Invisibility, being a fairly simple trick compared to some others, was still part of Kristina’s repertoire. The dark clothes were a safeguard, in case she had overestimated her talents.
Her reasons for paying this late-night, uninvited visit were altruistic—she meant to watch over little Eliette and Bree until dawn, when the Havermails would be forced into their lairs by the light of the sun—but she still felt like a trespasser, a sort of inverse Peeping Tom.
Perhaps it was not an accident, on an unconscious level at least, that Kristina first projected herself into Max’s room. He lay sprawled across the large bed, sound asleep, his naked athletic body only partially covered by a sheet. She admired him for a long time, hoping his dreams were sweet but suspecting otherwise by his restlessness, and then sought and found the room his daughters shared.
It was a spacious chamber, nearly as large as Max’s own quarters, furnished with two canopied beds in the pseudo-French Provençal style so popular with little girls, matching dressers, a desk, and a miniature vanity. On Bree’s side of the room was a toy chest, overflowing with vinyl dolls in various states of undress, a scattering of clothes, a coloring book, still open, with crayons in the seam like logs in a flume.
Eliette’s territory, on the other hand, was almost painfully neat. The desk and vanity were tidy, and even in sleep the little girl looked as though she were bracing herself, expecting tragedy. Kristina knew that this child had felt the loss of her mother more deeply than anyone suspected, including her very caring father.
Kristina’s heart ached; she almost made herself solid again, so strong was her desire to smooth Eliette’s little brow with her fingertips, to kiss her and tell her that everything was all right, that she was safe now.
But that promise could not be made, in honesty, to any mortal on earth, no matter how beloved, for inherent in the glorious miracle of life, of course, was the certainty of death.
Kristina moved to stand beside Bree’s bed and saw with an inner smile that the younger child was utterly relaxed in sleep, still trusting and vulnerable. She had only deep-seated, almost instinctual memories of her lost mother and did not yet suspect that love could be treacherous.
In those moments a new sort of love was born in the very center of Kristina’s being, one she had never known before. The fathomless devotion a mother feels for her children.
It was silly. Even preposterous. But there it was. She cared so much for these little girls that she would have laid down her own life for them.
It was no great leap, from that conclusion, to the realization that she loved Max, as well. Truly and completely, in an adult fashion that bore no resemblance at all to the reckless, superficial and somewhat fatuous fondness she had felt toward Michael.
Kristina settled in to keep her vigil, reflecting upon these revelations while she waited for the dawn.
Perhaps an hour had passed when Bree awakened, groped her sleepy way into the bathroom, and crawled back into bed. She sat up for a few moments, a tousled moppet gilded in silvery moonlight, as though she sensed someone’s presence. Then, with an expansive yawn, she collapsed onto the pillows and tumbled back into the sort of consuming slumber Kristina suspected only vampires and small children can attain.
The remainder of the night passed quickly for Kristina. After a last stolen look at Max, who was sleeping peacefully now, she willed herself back to her own house, her own bedroom.
The letter she had intended to read the night before lay on her bed, where she had left it before her shower the night before. Still wearing the dark clothes she’d put on after the encounter with Benecia and Canaan Havermail, she hurried down the hall.
Stepping over the threshold, Kristina scanned the room. The dolls were in their cabinets, staring and silent, and there was no sign that the tiny vampires had ever fouled the place with their presence.
“Behave yourselves,” Kristina told the dolls before closing the door and returning to her room to dress for work.
Dathan was waiting inside the shop when she arrived, making himself at home on a Chippendale chair and reading the current issue of USA Today. He smiled benevolently, like an indulgent husband whose docile wife has just brought his breakfast on a tray.
“Well?” he said, laying aside the newspaper and rising. He was wearing battered jeans and a tweedy brown sweater, but he bowed as elegantly as if he were clad in a coat and tails.
Kristina was more than irritated at his presumption—he could at least have waited until she’d arrived at the shop herself instead of entering like a common thief—but she put her annoyance aside. Last night’s visit from the Havermails had convinced her that she needed someone’s help, and at the moment Dathan was the best available candidate.
