We stepped out of the shadow of the cliffside that had lurked on the edge of her picture, and I watched her as she stood still, taking it in. The stiff, salty breeze whipping our hair; the merciless brilliance of the sunlight, soaking into our skin; the rough hunks of stone underfoot, halfway through their eventual transformation into sand. The ocean and sky sported nearly identical shades of intense blue, so saturated with color as to seem unreal. Each ridge of foam was startlingly white against it. The sea was partially tamed here by a ring of sturdy dark rocks, placed like some modern Stonehenge to break the worst of the waves before they reached shore. The kids from the birthday party were paddling about in the gentled surf with boogie boards and foam noodles. I kept expecting to hear gull cries in the rush of wind and water, but the only bird in the sky was a red-tailed hawk. A few scraggly, colorless plants clung to the rocky cliffs around us; if they sheltered further life, I saw no sign. The place was an inch from desolation.
I liked it.
“A true English major would have something appropriate to quote right now,” Naomi murmured, looking awed. “All I can say is that this place rocks.”
“Your hair’s blowing all over the place,” I said, pulling my own back with an elastic band from my pocket. “You ought to braid it or something.”
“Braiding your own hair is sort of like looking at the back of your own elbow,” she said. “It can probably be done, but not by me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Turn around, I’ll do it.”
“You braid hair?
“My mother taught me. It might not get you into a beauty pageant, but it’ll keep your head from looking like an orangutan in a blender.”
“Thanks so much, Damon. I’ll keep that image handy in case I ever again feel a need to eat.” She crossed her arms and turned around.
Speaking of eating. I swallowed, trying to touch her neck as little as possible as I gathered her hair into three parts. Blood wasn’t really a substitute for food, but it did provide a respite from hunger, if only momentarily. Respite from everything. And hers wouldn’t be momentary.
No, it would be quite permanent. Like death.
All right, boy. Less philosophy, more braiding.
My hands fumbled at first, but soon remembered the proper rhythm. Her hair was sun-warm, thick and shiny. I remembered, when I was little, braiding my mother’s hair and then begging her to take it down so I could do it again.
I’d never braided Claire’s hair. Not once. Braids hadn’t been her style — she would have called them parochial. Good. This could be Naomi’s and only Naomi’s.
Stop that. My hands faltered. Nothing in your life is Naomi’s. She’s a speedbump, nothing more.
It wasn’t good for me, being around her so much. It was only going to make it worse later. I should have given someone else the job of looking after her — Westley, Galatea, Darling, Adonis. Any of them could have guarded her. Why had I done this to myself?
“Damon?” Naomi asked, turning her head just a bit.
“Don’t turn around,” I said, a little too sharply, and made an effort to gentle my voice. “I’m not quite done yet.” I pulled another elastic band from my pocket and tied off the braid. “There, that ought to do it.”
“Thanks, Damon.” She turned around and hugged me. I was too stunned to dodge. “For bringing me here.”
“Um. You’re welcome.”
“Race you to the water!” She took off across the rough beach, not allowing even the Wonder Tummy to slow her down, and I trailed behind.
It was like that all afternoon. Naomi waded, splashed, exclaimed over the tiny gem-colored rocks being smoothed in the surf, and filled the jumper’s front pockets with shells until she looked like a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. Which, after all, was not far from the truth. I let her persuade me to take off my boots and get my feet wet, persuaded her in turn not to climb the rocks, and at one point chased off a pebbly-skinned iguana, the size of a six-year-old, who had chased her onto a picnic table.
“He just wants scraps!” called a woman from the birthday party, laughing.
“I’m not scraps!” Naomi squeaked back.
“Go for the tail,” the woman advised me, and sure enough, after a few stomps in the direction of his hind end, the iguana sullenly bellied off.
I was laughing almost too hard to help Naomi off the table. “My afternoon would not have been complete,” I gasped, “without seeing a pregnant woman scramble up the furniture with a prehistoric monster at her heels.”
“Shut up!” Her pout didn’t fool me; she was watching the way the iguana had gone, and would follow after it if I didn’t distract her.
