Melissa looked at her seriously. 'There's nothing wrong with our daughter, Leanne. She's perfect, too.'
Slowly Leanne's anger fizzled out. Offending Melissa wasn't an easy thing to do; she'd tried it almost every day since they'd met, and usually she was the one who ran away in tears. When it came to their family, however, she found that Melissa wore her heart on her sleeve (beneath long-sleeved sweaters, of course). The vulnerability in her eyes always made Leanne back down.
With a sigh she sat on the bed beside Melissa, half expecting the woman to shove her off, or groan, or slide to the other end, but she did none of those things.
'You're right, I'm sorry, she is perfect. So she can do magic,' Leanne shrugged, trying to play it down. 'No big deal.' If only she believed her own words.
Melissa looked at her askance. 'And there's nothing wrong with my ovaries.'
Leanne smiled. 'Your ovaries are great. They're the nicest, most beautiful ovaries known to ma– woman. I love your ovaries... even if they did make my daughter a witch.'
She couldn't help teasing Melissa; she knew that being nice to her produced almost the same result as throwing insults at her. 'But what are we going to do?'
'I don't know.'
Leanne had never heard Melissa admit her ignorance before. It scared her to think that, for once, Melissa was powerless; she'd relied on the woman to solve everything in the past.
'Have you seen what happens when she's upset? When we fight? When she doesn't get what she wants? All those spooky things that happened, that was her!' The mounting concern and fear was evident in Leanne's voice, and even more so in Melissa's eyes. How could she live under the same roof as Leanne Evans and not fight with her? Was their daughter trying to drive her completely mad?
***
'Well, you're both to blame,' said Janice, the following day, surprisingly exultant for someone who had just discovered that their granddaughter had magical powers.
Leanne and Melissa gawped at her, stunned. Then they looked at their bundle of joy, happily sitting on her grandmother's lap, playing with the older woman's necklace.
'How?' Megan's mothers asked in unison.
'Old folklore claims that the first born child of a witch and a mortal woman will be born a sorcerer/sorceress,' Janice explained.
'That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!' Melissa growled. 'How can she be a sorceress when I'm merely a witch?'
'That's just the way it works,' Janice shrugged. Seeing Melissa so unsettled gave her a great deal of pleasure, so she decided to continue her story. 'Rumor has it that the greatest wizard in history, Merlin, was born this way. So expect great things from this little monster.' She tickled the baby and was rewarded with laughter. It was short lived, however, as Melissa peevishly took her daughter from Janice and left the room, saying she didn't have to listen to the nonsensical stories of a crazy hippie, and told Leanne to inform her when “that lunatic” had left the house.
'Is that true about Merlin?' Leanne found herself asking, once Melissa had gone upstairs.
Janice grinned. 'I made that part up, but who's to say he wasn't conceived that way?'
Leanne's shoulders sagged. She looked despondent. 'Magic Babies can only be conceived when there's an eclipse, right?'
Janice shrugged. 'Anything's possible: they're magic. Wait, why?' She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
Well, this was awkward. 'I kinda... slept with the ol' baby mother again...' Leanne said, avoiding her mother's gaze.
A long moment of silence passed, in which Leanne imagined all the reprimands Janice was collecting in her thoughts to scream at her for being so stupid, so careless. And because Leanne didn't want to hear how disappointed her mother was, she filled the silence herself. 'I know it was foolish, but she didn't give me a choice... I mean, I wanted to, and she was there, and I kept thinking how much fun I had the first time, and...' Leanne's voice faded, as she realized the hole she'd been digging was growing deeper.
'You think she's pregnant again?'
Janice had become an expert at holding back her real thoughts about Melissa, for the sake of Leanne and the kids. But this was testing her. It had been easier to bite her tongue when she thought her daughter's relationship with the witch went no further than co-parenting.
'Or me? I'm not sure. We have to do a test.'
'Do it, and pray that it's negative,' Janice said solemnly. 'And just so you know, if you were my cat as opposed to my daughter I'd have you neutered!'