“We have a bargain,” she said, extending one hand to seal the agreement.
Dathan looked mildly surprised. “Acquiescence? So easily and so soon? Great Zeus, Kristina, I confess I’m almost disappointed!”
He deserved a jab, she decided. “You’ve already had one offer of marriage,” she said, “though I doubt you’ll find it suitable.”
“Was it a vampire?”
“It is certainly the appropriate word and, yes, Benecia Havermail is indeed a vampire.”
Dathan all but spat his response. “Why, that’s revolting—the creature is a child!”
“She only looks like one,” Kristina replied. “Apparently she’s decided she made a bad bargain in becoming a vampire and passing up her chance to go through the normal sequence of lifetimes. In addition, she seems to be smitten with you.”
Dathan’s expression was a study in revulsion. “Needless to say, my dear, that particular monster will not do.” Kristina went to the back of the shop to hang up her coat, set her purse on a shelf, and put a mug of water into the microwave for tea. She had not taken the time for breakfast and felt the beginnings of hunger in the pit of her stomach. “I completely agree that Benecia is not suitable. I hasten to remind you, however, that all vampires are monsters, in one way or another.”
“As are all witches and warlocks,” Dathan said, though he glossed over the concession pretty quickly. He gave Kristina a pointed look as she took the mug out of the microwave and swirled a teabag around in the hot water before discarding it in the trash bin. “Lesson one, Ms. Holbrook,” he said. “Why do you brew tea in the mortal way, like a common scullery maid, when you could simply conjure it up in the first place?”
Kristina considered her long-cherished preference for doing things in human fashion. “I wanted to live as normal a life as I could,” she said.
“Normal for you, Kristina? Or normal for the mortal you wish you were? ‘This above all,’ as the Bard so wisely said, ‘to thine own self be true.’”
“Point taken,” Kristina replied, deflated. “I’ve been playing make believe for a long time. The problem is, I’m not sure what I am—clearly I’m not human, but I’m no vampire, either.”
“You are Kristina Holbrook,” Dathan said, touching the tip of her nose with an index finger in the same fond way that her father and Valerian had often done, while reassuring her. “You are utterly unique, and you should celebrate that, glory in it, rather than fretting and trying to pretend you’re someone else.”
Kristina knew he was right, but just knowing didn’t mean she could change right away. After all, she’d been posing as a mortal woman ever since that long-ago day when she’d taken a spill from her horse on an English country road and just as surely fallen for Michael Bradford. A habit of more than a century’s standing would take time and effort to break.
“Okay,” she said. “What do I do first? How do I start?” Dathan studied her speculatively. “I assume you know the basics—appearing and disappearing, changing the outward appearance of simple objects and all that?”
Kristina flushed with indignation. “I’m not an idiot,” she said.
“Now, now,” Dathan scolded, waggling a finger under her nose. “The mark of a good student is humility. To achieve
mastery, one must assume the attitude of a beginner.”
Indignation gave way to a singular lack of enthusiasm. “Terrific,” Kristina muttered.
70
For the first time in his life, as he drove the short distance between Kristina’s house and his own, Max Kilcarragh questioned his sanity. He cared—more than cared—for a woman who professed to be one hundred and thirty years old, with vampires for parents. He had seen a genuine warlock pop into the room like a character on Bewitched.
Seeing was believing, they said. He didn’t know which was crazier—that he’d seen, or that he believed. Even more insane was the fact that he wasn’t running as fast as he could in the other direction.
He was at risk. More important, so were his children.
Yet there was something inside him, a part of himself he’d never explored, that urged him to stand his ground.
Stand his ground? How could one mortal, however athletic, hold his own against creatures with magical powers? Maybe it was already too late to protect his daughters, himself, and Kristina.
Now there was a grandiose idea—that he, a high school football coach just five years short of turning forty—would have so much as a prayer against the likes of that warlock, Dathan, or any of the other monsters Kristina had so haltingly described.
