning-fast pace, but that did it. “Roman?” she repeated as if that were impossible.

      Of course, Ian knew it was more than possible. Everyone in town did, just as they knew about her fantasy role-play. She’d had a crush on Roman since she was old enough to realize that boys and girls had different parts.

      Or “secret places” as her mother called them.

      And speaking of her mother, Mila saw Vita sitting on her front porch as she approached her house.

      “Oh, I gotta go,” Ian said. He pretended to check his watch, no doubt to make her believe that he had somewhere else to be.

      Which wasn’t that far off the mark.

      When it came to her mother, most people wanted to be anywhere else. Vita was the ultimate person-repellant, and while that had caused Mila plenty of problems in her life, she was thankful for it now because it sent Ian scurrying away.

      Vita wasn’t your ordinary mother. Nope. She had her freaky flag flying with her Bohemian clothes—a long brown shirt, peasant blouse and dozens of cheap bead necklaces and bracelets. When she walked, she sounded like a chained Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol.

      But it wasn’t just the clothes that made her odd. Vita claimed to come from a long line of Romanian fortune-tellers. Even though Mila had never met any of her kin, the story that Vita liked to tell was that her family had stowed away on a pirate ship from Romania when Vita was just a baby. Mila doubted the story, mainly because her mother was only in her fifties, and that mode of transportation probably wasn’t possible in modern times.

      Of course, there was nothing modern about her mother.

      Or normal.

      Vita did charms, exorcised spirits, blessed houses and read palms. Surprisingly, people paid her for those things, which only proved that some residents of Wrangler’s Creek weren’t normal, either. Even those people, though, thought her mother was weird.

      And that meant Mila was weird by genetic association.

      It didn’t matter that Mila owned her own business and never chanted, exorcised spirits or read palms. She would always be her mother’s daughter. It didn’t help, either, that Mila’s father had died in a car accident when she was just a kid, only five. He might have added some normalcy to her life if he were still alive.

      Or at least that’s what she liked to tell herself.

      It was just as possible that he would have only added another level of weirdness. After all, he’d married Vita.

      Still, Mila had some incredible memories of Frankie Michael Banchini. He’d done funny faces to make her laugh, had secretly eaten those much-hated Brussels sprouts that Vita had insisted on serving her. And he’d never turned her away when she wanted him to read her a story. Mila was certain that’s where her love of books had started, and being around them was a way of keeping her father close.

      She had loved him. Always would. And she loved her mother, too. Sometimes, though, Vita didn’t always make loving her that easy.

      “There’s an ill wind blowing,” her mother greeted her. She lifted her head, looked at the cloudless sky. There wasn’t so much as a wisp of a breeze. “Bad juju. That might help.”

      Vita tipped her head to a small white box on Mila’s doorstep. The kind of box that someone might use to gift a small piece of jewelry.

      Since the porch wasn’t that big, Mila leaned in and had a look. Not jewelry. It appeared to be a blob of some kind of animal poop. Chicken, probably, since her mother raised them.

      “Sometimes, you have to fight caca with caca,” her mother added.

      Mila could only sigh, and she sank down on the step next to her mother. She considered asking her if she wanted to go inside, but she’d left her Buttercup clothes on the sofa and didn’t want to have to explain it.

      “So, what bad juju should I expect?” Mila asked.

      “I had a vision. Within thirty days, your life will be turned upside down.”

      Oh, this was such a cheery conversation. Mila hadn’t lied to Ian when she had told him she didn’t drink beer, but there was a bottle of wine in her fridge that she’d need after this visit.

      It wasn’t fun to encourage this conversation thread, but her mother wasn’t going to leave until she had said whatever it was she’d come to say. Best to get that “say” started.

      “Are we talking a tornado here?” Mila asked. “Or something more personal, like me tripping and falling?”

      Vita lifted her shoulder. “The vision doesn’t always dot the i’s or cross the t’s. But in these same thirty days, you’ll be on a quest to find the truth.”

      Well, she was sort of heading in that direction, anyway. The fantasy stuff just wasn’t working for her anymore. Lately, she’d been thinking about being kissed. For real. Not as part of some reenactment.

      “And after thirty days, you’ll no longer be a virgin,” her mother added in a discussing-the-weather tone. Vita took something from her pocket—a foil-wrapped condom—and handed it to her. “Use this, though. It’s a rubber, and it’ll stop you from getting knocked up. You put it on the man’s secret place when he’s decided not to keep it secret from you any longer.”

      Mila stared at her. “I know what a condom is.”

      “Well, good.” Vita patted her hand. And kept on patting. It went on for so long that Mila had to stop her or else she was going to have a red mark.

      “Is something wrong?” Mila came out and asked.

      Vita nodded, got to her feet, but not before patting her hand again. “I need to take a little trip back to see my family.”

      She might as well have announced she was going to Pluto. Vita never traveled. Heck, her mother never left Wrangler’s Creek. “To Romania?”

      Another nod. “I want to see them while they’re still around to be seen. Just don’t hate me when the shit happens. I had my reasons for doing what I did.”

      Color her confused. What did Romanians, upside down, devirgining and bad juju have to do with her hating her mother?

      “All will be revealed in time,” Vita added, and she started to walk to her bicycle, which was next to Mila’s fence.

      She was still confused. “Want me to give you a ride home?” Her mother owned a car but rarely used it. Instead, Vita preferred to pedal the two miles from her place and into town.

      Vita shook her head and kept moving. Mila would have gone after her if her phone hadn’t rung, and she saw her best friend’s name on the screen. Sophie Granger McKinnon.

      “I’m at the hospital,” Sophie