“Isn’t it about time we got back? You need to get dressed and all.”
She scowled at her watch. “‘Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.’ Louis Hector Berlioz said that. I have no idea who he was, but there’s an Aristocat named after him.” She extended her arms. “All right, all right. Home, James.”
We were in the shadow of the sun-faded orange cabana; I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and shaded us home.
.
The seashells had scraped my feet here and there — too shallow to bleed, thankfully, but I cleaned them anyway, dabbing them with alcohol in the living room as I listened to the spray of water in the shower. Naomi was singing, snatches of one song and then another. “Sand in My Shoes.” “Under the Boardwalk.” “Surfer Girl.” I waited for her to get out so I could get in.
I wondered what would happen if I didn’t wait.
I could see her sputtering, breathless with outraged laughter, throwing soap and shampoo at me to make me leave.
I could also see her not finding it funny at all.
I tried not to even imagine her not making me leave.
We had fun today. We could have fun together.
It would never happen. This time tomorrow, I would be free of her, and she would be free of me, and we would both be better off for it.
The sting of the alcohol made me gasp, gritting my teeth. I poured it again. Again. Again.
CHAPTER FIVE
Synaeon
NAOMI
I felt awkward and underdressed next to Mrs. DiNovi, but I imagined most people would, including Heidi Klum and Princess Diana. She looked like a visiting foreign dignitary in her ivory gown, a wrap draped around her arms and her dark hair drawn up into a chignon. She insisted on sitting in the back of the car so that Wonder Tummy and I didn’t have to crawl through. I felt like a child playing dress-up whose mother was graciously hiding her annoyance with the charade.
“So, we’re driving? I thought, it being a Shadow event, that we might shade there.” I actually sounded more nervous than I felt, which was hardly fair.
“It would be difficult for me to shade two people,” Mrs. DiNovi said. “And it’s good for a few people to drive. We wouldn’t want anyone to wonder how the neighbors were having a party with no extra cars in the drive. It’s the little things that help preserve secrecy, by preventing anyone from realizing there’s a secret.”
‘Mrs. DiNovi’ was a long and awkward name, I decided. I would think of her as Helen. She might seem less intimidating that way.
“You look very nice, Naomi,” Dr. DiNovi said. “Who did your hair?”
“Damon,” I said, gingerly touching the thick twists of hair rolling back from my temples. They met at the back and then fell loose. Damon had called it Edwardian. I called it ridiculous, but didn’t dare contradict my Guide to Social Occasions in the Shadow Community.
Helen and Dr. DiNovi were giving each other a Significant Look in the rearview mirror. Was it so odd for Damon to do someone’s hair?
“You look rather dashing yourself, Dr. D.,” I said. “Sort of Bond-like.”
He fiddled with his bow tie sheepishly. “I don’t get much opportunity to dress up like this outside of Tenebri events. I had really hoped Damon would come with us.”
“I think he almost
wanted to. But not as much as he didn’t want to.” I bit my lip. “It would be pretty awful for him, wouldn’t it? Watching someone else get befasted?”
“Yes, it would,” Helen said pointedly, to her husband.
Congratulations, Naomi. You just stepped into a fight between your professor and his wife, who also happen to be your pet vampire’s parents. Can this get any weirder? Desperate to change the subject, I rattled on, “The Shadow getting befasted is Damon’s cousin, is that right?”
“Yes,” Dr. DiNovi said quickly, sounding relieved. “Daughter of my wife’s sister.”
“How’s the Lumi taking it? It must be kind of a shock.” As I had reason to know.
“Oh, not at all. He’s Lumilia. That is, his father is a Shadow.”
“Oh.” I had to process that one for a minute. “Does that happen a lot? A Shadow’s child getting a Shadow of their own?”
“Yes, actually. Lumilia have a rather high probability of attracting a Shadow, to the point that in some family lines it’s downright expected.”
“Is that a genetic thing?”