***
'I told you this was unnecessary!' Melissa said, storming out of her en-suite bathroom and hurling her negative pregnancy test at Leanne, who was sitting on her bed doing the nerve-racking “pregnancy test result wait”. She'd just had to pee on a stick to quell Leanne's fears, and now she was furious. 'Do you know how degrading that was?'
A relieved Leanne didn't care that the stick with remnants of Melissa's urine had hit her arm. Both of their sticks were negative: they had the all clear.
'Better to be safe than sorry,' Leanne said simply.
'There isn't another eclipse for 70 years, I'd say we're pretty safe!'
When Melissa had calmed down Leanne handed her a glass tumbler of brandy, which the brunette woman snatched from her and gulped down in one go.
'Word of warning, if my mother looks at you with more contempt than usual it's because she thinks you seduced me against my will.'
Melissa smiled wickedly. 'Why didn't you tell me that before you handed me the drink? I would have toasted to it.'
'I hope you realize that she'll try to set me up with some of her acquaintances again now, to get me away from you,' Leanne said, making a face. It wasn't the thought of dating that filled her with dread, it was Janice's choice of suitors that she couldn't stomach; bald, over 50, over-weight. If they had their own teeth it was a miracle!
'Good. Maybe you'll fall in love, marry him then finally move out of my house.'
Leanne grinned. 'I'm never moving out. How d'you like that? I'm gonna put my name on the title deeds.' She knew that would get a rise out of the woman.
'You'll do no such thing!' Melissa seethed, squeezing the glass in her hand.
Leanne chuckled. 'Sometimes you make it so easy, Melissa.' She got up, took the empty glass from her. 'The kids are asleep...'
Melissa raised an eyebrow. 'So?'
'So... I thought we could, you know... seeing as we have 70 years of grace.'
'That's why you plied me with alcohol? You wanted to take advantage of me.' Melissa's voice was playfully mortified, something only she could pull off. 'I had intended to do some paperwork, but I suppose that's a slightly better offer.'
***
As the two women became dispossessed of their clothes, preparing for yet another one of their explosive romps, Leanne thought about the pregnancy scare, and about her life with Melissa and their kids, and... it didn't seem so bad.
'Even though I'm relieved that we're not having another baby, a small part of me is disappointed.'
This confession came once they were done ravaging one another for the night. Melissa had picked up a pile of paperwork, and had started making notes as though her lover wasn't lying right beside her.
'We already have our hands full. In case you've forgotten, our daughter is a sorceress.'
'Yes, but she's the cutest sorceress I've ever seen and I wouldn't change her for the world. Her mom's not too bad, either.' Leanne winked.
Melissa turned back to her paperwork. 'Why are you still in my bed?'
Leanne smiled to herself, but that quickly vanished when she looked at Melissa deadpan. 'Well, when my name's on the title deeds I'll own half of this bed too, so you could say I'm in my bed.'
She leaped out of it and dashed from Melissa's room so quickly that she left half her clothing on the floor.
Melissa clearly couldn't take a joke.
Panthera Tigris
From the moment Megan turned eight months and had begun to crawl, she took off exploring the realms
of the Rowe Mansion with a pacifier in her mouth, her favorite stuffed tiger in her hand, and a sense of adventure in every shuffle. She'd never get very far, however; one of her mothers would stop her before she made it into the garden or up the stairs.
“Where do you think you're going?” Leanne or Melissa would ask as they scooped her up. She was so quick on all fours that they never noticed her leave; taking their eyes off her for a few seconds gave her plenty of time to escape. Then she'd throw one of her baby tantrums and one of Melissa's paintings would fall off the wall, or a door would swing back and forth as though ready to break off of its hinges. Magic babies didn't like being told what to do.
“We have to do something,” Melissa had said. And whenever she said that it always meant that Leanne had to do something. In this case it was baby-proofing the house.
'You know, you could help me,' Leanne grumbled, flustered, as she struggled to fix yet another child gate to the doorway, this time in the kitchen. Melissa had been standing over her all morning, watching her make mistake after mistake with the rubber padding and the gates. She'd even complained several times about how long the whole process was taking, but had yet to lift a finger to assist Leanne.