He was nearly home, but suddenly there it was—the neighborhood church he had avoided assiduously since the accident. Although he’d sent Bree and Eliette to Sunday School every week, knowing Sandy would have wanted them to stay in touch with their personal heritage, he hadn’t set foot in the place himself. Hadn’t been inclined to worship a God who would take somebody like Sandy out of the world, though he guessed he still believed. Grudgingly.
Maybe, he thought, pulling over to the curb and staring up at the darkened structure, it wasn’t a case of not having a prayer after all. Maybe, in fact, that was all he had.
He gripped the steering wheel in both hands and lowered his head, motivated mostly by discouragement, rather than reverence. His supplication was silent. Show me how to handle this. I don’t care what happens to me, but I’m asking you to look out for Kristina and Eliette and Bree. Please.
That was the extent of Max’s entreaty; he hoped it would be enough. When Sandy was killed, he hadn’t had time to ask for help; everything had happened too fast.
He shifted the Blazer back into gear and went home.
Elaine was there to babysit, and her face brightened as Max entered the house. He greeted her with a nod and bounded up the stairs without taking off his coat or asking how the kids were. He had to see his daughters for himself; a report from his sister-in-law wouldn’t suffice.
They were safe.
Bree was tangled in her blankets, though the expression on her little face was one of sweet repose. Eliette seemed to be on guard, even in her sleep, but that was normal for her. Max’s heart ached because he couldn’t take away the pain, make up for the loss that had wounded her so terribly.
She awakened, this elder daughter of his, who remembered the death of her mother all too clearly, and looked at him with large brown eyes. “Hi, Daddy,” she whispered, conscious, as always, of Bree. Eliette was too serious, too responsible, but he didn’t know how to help her.
“Hi,” he said in a gruff, gentle whisper.
“I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me, too. Everything go okay tonight?”
Eliette nodded soberly. Max wondered if she was thinking what he was—trying to reason out how things could be okay in a world in which your mom could be snatched away forever, without a moment’s notice. “You were with Kristina,” she said.
It was only a statement, not an accusation. Not a protest. Max felt a twinge of guilt all the same. What new kind of suffering might he have brought into Eliette’s life, and Bree’s, by involving himself with Kristina Holbrook? “Yeah,” he said.
“Bree says she’s going to be our mommy now. Miss Holbrook, I mean.”
Max tucked Eliette in, in an approximation of the way Sandy had done it. “Just a second here,” he said softly. “Mommies come one to a customer, and yours is gone to heaven. Miss Holbrook—if I did marry her, and trust me, things haven’t gotten that far—would be your stepmother.” Eliette’s nose crinkled. “Like in Cinderella?”
The word stepmother had been a poor choice, Max thought. While he knew in the center of his soul that Kristina wasn’t wicked, she was no Mary Poppins, either. “No,” he said quickly. “Kristina isn’t mean.”
“Would she get to boss me around?”
Max suppressed a smile, in spite of the fact that the evening’s events had left him feeling as though he’d been pushed five miles by a snowplow and then run over. “If you mean could she tell you to do your homework, quit picking on your sister, or clean up your room, yes. Now, go to sleep. We’ll talk about this in the morning.” He kissed Eliette’s forehead and left the room.
Elaine was lingering downstairs, sipping herbal tea. She always lingered, it seemed, but then Max wouldn’t have wanted her to walk to her car alone. She was a good friend to him, an attentive and loving aunt to the children, and she had been Sandy’s sister. But she got on his nerves sometimes.
She looked at him with big, soulful eyes, and Max was confronted, yet again, with a fact he usually managed to deny. Elaine wanted more from him than he was willing to give. She wanted to step into Sandy’s shoes, raise the girls, share his bed every night.
“Bree and Eliette were good, like always,” she said.