He shrugged. “Theories abound. Despite scattered attempts through history to build a ‘Lumi race,’ there don’t seem to be any significant genetic differences between humans who attract Shadows and those who don’t. The word Lumilia, therefore,” he was launching into professor mode now, “has more significance as code for ‘Shadow-friendly’ than as a genealogical term. Though it technically means the human child of a Shadow father, it’s also often used for any human relative of a Shadow and even to family friends who are ‘in the know’ but don’t have any Shadows in their family tree.”
“Human child of a Shadow father? What about a Shadow mother?”
“Shadow mothers have Shadow children. Human mothers have human children.”
“Oh.” In the days of slavery, a child was free if his mother was free, a slave if she was a slave. I bit my tongue before I could make the comparison out loud. “Speaking of children,” I said instead, “Damon and I were wondering if shading is okay for the baby?”
“Oh, yes,” Helen the Shadow midwife said. “Doesn’t hurt the baby any more than the mother.”
“Well, maybe it doesn’t hurt, but it does feel pretty weird.”
“It’ll improve,” Helen said, and I suppressed a wince. If Damon had his way, it wouldn’t have a chance to improve.
“How are you and Damon getting along?” Dr. DiNovi said into the sudden silence.
He loves me, and hates me, but apart from that, I think he might be starting to like me. I find him frightening and mesmerizing and awesome in the original sense of the word, and not beautiful at all because I could never imagine putting him in a box. “Fine,” I managed at last.
We didn’t talk after that, but fortunately it wasn’t that long a drive. We were only half an hour out of town before we pulled up in front of a white house with a wide front porch. The sky was just beginning to dim, but wide-armed apple trees cast shade enough to emphasize the white Christmas lights spangling the eaves and porch rails and lining the walkway to the door. Bevies of fabulous red-and-white variegated roses sweetened the air. The front door was propped open, and as we stepped through Dr. DiNovi stopped to sign a heavy leather guestbook on a golden stand.
“Helen! Frank! I’m so glad you could make it.” A beautiful blonde woman in a blue silk gown wrapped Helen in a hug, which I was surprised to see her return. She hugged Dr. DiNovi, too, then turned to me. “You must be Miss Winters. I’m very happy to meet you. I’m Gloria Downs, Helen’s sister.”
“Nice to meet you.” We shook hands. She looked nothing whatsoever like Helen. Then again, neither did Damon.
“Your son couldn’t make it?” Gloria said to Helen.
“No, but he sends his love,” Helen said.
“Tell him we’d love to see him,” Gloria said, and seemed to mean it, but some indefinable tension in her shoulders had relaxed. Apparently, inviting Damon didn’t mean they actually wanted him to come. I was getting the impression that having a vampire at a befasting was simply Not Done. What about an ex-vampire and his failed-marriage-statistic new Lumi? I wondered exactly what Dr. DiNovi had told her about me.
“We’ll be sitting down to dinner in about an hour. Until then, we have some hors d’oeuvres on that little table. Please eat them, we don’t want leftovers. Stephen! I didn’t think you were coming!” Gloria waved gaily at us as she went to greet the couple who had just come through the door.
“It’s so pretty,” I said as Dr. DiNovi steered us toward the hors d’oeuvre table, through a room that was crowded with crystal, mahogany, and silk-draped people. Bowls and vases of flowers filled the room with scent; I tried not to associate it with a funeral parlor. “It’s like a magazine. How did they get it fixed up so fast? I mean, they only had three days, right?”
“Three days to put it together,” Dr. DiNovi confirmed, “but they’ve been planning it since, oh, since their daughter was ten, at the oldest. No one wants their baby to have a shabby befasting.”
Had Damon’s befasting been this fancy? Had there been flowers? Where did it happen? How did it go? My lips burned to ask, but asking about my predecessor seemed likely to be Not Done as well. The very idea of me having a predecessor was Not Done.
I was hungry, as usual, and heaped a tiny white plate with strawberries, lemon cake, and little chocolate cookies while Dr. and Mrs. DiNovi debated the identity of a pale cheese. I turned to watch the crowd as it swirled by in glittering glory.