'That's what I keep you around for,' Melissa said. 'Besides, that's the last one. Let's hope you don't lose any of your fingers.' She said it as though this was the very thing she hoped for.
'Sometimes I wonder how you'd cope without me to do all your dirty work,' Leanne said. She put in the final screw. 'There. You do know this is all pointless. Megan will probably knock them down.'
At that moment Megan came waddling to her mothers, dragging along her beloved, filthy tiger teddy that never left her side (Melissa had tried to pry it from her to give it a wash – or put it in an incinerator – but the baby screamed so loud that Melissa gave in and handed it back to her. She was certain the teddy carried all manner of diseases).
'Speak of the devil,' Leanne said, beaming down at her daughter. She smiled even wider as she watched the baby clutch onto the gate and realize that she couldn't get in. A look of genuine confusion spread across Megan's face before she burst in to tears.
'I guess she hasn't figured out how to knock down gates yet,' said a relieved Melissa, amused.
Leanne picked up the crying baby. 'I think a trip to the park is in order.'
***
Family outings in the Rowe-Evans household were a rarity, mostly because Leanne and Melissa could never agree on where to go. They'd end up letting Dillon choose, then he'd be blamed for the whole outing being a disaster. There was also the fact that Melissa hated being seen out and about with Leanne, and she'd often force her blonde co-parent into pushing the stroller and walking far ahead so that people wouldn't see them and think they were together together.
'I'm not walking ahead of you today,' said a vexed Leanne that afternoon, as the four of them made their way to the park. She'd been tasked with pushing the stroller, as usual. 'Everyone in Verbena already knows I knocked you up, so get over it!'
Melissa pouted the rest of the way to the park, but never left their side.
Hot Saturday afternoons always brought out the masses, and it seemed as though the whole of Verbena had come out that day. Melissa scowled as she surveyed the park filled with Verbena citizens.
'It's no wonder this town has gone downhill. Nobody does any work anymore! Look at them, frolicking around in the sun when they should be working.'
'Give them a break, it's one afternoon,' Leanne said.
They found an unoccupied bench near the entrance, beneath a huge oak tree, and Dillon ran off with a couple of his friends to throw a frisbee. In her stroller, Megan clutched her tiger close.
Melissa fidgeted, getting increasingly hot and bothered in the heat. 'What are we supposed to do here, anyway? Seems like a big waste of time to me. I should have turned this place into a mall when I had the chance.'
'I could push you on the swing or the merry-go-round if you like,' Leanne teased. She didn't need to look at Melissa to tell she was glaring at her behind her sunglasses.
Leanne learned two things about Melissa that day: firstly, that she hated the sun. Secondly, everything pissed her off when she was in the sun.
When Adam, the Australian waiter, and his newest squeeze came over for a couple of minutes to say hello and see Megan, Melissa drove them away by (cunningly) broaching the subject of Adam's long list of ex-lovers (information Melissa had become privy to courtesy of Leanne). That conversation got awkward really quickly – precisely the result Melissa had been going for – and the couple couldn't get away quick enough.
Melissa drove most people away from her picnic bench that afternoon with similar tactics – using embarrassing stories to make them feel uncomfortable.
Leanne finally turned to her furiously. 'What is your problem? You tell me time and again that you can't stand being alone with me, yet when people come to speak to us you drive them away. What gives?' She lowered her tone when Megan looked at her; there was no telling what sort of trouble she'd cause in public if her mommies were arguing.
Melissa folded her arms. She stared at Leanne behind her sunglasses and didn't say a word. It was Leanne's pet peeve; she hated not being able to see Melissa's eyes, and she especially hated it when the brunette woman fell silent, as though she were plotting or cursing her.
When Melissa didn't respond Leanne took their daughter and went to play in the sandbox, leaving the grumpy woman alone to scowl at passersby.
