“AFTER THE FIRST week or two of armed and sizzling silence after the argument, and all messages passed through pacifist intermediaries, Mom had started giving me charms. She’d turn up at the coffeehouse at about eight in the morning with another charm done up in the standard charm-seller’s twist of brown paper. I didn’t want them, but I took them, and I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t say anything at all except (sometimes) thank you.
Mom and I hadn’t gone in for light conversation in years, since it never stayed light, between us. I did things with the charms like wrap them around the telephone at home, to soften any bad news it might be bringing me, or drape them round my combox screen, ditto. This kind of abuse wears charms out fast. I’m not a big fan of charms—barring the basic wards, which I admit only a fool would dispense with, fetishes, refuges, whammies, talismans, amulets, festoons, or any of the rest, I can do without ’em. They take up too much psychic space, and the sooner these new ones crashed and burned the sooner they’d stop bugging me. But Mom was trying to behave herself, and the charms seemed to relieve her feelings. Once I had a car again I started stuffing them in the glove compartment. They didn’t like it, but charms aren’t built to quarrel with you.”
— Sunshine by Robin McKinley