The crowd was definitely divided into pairs. I supposed most social events were, but it seemed more pronounced here; no one did anything without a partner at their elbow. Couples drifted from one conversational circle to another, to and from the hors d’oeuvres table, in and out of the room; no one mingled alone. No one was paying much attention to me, but I still felt as though flashing lights above my head were spelling out “ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD.” The violin music filling the chinks in conversation was coming from a pair of violinists in the corner, and matched pairs of waitstaff carried trays of drinks and fingerfoods through the crowd.
“There’s no reason to be nervous, Naomi,” Helen said, startling me so that I almost dropped my plate. Which would have been a crying shame because the little chocolate cookies were divine. “Every Shadow in this room knows that you’re new; people will make allowances. Just don’t ask too many questions, and try not to speak to another’s Shadow unless they speak to you first.”
“How am I supposed to tell which one’s the Shadow?”
Her voice went dry. “Sometimes it’s obvious.”
A couple walked by us, arm in arm. The woman had blue hair, cat ears, slit-pupiled eyes, and a tail.
“A Shadow takes on whatever appearance their Lumi finds most attractive,” Helen said. “Didn’t anyone explain that to you?”
I shook my head, seeing Helen herself with new eyes. So, Dr. DiNovi didn’t just like graceful, elegant women; he had more or less created one for himself. How did Helen feel about that? How did the cat-girl feel about that? And why didn’t Damon look like Orlando Bloom?
“You must never comment on a Shadow’s appearance,” Helen said. “It’s a sensitive topic for some.”
I could well imagine. The only thing more embarrassing than covanting the guy who liked cat girls would be to have to everyone know you’re the guy who likes cat girls.
“Time to mingle, I suppose,” Dr. DiNovi said. “Don’t worry, Naomi. I know almost everyone here, and none of them bite.” He winked at me, then tucked his wife’s arm into his and led us out into the crowd.
I tried to look socially acceptable — rather than gawky and shocked — as the DiNovis exchanged greetings with all their old friends, including a very old man whose Shadow looked like a high-school student, an anorexic-looking woman whose Shadow was hugely obese, and a couple almost indistinguishable from each other except through the presence or absence of breasts.
“You look tired, Naomi,” Dr. DiNov
i said in between conversations. “You doing okay? You want to sit down?”
“My feet hurt,” I admitted.
“Well, by all means, sit down. Here.” He ushered me to a line of satin-cushioned chairs along one wall. “Helen, can you sit with her? I need to talk to Eric. I won’t be long.”
The chair was straight and stiff, but it was better than standing. At that point, having my tonsils removed through my nostrils sounded better than standing.
“It won’t be long until dinner,” Helen said. “Since you didn’t come with a dinner partner, I imagine you’ll be seated next to my nephew. He’s four years old.” She seemed about to say something else, but a couple drifting by stopped to talk to her.
Moments later, a woman sat down beside me. She had a Wonder Tummy of her own, and I couldn’t help being cheered by the sight of a kindred spirit. She looked perhaps a decade older than me, with voluminous honey-colored hair and a soft, round face. Her plate was piled high with chocolate cookies.
“Hello. I’m Martha Huggins,” she said, extending a hand, which I gladly took.
“Naomi Winters.”
“Naomi. What a pretty name. I hope I’m not bothering you. My Lumi had some business to attend to, and I hate wandering around these things by myself.”
“No bother at all,” I assured her. “It’s always nice to meet a sister in maternity. When are you due?”
“Oh, I’m not,” she said, and my heart lurched, certain I had just mortally offended some poor fat lady, but she looked wistful rather than angry. “I’m not actually pregnant. Hopefully I will be, someday soon. Though it might take us a while to realize it.” She laughed, and I tried to laugh along, my face growing hot.
Her Lumi liked pregnant women. It was exactly the sort of thing Helen had told me not to touch, and I’d managed to stomp all over it. Mayday, mayday, this conversation is going down…
“Goodness, that’s quite a scratch,” Martha said, and I realized she was referring to the half-healed teeth marks on the side of my neck. I had dabbed make-up over the shallow grooves, but obviously it didn’t hold up under close scrutiny.
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