Max shoved a hand through his hair, much rumpled because it had been a night for that sort of gesture, and manufactured a smile. “I really appreciate your coming over here on such short notice to take care of them,” he said. “But it occurs to me that I’ve been taking advantage of you by asking. I’m sorry, Elaine—I haven’t been very thoughtful.”
She drew nearer, and Max unconsciously stepped back.
Her smile was tremulous. Her hair was like Sandy’s, her face and body were similar. It would be so easy to pretend…
And so unfair. So cruel.
Besides, it was Kristina who occupied his mind and heart these days, for better or worse. He didn’t even want to think about the worse part.
“Max,” Elaine said quietly as if she were holding out a handful of seeds to a bird on the verge of taking wing, “the girls need a mother.”
While Max privately agreed, the remark rankled. In an ideal world, every child would have two loving, nurturing parents, but this one was another kind of place entirely. He’d done his best in spite of that, making sure Eliette and Bree knew that he would be there for them, no matter what.
If there was a single thing he was sure of, in a universe full of surprises, it was that he was a good father.
“I don’t think we should pursue this, Elaine,” he said with a sigh. “I’m really tired and…” And tonight I found out that vampires and warlocks, to name just two of a variety of fiends, are real. Not only that—I learned that I’m in love with a woman who is a hundred and thirty years old.
Elaine did not advance, but neither did she retreat. Max was developing a pounding headache, and he was still wearing his coat. The room felt hot and close, though he knew the temperature was set at sixty-eight degrees, as always.
“I’ve been patient,” she said.
Max felt a chill. Patient? Her sister had died violently, tragically, instantaneously. He said nothing, but started toward the door, hoping to lead Elaine in that direction. Her coat, a simple one of gray tweed, hung on the hall tree. “It’s late,” he said, offering the garment, holding it out so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves.
She smiled somewhat sadly and got into the coat. Max wished he loved her; it would have made everything so much simpler. Elaine looked like Sandy. She cherished the girls, and they were fond of her. And there were, to his knowledge anyway, no vampires in her family tree, no warlocks amidst her small circle of lackluster friends.
“I’ve watched you,” she s
aid with her back still turned to him, her hands busy with the buttons of her coat. “First you grieved, like all of us, of course. Then you started dating…”
Max closed his eyes for a moment. Damn. She was going to push it.
“Elaine—” he began awkwardly, reluctantly.
She turned and placed a finger to his lips. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and her chin trembled. “Just listen,” she said. “I’ve always loved you—even when you and Sandy were first dating. I kept hoping. But then you married her.”
He had an image of Elaine as a shy, knock-kneed kid in a bridesmaid’s dress. Sandy had tossed her bouquet to her younger sister. Elaine had had too much champagne at the reception, he recalled. She’d sobbed and made something of a scene when he and Sandy left for their honeymoon.
He’d felt sorry for the kid, ascribing her behavior to excitement and the champagne she and some of the cousins had been sneaking all afternoon, but Sandy had touched his arm and shook her head. A signal that she didn’t want to discuss the matter.
“Don’t,” he said now, in the entry way of his home. “Please. Don’t.”
She ignored his plea. “I can make you happy. Max.” He let out a long, raspy sigh and put a hand to the small of her back, ushering her to the door, turning the knob. “Come on,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ll see you to your car.”
“Max.”
He didn’t push her over the threshold, but he did guide her a little, increasing the pressure just slightly. “No, Elaine,” he said firmly. Wearily. “I won’t talk about this with you. Not tonight, not ever.”
“Couldn’t you just pretend I was Sandy?” They were in the middle of the front yard. Only a few more feet to her car.
“My God,” Max answered, opening the car door for her, waiting for her to slip inside. “I’m going to forget you even suggested that. You don’t mean what you’re saying, Elaine.” He felt compelled to offer a reason, an explanation, for her behavior. “It’s the grief that’s making you say these things. You haven’t worked through losing Sandy.” She got behind the wheel, but Max couldn’t close the car door because she hadn’t swung her legs inside. “You think I didn’t love her, don’t you? Well, I did. I do. And I miss her as much as you do.”
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