Just as much of a kid as her daughter, Leanne enjoyed playing in the sand and building sandcastles with Megan, having more fun than the baby. Megan was more interested in feeding sand to her tiger than building a castle.
Leanne could see Melissa in the distance, still on her bench looking miserable, trying to pretend that she wasn't watching them. Leanne smiled and waved emphatically at her, then blew her a kiss just to piss her off. Melissa tutted and turned away.
'Most people would wave back,' came a voice behind Leanne. She spun round to find a man standing over her. Tall and good-looking with a friendly and familiar face, she knew him as the new teacher at Dillon's school, and as one of her mother's loyal customers (he had six younger sisters, apparently, who adored Janice's homemade jewelry).
'Clearly you haven't met Melissa,' Leanne laughed, blushing.
'I've met her, all right. She swung the vote against my request to build an extension on my house at the last council meeting. Said she didn't know why someone who lives alone needed extra space. Called me creepy!'
Leanne raised an eyebrow. 'This coming from a witch who lives in a mansion?'
She didn't realize she was flirting, or that she'd been speaking to the man for several minutes, until Megan started crying crocodile tears, reminding her mother that she was there.
'Someone doesn't like being ignored.' Leanne sat her daughter on her lap.
'She's beautiful. I see the resemblance,' the man commented, looking back and forth between Leanne and Megan. That was a flattering lie; Leanne knew that, apart from the occasional facial expression that she'd inherited from her fair-haired mother, the baby was all Melissa.
'Don't let Melissa hear you say that. She hates me!'
It didn't take long for the conversation to escalate to blatant flirting, and before Leanne knew it the charming Eric had asked her out to dinner.
'I don't want to step on anyone's toes...' He brought his cellphone out to take down Leanne's number, which she was only too happy to give. He gestured to Melissa on her bench, watching them with eagle eyes. As soon as Eric had approached she'd removed her sunglasses.
Leanne laughed. 'Who, Melissa's? Are you kiddin'? She can't stand me! You'd be doing her a favor taking me out.' Then she laughed again at the absurd idea Eric had that Melissa gave a damn who she dated.
'She doesn't look too happy that I'm talking to you.'
'That's just the way her face is. She never looks happy unless she's making my life a living nightmare.'
&
nbsp; Eric chuckled. Leanne was about to laugh too, when she saw Megan toss her tiger at Eric. Just as the man bent down to pick it up and hand it back to the baby, he let out a scream, leaped backwards, falling over as he scrambled to get away. Leanne froze on the spot.
'Oh my God!' she shrieked, her blood running cold. The last thing she expected to see was a full grown tiger standing in the middle of Verbena Park, preparing to pounce on a man. From the sounds of the screaming and virtually the whole park dashing to the nearest exit hysterically, this was also the last thing everyone else expected to see.
Leanne fastened her grip on Megan and slowly rose from the sand, wishing the baby would stop laughing and drawing attention to them. But her daughter was enthralled by the tiger, as it edged closer to Eric, taking slow, meticulous strides towards its prey.
'Leanne,' Melissa yelled anxiously, the terror penetrating her face. Dillon had run to his brunette mother's side and wrapped his arms around her as they watched on in fear. 'Don't make any sudden movements.'
'That's easy for you to say.'
'I'm coming.' As Melissa raced to the rescue, she mumbled several incantations under her breath, jumbling up the words and growing more and more frustrated with her failed attempts to use magic. She was too rusty; she hadn't practiced in thirteen years.
Leanne ambled backwards slowly, never taking her eyes off the animal. She could hear Eric bawling as the tiger advanced. Yet another one of her dates ruined by a beast, but this time one that wasn't Melissa.
Reaching them, Melissa seized the baby from Leanne and together they hurried back to their bench, finding that Dillon had climbed onto it. He jumped down and joined them as they sprinted to the gate.
'Are you okay?' Melissa asked.
It took a while for everyone to notice that Melissa had grabbed Leanne's hand during their escape. When they finally realized that they were holding hands, they immediately let go, cheeks flushed.
Hocus Pocus Baby Page 3